Photodynamic therapy in vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia

Abstract Introduction: Vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia may lead to vulvar cancer. Vulvar cancer is a rare (accounting for about 2,5-5% of all malignant neoplasms), female genital organs cancer. Photodynamic therapy is a new treatment for a wide variety of malignancies and premalignant dysplasias. We wanted to examine the effectiveness of photodynamic therapy (PDT) on vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN). Design: The aim of the study was to analyze the effectiveness of photodynamic therapy (PDT) on vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN). Material and methods: We have analyzed 20 women with VIN, who were treated in our center - Clinic of Vulvar Diseases. All these women had photodynamic diagnosis (PDD), photodynamic therapy followed (PDT), with 5% ALA applied to the entire vulva. Conclusions: We have noted the reduction of subjective complaints, but the histopathological improvement was observed in fewer degree

The mask of duodenal tumor in the course of colon cancer

Rak dwunastnicy należy do najrzadszych nowotworów przewodu pokarmowego. W każdym przypadku podejrzenia pierwotnego nowotworu dwunastnicy należy rozważyć możliwość, czy jest to nowotwór wychodzący z innego narządu, z wtórnym zajęciem dwunastnicy. Autorzy niniejszej pracy przedstawiają przypadek raka zagięcia wątrobowego jelita grubego z przetoką okrężniczo-dwunastniczą i naciekaniem dwunastnicy, przebiegającego pod maską raka dwunastnicy.Duodenal cancers are the most rare neoplasms of the digestive duct. Every time when we suspect primary duodenal neoplasm, we should consider the possibility, that in fact it is a neoplasm of a different origin site, secondarily infiltrating the duodenum. We present a case of cancer of the hepatic flexure of the colon, accompanied by a colo-duodenal fistula, infiltrating the duodenum, which could be misdiagnosed as duodenal cancer

Rzadka anomalia rozwojowa wyrostka kolczystego kręgu szyjnego (hiperplazja wyrostka kolczystego kręgu C5) : opis przypadku

Background: Hyperplasia of a spinous process on a cervical vertebra is a very rare developmental anomaly of the spine. Case Report: A patient, without any distinct disorders in cervical spine mobility, presented with hyperplasia of the right part of a spinous process of vertebra C5 in the form of an osseous structure near the right side of cervical vertebra C5, positioned from the upper-medial to the lateral-inferior direction and vanishing close to the transversal process of thoracic vertebra Th1, visible by radiogram. Conclusion: It seems that hyperplasia of a spinous process does not cause any significant disorders in spine mobility with subsequent clinical symptoms

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival