Background: We evaluated the effectiveness of gemcitabine and paclitaxel therapy in patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma for whom two lines of sequential chemotherapy had been unsuccessful.

Methods: A total number of 105 patients who had previously received first-line chemotherapy consisting of gemcitabine and cisplatin or carboplatin, were treated with second-line gemcitabine and docetaxel therapy between June 2006 and May 2015. Of these patients, 15 with an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status of 0 or 1 were administered gemcitabine and paclitaxel as third-line treatment from 2013 after failure of the second-line therapy. For each 21-day cycle, gemcitabine (1000 mg/m²) was administered on days 1, 8, and 15, and paclitaxel (200 mg/m²) on day 1. Patients were assessed for each cycle and any adverse events were noted. Furthermore, a Short Form Health Survey questionnaire was used to assess each patient’s quality of life.

Results: Third-line gemcitabine and paclitaxel treatment cycles were undertaken for a median of four times (range 2–9). The disease control rate was 80.0%. After second-line gemcitabine and docetaxel therapy was completed, median progression-free survival and median overall survival were determined as 9.8 and 13.0 months, respectively. The only prognostic factor for overall survival, as determined by univariate and multivariate analyses, was third-line gemcitabine and paclitaxel therapy. Neutropenia (66.7%) and thrombocytopenia (53.3%) were noted as the grade 3 treatment-related toxicities. After two cycles of third-line gemcitabine and paclitaxel therapy, the pre- and post-treatment quality of life scores did not differ significantly.

Conclusions: Results demonstrate that third-line combination therapy using gemcitabine and paclitaxel is a feasible option for metastatic urothelial carcinoma patients.

The immune-stromal cell interactions play a key role in health and diseases.In periodontitis,the most prevalent infectious disease in humans,immune cells accumulate in the oral mucosa and promote bone destruction by inducing receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB ligand(RANKL)expression in osteogenic cells such as osteoblasts and periodontal ligament cells.However,the detailed mechanism underlying immune-bone cell interactions in periodontitis is not fully understood.Here,we performed single-cell RNA-sequencing analysis on mouse periodontal lesions and showed that neutrophil-osteogenic cell crosstalk is involved in periodontitis-induced bone loss.The periodontal lesions displayed marked infiltration of neutrophils,and in silico analyses suggested that the neutrophils interacted with osteogenic cells through cytokine production.Among the cytokines expressed in the periodontal neutrophils,oncostatin M(OSM)potently induced RANKL expression in the primary osteoblasts,and deletion of the OSM receptor in osteogenic cells significantly ameliorated periodontitis-induced bone loss.Epigenomic data analyses identified the OSM-regulated RANKL enhancer region in osteogenic cells,and mice lacking this enhancer showed decreased periodontal bone loss while maintaining physiological bone metabolism.These findings shed light on the role of neutrophils in bone regulation during bacterial infection,highlighting the novel mechanism underlying osteoimmune crosstalk.