| 1. |
- Carlsson, Jörgen, et al.
(författare)
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HER2 expression in breast cancer primary tumours and corresponding metastases : Original data and literature review
- 2004
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Ingår i: British Journal of Cancer. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0007-0920 .- 1532-1827. ; 90:12, s. 2344-2348
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the HER2 expression in breast cancer is retained in metastases. The HER2 expression in primary tumours and the corresponding lymph node metastases were evaluated in parallel samples from 47 patients. The HercepTest was used for immunohistochemical analyses of HER2 overexpression in all cases. CISH/FISH was used for analysis of gene amplification in some cases. HER2 overexpression (HER2-scores 2+ or 3+) was found in 55% of both the primary tumours and of the lymph node metastases. There were only small changes in the HER2-scores; six from 1+ to 0 and one from 3+ to 2+ when the metastases were compared to the corresponding primary tumours. However, there were no cases with drastic changes in HER2 expression between the primary tumours and the corresponding lymph node metastases. The literature was reviewed for similar investigations, and it is concluded that breast cancer lymph node metastases generally overexpress HER2 to the same extent as the corresponding primary tumours. This also seems to be the case when distant metastases are considered. It has been noted that not all patients with HER2 overexpression respond to HER2-targeted Trastuzumab treatment. The stability in HER2 expression is encouraging for efforts to develop complementary forms of therapy, for example, therapy with radionuclide-labelled Trastuzumab.
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| 2. |
- Hultdin, Magnus, et al.
(författare)
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Association between telomere length and V-H gene mutation status in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia : clinical and biological implications
- 2003
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Ingår i: British Journal of Cancer. - London : Nature Publishing Group. - 0007-0920 .- 1532-1827. ; 88:4, s. 593-598
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The immunoglobulin V-H gene mutation status can divide B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) into two entities with a different clinical course. Cases with unmutated V-H genes, considered to evolve from pregerminal centre (GC) cells, have a worse outcome compared to cases showing mutated VH genes, that is, post-GC derived. Also, telomere length has been reported to be of prognostic significance in CLL. Interestingly, telomerase becomes activated during the GC reaction and an elongation of the telomeres occurs in GC B cells. We performed telomere length and VH gene analysis in a series of 61 CLL cases, in order to investigate if the unique telomere lengthening shown in GC B cells could reflect the telomere status in the two subsets of mutated and unmutated CLL. A novel association was found between VH gene mutation status and telomere length, since significantly shorter telomeres were demonstrated in the unmutated group compared to the mutated group (mean length 4.3 vs 63 kbp). Shorter telomeres also constituted a subgroup with a worse prognosis than cases with longer telomeres (median survival 59 vs 159 months), Furthermore, the I-g gene sequence data revealed that samples with high mutations frequency (> 6%) had long telomeres (similar to 8 kbp). Thus, both the telomere and VH gene mutation status in CLL appear linked, which may reflect the proliferative history of the clonal cells with regard to the GC reaction. (C) 2003 Cancer Research UK.
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| 3. |
- Johansson, M., et al.
(författare)
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Interleukin-2 and histamine in combination inhibit tumour growth and angiogenesis in malignant glioma
- 2000
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Ingår i: British Journal of Cancer. - : Cancer Research Campaign. - 0007-0920 .- 1532-1827. ; 83:6, s. 826-832
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Biotherapy including interleukin-2 (IL-2) treatment seems to be more effective outside the central nervous system when compared to the effects obtained when the same tumour is located intracerebrally. Recently published studies suggest that reduced activity of NK cells in tumour tissue can be increased by histamine. The present study was designed to determine whether IL-2 and histamine, alone or in combination, can induce anti-tumour effects in an orthotopic rat glioma model. One group of rats was treated with histamine alone (4 mg kg(-1)s.c. as daily injections from day 6 after intracranial tumour implantation), another group with IL-2 alone as a continuous subcutaneous infusion and a third group with both histamine and IL-2. The animals were sacrificed at day 24 after tumour implantation. IL-2 and histamine in combination significantly reduced tumour growth. The microvessel density was significantly reduced, an effect mainly affecting the small vessels. No obvious alteration in the pattern of VEGF mRNA expression was evident and no significant changes in apoptosis were observed. Neither IL-2 nor histamine alone caused any detectable effects on tumour growth. Histamine caused an early and pronounced decline in tumour blood flow compared to normal brain. The results indicate that the novel combination of IL-2 and histamine can be of value in reducing intracerebral tumour growth and, thus, it might be of interest to re-evaluate the therapeutic potential of biotherapy in malignant glioma.
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| 4. |
- Kjellberg, L, et al.
(författare)
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Smoking, diet, pregnancy and oral contraceptive use as risk factors for cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia in relation to human papillomavirus infection.
- 2000
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Ingår i: British Journal of Cancer. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0007-0920 .- 1532-1827. ; 82:7, s. 1332-8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Smoking, nutrition, parity and oral contraceptive use have been reported as major environmental risk factors for cervical cancer. After the discovery of the very strong link between human papillomavirus (HPV) infection and cervical cancer, it is unclear whether the association of these environmental factors with cervical cancer reflect secondary associations attributable to confounding by HPV, if they are independent risk factors or whether they may act as cofactors to HPV infection in cervical carcinogenesis. To investigate this issue, we performed a population-based case-control study in the Vasterbotten county of Northern Sweden of 137 women with high-grade cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia (CIN 2-3) and 253 healthy age-matched women. The women answered a 94-item questionnaire on diet, smoking, oral contraceptive use and sexual history and donated specimens for diagnosis of present HPV infection (nested polymerase chain reaction on cervical brush samples) and for past or present HPV infections (HPV seropositivity). The previously described protective effects of dietary micronutrients were not detected. Pregnancy appeared to be a risk factor in the multivariate analysis (P < 0.0001). Prolonged oral contraceptive use and sexual history were associated with CIN 2-3 in univariate analysis, but these associations lost significance after taking HPV into account. Smoking was associated with CIN 2-3 (odds ratio (OR) 2.6, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.7-4.0), the effect was dose-dependent (P = 0.002) and the smoking-associated risk was not affected by adjusting for HPV, neither when adjusting for HPV DNA (OR 2.5, CI 1.3-4.9) nor when adjusting for HPV seropositivity (OR 3.0, CI 1.9-4.7). In conclusion, after taking HPV into account, smoking appeared to be the most significant environmental risk factor for cervical neoplasia.
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| 5. |
- Remes, K, et al.
(författare)
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Telomere length and telomerase activity in malignant lymphomas at diagnosis and relapse
- 2000
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Ingår i: British Journal of Cancer. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0007-0920 .- 1532-1827. ; 82:3, s. 601-607
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Telomere length maintenance, in the vast majority of cases executed by telomerase, is a prerequisite for long-term proliferation. Most malignant tumours, including lymphomas, are telomerase-positive and this activity is a potential target for future therapeutic interventions since inhibition of telomerase has been shown to result in telomere shortening and cell death in vitro. One prerequisite for the suitability of anti-telomerase drugs in treating cancer is that tumours exhibit shortened telomeres compared to telomerase-positive stem cells. A scenario is envisioned where the tumour burden is reduced using conventional therapy whereafter remaining tumour cells are treated with telomerase inhibitors. In evaluating the realism of such an approach it is essential to know the effects on telomere status by traditional therapeutic regimens. We have studied the telomere lengths in 47 diagnostic lymphomas and a significant telomere shortening was observed compared to benign lymphoid tissues. In addition, telomere length and telomerase activity were studied in consecutive samples from patients with relapsing non-Hodgkin's lymphomas. Shortened, unchanged and elongated telomere lengths were observed in the relapse samples. The telomere length alterations found in the relapsing lymphomas appeared to be independent of telomerase and rather represented clonal selection random at the telomere length level. These data indicate that anti-telomerase therapy would be suitable in only a fraction of malignant lymphomas.
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| 6. |
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| 7. |
- Stendahl, Maria, et al.
(författare)
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Cyclin D1 overexpression is a negative predictive factor for tamoxifen response in postmenopausal breast cancer patients
- 2004
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Ingår i: British Journal of Cancer. - London : Nature Publishing Group. - 0007-0920 .- 1532-1827. ; 90:10, s. 1942-1948
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Antioestrogen treatment by tamoxifen is a well-established adjuvant therapy for oestrogen receptor-alpha (ER) positive breast cancer. Despite ER expression some tumours do not respond to tamoxifen and we therefore delineated the potential link between the cell cycle regulator and ERco-factor, cyclin D1, and tamoxifen response in a material of 167 postmenopausal breast cancers arranged in a tissue array. The patients had been randomised to 2 years of tamoxifen treatment or no treatment and the median follow-up time was 18 years. Interestingly in the 55 strongly ERpositive samples with moderate or low cyclin D1 levels, patients responded to tamoxifen treatment whereas the 46 patients with highly ER positive and cyclin D1 overexpressing tumours did not show any difference in survival between tamoxifen and no treatment. Survival in untreated patients with cyclin D1 high tumours was slightly better than for patients with cyclin D1 low/moderate tumours. However, there was a clearly increased risk of death in the cyclin D1 high group compared to an age-matched control population. Our results suggest that cyclin D1 overexpression predicts for tamoxifen treatment resistance in breast cancer, which is line with recent experimental data using breast cancer cell lines and overexpression systems.
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| 8. |
- Thomasson, Marcus, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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LRIG1 and epidermal growth factor receptor in renal cell carcinoma : a quantitative RT-PCR and immunohistochemical analysis
- 2003
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Ingår i: British Journal of Cancer. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0007-0920 .- 1532-1827. ; 89:7, s. 1285-1289
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In all, 31 renal cell carcinomas (RCCs) were examined for expression of the potential tumour suppressor LRIG1 (formerly Lig-1) and the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Eight matched samples of uninvolved kidney cortex were also evaluated. Gene expression was examined by quantitative real-time RT-PCR. In the eight matched sample pairs (uninvolved kidney cortex and tumour), protein expression was examined by immunohistochemistry. Conventional (clear cell) tumours showed an expected upregulation of EGFR. LRIG1 expression was generally downregulated in conventional and papillary RCC but not in chromophobic RCC. The ratio between EGFR and LRIG1 was more than 2.5-fold higher in the eight tumours compared with matched uninvolved kidney cortex and was at least two-fold higher than the mean normal ratio in 21 of 31 samples analysed. The observed downregulation of LRIG1 and increased EGFR/LRIG1 ratios are consistent with LRIG1 being a suppressor of oncogenesis in RCC by counteracting the tumour-promoting properties of EGFR. Further studies are justified to elucidate the explicit role of LRIG1 in the oncogenesis of RCC.
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| 9. |
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