Project description:BackgroundLactate dehydrogenase (LDH) is a known prognostic biomarker for the endemic variant of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Here, we investigate whether serial changes in LDH level between chemotherapy (CT) cycles are associated with tumour response to CT.MethodsPatients with biopsy-proven, recurrent or treatment-naïve metastatic NPC (mNPC) were recruited. All patients had received at least two cycles of platinum-based doublet or triplet CT, with serial assessment of LDH prior to every cycle of chemotherapy (CT1-6). Patients harbouring conditions that affect LDH levels (IU/L) were excluded. Tumour response was assessed after every two cycles of CT by RECIST v1.1.ResultsA total of 158 patients were analysed, including 77 with recurrent and 81 with treatment-naïve mNPC. High pre-CT LDH was associated with an inferior overall survival [hazard ratio 1.93 for ⩾240 versus <240 (1.34-2.77), p < 0.001], which is consistent with published literature. We found that both absolute LDH levels and LDH ratios (LDHCTn: LDHCTn-1) were associated with tumour response [partial response versus progressive disease: median value across CT1-6 = 168-190 versus 222-398 (absolute); 0.738-0.988 versus 1.039-1.406 (ratio)], albeit LDH ratio had a tighter variance between patients. Finally, we showed that an LDH ratio cut-off of 1.0 at CT1, CT3 and CT5 was predictive of progressive disease at CT2, CT4, CT6 [area under the curve of 0.73 (0.65-0.80)].ConclusionHerein, we characterised the longitudinal variation of LDH in response to CT in mNPC. Our findings suggest the potential utility of interval LDH ratio to predict subsequent tumour response to CT.
Project description:BackgroundThe majority of published studies in recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (RM-NPC) are single-arm trials. Reliable modelling of progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) outcomes, therefore, is difficult. This study aim to analyse existent literature to estimate the relative efficacy of available systemic regimens in RM-NPC, as well as provide estimates of aggregate OS and PFS.MethodsWe conducted a systematic search of MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Library to March 2015. Clinical trials (in English only) investigating cytotoxic and molecularly targeted agents in adult patients with RM-NPC were included. All relevant studies were assessed for quality using Downs and Blacks (DB) checklist (maximum quality score of 27). Aggregate data analysis and Student's t-test were performed for all identified studies (model A). For studies that published analysable Kaplan-Meier curves, survival data were extracted and marginal proportional hazards models were constructed (model B).ResultsA total of 56 studies were identified and included in model A, 26 of which had analysable Kaplan-Meier curves and were included in model B. The 26 studies in model B had significantly higher mean DB scores than the remaining 30 (17.3 vs 13.7, P=0.002). For patients receiving first line chemotherapy, the estimated median OS was 15.7 months by model A (95% CI, 12.3-19.1), and 19.3 months by model B (95% CI, 17.6-21.1). For patients undergoing second line or higher therapies (2nd+), the estimated median OS was 11.5 months by model A (95% CI 10.1-12.9), and 12.5 months by model B (95% CI 11.9-13.4). PFS estimates for patients undergoing first-line chemotherapy by model A was 7.6 months (95% CI, 6.2-9.0), and 8.0 months by model B (95% CI, 7.6-8.8). For patients undergoing therapy in the 2nd+ setting, the estimated PFS by model A was 5.4 months (95% CI, 3.8-7.0), and 5.2 months by model B (95% CI, 4.7-5.6).ConclusionsWe present the first aggregate estimates of OS and PFS for RM-NPC patients receiving first and second-line or higher treatment settings, which could inform the design of future clinical trials in this disease setting.
Project description:Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is the most frequent malignancy arising in the nasopharynx. NPC, to a larger degree, substantially differs from the other malignancies of the head and neck, in terms of incidence, etiology, risk factors, molecular pathogenesis, clinical behavior, management and prognosis. Fundamentally, the management of NPC is entirely guided by the disease stage. Favorably, patients with early- stage disease have encouraging survival outcomes with stand-alone radiation therapy (RT), specifically following the emergence of intensity-modulated RT (IMRT). The reported five-year local control rates are outstanding, and they range from 70% to 90%. Unfortunately, around one-third (30%) of patients presents with loco-regional or distant recurrences, despite rigorous curative treatment in the intermediate (stage II) and advanced (stage III-IVB) NPC disease. At the present time, the management of recurrent and metastatic NPC is largely discouraging and presents significant challenges to the treating physicians. Broadly speaking, there are three management schemes utilized in the management of recurrent and metastatic NPC, namely: (i) palliative systemic chemotherapy, (ii) molecular targeted therapy, and (iii) immunotherapy. The goal of this study is to holistically review the existing body of literature on the utility and safety of molecular targeted therapy in the management of patients with recurrent and metastatic NPC, with a special focus on vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) targets.
Project description:To assess the efficacy and safety of the combination of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) and target therapy (anti-angiogenesis or EGFR inhibitors) as a second-line or subsequent treatment for recurrent or metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (R/M NPC), we conducted a retrospective study. In this study, previously treated R/M NPC patients were administered one of the following treatment: ICIs combined with target therapy and chemotherapy (ITC), ICIs combined with target therapy alone (IT), ICIs combined with chemotherapy (IC), or chemotherapy alone (C). The primary endpoint under consideration was progression-free survival (PFS), while secondary endpoints included overall survival (OS), objective response rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), and safety measures. A total of 226 patients participated in this study, with 70 receiving the ITC regimen, 48 receiving IT, 48 treated with IC, and 60 undergoing C alone. The median PFS for the four cohorts was 20.67, 13.63, 12.47, and 7.93 months respectively. Notably, ITC regimen yielded the most favorable PFS among these cohorts. The ITC cohort exhibited a comparable tumor response and safety profile to the IT and IC cohorts (p > 0.05), but superior tumor response compared to the C cohort (p < 0.05). The ITC regimen also conferred a significant improvement in OS when comparing to C alone (HR 0.336, 95%CI 0.123-0.915, p = 0.033). The IT and IC regimens achieved a nearly identical PFS (HR 0.955, 95%CI 0.515-1.77, p = 0.884), although the IT regimen was associated with a lower occurrence of SAEs in contrast to the IC regimen (p < 0.05). In addition, the IT regimen demonstrated superior PFS (HR 0.583, 95%CI 0.345-0.985, p = 0.044) and fewer SAEs when compared to C alone (p < 0.05). These findings collectively support the notion that the combination of ICIs, target and chemotherapy exhibits robust antitumor activity in previously treated R/M NPC patients, without a significant increase in adverse events.
Project description:Background: Reportedly, nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients with MHC I Class aberration are prone to poor survival outcomes, which indicates that the deficiency of tumor neoantigens might represent a mechanism of immune surveillance escape in NPC. Methods: To clearly delineate the landscape of neoantigens in NPC, we performed DNA and RNA sequencing on paired primary tumor, regional lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis samples from 26 patients. Neoantigens were predicted using pVACseq pipeline. Subtype prediction model was built using random forest algorithm. Results: Portraying the landscape of neoantigens in NPC for the first time, we found that the neoantigen load of NPC was above average compared to that of other cancers in The Cancer Genome Atlas program. While the quantity and quality of neoantigens were similar among primary tumor, regional lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis samples, neoantigen depletion was more severe in metastatic sites than in primary tumors. Upon tracking the clonality change of neoantigens, we found that neoantigen reduction occurred during metastasis. Building a subtype prediction model based on reported data, we observed that subtype I lacked T cells and suffered from severe neoantigen depletion, subtype II highly expressed immune checkpoint molecules and suffered from the least neoantigen depletion, and subtype III was heterogenous. Conclusions: These results indicate that neoantigens are conducive to the guidance of clinical treatment, and personalized therapeutic vaccines for NPC deserve deeper basic and clinical investigations to make them feasible in the future.
Project description:ObjectiveThis study aimed to establish a prognostic stratified model of chemotherapy-based comprehensive treatment for patients with locoregional recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma (lrNPC), to help individualized treatment decision-making.Materials and methodsThis study retrospectively reviewed patients with lrNPC who received chemotherapy-based comprehensive treatment from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2018. A total of 422 eligible patients were divided into test (n = 338) and validation (n = 84) cohorts. A LASSO cox regression model was used to identify significant prognostic factors for overall survival (OS) in the test cohort. A nomogram was then developed based on a combined consideration of clinically meaningful prognostic factors and statistically significant prognostic factors. The performance of the nomogram was assessed with Harrell's concordance index (C-index) and calibration plots.ResultsFive significant factors were identified: age, albumin (ALB), T stage after recurrent (rT), neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and systematic immune-inflammation index (SII). The nomogram was established with these five factors. C-index was 0.636 in the test cohort and 0.610 in the validation cohort. The calibration curves for the OS rate at 3, and 5 years showed an excellent agreement in both cohorts. In addition, the corresponding risk classification system successfully classified patients into low- and high-risk groups and performed well in stratification (P < 0.001).ConclusionsThe nomogram shows well prognostic performance for lrNPC patients receiving chemotherapy-based comprehensive treatment.
Project description:Background Platinum-based chemotherapy is the standard first-line treatment for recurrent/metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC); however, there is no standard regimen for those who failed first-line treatment. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of apatinib in treating patients with recurrent/metastatic NPC who failed prior platinum-based chemotherapy. Methods Patients aged 18–65 years with recurrent/metastatic NPC were treated with apatinib at an initial dose of 500 mg once daily and continued until disease progression, patient withdrawal, or unacceptable toxic effects. The primary endpoints were clinical benefit rate (CBR) and toxicity. Secondary endpoints included progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Results Nineteen patients were enrolled in this study. At the final follow-up, the CBR was 52.6% (95% CI: 29.8–76.2%) in the intention-to-treat population. The median PFS and OS were 3.7 (95% CI: 0.6–6.8) months and 12.9 (95% CI: 9.3–16.5) months, respectively. The most common grade 3–4 adverse events (AEs) were hand-foot syndrome [3 (15.8%)], neutropenia [2 (10.5%)], proteinuria [2 (10.5%)], oral mucosal pain [2 (10.5%)], hypertension [1 (5.3%)], hyponatremia [1 (5.3%)], artery dissection [1 (5.3%)], and nasopharyngeal hemorrhage [1 (5.3%)]. A serious AEs was reported in one patient who died of nasopharyngeal hemorrhage. Treatment with apatinib did not significantly influence patient-reported quality-of-life, except for nausea/vomiting and pain (P<0.05). Conclusions Apatinib achieved modest disease control with acceptable toxicity in recurrent/metastatic NPC patients pretreated with platinum-based chemotherapy.
Project description:Purpose: The study evaluated the feasibility, clinical effectiveness, and quality of life of computed tomography (CT)-guided 125I brachytherapy for locally recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Methods: We recruited 81 patients diagnosed with locally recurrent NPC after previous radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy. Thirty-nine patients received 125I brachytherapy (group A) and 42 received re-irradiation (IMRT, group B). The evaluated outcomes were local control, complications, and quality of life. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was used to compare local tumor progression-free survival (LTPFS) and overall survival (OS) in the two treatment groups. Results: The median follow-up was 30 months (range, 5-68 months), median LTPFS was 21 in group A and 17 months in group B. The 1-, 2-, and 3-year OS in group A were 84.6%, 51.3%, 30.7%, and 85.7%, 50.0%, and 32.6% in group B. In group A, 10/39 patients (25.6%) experienced at least one ≥grade III complication; no grade V complications occurred. In group B, 28/42 (66.7%) experienced at least one ≥grade III complication and 6/42 (14.3%) died of severe grade V complications. No significant between-group difference existed in the Quality of Life score on the EORTC QLQ-H&N35 questionnaire before treatment. In group A, quality of life was significantly improved after treatment; but did not improve, or even deteriorated in group B. Conclusions: 125I brachytherapy was a feasible, safe, and effective treatment for locally recurrent NPC. 125I brachytherapy significantly reduced complications caused by re-irradiation and improved patients' quality of life.
Project description:We present the discovery of genes recurrently involved in structural variation in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and the identification of a novel type of somatic structural variant. We identified the variants with high complexity mate-pair libraries and a novel computational algorithm specifically designed for tumor-normal comparisons, SMASH. SMASH combines signals from split reads and mate-pair discordance to detect somatic structural variants. We demonstrate a >90% validation rate and a breakpoint reconstruction accuracy of 3 bp by Sanger sequencing. Our approach identified three in-frame gene fusions (YAP1-MAML2, PTPLB-RSRC1, and SP3-PTK2) that had strong levels of expression in corresponding NPC tissues. We found two cases of a novel type of structural variant, which we call "coupled inversion," one of which produced the YAP1-MAML2 fusion. To investigate whether the identified fusion genes are recurrent, we performed fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) to screen 196 independent NPC cases. We observed recurrent rearrangements of MAML2 (three cases), PTK2 (six cases), and SP3 (two cases), corresponding to a combined rate of structural variation recurrence of 6% among tested NPC tissues.
Project description:In recent years, librarians in various sectors have been moving forward a conversation on the distinct information needs and information-seeking behavior of our lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer (LGBTQ) patrons and how well the profession recognizes and meets those needs. Health sciences librarianship has been slower than other areas of the profession in creating an evidence base covering the needs of its LGBTQ patrons, with, until recently, only very limited literature on this subject. LGBTQ health sciences librarianship is now starting to attract new interest, with librarians working together to bring this emerging specialization to the attention of the broader professional community. In this paper, the authors report on a dedicated panel discussion that took place at the 2016 joint annual meeting of the Medical Library Association and Canadian Health Libraries Association/Association des bibliothèques de la santé du Canada in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; discuss subsequent reflections; and highlight the emerging role for health sciences librarians in providing culturally competent services to the LGBTQ population. Recommendations are also provided for establishing a tool kit for LGBTQ health sciences librarianship from which librarians can draw. We conclude by highlighting the importance of critically reflective practice in health sciences librarianship in the context of LGBTQ health information.