February 15 Clinical Cancer Research Highlights

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Selected Articles from the February 15, 2007 Issue

The articles referenced in this Highlights section will be available online in HTML and PDF formats to all interested users at no charge until the next issue of Clinical Cancer Research is published. Click on the article title to view the complete article.

View the Table of Contents for the February 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

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Circulating Tumor Cells Predict Metastases  

Schuster et al.
Page 1171

To determine the prognostic relevance of circulating tumor cells in patients with high-risk primary uveal melanoma, blood samples from 110 patients were analysed for the mRNA expression of tyrosinase and MelanA/MART1. The reverse transcription-PCR assay yielded a positive result in 10% of patients. In a Cox proportional hazard model, Schuster et al. found that the presence of circulating tumor cells was the strongest predictor for metastases and the most significant parameter for disease-specific survival. They suggest that the reverse transcription-PCR assay for circulating tumor cells might be used to select patients for adjuvant treatment studies.

 

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Salivating for Earlier Diagnosis

Righini et al.
Page 1179

Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) prognosis has not improved markedly; one of the reasons is the high frequency and the late diagnosis of locoregional relapses that are not curable if the tumor is too large. Gene methylation is detectable in malignant cells collected in saliva. Righini et al. describe a methylation profile observed in more than 75% of HNSCC, both in tumor and saliva. Furthermore, they have shown prospectively that detection of gene methylation in saliva preceded by a few months the clinical or FDG-PET diagnosis of relapse and might represent a promising biomarker to detect early and still potentially curable relapses.

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Multigene Profiling May Predict Resistance in Early Breast Cancer

Harris et al.
Page 1198

As trastuzumab is an effective but expensive therapy with serious toxicities, new markers are needed to determine which patients are most likely to benefit in the adjuvant setting. Harris et al. assessed pathologic complete response, clinical response, feasibility, safety, and potential predictors of response to preoperative trastuzumab plus vinorelbine in patients with operable HER2-positive breast cancer. The investigators concluded that preoperative trastuzumab plus vinorelbine is active and well tolerated in patients with HER2-positive, operable, stage II/III breast cancer. HER2-overexpressing tumors with a basal-like phenotype, or with expression of IGF-1R and other proteins involved in growth factor pathways, are more likely to be resistant to this regimen. Dr. Carlos Arteaga commented on the authors’ findings in an editorial on page 1071. 

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CABYR Expressed in Lung Cancer

Luo et al.
Page 1288

CABYR was initially reported to be a testis-specific protein and subsequently shown to be present in brain tumors. To determine whether CABYR is a novel cancer-testis antigen, Luo et al. analyzed the expression and immunogenicity of CABYR in lung cancer patients. They found that CABYR was frequently expressed in lung cancer tissues, but not in adjacent noncancerous tissues. IgG antibodies specific to CABYR were detected in sera from a portion of the patients, but not in sera from healthy donors. Their data suggest that CABYR is a novel cancer-testis antigen in lung cancer and a possible target for immunotherapy.

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