Oncology

Efficacy and safety of endocrine therapy after mastectomy in patients with hormone receptor positive breast ductal carcinoma in situ: Retrospective cohort study

1. Nan Niu
2. Yinan Zhang
3. Yang Bai
4. Xin Wang
5. Shunchao Yan
6. Dong Song
7. Hong Xu
8. Tong Liu
9. Bin Hua
10. Yingchao Zhang
11. Jinchi Liu
12. Xinbo Qiao
13. Jiaxiang Liu
14. Xinyu Zheng
15. Hongyi Cao
16. Caigang Liu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This valuable study describes the effects of endocrine therapy in a large series of Chinese patients treated with mastectomy (both efficacy and side effects). Whilst there are some caveats regarding the methodology (retrospective, small numbers of events, and some potential methodological bias in data collection) this is a solid piece of work and with further, ideally prospective data collection, has the potential to improve the management of patients with DCIS.

Reviewed by eLife

Evidence for virus-mediated oncogenesis in bladder cancers arising in solid organ transplant recipients

1. Gabriel J Starrett
2. Kelly Yu
3. Yelena Golubeva
4. Petra Lenz
5. Mary L Piaskowski
6. David Petersen
7. Michael Dean
8. Ajay Israni
9. Brenda Y Hernandez
10. Thomas C Tucker
11. Iona Cheng
12. Lou Gonsalves
13. Cyllene R Morris
14. Shehnaz K Hussain
15. Charles F Lynch
16. Reuben S Harris
17. Ludmila Prokunina-Olsson
18. Paul S Meltzer
19. Christopher B Buck
20. Eric A Engels

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The fundamental work by Starret et al advances the understanding of the etiological roles of viruses and other environmental factors in bladder cancers after solid organ transplantation. The evidence is compelling using cutting edge sequencing approaches of patient samples. This work will be immediately interesting to multiple fields (of viral oncogenesis, BK polyomavirus (BKPyV) and JC polyomavirus (JCPyV), solid organ transplantation and whole genome and transcriptome sequencing) and may eventually influence care after organ transplantation.

Reviewed by eLife

The impact of lag time to cancer diagnosis and treatment on clinical outcomes prior to the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses

1. Parker Tope
2. Eliya Farah
3. Rami Ali
4. Mariam El-Zein
5. Wilson H Miller
6. Eduardo L Franco

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  The results of this work show a non-determinant effect of the COVID pandemic on the logistics of patient care from diagnosis to treatment modalities. The significance of this scoping review relates to the methodologic design of future outcome measures in cancer reporting that include time measurements between important clinical decision points or treatments in a standardized fashion. Without this standardization in reporting, comparisons to different length intervals are impossible and may have a significant impact on patient outcomes. The strength of the evidence is compelling, given the exhaustive nature of the literature review. This work should be seen by all oncologic units and research groups so that time benchmarks can be established that correlate to patient outcomes. These measurements require oncology society uptake and reporting to be effective.

Reviewed by eLife

Predicting progression-free survival after systemic therapy in advanced head and neck cancer: Bayesian regression and model development

1. Paul R Barber
2. Rami Mustapha
3. Fabian Flores-Borja
4. Giovanna Alfano
5. Kenrick Ng
6. Gregory Weitsman
7. Luigi Dolcetti
8. Ali Abdulnabi Suwaidan
9. Felix Wong
10. Jose M Vicencio
11. Myria Galazi
12. James W Opzoomer
13. James N Arnold
14. Selvam Thavaraj
15. Shahram Kordasti
16. Jana Doyle
17. Jon Greenberg
18. Magnus T Dillon
19. Kevin J Harrington
20. Martin Forster
21. Anthony CC Coolen
22. Tony Ng

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Barber et al present a manuscript discussing predictive factors for chemotherapy efficacy in head and neck squamous cancer (HNSCC). The paper is well written, and its style/formatting are optimal. The baseline signature moderately predicted outcome, and the data after one cycle further improved the algorithm, though this decreases its utility as a pure predictive tool. It is interesting that a subpopulation of monocytes, a subset of white peripheral cells long suspected to correlate with outcomes in HNSCC was one of the key drivers of the algorithm. However the overall impact in the field of this work seems limited by a number of factors, including that the authors focused on immune cell subpopulations and exosomes, which narrows the scope (no cytokines or other biomarkers were included); the signatures were not prospectively validated on an independent cohort; the algorithm was developed around a first-line therapy that is no longer considered to be the standard of care for HNSCC; and, while most of the conclusions are supported by the data, some of the caveats (such as the lack of a validation cohort, key in predictive biomarker development), are not addressed.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Pancreatic cancer symptom trajectories from Danish registry data and free text in electronic health records

1. Jessica Xin Hjaltelin
2. Sif Ingibergsdóttir Novitski
3. Isabella Friis Jørgensen
4. Troels Siggaard
5. Siri Amalie Vulpius
6. David Westergaard
7. Julia Sidenius Johansen
8. Inna M Chen
9. Lars Juhl Jensen
10. Søren Brunak

• Curated by eLife

  eLife assessment

  This study presents valuable findings on the symptoms and disease trajectories preceding a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in Denmark. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although an error analysis of the text mining evaluation results and a discussion on how the findings can be applied in practice would strengthen the study. The work will be of interest to public health researchers and clinicians working on pancreatic cancer.

Reviewed by eLife

Decoding mitochondrial genes in pediatric AML and development of a novel prognostic mitochondrial gene signature

1. Shilpi Chaudhary
2. Shuvadeep Ganguly
3. Jayanth Kumar Palanichamy
4. Archna Singh
5. Dibyabhaba Pradhan
6. Radhika Bakhshi
7. Anita Chopra
8. Sameer Bakhshi

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Chaudhary and colleagues follow up their preliminary study on mitochondrial genome copy number in AML with this current study by looking if the expression of specific genes encoding mitochondrial components could provide further insight into AML prognosis. Multivariate analysis was used to identify those genes whose expression was prognostic of patient outcome, which led to the identification of three mitochondrial genes whose expression was used to build a multivariate risk model for childhood AML patients. Altogether, the work by Chaudhary and colleagues interestingly builds on their previous work and suggests that mitochondria may influence AML outcomes, and measuring mitochondrial parameters may help assess patient risk. However, the authors will need to identify the novelty of their findings over the previous reports from their own group.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Use of antihypertensive drugs and breast cancer risk: a two-sample Mendelian randomization study

1. Guoqiao Zheng
2. Subhayan Chattopadhyay
3. Jan Sundquist
4. Kristina Sundquist
5. Jianguang Ji

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Results from observational studies examining an association between the antihypertensive drugs and the risk of breast cancer reported inconsistent findings. This study uses a two-sample Mendelian randomization approach (MR), which overcomes the limitation of observational studies by using genetic variants as a proxy for modifiable exposures, to investigate the relationship between the use of antihypertensive medication and breast cancer risk. Using publicly available data and including a comprehensive assessment of antihypertensive drugs, the authors identified two SNPs that were associated with breast cancer risk. While the findings suggest that antihypertensive medication use may be associated with breast cancer risk, there are some methodological issues that need to be addressed.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife

Immune Profiling Uncovers Memory T-Cell Responses with a Th17 Signature in Cancer Patients with Previous SARS-CoV-2 Infection Followed by mRNA Vaccination

1. Miriam Echaide
2. Ibone Labiano
3. Marina Delgado
4. Angela Fernández de Lascoiti
5. Patricia Ochoa
6. Maider Garnica
7. Pablo Ramos
8. Luisa Chocarro
9. Leticia Fernández
10. Hugo Arasanz
11. Ana Bocanegra
12. Ester Blanco
13. Sergio Piñeiro-Hermida
14. Pilar Morente
15. Ruth Vera
16. Maria Alsina
17. David Escors
18. Grazyna Kochan

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Is cancer significant comorbid condition in COVID 19 infected patients? -A retrospective analysis experienced in a tertiary care center in Eastern India

1. Kalyan K. Mukherjee
2. Aniruddha Dam
3. Deepa Chakrabarti
4. Debasish Jatu
5. Saubhik Sengupta
6. Rita Dutta
7. Suparna Majumdar
8. Shyam Sundar Mandal
9. Biswarup Basu
10. Pratiti Bhattacharjee
11. Dattatreya Mukherjee
12. Sankar Sengupta
13. Jayanta Chakrabarti

Reviewed by ScreenIT

Evolution-based mathematical models significantly prolong response to abiraterone in metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer and identify strategies to further improve outcomes

1. Jingsong Zhang
2. Jessica Cunningham
3. Joel Brown
4. Robert Gatenby

• Curated by eLife

  Evaluation Summary:

  Zhang et al use evolution-guided mathematical models to guide the timing and dosing of arbiterone treatment in castrate-resistant prostate cancer. While the sample size is limited, the implications of the study outcome are broad and compelling, and the paper importantly highlights the transformative potential of deeply interdisciplinary research.

  (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Reviewed by eLife