• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제16권2호
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• pp.723-730
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• 2015

Background: This study was performed to assess patient symptoms prevalence, frequency and severity, as well as distress and coping strategies used, and to identify the relationships between coping strategies and psychological and physical symptoms distress and demographic data of cancer patients. This cross-sectional descriptive study involved a total of 268 cancer patients with various types of cancer and chemotherapy identified in the oncology unit of an urban tertiary hospital. Materials and Methods: Data were collected using questionnaires (demographic questionnaire, Medical characteristics, Memorial Symptom Assessment Scale (MSAS) and Brief COPE scales and analyzed for demographic, and disease-related variable effects on symptom prevalence, severity, distress and coping strategies. Results: Symptom prevalence was relatively high and ranged from 14.9% for swelling of arms and legs to 88.1% for lack of energy. This latter was the highest rated symptom in the study. The level of distress was found to be low in three domains. Problem-focused coping strategies were found to be more commonly employed compared to emotion-focused strategies, demonstrating significant associations with sex, age group, educational levels and race. However, there was a positive correlation between emotion-focused strategies and physical and psychological distress, indicating that patients would choose emotion-focused strategies when symptom distress increased. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that high symptom prevalence rates and coping strategies used render an improvement in current nursing management. Therefore development of symptoms management groups, encouraging the use of self-care diaries and enhancing the quality of psychooncology services provided are to be recommended.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제16권2호
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• pp.471-474
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• 2015

Background: Male and female breast cancers were investigated for variation in the clinicopathologic characteristics and expression of steroid hormone receptors in the northeast of Iran. Materials and Methods: Tumor specimens of 17 males and 338 females with breast cancer were collected at the hospitals of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. Immunohistochemical expression of hormone receptors and clinicopathologic features of breast cancer were compared between two groups. Results: The mean age in men was 15 years higher than women (p=0.000). Males and females were mainly in stage II and III respectively (p=0.007). Although more than 60% of male and female patients were grade II, the respective figures for grade I and III were 25% and 12.5% in men but 7.1% and 27.2% in women respectively (p=0.025). ER was significantly more positive in men against women; 82.3% versus 53.4% (p=0.016). The related measures for PR was 58.8% and 50.3%, respectively (p=0.424). Males also showed significantly more ER expression than postmenopausal females; 82.3% versus 48.9% (p=0.010). Conclusions: Breast cancer in males and females contrasted in age at diagnosis, histological type, stage, grade and ER expression which emphasize they are separate diseases with different behaviors.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권10호
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• pp.4271-4274
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• 2014

The epithelial to mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a key step during embryonic morphogenesis and plays an important role in drug resistance and metastasis in diverse solid tumors. We previously reported that 48 h treatment of anti-cancer drug doxorubicin could induce EMT in human gastric cancer BGC-823 cells. However, the long term effects of this transient drug treatment were unknown. In this study we found that after 48 h treatment with $0.1{\mu}g/ml$ doxorubicin, most cells died during next week, while a minor population of cells survived and formed colonies. We propagated the surviving cells in drug free medium and found that these long term cultured drug survival cells (abbreviated as ltDSCs) retained a mesenchymal-like cell morphology, and expressed high levels of EMT-related molecules such as vimentin, twist and ${\beta}$-catenin. The expression of chromatin reprogramming factors, Oct4 and c-myc, were also higher in ltDSCs than parental cells. We further demonstrated that the protein level of p300 was upregulated in ltDSCs, and inhibition of p300 by siRNA suppressed the expression of vimentin. Moreover, the ltDSCs had higher colony forming ability and were more drug resistant when compared to parental cells. Our results suggested that an epigenetic mechanism is involved in the EMT of ltDSCs.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제14권7호
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• pp.4151-4155
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• 2013

Background: To compare response evaluation criteria in solid tumours (RECIST) and volumetric evaluation (VE) for colorectal cancer with liver-limited metastasis. Patients and Methods: VE of liver metastases was performed by manual contouring before and after chemotherapy on 45 pairs of computed tomography (CT) images in 36 patients who suffered from metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) with liver metastasis only. Cohen kappa was used to compare the agreement between VE and RECIST. Pearson correlation was performed for their comparison after cubic root transformation of the aggregate tumor volumes. Logistic regression was done to identify clinical and radiographic factors to account for the difference which may be predictive in overall response (OR). Results: There were 16 partial response (PR), 23 stable disease (SD) and 6 progressive disease (PD) cases with VE, and 14 PR, 23 SD and 8 PD with RECIST. VE demonstrated good agreement with RECIST (${\chi}$=0.779). Discordant objective responses were noted in 6 pairs of comparisons (13.3%). Pearson correlation also showed excellent correlation between VE and RECIST ($r^2$=0.966, p<0.001). Subgroup analysis showed that VE was in slightly better agreement with RECIST for enlarging lesions than for shrinking lesions ($r^2$=0.935 and $r^2$=0.780 respectively). No factor was found predictive of the difference in OR between VE and RECIST. Conclusions: VE exhibited good agreement with RECIST. It might be more useful than RECIST in evaluation shrinking lesions in cases of numerous and conglomerate liver metastases.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제13권7호
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• pp.3213-3218
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• 2012

When patients with advanced breast cancer (ABC) are treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT), efficacy is monitored by the extent of tumor shrinkage. Since their publication in 1981, World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines have been widely practiced in clinical trials and oncologic practice, for standardized tumor response evaluation. With advances in cancer treatment and tumor imaging, a simpler criterion based on one-dimensional rather than bi-dimensional (WHO) tumor measurement, named Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) was introduced in 2000. Both approaches have four response categories: complete response, partial response, stable disease and progressive disease (PD). Bi-dimensional measurement data of 151 patients with ABC were analysed with WHO and RECIST criteria to compare their response categories and inter criteria reproducibility by Kappa statistics. There was 94% concordance and 9/151 patients were recategorized with RECIST including 6/12 PD cases. RECIST therefore under-estimates and delays diagnosis of PD. This is undesirable because it may delay or negate switch over to alternate therapy. Analysis was repeated with a new criteria named RECIST-Breast (RECIST-B), with a lower threshold for PD (${\geq}10%$ rather than ${\geq}20%$ increase of RECIST). This showed higher concordance of 97% with WHO criteria and re-categorization of only 4/151 patients (1/12 PD cases). RECIST-B criteria therefore have advantages of both ease of measurement and calculations combined with excellent concordance with WHO criteria, providing a practical clinical tool for response evaluation and offering good comparison with past and current clinical trials of NACT using WHO guidelines.

• 대한의생명과학회지
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• 제20권2호
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• pp.85-95
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• 2014

Activation of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and downstream signaling pathways have been implicated in causing resistance to EGFR-targeted therapy in solid tumors, including the head and neck tumors. To investigate the mechanism of antiproliferation to EGFR inhibition in oral cancer, we compared EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (Gefitinib, Iressa, ZD1839) with respect to its inhibitory effects on three kinases situated downstream of EGFR: MAPK, Akt, and glycogen synthase kinase-$3{\beta}$ (GSK-$3{\beta}$). We have demonstrated that ZD1839 induces growth arrest and apotosis in oral cancer cell lines by independent of EGFR-mediated signaling. An exposure of oral cancer cells to ZD1839 resulted in a dose dependent up-regulation of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21 and p27, down regulation of cyclin D1, inactivation of GSK-$3{\beta}$ and of active MAPK. In resistant cells, GSK-$3{\beta}$ is constitutively active and its activity is negatively regulated primarily through Ser 9 phosphorylation and further enhanced by Tyr216 phosphorylation. These results showed that the resistance to the antiproliferative effects of ZD1839, in vitro was associated with uncoupling between EGFR and MAPK inhibition, and that GSK-$3{\beta}$ activation and degradation of its target cyclin D1 were indicators of high cell sensitivity to ZD1839. In conclusion, our data show that the uncoupling of EGFR with mitogenic pathways can cause resistance to EGFR inhibition in oral cancer.

• Journal of Digestive Cancer Research
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• 제4권1호
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• pp.21-28
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• 2016

간세포암종은 만성 간질환과 간경변증을 동반하는 경우가 많고, 예후에 종양 인자 이외에도 잔존 간 기능이 주요한 영향을 미친다. 또한, 간세포암종에 대한 고위험인자를 가진 경우 특정한 영상 소견(예: 고혈관성)을 보이면, 조직검사 없이도 비침습적인 진단이 가능하다. 다른 고형암에서와 마찬가지로 수술적 절제, 방사선치료, 항암치료 등의 치료가 시행되기도 하지만, 간세포암종에서만 이루어진다고도 할 수 있는 간이식, 경동맥화학색전술, 고주파열치료술과 같은 치료 방법들이 시행되기도 한다. 종양의 다양성, 치료 방법의 다양성, 사회적 여건(의료 보건 체계, 의료 자원의 가용성 등) 등을 반영하며 여러 간세포암종 가이드라인들이 발표되어 왔으며, 각 가이드라인들은 여러 측면에서 유사하면서도 서로 상이하기도 하다. 본고에서는 다음의 간세포암종 진료 가이드라인들을 살펴보고, 가이드라인들의 특징과 앞으로 가이드라인에서 다루어야 할 부분 등에 대하여 논하고자 한다.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• 제29권12호
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• pp.1067-1073
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• 2006

Cisplatin, a platinum coordinated complex, is a widely used antineoplastic agent for the treatment of metastatic tumors of the testis, metastatic ovarian tumors, lung cancer, advanced bladder cancer and many other solid tumors. The cytotoxic action of the drug is often thought to be associated with its ability to bind DNA to form cisplatin-DNA adducts. The development of resistance to cisplatin during treatment is common and constitutes a major obstacle to the cure of sensitive tumors. Although to understand the clinically relevant mechanisms of resistance, many studies have been aimed at clarifying the biochemical/molecular alterations of cisplatin-resistance cells, these studies did not conclusively identify the basis of cellular resistance to cisplatin. In this review, cisplatin resistance was discussed in terms of the relevant transporters, such as copper transporters (CTRs), organic cation transporters (OCTs) and multi-drug resistance related transporters (MDRs). These transporters seem to be contributed to cisplatin resistance through the reduction of drug accumulation in the cell. Better understanding the mechanism of cisplatin resistance associated with transporters will provide the useful informations for overcoming the cisplatin resistance.

• 대한수의학회지
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• 제29권4호
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• pp.469-474
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• 1989

The changes of plasma prostaglandin $E_2$ level, natural killer cell activity and tumor cell growth were assayed after transplantation of EL-4 leukemia cells in C57BL/6 mice. The results were summarized as follows; 1. Plasma prostaglandin $E_2$ level was increased in EL-4 bearing mice, but indomethacin treated mice group showed low level. 2. The tumor-derived prostaglandin $E_2$ inhibited the post-target binding cytolytic process of natural killer activity. 3. Indomethacin inhibited the growth of prostaglandin secreting EL-4 solid tumor.

• 대한약학회:학술대회논문집
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• 대한약학회 2003년도 Proceedings of the Convention of the Pharmaceutical Society of Korea Vol.2-2
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• pp.130.1-130.1
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• 2003

As a potent antigen presenting cells and a powerful inducer of antigen specific immunity including cytotoxic T cell activity, dendritic cells(DCs) are being considered as a promising anti-tumor therapeutic module. Unlike solid tumors, leukemia is the hematologic malignancy involving immune effector cells. The expected usage of DCs in leukemia is the treatment of minimal residual disease(MRD) after the remission or stem cell transplantation. In this study, syngeneic leukemia cells were inoculated intra-venously into the mouse (WEHI-3 into the Balb/c), and the autologous tumor cell lysate pulsed DCs were injected as a therapeutic module twice in two weeks. (omitted)