The insulin-like growth factor (IGF) signaling pathway is thought to play a major role in the etiology of breast cancer. Although incidence rates of breast cancer overall are lower in African Americans than in Caucasians, African-American women have a higher incidence under age 40 years, are diagnosed with more advanced disease, and have poorer prognosis. We investigated the association of breast cancer and genetic variants in genes in the IGF signaling pathway in a population-based case-control study of African-American women. We found significant associations at a locus encompassing parts of the IGFBP2 and IGFBP5 genes on chromosome 2q35, which we then replicated in a case-control study of Nigerian women. Based on those initial findings, we genotyped a total of 34 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the region in both study populations. Statistically significant associations with breast cancer were observed across approximately 50 kb of DNA sequence encompassing three exons in the 3' end of IGFBP2 and three exons in the 3' end of IGFBP5. SNPs were associated with breast cancer risk with P values as low as P = 0.0038 and P = 0.01 in African-Americans and Nigerians, respectively. This study is the first to report associations between genetic variants in IGFBP2 and IGFBP5 and breast cancer risk.

To investigate the association of repair gene POLI genetic polymorphisms with cervical carcinoma.

To assess the prognostic and predictive significance of HER-1/EGFR protein levels in high-risk patients with breast cancer treated with dose-dense sequential adjuvant chemotherapy.

Finasteride affects both prostate cancer risk and body weight. We examined whether, during 7 years of finasteride treatment, the magnitude of weight change was associated with the diagnosis of no, low-, or high-grade cancer.

This study aims to describe a population pharmacokinetic model for docetaxel in Asian breast cancer patients and to evaluate the effects of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in the cytochrome P450 3A (CYP3A) gene expression regulators, constitutive androstane receptor (CAR), pregnane X receptor (PXR), and hepatic nuclear factor 4alpha (HNF4alpha), on the pharmacokinetics of docetaxel.

In the first years of imatinib treatment, BCR-ABL remained detectable in all but a small minority of patients with chronic myeloid leukemia. We determined whether BCR-ABL continues to decline with longer imatinib exposure and the incidence and consequence of undetectable BCR-ABL.

To determine whether the clinical benefit of complete remission (CR) may depend on prognostic subgroups of patients with multiple myeloma.

Decitabine's mechanism of action in chronic myelomonocytic leukemia remains incompletely understood. We studied the dynamics of neoplastic cell clearance during decitabine treatment (100 mg/m(2) per course every 4 weeks) using quantitative monitoring of mutant alleles by pyrosequencing. Patients with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia were first screened for JAK2 and NPM1 mutations, and 3 patients with mutations were identified. Mutant allele percentages in mononuclear cell DNA were followed after treatment, along with methylation of LINE1 and 10 other genes. The clearance of mutant alleles was modest after the first cycle, despite induction of hypomethylation. Delayed substantial clearance was observed after 2 to 4 cycles that correlated with clinical response. Two patients had complete disappearance of mutant alleles and sustained clinical remissions. In another patient, mutant allele was detectable at clinical remission, which lasted for 8 months. Our data suggest a predominantly noncytotoxic mechanism of action for decitabine, leading to altered biology of the neoplastic clone and/or normal cells. This trial was registered at www.ClinicalTrials.gov as #NCT00067808.

We have previously described gene-expression signatures that predict growth inhibitory and cytotoxic effects of common chemotherapeutic drugs in vitro. The aim of this study was to confirm the validity of these gene-expression signatures in a large series of patients with oestrogen-receptor-negative breast tumours who were treated in a phase III neoadjuvant clinical trial.

Clomiphene and insulin sensitizers such as metformin are used to induce ovulation in polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), but the ovulatory response is variable, and the causes of this variation are poorly understood.

Chronic inflammation has been hypothesized to increase prostate cancer risk. Prostaglandin-endoperoxide synthase 2 (PTGS2) encodes the proinflammatory cyclooxygenase 2 enzyme believed to be the rate-limiting step in the synthesis of prostaglandins, important mediators of inflammation. We investigated associations between PTGS2 polymorphisms and prostate cancer risk among 2321 prostate cancer cases and 2560 controls in two large case-control studies nested within the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial and the Cancer Prevention Study II Nutrition Cohort. Five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs5277, rs20432, rs4648276, rs5275 and rs689470) were examined in SNP and haplotype analyses (five SNPs in PLCO and four SNPs in the Nutrition Cohort). In PLCO, the Ex10 +837 T>C marker (rs5275) was initially associated with prostate cancer risk (P-trend = 0.02) but became non-significant after adjustment for multiple comparisons (P = 0.08); this SNP showed no association with prostate cancer risk in the Nutrition Cohort (P-trend = 0.54) or in an analysis pooling the two cohorts (P-trend = 0.20). No other SNP was associated with prostate cancer risk in PLCO or the Nutrition Cohort individually or combined. Haplotype analyses suggested an association between PTGS2 variants in PLCO alone (global P = 0.007), but not in the Nutrition Cohort (global P = 0.78) or pooled analysis (global P = 0.18). In conclusion, despite the potential importance of inflammation in prostate carcinogenesis, results from our large study of five PTGS2 SNPs does not support a strong association between PTGS2 variants and prostate cancer risk in non-Hispanic white men.

Overexpression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) in gastric cancer has been shown to enhance tumor progression. We investigated whether silencing by promoter region hypermethylation of the COX-2 gene contributes to disease outcome in gastric cancer.

The response of tumor cells to platinum-based chemotherapy involves DNA repair mechanisms. Excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ercc1) is one of the leading genes involved in DNA repair, and several studies have linked ercc1 to platinum resistance in cell lines and in human cancers. A common single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) of ercc1 at codon 118 has been proposed to impair ercc1 translation and reduce ERCC1 protein expression and consequently influence the response to platinum-based chemotherapy. The primary aim of the present study was to evaluate ERCC1 expression and ercc1 codon 118 polymorphism in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) and their possible predictive value in patients treated with platinum-based chemotherapy. Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections from 159 patients with advanced EOC were used for immunohistochemistry. Ercc1 codon 118 SNP genotyping was performed by real-time polymerase chain reaction. ERCC1 protein overexpression was found in 37.7% of the tumors. The CA-125 response rate was 94.5% (52/55) in patients with ERCC1-negative tumors compared to 80% (36/45) in patients with ERCC1-positive tumors (P = 0.026, chi(2)). The T/T genotype (44%) signalized a better response to chemotherapy than C/C (15%) + C/T (41%) variants (P = 0.045, trend test). Patients with ERCC1-negative tumors appear to have significantly better response to platinum-based chemotherapy compared to patients with ERCC1-positive tumors, but the differences in response rates did not translate into differences in survival. In addition, the TT genotype seems to be favorable toward better response to platinum-based chemotherapy.

High-grade prostatic intraepithelial neoplasia (HGPIN) appears to represent an ideal target for chemoprevention of prostate cancer (PCa). HGPIN responds to androgen ablation and has prostate stem cell antigen (PSCA) mRNA expression. One hundred and seventy two patients with isolated HGPIN were randomized in a double-blind manner to receive flutamide 250 mg/day (86 cases) or a placebo (86 cases) for 12 months and were rebiopsied at 12 and 60 months. PSCA mRNA expression was assessed in the prestudy and 12-month biopsies by in situ hybridization. The incidence of subsequent PCa was 11.6% in the flutamide group when compared with 30.2% in the placebo group over a follow-up period of 5 years (p = 0.0027). PSCA mRNA expression levels were significantly declined after treatment compared with that before treatment (p < 0.001). After treatment, 66 patients had reduced PSCA mRNA expression, in whom none was found with cancer on follow-up, however, 13 cases had increased PSCA mRNA expression levels, in whom 11 were found with cancer. Cox regression analysis demonstrated that HGPIN with increased PSCA mRNA expression after flutamide had an increased relative risk of 4.33 to develop subsequent cancer (95% confidence intervals: 2.48-7.36; p < 0.001). Seventeen (19.8%) cases had the flutamide-associated side effects, which were graded as mild, but all did not discontinue study. Flutamide can effectively and safely reduce PCa development and significantly suppress PSCA mRNA expression in men with isolated HGPIN, whereas the increased PSCA mRNA expression after therapy may be a clinically adverse predictor for cancer onset.

We have genotyped 14,436 nonsynonymous SNPs (nsSNPs) and 897 major histocompatibility complex (MHC) tag SNPs from 1,000 independent cases of ankylosing spondylitis (AS), autoimmune thyroid disease (AITD), multiple sclerosis (MS) and breast cancer (BC). Comparing these data against a common control dataset derived from 1,500 randomly selected healthy British individuals, we report initial association and independent replication in a North American sample of two new loci related to ankylosing spondylitis, ARTS1 and IL23R, and confirmation of the previously reported association of AITD with TSHR and FCRL3. These findings, enabled in part by increased statistical power resulting from the expansion of the control reference group to include individuals from the other disease groups, highlight notable new possibilities for autoimmune regulation and suggest that IL23R may be a common susceptibility factor for the major 'seronegative' diseases.

Rituximab, an anti-CD20 monoclonal antibody, is widely used in the treatment of B-cell lymphoma. Some reports have outlined histologic modifications in bone marrow specimens from patients treated with this antibody, notably the presence of CD3(+) lymphoid aggregates morphologically mimicking residual lymphoma. To gain insight into the significance of such infiltrates, serial BM trephines obtained in 39 patients with B-cell follicular lymphoma treated by rituximab and enrolled in the GOELAMS-GELA intergroup FL2000 protocol were reexamined. The 39 patients were 22 women and 17 men with a median age of 50 years (range, 29-75 years). All pretreatment bone marrow biopsies showed CD20(+) lymphomatous cells. A second biopsy was obtained between 30 and 100 days after the last rituximab injection: 19 (48%) were morphologically diagnosed as negative (no lymphoid infiltrates or only minor lymphoid aggregates) and 20 (51%) as positive because of persistent lymphoid nodules. After immunohistochemical analysis, 13 (33%) cases were reinterpreted as false-positive because of the complete absence of CD20(+) cells, with the lymphoid nodules consisting of CD3(+) and CD5(+) T cells. Most of them also expressed CD4(+), whereas only a few CD8(+) cells were present. Among these 13 false-positive cases, 12 were BCL2-IGH polymerase chain reaction-negative in the bone marrow aspirate at the time of biopsy. The 13th case turned out to be negative in the 18th-month bone marrow aspirate. In all of these cases, lymphoid aggregates had disappeared on bone marrow biopsies performed 18 months after treatment. After a mean follow-up of 4.5 years, 9 of 13 patients were in remission as compared with only 2 among the 7 patients with postrituximab persistent CD20(+) lymphomatous cells. There was no statistically significant difference between this false-positive group of patients and that with negative postrituximab bone marrow regarding sex, age, medullar involvement pattern before treatment, delay between rituximab treatment, and molecular status. Interestingly, we noted a more favorable outcome (70% versus 52% remission) for the false-positive cases, suggesting that these T-cell reactions could be the hallmark of specific antitumoral immunity after rituximab treatment and should be properly investigated.

We examined the feasibility of using gene expression changes in human prostate epithelium as a measure of response to a dietary intervention.

Epidemiologic data suggest that increasing folate intake may protect against colorectal cancer. Riboflavin may interact with folate to modulate the effect. A double-blind randomized placebo-controlled intervention study (the FAB2 Study) was carried out in healthy controls and patients with colorectal polyps (adenomatous and hyperplastic) to examine effects of folic acid and riboflavin supplements on biomarkers of nutrient status and on putative biomarkers of colorectal cancer risk (DNA methylation and DNA damage; to be reported elsewhere). Ninety-eight healthy controls and 106 patients with colorectal polyps were stratified for the thermolabile variant of methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase, MTHFR C677T, and were randomized to receive 400 microg of folic acid, 1,200 microg of folic acid, or 400 microg of folic acid plus 5 mg of riboflavin or placebo for 6 to 8 weeks. Blood samples and colon biopsy samples were collected for the measurement of biomarkers of folate and riboflavin status. Supplementation with folic acid elicited a significant increase in mucosal 5-methyl tetrahydrofolate, and a marked increase in RBC and plasma, with a dose-response. Measures of riboflavin status improved in response to riboflavin supplementation. Riboflavin supplement enhanced the response to low-dose folate in people carrying at least one T allele and having polyps. The magnitude of the response in mucosal folate was positively related to the increase in plasma 5-methyl tetrahydrofolate but was not different between the healthy group and polyp patients. Colorectal mucosal folate concentration responds to folic acid supplementation to an extent comparable to that seen in plasma, but with a suggestion of an upper limit.

Some non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) progress to distant lymph nodes or metastasize while relatively small. Such small aggressive NSCLCs (SA-NSCLC) are no longer resectable with curative intent, carry a grave prognosis, and may involve unique biological pathways. This is a study of factors associated with SA-NSCLC.

The goal of the present study was to improve prediction of outcome after chemoradiation in advanced head and neck cancer using gene expression analysis.