Antineoplastic Agents, Hormonal ; therapeutic use ; Breast Neoplasms ; chemistry ; drug therapy ; Female ; Humans

Purpose:To investigate the prognostic factors for breast cancer patients with liver involvement.Methods:114 breast cancer patients with liver metastases,who were hospitalized in Fudan University Cancer Hospital between January,1996 and December,2003,were included in this study.Their survival data were analyzed.Results:The response rates with first-,second-,third-,fourth-line chemotherapy were 31.9%,27.8%,16.7% and 0%,respectively.Univariate analyses indicated that patients with impaired liver function and patients with a short interval between surgery and the first recurrence or metastasis had a poor prognosis.Multivariate analyses suggested that the presence of liver function impairment was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival.Conclusions:The response rates of chemotherapy drop with number of lines of chemotherapy.Breast cancer patients with liver involvement and impaired liver function have a poor prognosis.

Objective To fully assess the status of cancer chemotherapy quality of secondary and tertiary hospitals in Shanghai City in order to improve the quality control system of cancer chemotherapy.Method According to the supervision plan of Shanghai Cancer Chemotherapy Quality Control Center,all of the 103 secondary and tertiary hospitals in Shanghai City which administrated chemotherapy to cancer patients have been inspected in 2015.SPSS13.0 was used for data aggregation and analysis.Result The cancer chemotherapy quality was significantly different between the secondary and tertiary hospitals,as well as between the oncoiogy and non-oncology departments,the main problems were as follow.:the informed consent content was incomplete (33.04％);pathological diagnosis was incomplete or missing (15.50％);tumor stage was not standardized or no staging (56.27％);the chemotherapy purposes (42.44％) and the chemotherapy indications (37.47％) and contraindications (12.21％) were incomplete or missing;the evaluation of chemotherapy efficacy was incomplete or not evaluated (24.10％);the mid-term assessment was incomplete or not evaluated (27.72％);admission history (16.28％) and records of the chemotherapy day (32.04％) were incomplete or missing.Conclusion The quality of medical records of cancer chem0therapy in Shanghai City is significantly related to hospital level and specialty.The hospital authorities should learn the quality control standards based on their own problems.

Recent researches indicated that cyclooxygena se -2 (COX-2) expression was related not only to development of breast cancer but also to clinicopathological parameters and prognosis of advanced breast cancer. The preclinical and clinical studies on the use of selective COX-2 inhibitors f or the prevention and treatment of breast cancer have become the focus of invest igation.

Mutation, translocation and loss of some genes have been known to contribute to chemoresistance, epigenetic mechanisms may also play an important role. About 29 000 CpG islands are primarily distributed in the promoter and the first exon regions of protein coding genes in normal cells. However, cancer cells exhibit significant changes in terms of DNA methylation, which can be summarized as global hypomethylation of the genome accompanied by focal hypermethylation. The relationship between aberrant methylation of gene in the promoter and chemoresistance was discussed in the review. A brief summary was also introduced with regard to the advances how in reversing aberrant methylation and overcoming chemoresistance.

Purpose:To evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of imatinib mesylate (STI571) in the treatment of unresectable and/or metastatic gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST).Methods:Ten patients with unresectable and/or metastatic GIST received imatinib at doses of 400 mg qd.Results:Among 9 evaluable patients, 4 achieved a partial response and 4 had stable disease. Ten patients were evaluable for toxicities. The nonhaematological toxicities included edema (mainly periorbital edema), abdominal pain, diarrhoea, nausea/vomiting, fatigue, intratumoural bleeding, intermittent muscle cramps and conjunctivitis. Myelosuppression was an infrequent side effect.Conclusions:Imatinib mesylate is an inhibitor of tyrosine kinase and has been proven to be active in patients with unresectable or metastatic GIST. Toxicity is acceptable.

Background and purpose:Gemcitabine-based chemotherapy has been shown to have signiifcant activity and favourable safety in metastatic breast cancer patients, but the effectiveness is limited due to drug resistance. MicroRNAs are a family of small non-coding RNA molecules, acting as oncogenes or tumor suppressors. Although various mechanisms of chemoresistance have been uncovered, the aberrant microRNA expression and its relationship with drug resistance of breast cancer are still unclear. This study explored the potential role and underlying mechanism of microRNA-21 in gemcitabine resistant breast cancer. Methods:MDA-MB-231 cells were continuously exposed to the increasing concentrations of gemcitabine to induce drug resistance to gemcitabine, which was 10 times more resis-tant. Then multiple methods were used including real-time PCR (RT-PCR), CCK-8, Western blot, transfection, wound healing and Transwell assay to observe the effect of microRNA-21 on epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and chemosensitivity. Results:The expression of microRNA-21 was up-regulated in gemcitabine resistant breast cancer cell line and inversely correlated with gemcitabine sensitivity. Manipulation of microRNA-21 status could change microR-NA-21 level, and could result in corresponding changes in EMT status and drug sensitivity. Conclusion:MicroRNA-21 induces gemcitabine resistance possibly via EMT process in breast cancer.

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC), as a special molecular subtype of breast cancer, is non-responsive to endocrine therapy or commercially available targeted therapy. It is characterized by early recurrence, rapid progression and poor prognosis. This systemic and comprehensive overview was focused on recent progress on molecular subtyping of triple negative breast cancer and its possible clinical value, chemotherapeutic agents and chemotherapy regimens, and combination of chemotherapy with potential molecular targeting agents.

CYP2D6 is one of the cytochrome P450 isozymes which are involved in the metabolism of various drugs with wide use. Polymorphism at the CYP2D6 locus is one of the most widely known causes for pharmacogenetic variability in humans beings. This review focuses on the importance of CYP2D6 polymorphism in the metabolism of tamoxifen, relationships between the genetic polymorphism and prognosis of patients who have underwent endocrine therapy, and evidences indicating that CYP2D6 may be used as a predictive marker for choosing optimal endocrine therapy for patients with breast cancer.