Oncology

Endoscopic liquid biopsies of gastric fluid in a large patient cohort reveal DNA content as a candidate tumor biomarker in gastric cancer

1. Francine Carla Cadoná
2. Thais F Bartelli
3. Adriane Graicer Pelosof
4. Claudia Zitron Sztokfisz
5. Adriana Passos Bueno
6. Luana Batista do Carmo dos Santos
7. Gabriela Pereira Branco
8. Gabriel Oliveira dos Santos
9. Warley Abreu Nunes
10. Fernanda Araújo Pintor
11. Laís Lie Senda de Abrantes
12. Alexandre Defelicibus
13. Luiz Gonzaga Vaz Coelho
14. Marcis Leja
15. Haejin In
16. Sharon Li
17. Howard Hochster
18. Felipe José Fernandez Coimbra
19. Rodrigo D Drummond
20. Israel Tojal da Silva
21. Ravi J Chokshi
22. Renata Pasqualini
23. Wadih Arap
24. Diana Noronha Nunes
25. Emmanuel Dias-Neto

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This paper reports a valuable finding that gastric fluid DNA content can be used as a potential biomarker for human gastric cancer. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although an inclusion of explanations for the methodological limitations, moderate diagnostic performance, and the unexpected survival correlation would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to medical biologists working in the field of breast cancer.

Reviewed by eLife

Human multiethnic radiogenomics reveals low-abundancy microRNA signature in plasma-derived extracellular vesicles for early diagnosis and molecular subtyping of pancreatic cancer

1. Jianying Xu
2. Wenjie Shi
3. Yi Zhu
4. Chao Zhang
5. Julia Nagelschmitz
6. Maximilian Doelling
7. Sara Al-Madhi
8. Ujjwal Mukund Mahajan
9. Maciej Pech
10. Georg Rose
11. Roland Siegfried Croner
12. Guoliang Zheng
13. Christoph Kahlert
14. Ulf Dietrich Kahlert

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors attempt to identify which patients with benign lesions will progress to cancer using a liquid biomarker. Although the study is valuable, the evidence provided for the liquid biopsy EV miRNA signature developed based on radiomics features remains incomplete. There remain key details missing and validation experiments that would better support the conclusions of the study.

Reviewed by eLife

Serum, Cell-Free, HPV-Human DNA Junction Detection and HPV Typing for Predicting and Monitoring Cervical Cancer Recurrence

1. Anne Van Arsdale
2. Olga Mescheryakova
3. Sonia Gallego
4. Elaine C Maggi
5. Bryan Harmon
6. Dennis YS Kuo
7. Koenraad Van Doorslaer
8. Mark H Einstein
9. Brian J Haas
10. Cristina Montagna
11. Jack Lenz

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is a valuable study that suggests that HPV-human DNA junctions can be identified from cfDNA in women with cervical cancer and that detection of these junctions is indicative of recurrence. The evidence supporting the conclusions is incomplete, in part because the numbers of reads identifying breakpoints in tumor samples or in circulating cell-free serum samples are not provided. More quantitative analysis will be required to confirm that the breakpoints represented in cell-free DNA can be used as a surrogate to monitor the recurrence of cervical cancer cells, and additional patient studies would also be needed to strengthen the study. This work will be of interest to those who study and treat cervical cancer as well as other HPV-related malignancies.

Reviewed by eLife

Gamma Knife stereotactic radiotherapy combined with tislelizumab as later-line therapy in pMMR/MSS/MSI-L metastatic colorectal cancer: a phase II trial analysis

1. Yiran Zhang
2. Hanyang Guan
3. Shijin Liu
4. Haoquan Li
5. Zili Bian
6. Jiashuai He
7. Zhan Zhao
8. Shenghui Qiu
9. Tianmu Mo
10. Xiangwei Zhang
11. Zuyang Chen
12. Hui Ding
13. Xiaoxu Zhao
14. Liang Wang
15. Yunlong Pan
16. Jinghua Pan

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study found Gamma Knife SBRT combined with tislelizumab offers a safe and powerful later-line option for pMMR/MSS/MSI-L metastatic CRC patients who were unresponsive to the first and second-line chemotherapy. The authors implemented a well-structured experimental protocol and provide convincing evidence to substantiate the conclusions. This work would be of broad interest to oncologists working on colorectal cancer.

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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 limitations of the study have been acknowledged and outlined in this manuscript, which include only a small cohort of patients (n=12), which 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

  The study by Ma et al. provides fundamental findings and compelling evidence that Pyrotinib after trastuzumab-based adjuvant therapy in patients with HER2-positive breast cancer (PERSIST): A multicenter phase II trial. The findings enhance the understanding of HER2-positive breast cancer. The claims are fully supported by the types of experiments that were performed.

Reviewed by eLife

Early Diagnosis and Prognostic Prediction of Colorectal Cancer through Plasma Methylation Regions

1. Lingqin Zhu
2. Lang Yang
3. Fangli Men
4. Jianwei Yu
5. Shuyang Sun
6. Chenguang Li
7. Xianzong Ma
8. Junfeng Xu
9. Yangjie Li
10. Ju Tian
11. Xin Wang
12. Hui Xie
13. Qian Kang
14. Linghui Duan
15. Xiang Yi
16. Wei Guo
17. Xueqing Gong
18. Ni Guo
19. Youyong Lu
20. Joseph Leung
21. Yuqi He
22. Jianqiu Sheng

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents an important finding that has identified 27 differentially methylated regions as a signature for non-invasive early cancer detection and predicting prognosis for colorectal cancer. The findings demonstrate promising clinical potential, particularly for improving cancer screening and patient monitoring. However, the evidence supporting the claims of the authors is incomplete due to a small sample size and some methodological concerns. The work will be of interest to researchers interested in cancer diagnosis or colorectal cancer monitoring.

Reviewed by eLife

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

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