Citations

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is among the most commonly diagnosed malignancies in the world. Patients with OSCC often develop treatment resistance, resulting in a poor prognosis. Mounting evidence indicates that interactions between cancerous cells and other components of the tumor microenvironment (TME) determine their response to treatment. Herein, we examined the role of cancer stem cell-derived extracellular vesicles (CSC_EVs) generated from CAL27 and SCC-15 OSCC cells in the development of cisplatin (CDDP) resistance. We demonstrated that CSC_EVs enhance CDDP resistance, clonogenicity, and the tumorsphere formation potential of OSCC cells. Our bioinformatics analyses revealed that OSCC_EVs are enriched with microRNA (miR)-21-5p and are associated with increased metastasis, stemness, chemoresistance, and poor survival in patients with OSCC. Mechanistically, enhanced activity of CSC_EVs was positively correlated with upregulated β-catenin, phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K), signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), and transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1 messenger (m)RNA and protein expression levels. CSC_EVs also conferred a cancer-associated fibroblast (CAF) phenotype on normal gingival fibroblasts (NGFs), with the resultant CAFs enhancing the oncogenicity of OSCC cells. Interestingly, treatment with ovatodiolide (OV), the bioactive component of Anisomeles indica, suppressed OSCC tumorigenesis by reducing the cargo content of EVs derived from CSCs, suppressing self-renewal, and inhibiting the NGF-CAF transformation by disrupting EV-TME interactions. Moreover, by suppressing miR-21-5p, STAT3, and mTOR expressions in CSC_EVs, OV re-sensitized CSCs to CDDP and suppressed OSCC tumorigenesis. In vivo, treatment with OV alone or in combination with CDDP significantly reduced the tumor sphere-forming ability and decreased EV cargos containing mTOR, PI3K, STAT3, β-catenin, and miR-21-5p. In summary, our findings provide further strong evidence of OV’s therapeutic effect in OSCC.

5510 Background: Single agent aromatase inhibitor (AI) therapy is associated with limited clinical activity in ovarian cancer (OC) and endometrial cancers (EC). AI therapy was associated with a progression free survival (PFS) at 12 weeks of only 20% in relapsed OC (Bowman et al, 2002) and a median PFS of 1 month in relapsed EC (Rose et al, 2000). In Estrogen Receptor (ER) positive metastatic breast cancer, clinical studies had shown a significant prolongation of PFS with the addition of the cyclin kinase 4/6 inhibitor ribociclib to AI (Hortobagyi et al, 2016). Here, we report the results of a phase 2 clinical trial of the combination of ribociclib and letrozole in patients with relapsed ER positive OC or EC. Objectives: Primary endpoint was the proportion of patients with relapsed ER positive OC or EC alive and progression-free after 12 weeks of therapy (PFS12) with the combination of ribociclib given at a dose of 400 mg orally daily and letrozole 2.5 mg orally daily. A PFS of 45% was considered a favorable result based on the data referenced above from Bowman et al. Methods: Eligibility criteria included patients with relapsed ER positive OC or EC, with measurable disease, not previously treated with ribociclib or AIs. Xenografts were created from CT guided tumor biopsies at baseline to assess feasibility. Results: A total of 40 patients were enrolled (20 with OC and 20 with EC) ) with a median age of 61 years (range: 30-82) and 64.5 (range: 52-75) in the OC and EC groups respectively. Among the OC patients, 17 had high grade serous carcinomas and 3 had low grade serous carcinomas. 11 EC patients had endometrioid cancers (3 with grade 1 tumors) and 9 had high grade serous tumors. Ten out of 20 OC patients and 11/20 EC patients were alive and progression-free at 12 weeks (PFS12 of 50 and 55%, respectively). The most common grade 3 or higher adverse events (occurring in at least 5 pts) were leukopenia (18%), lymphopenia (18%), neutropenia (13%), and fatigue (13%). 34 tumor biopsies were suitable for injection into mice and 44% engrafted. ER expression persisted through multiple passages in mice. Two of three EC PDX models exhibited improved PFS with letrozole/ribociclib compared to letrozole alone. Conclusions: The combination of ribociclib and letrozole is associated with a promising 50% and 55% PFS12 in patients with ER positive relapsed OC or EC respectively. Creation of xenograft tumor models from CT guided biopsies of OC and EC tumors was feasible. Clinical trial information: NCT02657928.

102 Background: This phase II study aimed to investigate the safety and efficacy of XP compared to SP in the first-line treatment of HER2 negative AGC. Methods: Patients were randomly assigned to receive either SP (S-1 at 40–60 mg twice daily for 21 days plus cisplatin at 60 mg/ m2 on day 8, every 5 weeks) or XP (capecitabine 1,000 mg/m2 twice daily for 14 days plus cisplatin 80 mg/m2 on day 1, every 3 weeks). Primary endpoint was response rate (RR), and secondary endpoints were progression-free survival (PFS), overall survival (OS), time to treatment failure (TTF), and adverse events. Results: 84 eligible patients were randomly assigned to receive SP ( N = 41) or XP ( N = 43). No statistical difference was observed in overall RR between the SP and XP groups [51.2% (95% CI, 35.1% to 67.1%) vs. 53.5% (95% CI, 37.7% to 68.8%), P = 1.000]. Despite not significant, however, SP vs. XP showed a trend toward better PFS [median, 5.9 months vs. 4.1 months; hazard ratio (HR), 0.763; 95% CI, 0.462 to 1.259; P = .284] and OS (median, 13.5 months vs. 10.0 months; HR, 0.776; 95% CI, 0.485 to 1.244; P = .290). This trend in the SP vs. XP comparison was more pronounced in TTF (median, 4.5 months vs. 3.1 months; HR, 0.651; 95% CI, 0.421 to 1.006; P = .052). Common grade 3 to 4 hematological toxicities were neutropenia and anemia (SP group, 23% and 23%; XP group, 35% and 28%). Grade 3-4 anorexia and hyponatremia were more frequently seen in the XP group (31% and 16%) compared to the SP group (13% and 5%). Treatment-related deaths occurred in one patient (2.3%) in the XP group. Conclusions: XP failed to demonstrate the superior efficacy over SP. Higher incidence of severe toxicities by XP suggests SP as the standard 1st line chemotherapy for HER2 negative AGC in Japan. Clinical trial information: UMIN000006755.

Ovarian cancer is a heterogeneous disease having the highest gynecologic fatality in the United States with a 5-year survival rate of 46.5%. Poor overall prognosis is mostly attributed to inadequate screening tools, and the majority of diagnoses occur at late stages of the disease. Due to genetic and biological underpinnings, ovarian high-grade serous carcinomas (HGSC) have etiologic evidence in the distal fallopian tube. Fallopian tube screening modalities are aggressively investigated, but few describe cytological characteristics of benign tubal specimens to help in the comparative detection of HGSC precursor cells. Here, we describe fimbrial cytomorphological and nuclear features of tubal specimens (n = 75) from patients clinically indicated for salpingectomy, bilateral or unilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, and hysterectomies for any diagnosis other than ovarian or peritoneal cancer. Fallopian tube histology was used as the diagnostic reference. A total of 75 samples had benign diagnoses. The benign cytological characteristics of fimbrial tubal specimens included ciliated cells in clustered arrangements with mild nuclear membrane irregularity, mild anisonucleosis, round and/or oval nuclei, hyperchromatic chromatin, and mild nuclear membrane irregularity. In contrast, none of the cytology samples had spindle-shaped nuclei, significantly marked anisonucleosis (n = 1), nor had hypochromasia as a characteristic feature. These cytological characteristics could be a potential area of distinction from HGSC precursor cells. Our study establishes cytomorphological characteristics of nonmalignant tubal cells which help underscore the importance of distinguishing malignant HGSC precursors through fimbrial brush sampling in minimally invasive approach.

Outcome measures evaluate various aspects of patient health, and when appropriately utilized can provide valuable information in both clinical practice and research settings. The orthopedic community has placed increasing emphasis on patient-reported outcome measures, recognizing their value for understanding patients’ perspectives of treatment outcomes. Patient-reported outcomes are information directly reported by patients regarding their perceptions of health, quality of life, or functional status without interpretation by healthcare providers. The American Orthopaedic Foot & Ankle Society (AOFAS) supports the use of validated patient-reported outcome (PRO) instruments to assess patient general health, functional status, and outcomes of treatment. It is not possible to recommend a single instrument to collect quality orthopedic data as the selection is dependent on the population being examined and the question being asked. We support the use of the PROMIS Physical Function Computerized Adaptive Test (PF CAT) or Lower Extremity Computerized Adaptive Test (LE CAT), which can be assessed with other domains such as Pain Interference. In addition, a disease-specific measure can be used when available.

Abstract While genomic profiling and therapeutic selection support individualized GBM treatment, such therapeutic decision-making is usually made with reference to tumor obtained from the enhancing core region. GBM is known to be heterogeneous and exhibits a high resistance to standard therapies. To address whether non-enhancing tumor (representing the majority of tumor left behind after surgery) shows distinct genomic characteristics and therapeutic targets compared to the enhancing tumor core, we performed genome-wide exome-sequencing and RNA-sequencing for 12 patients with matched enhancing region and at least one non-enhancing region. Non-enhancing biopsies show a surprisingly high level of tumor content, with a median of 28% tumor cells and 6 of the 22 samples having greater than 50% tumor cells. Cognate non-enhancing and enhancing specimens demonstrated overall concordance in therapeutically actionable alterations (single nucleotide variants) and copy number alterations. However, non-enhancing regions were not genetically identical and did reveal additional and distinct variants compared to enhancing cores. For example, the non-enhancing region of patient 1 showed two nonsense NF1 mutations (R1534X; R2517X) while the enhancing region showed an NF1 frameshift mutation (F1247fs). Clonality analysis by LumosVar also indicated that 7 out of 12 patients harbored dissimilar cellular prevalence patterns between enhancing and non-enhancing regions. In addition, comparison of alternative polyadenylation between enhancing and non-enhancing regions uncovered distinct 3' UTR usage: e.g. SGMS2 and TOB1 tended to have longer 3' UTR in enhancing regions whereas longer 3' UTR of SYNPO and NOS1AP were prevalent in non-enhancing regions. We posit that the enhancing component of glioblastoma probably underrepresents the genomic alterations in patients' tumors. Given non-enhancing tumor is left behind after surgical debulking, genomic profiling of this region would potentially reveal more accurate tumor vulnerabilities and lead to more effective therapy. Supported by a grant from the Ben & Catherine Ivy Foundation. Citation Format: Sen Peng, Rebecca Halperin, Harshil Dhruv, Sara Byron, Christophe Legendre, Joanna Phillips, Michael Prados, Michael Berens, Nhan Tran. Probing the non-enhancing component of glioblastoma: Targeting what is left behind [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 289.

INTRODUCTION: Study Objective: To determine the payments made to Obstetricians and Gynecologists (OBGYNs) compared to other surgical specialties by the makers of the Da Vinci robot-Intuitive Surgical, Inc. in 2014. METHODS: Design: Retrospective cross-sectional study (Canadian Task force classification- II-3). Setting: Payments to OBGYNs in the United States compared to the total Intuitive Surgical payment amount in each state as analyzed from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)’ Open Payments website. Subjects: General OBGYNs, OBGYN subspecialists (Gynecologic Oncology, Reproductive Endocrinology, Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery, Gynecology), and providers in other specialties nationwide. Interventions: Compare Intuitive Surgical Inc. payments to OBGYNs versus other surgical specialties as analyzed from publicly available CMS Open Payments database. RESULTS: A total of 50 states received money from Intuitive Surgical Inc. in 2014. Payments to general OBGYNs totaled $5,061,439, OBGYN subspecialties received $1,591,556, and other surgical specialties that use the Da Vinci platform received $33,011,657. Total payments per state can be represented in a map diagram. The state of Texas got the highest amount. Payments to OBGYNs divided by total payments in each state can be depicted in a similar fashion, Wyoming state had the highest value. CONCLUSION: OBGYNs received a significant proportion of funding from Intuitive Surgical Inc. as compared to other surgical specialties in 2014. We recommend that OBGYNs update or declare any conflicts when required.