Oncology

Safety and Efficacy of Chimeric Antigen Receptor T-cell Therapy for Recurrent Glioblastoma: An Augmented Meta-analysis of Phase 1 Clinical Trials

1. Ahmed Y. Azzam
2. Mahmoud M. Morsy
3. Mohammed A. Azab
4. Osman Elamin
5. Adam Elswedy
6. Omar S. Ahmed
7. Mahmoud Nassar
8. Ahmed Saad Al Zomia
9. Adham A. Mohamed
10. Oday Atallah
11. Ahmed Alamoud
12. Hammam A. Alotaibi
13. Hana J. Abukhadijah
14. Abdulqadir J Nashwan

Reviewed by PREreview

Efficacy and safety of neoadjuvant stereotactic body radiation therapy plus dalpiciclib and exemestane for hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer: A prospective pilot study

1. Yu Zhang
2. Shuo Cao
3. Nan Niu
4. Huilian Shan
5. Jinqi Xue
6. Guanglei Chen
7. Yongqing Xu
8. Jianqiao Yin
9. Chao Liu
10. Lisha Sun
11. Xiaofan Jiang
12. Meiyue Tang
13. Qianshi Xu
14. Mingxuan Jia
15. Xu Zhang
16. Zhenyong Zhang
17. Qingfu Zhang
18. Jianfei Wang
19. Ailin Li
20. Yongliang Yang
21. Caigang Liu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The study evaluates the feasibility, safety, and tolerability of neoadjuvant radiotherapy followed by a CDK4/6 inhibitor (dalpiciclib) and hormonal therapy in treatment-naive patients with unilateral early-stage HR+/HER2- breast cancer. The findings are convincing, with a strong scientific rationale supported by integrated correlative studies. The trial is considered to be important as the outcomes could inform the design of larger, future studies. The strength of the conclusions should be tempered as the study included only a small cohort of patients (n=12) and was not adequately powered to definitively assess the efficacy or safety of this combinatorial treatment approach.

Reviewed by eLife

Pyrotinib after trastuzumab-based adjuvant therapy in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer (PERSIST): A multicenter phase II trial

1. Feilin Cao
2. Zhaosheng Ma
3. Zenggui Wu
4. Weizhu Wu
5. Ouchen Wang
6. Binbin Cui
7. Xiaotao Zhu
8. Jing Hao
9. Xiaochun Ji
10. Zhanwen Li
11. Deyou Tao
12. Qingjing Feng
13. Wei Lin
14. Dongbo Shi
15. Jingde Shu
16. Jichun Zhou
17. Shifen Huang

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study provides valuable insights into the efficacy and safety of pyrotinib as an extended adjuvant therapy following trastuzumab-based treatment in patients with high-risk HER2-positive breast cancer. The strength of evidence is solid, supported by the multicenter phase II trial design, which included a substantial number of patients across 23 centers in China. However, the single-arm study design without a control group limits the ability to draw definitive conclusions about the comparative effectiveness of pyrotinib.

Reviewed by eLife

A large-scale proteomics resource of circulating extracellular vesicles for biomarker discovery in pancreatic cancer

1. Bruno Bockorny
2. Lakshmi Muthuswamy
3. Ling Huang
4. Marco Hadisurya
5. Christine Maria Lim
6. Leo L Tsai
7. Ritu R Gill
8. Jesse L Wei
9. Andrea J Bullock
10. Joseph E Grossman
11. Robert J Besaw
12. Supraja Narasimhan
13. Weiguo Andy Tao
14. Sofia Perea
15. Mandeep S Sawhney
16. Steven D Freedman
17. Manuel Hildago
18. Anton Iliuk
19. Senthil K Muthuswamy

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors analyze a comprehensive cohort of human plasma samples to identify an extracellular vesicles protein signature for early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. The application of liquid biopsies is valuable, and the work addresses a key clinical problem as pancreas cancer is often diagnosed in late stages. The strength of evidence is solid. Altogether, this work supports the potential use of extracellular vesicles in clinical settings, with promising value to scientists and clinicians.

Reviewed by eLife

Different treatment durations of loperamide in preventing pyrotinib-induced diarrhea: A randomized, parallel-group sub-study of the phase II PHAEDRA trial

1. Changjun Wang
2. Yan Lin
3. Ying Xu
4. Feng Mao
5. Jinghong Guan
6. Xuejing Wang
7. Yanna Zhang
8. Xiaohui Zhang
9. Songjie Shen
10. Ying Zhong
11. Bo Pan
12. Li Peng
13. Xin Huang
14. Xi Cao
15. Ru Yao
16. Xintong Zhou
17. Zecheng He
18. Yuhan Liu
19. Jie Lang
20. Chenggang Li
21. Yidong Zhou
22. Qiang Sun

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents a useful finding for the prevention of diarrhea with loperamide in patients with early HER2-positive breast cancer treated with nab-paclitaxel in combination with pyrotinib. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is somewhat incomplete. The enrollment of patients as a control group who have not received prophylactic treatment for diarrhea would have strengthened the study, and the addition of double-blinding for the assessment of treatment may be necessary. The work will be of interest to scientists working in the field of clinical breast cancer treatment.

Reviewed by eLife

Machine learning and biological validation identify sphingolipids as potential mediators of paclitaxel-induced neuropathy in cancer patients

1. Jörn Lötsch
2. Khayal Gasimli
3. Sebastian Malkusch
4. Lisa Hahnefeld
5. Carlo Angioni
6. Yannick Schreiber
7. Sandra Trautmann
8. Saskia Wedel
9. Dominique Thomas
10. Nerea Ferreiros Bouzas
11. Christian H Brandts
12. Benjamin Schnappauf
13. Christine Solbach
14. Gerd Geisslinger
15. Marco Sisignano

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  Sisigano et al. report findings about the role of sphingolipids using lipidomics with machine learning in paclitaxel-induced peripheral neuropathy and preliminary translation of the impact of SA1P in cultured neuronal cells. This study presents a valuable finding on the increased activity of two well-studied signal transduction pathways in a subtype of breast cancer. The significance is limited by incomplete evidence which can be addressed in larger clinical cohorts in the future and with more robust biological validation approaches.

Reviewed by eLife

Conditional Survival and Nomogram for Elderly Non-Metastatic Colon Cancer Patients Following Colectomy

1. Yadong Gao
2. Huimin Wang
3. Yi Zhang
4. Jing Zhao
5. Sujuan Feng
6. Jianwei Qiu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This useful work provides a risk-prediction tool, in the form of a nomogram, for practitioners and elderly patients with non-metastatic colon cancer using data from the SEER registry. The unique contribution of this work is the focus on conditional survival. However, the underlying statistical approach is suboptimal and therefore incomplete, which substantially lessens the potential impact of this work. The analysis could use a more rigorous consideration of competing risks.

Reviewed by eLife

Ultra-low coverage fragmentomic model of cell-free DNA for cancer detection based on whole-exome regions

1. Apiwat Sangphukieo
2. Pitiporn Noisagul
3. Patcharawadee Thongkumkoon
4. Parunya Chaiyawat

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study provides useful insights for anyone focusing on exonic regions when looking into the investigation of DNA fragmentation patterns (fragmentomics) for circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) data for cancer detection. The method expands the DELFI method of Cristiano and colleagues (2019), but the datasets chosen are not ideal and the analysis remains incomplete.

Reviewed by eLife

Dynamic analysis of circulating tumor DNA to predict the prognosis and monitor the treatment response of patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer: A prospective study

1. Yajing Chi
2. Mu Su
3. Dongdong Zhou
4. Fangchao Zheng
5. Baoxuan Zhang
6. Ling Qiang
7. Guohua Ren
8. Lihua Song
9. Bing Bu
10. Shu Fang
11. Bo Yu
12. Jinxing Zhou
13. Jinming Yu
14. Huihui Li

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This prospective study advances our understanding of the predictive role of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in the prognosis and of patients with mTNBC as well as other cancers. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing with rigorous analysis of the association between ctDNA (ctDNA-positive or not) with the progression-free survival (PFS) of patients. However, there are a few areas in which the article may be improved through further analysis of the clinical outcome and elaboration of the prospective study (i.e., the inclusion and exclusion criteria of the patients). The work will be of broad interest to clinicians, medical researchers and scientists working in cancers.

Reviewed by eLife