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Topic Review
Amygdalin as a Promising Anticancer Agent
Amygdalin, also known as vitamin B17 (and laetrile, a synthetic compound), is a cyanogenic glycoside compound that is mainly found in the kernels and pulps of fruits. This compound has been proposed for decades as a promising naturally occurring substance which may provide anticancer effects.
  • 1.2K
  • 11 Oct 2023
Topic Review
Biomarkers in Prostate Cancer Diagnosis
Early detection of prostate cancer (PC) is largely carried out using assessment of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level; yet it cannot reliably discriminate between benign pathologies and clinically significant forms of PC. Exosomes are extracellular vesicles that are secreted from all mammalian cells and virtually detected in all bio-fluids, thus allowing their use as tumor biomarkers.
  • 1.2K
  • 04 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Cholesterol Metabolism in Glioblastoma
Glioblastoma is a highly lethal adult brain tumor with no effective treatments. 
  • 1.2K
  • 16 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Genetic Alterations Featuring Biological Models
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide. This high mortality rate is due to the disease’s lack of symptoms, resulting in a late diagnosis. Biomarkers and treatment options for pancreatic cancer are also limited. In order to overcome this, new research models and novel approaches to discovering PDAC biomarkers are required. In this review, we outline the hereditary and somatic causes of PDAC and provide an overview of the recent genome wide association studies (GWAS) and pathway analysis studies. We also provide a summary of some of the systems used to study PDAC, including established and primary cell lines, patient-derived xenografts (PDX), and newer models such as organoids and organ-on-chip. These ex vitro laboratory systems allow for critical research into the development and progression of PDAC.
  • 1.2K
  • 16 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Treatment Combinations with DNA Vaccines
Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) is a challenging disease to treat, with poor outcomes for patients. One antitumor vaccine, sipuleucel-T, has been approved as a treatment for mCRPC. DNA vaccines are another form of immunotherapy under investigation. DNA immunizations elicit antigen-specific T cells that cause tumor cell lysis, which should translate to meaningful clinical responses. They are easily amenable to design alterations, scalable for large-scale manufacturing, and thermo-stable for easy transport and distribution. Hence, they offer advantages over other vaccine formulations. However, clinical trials with DNA vaccines as a monotherapy have shown only modest clinical effects against tumors. Standard therapies for CRPC including androgen-targeted therapies, radiation therapy and chemotherapy all have immunomodulatory effects, which combined with immunotherapies such as DNA vaccines, could potentially improve treatment. In addition, many investigational drugs are being developed which can augment antitumor immunity, and together with DNA vaccines can further enhance antitumor responses in preclinical models.
  • 1.2K
  • 20 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Transfer Learning in Breast Cancer
Transfer learning is a machine learning approach that reuses a learning method developed for a task as the starting point for a model on a target task. The goal of transfer learning is to improve performance of target learners by transferring the knowledge contained in other (but related) source domains. As a result, the need for large numbers of target-domain data is lowered for constructing target learners. Due to this immense property, transfer learning techniques are frequently used in ultrasound breast cancer image analyses. In this study, we focus on transfer learning methods applied on ultrasound breast image classification and detection from the perspective of transfer learning approaches, pre-processing, pre-training models, and convolutional neural network (CNN) models. Finally, comparison of different works is carried out, and challenges—as well as outlooks—are discussed.
  • 1.2K
  • 25 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Radiation Responses in Tumour Microenvironment
Radiotherapy (RT) is a primary treatment modality for a number of cancers, offering potentially curative outcomes. Despite its success, tumour cells can become resistant to RT, leading to disease recurrence. Components of the tumour microenvironment (TME) likely play an integral role in managing RT success or failure including infiltrating immune cells, the tumour vasculature and stroma. Furthermore, genomic profiling of the TME could identify predictive biomarkers or gene signatures indicative of RT response.
  • 1.2K
  • 06 Mar 2021
Topic Review
D-2-Hydroxyglutarate in Glioma Biology
Oncometabolites, the abnormally accumulated metabolites derived from disrupted cancer metabolic pathways, are a recently defined concept in cancer biology. Isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) mutations are common genetic abnormalities in glioma, which result in the accumulation of an “oncometabolite”, D-2-hydroxyglutarate (D-2-HG). Abnormally elevated D-2-HG levels result in a distinctive pattern in cancer biology, through competitively inhibiting α-ketoglutarate (α-KG)/Fe(II)-dependent dioxgenases (α-KGDDs). D-2-HG affects DNA/histone methylation, hypoxia signaling, DNA repair, and redox homeostasis, which impacts the oncogenesis of IDH-mutated cancers.
  • 1.2K
  • 08 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Tamoxifen
Tamoxifen is a selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) originally developed as a contraceptive or morning-after pill [1].
  • 1.2K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Implantation-Based Genetic Modeling of BTC
Biliary tract cancer (BTC) is often refractory to conventional therapeutics and is difficult to diagnose in the early stages. Implantation-based models have recently drawn attention for their convenience, flexibility, and scalability. 
  • 1.2K
  • 12 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Caveolin-1 in Lung Cancer
Lung cancer is one of the most common and malignant cancers with extremely high morbidity and mortality in both males and females. Although traditional lung cancer treatments are fast progressing, there are still limitations. Caveolin-1 (Cav-1), a main component of caveolae, participates in multiple cellular events such as immune responses, endocytosis, membrane trafficking, cellular signaling and cancer progression. It has been found tightly associated with lung cancer cell proliferation, migration, apoptosis resistance and drug resistance. In addition to this, multiple bioactive molecules have been confirmed to target Cav-1 to carry on their anti-tumor functions in lung cancers. Cav-1 can also be a predictor for lung cancer patients’ prognosis. 
  • 1.2K
  • 22 Sep 2021
Topic Review
CTCs in Gastric Cancer
With over 1 million incidence cases and more than 780,000 deaths in 2018, gastric cancer (GC) was ranked as the 5th most common cancer and the 3rd leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Though several biomarkers, including carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), cancer antigen 19-9 (CA19-9), and cancer antigen 72-4 (CA72-4), have been identified, their diagnostic accuracies were modest. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs), cells derived from tumors and present in body fluids, have recently emerged as promising biomarkers, diagnostically and prognostically, of cancers, including GC. In this review, we present the landscape of CTCs from migration, to the presence in circulation, biologic properties, and morphologic heterogeneities. We evaluated clinical implications of CTCs in GC patients, including diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic management, as well as their application in immunotherapy.
  • 1.2K
  • 04 Jun 2021
Topic Review
3D Modeling of Epithelial Tumors
The current statistics on cancer show that 90% of all human cancers originate from epithelial cells. Breast and prostate cancer are examples of common tumors of epithelial origin that would benefit from improved drug treatment strategies. About 90% of preclinically approved drugs fail in clinical trials, partially due to the use of too simplified in vitro models and a lack of mimicking the tumor microenvironment in drug efficacy testing. This entry focuses on the epithelial cancers, followed by experimental models designed to recapitulate the epithelial tumor structure and microenvironment. A specific focus is to put on novel technologies for cell culture of spheroids, organoids, and 3D-printed tissue-like models, utilizing biomaterials of natural or synthetic origins, and how the models could be utilized for nanotechnology-based drug delivery in the future.
  • 1.2K
  • 24 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Pterostilbene in Gastrointestinal Cancer Cells
Pterostilbene (PTE) is a natural sterbenoid contained in blueberries that has an antioxidant effect. In contrast, PTE also generates oxidative stress in cancer cells and provides an antitumor effect.
  • 1.2K
  • 30 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Management of Radiation Dermatitis for Breast Cancer Patients
The importance of holistic, patient-centered assessments, interventions, and education during RT should not be understated in its value of promoting patients’ physical and emotional comfort. The implementation of a skin care plan is an opportunity for patients to fully engage in self-care, not only promoting their skin health, reducing RT-associated side effects, and promoting the restoration of skin integrity, but can enhance their sense of control with the stressful context of cancer treatments. Ultimately, a patient-centered approach with implementation of a skin care plan may avert a delay in treatment or discontinuation of RT due to RD and afford breast cancer patients the greatest chance for long-term survival.
  • 1.2K
  • 07 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Tumor-Associated Antigen xCT
The cystine/glutamate antiporter xCT is a tumor-associated antigen that has been newly identified in many cancer types. By participating in glutathione biosynthesis, xCT protects cancer cells from oxidative stress conditions and ferroptosis, and contributes to metabolic reprogramming, thus promoting tumor progression and chemoresistance. Moreover, xCT is overexpressed in cancer stem cells. These features render xCT a promising target for cancer therapy, as has been widely reported in the literature and in our work on its immunotargeting. Interestingly, studies on the TP53 gene have revealed that both wild-type and mutant p53 induce the post-transcriptional down-modulation of xCT, contributing to ferroptosis. Moreover, APR-246, a small molecule drug that can restore wild-type p53 function in cancer cells, has been described as an indirect modulator of xCT expression in tumors with mutant p53 accumulation and is thus a promising drug to use in combination with xCT inhibition.
  • 1.2K
  • 14 Jan 2021
Topic Review
Proneural-Mesenchymal Transition
Glioblastoma (GBM) is an extremely aggressive tumor of the central nervous system, with a prognosis of 12–15 months and just 3–5% of survival over 5 years. This is mainly because most patients suffer recurrence after treatment that currently consists in maximal resection followed by radio- and chemotherapy with temozolomide. GBM has been classified into four molecular subgroups namely proneural, neural, classical and mesenchymal. The recurrent tumor shows a more aggressive behavior due to a phenotypic shift from the proneural toward the mesenchymal subtype. Proneural-mesenchymal transition (PMT) may represent for GBM the equivalent of epithelial–mesenchymal transition associated with aggressive carcinomas. 
  • 1.2K
  • 14 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles in Cancer Therapy
Despite significant advances in cancer therapy, its complex pathological process still represents a major health challenge when seeking effective treatment and improved healthcare. With the advent of nanotechnologies, nanomedicine-based cancer therapy has been widely explored as a promising technology able to handle the requirements of the clinical sector. Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPION) have been at the forefront of nanotechnology development since the mid-1990s, thanks to their former role as contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging. Though their use as MRI probes has been discontinued due to an unfavorable cost/benefit ratio, several innovative applications as therapeutic tools have prompted a renewal of interest. The unique characteristics of SPION, i.e., their magnetic properties enabling specific response when submitted to high frequency (magnetic hyperthermia) or low frequency (magneto-mechanical therapy) alternating magnetic field, and their ability to generate reactive oxygen species (either intrinsically or when activated using various stimuli), make them particularly adapted for cancer therapy.
  • 1.2K
  • 29 Jan 2023
Topic Review
Oral Selective Estrogen Receptor Degraders in Development
Breast cancer is a common type of cancer among women. One type, estrogen receptor-positive (ER+), is treated with endocrine therapies. However, some patients develop resistance to these therapies, which is a challenge. Scientists have developed second-generation drugs called selective estrogen receptor degraders (SERDs) that can overcome the limitations of the existing treatment.
  • 1.2K
  • 08 Feb 2024
Topic Review
Pheochromocytomas and Paragangliomas
Pheochromocytomas and paragangliomas are rare catecholamine producing tumors. Early diagnosis is crucial to avoid life threatning complications. Surgical resection of the tumor is the only curative option. Preoperative management consists of alpha blockade and correction of intravascular volume.
  • 1.2K
  • 05 Nov 2020
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