Citations

AbstractIntroductionOne goal of the Longitudinal Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease Study (LEADS) is to define the fluid biomarker characteristics of early‐onset Alzheimer's disease (EOAD).MethodsCerebrospinal fluid (CSF) concentrations of Aβ1‐40, Aβ1‐42, total tau (tTau), pTau181, VILIP‐1, SNAP‐25, neurogranin (Ng), neurofilament light chain (NfL), and YKL‐40 were measured by immunoassay in 165 LEADS participants. The associations of biomarker concentrations with diagnostic group and standard cognitive tests were evaluated.ResultsBiomarkers were correlated with one another. Levels of CSF Aβ42/40, pTau181, tTau, SNAP‐25, and Ng in EOAD differed significantly from cognitively normal and early‐onset non‐AD dementia; NfL, YKL‐40, and VILIP‐1 did not. Across groups, all biomarkers except SNAP‐25 were correlated with cognition. Within the EOAD group, Aβ42/40, NfL, Ng, and SNAP‐25 were correlated with at least one cognitive measure.DiscussionThis study provides a comprehensive analysis of CSF biomarkers in sporadic EOAD that can inform EOAD clinical trial design.

PURPOSE The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected cancer care worldwide, including radiation therapy (RT) for breast cancer (BC), because of risk-based resource allocation. We report the evolution of international breast RT practices during the beginning of the pandemic, focusing on differences in treatment recommendations between countries. MATERIALS AND METHODS Between July and November 2020, a 58-question survey was distributed to radiation oncologists (ROs) through international professional societies. Changes in RT decision making during the first surge of the pandemic were evaluated across six hypothetical scenarios, including the management of ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), early-stage, locally advanced, and metastatic BC. The significance of changes in responses before and during the pandemic was examined using chi-square and McNemar-Bowker tests. RESULTS One thousand one hundred three ROs from 54 countries completed the survey. Incomplete responses (254) were excluded from the analysis. Most respondents were from the United States (285), Japan (117), Italy (63), Canada (58), and Brazil (56). Twenty-one percent (230) of respondents reported treating at least one patient with BC who was COVID-19–positive. Approximately 60% of respondents reported no change in treatment recommendation during the pandemic, except for patients with metastatic disease, for which 57.7% (636/1,103; P < .0005) changed their palliative practice. Among respondents who noted a change in their recommendation during the first surge of the pandemic, omitting, delaying, and adopting short-course RT were the most frequent changes, with most transitioning to moderate hypofractionation for DCIS and early-stage BC. CONCLUSION Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, significant changes in global RT practice patterns for BC were introduced. The impact of published results from the FAST FORWARD trial supporting ultrahypofractionation likely confounded the interpretation of the pandemic's independent influence on RT delivery.

PURPOSE Uterine leiomyosarcoma (uLMS) is an aggressive subtype of soft-tissue sarcoma with frequent metastatic relapse after curative surgery. Chemotherapy provides limited benefit for advanced disease. Multiomics profiling studies have identified homologous recombination deficiency in uLMS. In preclinical studies where olaparib and temozolomide provided modest activity, the combination was highly effective for inhibiting uLMS tumor growth. PATIENTS AND METHODS NCI Protocol 10250 is a single-arm, open-label, multicenter, phase II study evaluating olaparib and temozolomide in advanced uLMS. Patients with progression on ≥1 prior line received temozolomide 75 mg/m2 orally once daily with olaparib 200 mg orally twice a day both on days 1-7 in 21-day cycles. The primary end point was the best objective response rate (ORR) within 6 months. A one-stage binomial design was used. If ≥5 of 22 responded, the treatment would be considered promising (93% power; α = .06). All patients underwent paired biopsies that were evaluated with whole-exome sequencing (WES)/RNAseq and a RAD51 foci formation assay. RESULTS Twenty-two patients were evaluable. The median age was 55 years, and 59% had received three or more prior lines. Best ORR within 6 months was 23% (5 of 22). The overall ORR was 27% (6 of 22). The median progression-free survival (mPFS) was 6.9 months (95% CI, 5.4 months to not estimable). Hematologic toxicity was common (grade 3/4 neutropenia: 75%; thrombocytopenia: 32%) but manageable with dose modification. Five of 16 (31%) of tumors contained a deleterious homologous recombination gene alteration by WES, and 9 of 18 (50%) were homologous recombination-deficient by the RAD51 assay. In an exploratory analysis, mPFS was prolonged for patients with homologous recombination-deficient versus homologous recombination-proficient tumors (11.2 v 5.4 months, P = .05) by RAD51. CONCLUSION Olaparib and temozolomide met the prespecified primary end point and provided meaningful clinical benefit in patients with advanced, pretreated uLMS.

Abstract Background Implicit cognitive markers may assist with the prediction of suicidality beyond clinical risk factors. The aim of this study was to investigate neural correlates associated with the Death/Suicide Implicit Association Test (DS-IAT) via event-related potentials (ERP) in suicidal adolescents. Methods Thirty inpatient adolescents with suicidal ideations and behaviors (SIBS) and 30 healthy controls from the community were recruited. All participants underwent 64-channel electroencephalography, DS-IAT, and clinical assessments. Hierarchical generalized linear models with spatiotemporal clustering were used to identify significant ERPs associated with the behavioral outcome of DS-IAT (D scores) and group differences. Results Behavioral results (D scores) showed that the adolescents with SIBS had stronger implicit associations between “death” and “self” than the healthy group (P = .02). Within adolescents with SIBS, participants with stronger implicit associations between “death” and “self” reported more difficulty in controllability of suicidal ideation in the past 2 weeks based on the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale (P = .03). For the ERP data, the D scores and N100 component over the left parieto-occipital cortex had significant correlations. Significant group differences without behavioral correlation were observed for a second N100 cluster (P = .01), P200 (P = .02), and late positive potential (5 clusters, all P ≤ .02). Exploratory predictive models combining both neurophysiological and clinical measures distinguished adolescents with SIBS from healthy adolescents. Conclusions Our results suggest that N100 may be a marker of attentional resources involved in the distinction of stimuli that are congruent or incongruent to associations between death and self. Combined clinical and ERP measures may have utility in future refinements of assessment and treatment approaches for adolescents with suicidality.

PURPOSE Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is largely considered a nonimmunogenic malignancy; however, approximately 1%, of patients may have tumors with deficient mismatch repair, high microsatellite instability, or high tumor mutational burden (TMB ≥10 mutations/Mb), which may be predictive of response to immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy. We sought to analyze outcomes of patients with high-TMB and pathogenic genomic alterations observed in this population. METHODS This study included patients with PDAC who underwent comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) at Foundation Medicine (Cambridge, MA). Clinical data were obtained from a US-wide real-world clinicogenomic pancreatic database. We report genomic alterations in those with high and low TMB, and compare outcomes on the basis of receipt of single-agent ICI or therapy regimens not containing ICI. RESULTS We evaluated 21,932 patients with PDAC who had tissue CGP data available, including 21,639 (98.7%) with low-TMB and 293 (1.3%) with high-TMB. Among patients with high-TMB, a greater number of alterations were observed in BRCA2, BRAF, PALB2, and genes of the mismatch repair pathway, whereas fewer alterations were observed in KRAS. Among patients who received an ICI (n = 51), those with high-TMB had more favorable median overall survival when compared with the low-TMB subset (25.7 v 5.2 months; hazard ratio, 0.32; 95% CI, 0.11 to 0.91; P = .034). CONCLUSION Longer survival was observed in patients with high-TMB receiving ICI compared with those with low-TMB. This supports the role of high-TMB as a predictive biomarker for efficacy of ICI therapy in PDAC. Additionally, we report higher rates of BRAF and BRCA2 mutations and lower rates of KRAS mutation among patients with PDAC and high-TMB, which to our knowledge, is a novel finding.

Abstract The link between bipolar disorder (BP) and immune dysfunction remains controversial. While epidemiological studies have long suggested an association, recent research has found only limited evidence of such a relationship. To clarify this, we investigated the contributions of immune-relevant genetic factors to the response to lithium (Li) treatment and the clinical presentation of BP. First, we assessed the association of a large collection of immune-related genes (4,925) with Li response, defined by the Retrospective Assessment of the Lithium Response Phenotype Scale (Alda scale), and clinical characteristics in patients with BP from the International Consortium on Lithium Genetics (ConLi+Gen, N = 2,374). Second, we calculated here previously published polygenic scores (PGSs) for immune-related traits and evaluated their associations with Li response and clinical features. We found several genes associated with Li response at p < 1x10− 4 values, including HAS3, CNTNAP5 and NFIB. Network and functional enrichment analyses uncovered an overrepresentation of pathways involved in cell adhesion and intercellular communication, which appear to converge on the well-known Li-induced inhibition of GSK-3β. We also found various genes associated with BP’s age-at-onset, number of mood episodes, and presence of psychosis, substance abuse and/or suicidal ideation at the exploratory threshold. These included RTN4, XKR4, NRXN1, NRG1/3 and GRK5. Additionally, PGS analyses suggested serum FAS, ECP, TRANCE and cytokine ligands, amongst others, might represent potential circulating biomarkers of Li response and clinical presentation. Taken together, our results support the notion of a relatively weak association between immunity and clinically relevant features of BP at the genetic level.

Background Management of immune-related adverse events (irAEs) is important as they cause treatment interruption or discontinuation, more often seen with combination immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) therapy. Here, we retrospectively evaluated the safety and effectiveness of anti-interleukin-6 receptor (anti-IL-6R) as therapy for irAEs. Methods We performed a retrospective multicenter study evaluating patients diagnosed with de novo irAEs or flare of pre-existing autoimmune disease following ICI and were treated with anti-IL-6R. Our objectives were to assess the improvement of irAEs as well as the overall tumor response rate (ORR) before and after anti-IL-6R treatment. Results We identified a total of 92 patients who received therapeutic anti-IL-6R antibodies (tocilizumab or sarilumab). Median age was 61 years, 63% were men, 69% received anti-programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) antibodies alone, and 26% patients were treated with the combination of anti-cytotoxic T lymphocyte antigen-4 and anti-PD-1 antibodies. Cancer types were primarily melanoma (46%), genitourinary cancer (35%), and lung cancer (8%). Indications for using anti-IL-6R antibodies included inflammatory arthritis (73%), hepatitis/cholangitis (7%), myositis/myocarditis/myasthenia gravis (5%), polymyalgia rheumatica (4%), and one patient each with autoimmune scleroderma, nephritis, colitis, pneumonitis and central nervous system vasculitis. Notably, 88% of patients had received corticosteroids, and 36% received other disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs) as first-line therapies, but without adequate improvement. After initiation of anti-IL-6R (as first-line or post-corticosteroids and DMARDs), 73% of patients showed resolution or change to ≤grade 1 of irAEs after a median of 2.0 months from initiation of anti-IL-6R therapy. Six patients (7%) stopped anti-IL-6R due to adverse events. Of 70 evaluable patients by RECIST (Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors) V.1.1 criteria; the ORR was 66% prior versus 66% after anti-IL-6R (95% CI, 54% to 77%), with 8% higher complete response rate. Of 34 evaluable patients with melanoma, the ORR was 56% prior and increased to 68% after anti-IL-6R (p=0.04). Conclusion Targeting IL-6R could be an effective approach to treat several irAE types without hindering antitumor immunity. This study supports ongoing clinical trials evaluating the safety and efficacy of tocilizumab (anti-IL-6R antibody) in combination with ICIs ( NCT04940299 , NCT03999749 ).