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| 2. |
- Blokzijl, Andries, et al.
(författare)
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Elevated Levels of SOX10 in Serum from Vitiligo and Melanoma Patients, Analyzed by Proximity Ligation Assay
- 2016
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Ingår i: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 11:4
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BackgroundThe diagnosis of malignant melanoma currently relies on clinical inspection of the skin surface and on the histopathological status of the excised tumor. The serum marker S100B is used for prognostic estimates at later stages of the disease, but analyses are marred by false positives and inadequate sensitivity in predicting relapsing disorder.ObjectivesTo investigate SOX10 as a potential biomarker for melanoma and vitiligo.MethodsIn this study we have applied proximity ligation assay (PLA) to detect the transcription factor SOX10 as a possible serum marker for melanoma. We studied a cohort of 110 melanoma patients. We further investigated a second cohort of 85 patients with vitiligo, which is a disease that also affects melanocytes.ResultsThe specificity of the SOX10 assay in serum was high, with only 1% of healthy blood donors being positive. In contrast, elevated serum SOX10 was found with high frequency among vitiligo and melanoma patients. In patients with metastases, lack of SOX10 detection was associated with treatment benefit. In two responding patients, a change from SOX10 positivity to undetectable levels was seen before the response was evident clinically.ConclusionsWe show for the first time that SOX10 represents a promising new serum melanoma marker for detection of early stage disease, complementing the established S100B marker. Our findings imply that SOX10 can be used to monitor responses to treatment and to assess if the treatment is of benefit at stages earlier than what is possible radiologically.
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| 3. |
- Bolander, Åsa, et al.
(författare)
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Serological and immunohistochemical analysis of S100 and derivatives as markers for prognosis of newly operated malignant melanoma patients
- 2008
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Ingår i: Melanoma research. - 0960-8931 .- 1473-5636. ; 18:6, s. 412-419
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The incidence of cutaneous malignant melanoma is rising, and tumour markers are attracting attention as a possible alternative to clinical examination in the follow-up situation. S100 is the preferred marker for malignant melanoma, and correlation between serum S100 and disease relapse and survival has been reported. S100 tests previously used in clinical studies were specified poorly regarding reactivity with S100A1B and S100BB. In this study, a newly designed S100 assay (designed to measure exclusively S100A1B and S100BB) and two newly developed serological assays, S100A1B, and S100BB, were investigated postoperatively in patients undergoing radical surgery for cutaneous malignant melanoma. Additionally, immunohistochemical analysis of S100A4 was performed on the primary malignant melanoma using tissue microarrays. The primary aim of the study was to investigate whether any of these assays, either singly or in combination, can contribute additional information concerning increased risk of relapse and death because of malignant melanoma. In total, 98 patients (54 males, 44 females) with malignant melanoma were included in the study. As a continuous variable, S100BB (P=0.016) was associated statistically with increased risk of relapse; this was not the case for increased values of either S100 (P=0.11) or S100A1B (P=0.92). The Kaplan-Meier overall survival as well as disease specific survival curve for the S100 serum level demonstrated a statistically significant association with better survival if the patient had a S100 level
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| 4. |
- Bolander, Åsa, et al.
(författare)
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The Role of Circulating Angiogenic Factors in Patients Operated on for Localized Malignant Melanoma
- 2007
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Ingår i: Anticancer Research. - 0250-7005 .- 1791-7530. ; 27:5A, s. 3211-3217
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Malignant melanoma is a disease capable of rapid progression and rapidly developing metastases. Angiogenesis is a key event signalling tumour progression and elevated levels of angiogenic markers may indicate metastatic disease. No previously published work has, so far, examined plasma vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptor, VEGFR-1, in melanoma. This study investigated circulating levels of the angiogenic factors, VEGF-A and -D, their receptors 1-3 and hepatocyte growth factor (HGF)/scatter factor, in patients shortly after primary surgery for localized malignant melanoma. Elevated circulating levels of VEGF and its receptors, and of HGF, were found postoperatively, possibly derived from the reactive stroma adjacent to the tumours. Using univariate analysis, a correlation between levels of VEGFR-1 and relapse was found, but a correlation between the investigated angiogenic factors and survival could not be established. The results of the present study indicate that production of these angiogenic factors may be due to sources other than malignant melanoma cells.
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| 5. |
- Derksen, Jeroen W. G., et al.
(författare)
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European practice patterns and barriers to smoking cessation after a cancer diagnosis in the setting of curative versus palliative cancer treatment
- 2020
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Ingår i: European Journal of Cancer. - : Elsevier. - 0959-8049 .- 1879-0852. ; 138, s. 99-108
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Smoking cessation after a cancer diagnosis is associated with improved overall survival. Few studies have reported oncologists' cessation practice patterns, but differences between the curative and palliative settings have not been described. We aimed to study the oncologist's perceptions on patients' tobacco use, current practices and barriers to providing smoking cessation support, while distinguishing between treatment with curative (C) and palliative (P) intent.Methods: In 2019, an online 34-item survey was sent to approximately 6235 oncologists from 16 European countries. Responses were descriptively reported and compared by treatment setting.Results: Responses from 544 oncologists were included. Oncologists appeared to favour addressing tobacco in the curative setting more than in the palliative setting. Oncologists believe that continued smoking impacts treatment outcomes (C: 94%, P: 74%) and that cessation support should be standard cancer care (C: 95%, P: 63%). Most routinely assess tobacco use (C: 93%, P: 78%) and advise patients to stop using tobacco (C: 88%, P: 54%), but only 24% (P)–39% (C) routinely discuss medication options, and only 18% (P)–31% (C) provide cessation support. Hesitation to remove a pleasurable habit (C: 13%, P: 43%) and disbelieve on smoking affecting outcomes (C: 3%, P: 14%) were disparate barriers between the curative and palliative settings (p < 0.001), but dominant barriers of time, resources, education and patient resistance were similar between settings.Conclusion: Oncologists appear to favour addressing tobacco use more in the curative setting; however, they discuss medication options and/or provide cessation support in a minority of cases. All patients who report current smoking should have access to evidence-based smoking cessation support, also patients treated with palliative intent given their increasing survival.
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| 6. |
- Elfving, Hedvig, et al.
(författare)
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Evaluation of NTRK immunohistochemistry as a screening method for NTRK gene fusion detection in non-small cell lung cancer
- 2021
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Ingår i: Lung Cancer. - : Elsevier. - 0169-5002 .- 1872-8332. ; 151, s. 53-59
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose: The small molecule inhibitors larotrectinib and entrectinib have recently been approved as cancer agnostic drugs in patients with tumours harbouring a rearrangement of the neurotrophic tropomyosin receptor kinase (NTRK). These oncogenic fusions are estimated to occur in 0.1-3 % of non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC). Although molecular techniques are most reliable for fusion detection, immunohistochemical analysis is considered valuable for screening. Therefore, we evaluated the newly introduced diagnostic immunohistochemical assay (clone EPR17341) on a representative NSCLC cohort.Methods: Cancer tissue from 688 clinically and molecularly extensively annotated NSCLC patients were comprised on tissue microarrays and stained with the pan-TRK antibody clone EPR17341. Positive cases were further analysed with the TruSight Tumor 170 RNA assay (Illumina). Selected cases were also tested with a NanoString NTRK fusion assay. For 199 cases, NTRK RNA expression data were available from previous RNA sequencing analysis.Results: Altogether, staining patterns for 617 NSCLC cases were evaluable. Of these, four cases (0.6 %) demonstrated a strong diffuse cytoplasmic and membranous staining, and seven cases a moderate staining (1.1 %). NanoString or TST170-analysis could not confirm an NTRK fusion in any of the IHC positive cases, or any of the cases with high mRNA levels. In the four cases with strong staining intensity in the tissue microarray, whole section staining revealed marked heterogeneity of NTRK protein expression.Conclusion: The presence of NTRK fusion genes in non-small cell lung cancer is exceedingly rare. The use of the immunohistochemical NTRK assay will result in a small number of false positive cases. This should be considered when the assay is applied as a screening tool in clinical diagnostics.
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| 7. |
- Eltahir, mohmo394, et al.
(författare)
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Profiling of donor-specific immune effector signatures in response to rituximab in a human whole blood loop assay using blood from CLL patients
- 2021
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Ingår i: International Immunopharmacology. - : Elsevier. - 1567-5769 .- 1878-1705. ; 90
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Rituximab is widely used in the treatment of haematological malignancies, including chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), the most common leukaemia in adults. However, some patients, especially those with high tumour burden, develop cytokine release syndrome (CRS). It is likely that more patients will develop therapy linked CRS in the future due to the implementation of other immunotherapies, such as CAR T-cell, for many malignancies. Current methods for CRS risk assessment are limited, hence there is a need to develop new methods. To better recapitulate an in vivo setting, we implemented a unique human whole blood "loop" system to study patient-specific immune responses to rituximab in blood derived from CLL patients. Upon rituximab infusion, both complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) profiles were evident in CLL patient blood, coincident with CLL cell depletion. Whereas B cell depletion is induced in healthy persons in the blood loop, only patients display B cell depletion coupled with CRS. With the exception of one donor who lacked NK cells, all other five patients displayed variable B cell depletion along with CRS profile. Additionally, inhibition of CDC or ADCC via either inhibitors or antibody Fc modification resulted in skewing of the immune killing mechanism consistent with published literature. Herein we have shown that the human whole blood loop model can be applied using blood from a specific indication to build a disease-specific CRS and immune activation profiling ex vivo system. Other therapeutic antibodies used for other indications may benefit from antibody characterization in a similar setting.
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| 8. |
- Eltahir, Mohamed
(författare)
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Antibody-based Cancer Immunotherapy : Personalization, response prediction and safety considerations
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Antibody-based therapeutics have remarkably improved the field of immuno-oncology. Multiple monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are approved for clinical use, and numerous antibodies are under clinical development. The scope of this thesis is to study the personalization of antibody-based immunotherapeutics and tools to predict their efficacy and safety.In paper I, we investigated a new method for predicting immune toxicity related to mAbs infusion, the whole blood loop assay (WBLA). The assay recapitulates the in vivo setting and harmonizes well with clinically validated cytokine release assays (CRAs) following agonistic mAbs infusion. We also demonstrated the robustness of the assay in studying complement-dependent cytotoxicity (CDC) and antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC).Rituximab, the first approved mAb for an oncology indication, is known to induce CRS occasionally. In paper II, the WBLA was used to profile the chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patients’ specific responses to rituximab infusion. We demonstrated rituximab-induced CRS profile and complement activation in blood from CLL patients but not in blood from healthy donors. We also noted that NK cells were a significant source of the rituximab-induced cytokine release. Using Fc mutant versions of rituximab, the mode-of-action of rituximab in whole blood with respect to CDC and ADCC was elaborated.In paper III, we presented a novel flexible peptide cancer vaccine platform based on an anti-CD40 agonistic antibody. The platform consists of a bispecific antibody targeting CD40 and peptide-tagged antigens. The bispecific antibody retained the agonistic activity of anti-CD40 and was superior to parental anti-CD40 mAb in targeting antigen cross-presentation and stimulating both CD8+ and CD4+ T cell responses.In paper IV, we investigated the feasibility of proximity-extension assay (PEA) plasma proteomic analysis in predicting response to checkpoint inhibitors (CPIs) in non-small cell lung cancer patients. CPIs show great success in the clinic. However, not all patients benefit from CPIs. Using an immuno-oncology protein panel, we demonstrated that high plasma levels of T cell activation proteins were associated with better survival. We also identified an association between the pre-CPI plasma levels of CXCL9, CXCL10, IL-15, ADA and Casp8 and the response to CPI therapy. In conclusion, this thesis demonstrates the feasibility of using the WBLA to assess antibody infusion efficacy and safety, as well as PEA plasma proteomics to predict response to CPI therapy. Additionally, it presents a novel approach for personalized therapeutic cancer vaccine delivery.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- Eriksson, Emma, et al.
(författare)
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Activation of myeloid and endothelial cells by CD40L gene therapy supports T-cell expansion and migration into the tumor microenvironment
- 2017
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Ingår i: Gene Therapy. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0969-7128 .- 1476-5462. ; 24:2, s. 92-103
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- CD40 is an interesting target in cancer immunotherapy due to its ability to stimulate T-helper 1 immunity via maturation of dendritic cells and to drive M2 to M1 macrophage differentiation. Pancreatic cancer has a high M2 content that has shown responsive to anti-CD40 agonist therapy and CD40 may thus be a suitable target for immune activation in these patients. In this study, a novel oncolytic adenovirus armed with a trimerized membrane-bound extracellular CD40L (TMZ-CD40L) was evaluated as a treatment of pancreatic cancer. Further, the CD40L mechanisms of action were elucidated in cancer models. The results demonstrated that the virus transferring TMZ-CD40L had oncolytic capacity in pancreatic cancer cells and could control tumor progression. TMZ-CD40L was a potent stimulator of human myeloid cells and T-cell responses. Further, CD40L-mediated stimulation increased tumor-infiltrating T cells in vivo, which may be due to a direct activation of endothelial cells to upregulate receptors for lymphocyte attachment and transmigration. In conclusion, CD40L-mediated gene therapy is an interesting concept for the treatment of tumors with high levels of M2 macrophages, such as pancreatic cancer, and an oncolytic virus as carrier of CD40L may further boost tumor killing and immune activation.
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