BackgroundCognitive decline is among the most feared treatment-related outcomes of older adults with cancer. The majority of older patients with breast cancer self-report cognitive problems during and after chemotherapy. Prior neuroimaging research has been performed mostly in younger patients with cancer. The purpose of this study was to evaluate longitudinal changes in brain volumes and cognition in older women with breast cancer receiving adjuvant chemotherapy.MethodsWomen aged ≥ 60 years with stage I–III breast cancer receiving adjuvant chemotherapy and age-matched and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled. All participants underwent neuropsychological testing with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) Toolbox for Cognition and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) prior to chemotherapy, and again around one month after the last infusion of chemotherapy. Brain volumes were measured using Neuroreader™ software. Longitudinal changes in brain volumes and neuropsychological scores were analyzed utilizing linear mixed models.ResultsA total of 16 patients with breast cancer (mean age 67.0, SD 5.39 years) and 14 age-matched and sex-matched healthy controls (mean age 67.8, SD 5.24 years) were included: 7 patients received docetaxel and cyclophosphamide (TC) and 9 received chemotherapy regimens other than TC (non-TC). There were no significant differences in segmented brain volumes between the healthy control group and the chemotherapy group pre-chemotherapy (p > 0.05). Exploratory hypothesis generating analyses focusing on the effect of the chemotherapy regimen demonstrated that the TC group had greater volume reduction in the temporal lobe (change = − 0.26) compared to the non-TC group (change = 0.04, p for interaction = 0.02) and healthy controls (change = 0.08, p for interaction = 0.004). Similarly, the TC group had a decrease in oral reading recognition scores (change = − 6.94) compared to the non-TC group (change = − 1.21, p for interaction = 0.07) and healthy controls (change = 0.09, p for interaction = 0.02).ConclusionsThere were no significant differences in segmented brain volumes between the healthy control group and the chemotherapy group; however, exploratory analyses demonstrated a reduction in both temporal lobe volume and oral reading recognition scores among patients on the TC regimen. These results suggest that different chemotherapy regimens may have differential effects on brain volume and cognition. Future, larger studies focusing on older adults with cancer on different treatment regimens are needed to confirm these findings.Trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01992432. Registered on 25 November 2013. Retrospectively registered.

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to evaluate longitudinal changes in brain gray matter density (GMD) before and after adjuvant chemotherapy in older women with breast cancer.MethodsWe recruited 16 women aged ≥ 60 years with stage I–III breast cancers receiving adjuvant chemotherapy (CT) and 15 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HC). The CT group underwent brain MRI and the NIH Toolbox for Cognition testing prior to adjuvant chemotherapy (time point 1, TP1) and within 1 month after chemotherapy (time point 2, TP2). The HC group underwent the same assessments at matched intervals. GMD was evaluated with the voxel-based morphometry.ResultsThe mean age was 67 years in the CT group and 68.5 years in the HC group. There was significant GMD reduction within the chemotherapy group from TP1 to TP2. Compared to the HC group, the CT group displayed statistically significantly greater GMD reductions from TP1 to TP2 in the brain regions involving the left anterior cingulate gyrus, right insula, and left middle temporal gyrus (pFWE(family-wise error)-corrected < 0.05). The baseline GMD in left insula was positively correlated with the baseline list-sorting working memory score in the HC group (pFWE-corrected < 0.05). No correlation was observed for the changes in GMD with the changes in cognitive testing scores from TP1 to TP2 (pFWE-corrected < 0.05).ConclusionsOur findings indicate that GMD reductions were associated with adjuvant chemotherapy in older women with breast cancer. Future studies are needed to understand the clinical significance of the neuroimaging findings. This study is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01992432).

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) remains the top challenge to radiotherapy with only 25% one-year survival after diagnosis. Here, we reveal that co-enhancement of mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation (FAO) enzymes (CPT1A, CPT2 and ACAD9) and immune checkpoint CD47 is dominant in recurrent GBM patients with poor prognosis. A glycolysis-to-FAO metabolic rewiring is associated with CD47 anti-phagocytosis in radioresistant GBM cells and regrown GBM after radiation in syngeneic mice. Inhibition of FAO by CPT1 inhibitor etomoxir or CRISPR-generated CPT1A−/−, CPT2−/−, ACAD9−/− cells demonstrate that FAO-derived acetyl-CoA upregulates CD47 transcription via NF-κB/RelA acetylation. Blocking FAO impairs tumor growth and reduces CD47 anti-phagocytosis. Etomoxir combined with anti-CD47 antibody synergizes radiation control of regrown tumors with boosted macrophage phagocytosis. These results demonstrate that enhanced fat acid metabolism promotes aggressive growth of GBM with CD47-mediated immune evasion. The FAO-CD47 axis may be targeted to improve GBM control by eliminating the radioresistant phagocytosis-proofing tumor cells in GBM radioimmunotherapy.

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Background: Brain metastases are associated with poor survival. Molecular genetic testing informs on targeted therapy and survival. The purpose of this study was to perform a MR imaging-based radiomic analysis of brain metastases from non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to identify radiomic features that were important for predicting survival duration.Methods: We retrospectively identified our study cohort via an institutional database search for patients with brain metastases from EGFR, ALK, and/or KRAS mutation-positive NSCLC. We segmented the brain metastatic tumors on the brain MR images, extracted radiomic features, constructed radiomic scores from significant radiomic features based on multivariate Cox regression analysis (p &lt; 0.05), and built predictive models for survival duration.Result: Of the 110 patients in the cohort (mean age 57.51 ± 12.32 years; range: 22–85 years, M:F = 37:73), 75, 26, and 15 had NSCLC with EGFR, ALK, and KRAS mutations, respectively. Predictive modeling of survival duration using both clinical and radiomic features yielded areas under the receiver operative characteristic curve of 0.977, 0.905, and 0.947 for the EGFR, ALK, and KRAS mutation-positive groups, respectively. Radiomic scores enabled the separation of each mutation-positive group into two subgroups with significantly different survival durations, i.e., shorter vs. longer duration when comparing to the median survival duration of the group.Conclusion: Our data supports the use of radiomic scores, based on MR imaging of brain metastases from NSCLC, as non-invasive biomarkers for survival duration. Future research with a larger sample size and external cohorts is needed to validate our results.

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional Review Board of City of Hope and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments, as well as all local and national laws. This study is registered on ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT01992432).

Nonfunctional pituitary adenoma (NFPA) is highly heterogeneous with different hormone-expressed subtypes in NFPA tissues including follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) positive, luteinizing hormone-positive, FSH/luteinizing hormone-positive, and negative types. To analyze in-depth the variations in the proteomes among different NFPA subtypes for our long-term goal to clarify molecular mechanisms of NFPA and to detect tumor biomarker for personalized medicine practice, a reference map of proteome of a human FSH-expressed NFPA tissue was described here. 2DE and PDQuest image analysis were used to array each protein. MALDI-TOF PMF and human Swiss-Prot databases with MASCOT search were used to identify each protein. A good 2DE pattern with high level of between-gel reproducibility was attained with an average positional deviation 1.98 ± 0.75 mm in the IEF direction and 1.62 ± 0.68 mm in the SDS-PAGE direction. Approximately 1200 protein spots were 2DE-detected and 192 redundant proteins that were contained in 141 protein spots were PMF-identified, representing 107 nonredundant proteins. Those proteins were located in cytoplasm, nucleus, plasma membrane, extracellular space, and so on, and those functioned in transmembrane receptor, ion channel, transcription/translation regulator, transporter, enzyme, phosphatase, kinase, and so on. Several important pathway networks were characterized from those identified proteins with DAVID and Ingenuity Pathway Analysis systems, including gluconeogenesis and glycolysis, mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, cell-cycle alteration, MAPKsignaling system, immune response, TP53-signaling, VEGF-signaling, and inflammation signaling pathways. Those resulting data contribute to a functional profile of the proteome of a human FSH-positive NFPA tissue, and will serve as a reference for the heterogeneity analysis of NFPA proteomes.