Spatial Autoregressive Models for House Price Dynamics in Italy

This paper elaborates a Spatial Autoregressive and Spatial Error Model (SAR-SE Model) to investigate the Italian house price dynamics. House prices in real terms have been modelled for the period 1995-2008 in all the 103 Italian provinces along with affordability ratio, persistency term, some social-economic variables and credit market variables. One of the key results of this paper, is the evidence on house price spatial autocorrelation, verified through the Baltagi, Song and Koh (2003) LM test. On the contrary, no evidence of housing price overvaluation has been found, in comparison with the fundamental values determined by interest rates, households income, rents, employment and construction cost.house prices, fundamentals, mean reversion, serial correlation, spatial dependence

Prognostic value of normal sodium levels in patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma receiving tyrosine kinase inhibitors

Background: Although serum sodium concentration, particularly hyponatremia, has been shown to be a prognostic marker of survival in metastatic renal cell carcinoma (mRCC), the impact of normal sodium levels has not been investigated. Herein, we investigate the influence of normonatremia in mRCC patients treated with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs). Materials and methods: For this retrospective study, the clinical and biochemical data of patients treated with first-line TKIs for mRCC were available from seven Italian cancer centers. We collected natremia levels at baseline and first evaluation after treatment excluding patients with sodium levels outside the normal range (<135 or >145 mEq/L). The remaining patients were subdivided into two groups according to the median sodium value: natremia patients with <140 mEq/L (n = 132) and baseline natremia patients with ≥140 mEq/L (n = 185). Subsequently, we analyzed the impact of sodium levels on response rate (RR), disease control rate (DCR), progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS). PFS and OS were estimated through the Kaplan–Meier method, and differences between groups were examined by the log-rank test. Univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses were applied to evaluate the prognostic factors for PFS and OS. Results: Of the 368 patients, 317 were included in the analysis, 73.1% were men, and the median age was 67 years (range 36–89). When comparing patients with baseline natremia ≥140 mEq/L (n = 185) to patients with natremia <140 mEq/L (n = 132), the PFS was 15 vs. 10 months (p < 0.01) and the OS was 63 vs. 36 months, respectively (p = 0.02). On the first evaluation, patients with serum sodium ≥140 mEq/L had longer PFS (15 vs. 10 months, p < 0.01) and OS (70 vs. 32 months, p < 0.01) than patients with levels <140 mEq/L. Moreover, clinical outcomes showed a significant improvement in patients with natremia ≥140 mEq/L compared with patients with levels <140 mEq/L both at baseline and first evaluation: PFS was 19 vs. 11 months (p < 0.01) and OS was 70 vs. 36 months (p < 0.01), respectively. Conclusions: To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the impact of normonatremia in mRCC. We found that serum sodium levels <140 mEq/L at baseline and first assessment are independently associated with worse PFS and OS in mRCC patients treated with TKIs in the first-line setting

A Spatial Autoregressive Model for Italian house price dynamics.

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Immune checkpoint blockade with anti-programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) monoclonal antibody (mAb) cemiplimab: ongoing and future perspectives in rare genital cancers treatment

Cemiplimab is a highly potent, hinge-stabilized human IgG4 monoclonal antibody (mAb) targeting programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) receptor approved for patients with locally advanced or metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) who are not candidates for curative surgery or curative radiation. Recently, the phase 3 trial EMPOWER-Cervical 1 has investigated cemiplimab in patients with recurrent/metastatic cervical cancer. At interim analysis, overall survival (OS), progression free survival (PFS) and objective response rate (ORR) in overall and SCC populations favored cemiplimab over single agent chemotherapy. Cervical SCCs are the first for incidence among Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) related neoplasms and are highly correlated (about 95%) with the viral infection. Similarly, penile and vulvar SCC may develop on chronic HPV infections or on dermatological chronic conditions (ie, lichen). The molecular and viral similarities between external genital SCC and SCC originating from the cervical epithelium could be the rationale for using cemiplimab to treat locally advanced or metastatic penile and vulvar SCC as well. Some retrospective data have shown that cemiplimab may provide objective response and clinical benefit to some patients with penile or vulvar SCC and is overall safe to utilize in this population. Given the complexity of the immune activation and the considerable variability in tumor biology across patients and tumor types, the identification of biomarkers to warrant patient selection needs to be further explored. Ongoing clinical trials will hopefully shed light on the treatment paradigm of these rare tumors too, with special regard to the ideal combination and sequencing of immunotherapeutic strategies

A case report of eyelid Merkel cell carcinoma occurring under treatment with nivolumab for a lung adenocarcinoma

Abstract Background Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC) is a rare neuroendocrine malignancy of the skin characterized by high aggressiveness. Four main factors are implicated in its development: immunosuppression, ultraviolet radiation, age and the Merkel cell polyomavirus (MCPyV). In recent years, immune checkpoint inhibitors have shown clinical activity in MCC treatment. Case presentation We report the case of an 82-year-old man with a lung adenocarcinoma diagnosis, who underwent immunotherapy with nivolumab as second-line treatment. Seven months after the diagnosis of lung cancer during the nivolumab treatment, the patient developed an eyelid MCC, initially misdiagnosed as a chalazion. A palliative radiotherapy was performed with clinical benefit. After a total of seven cycles of nivolumab, computed tomography showed a lung and cerebral disease progression. In addition, clinical conditions worsened leading to the patient’s death 13 months after the initial lung cancer diagnosis. Conclusions Cases of co-occurrence of MCC and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have rarely been reported. Interestingly, common risk factors may be postulated for both cancers. Considering the rarity of this adverse event, its short-term temporal relation with the administration of the drug, which makes a relation improbable, and the coexistence of other risk factors, which may provide plausible explanations, it is possible to conclude according to the WHO Adverse Reaction Terminology that a causal relation between the occurrence of this serious adverse event and the exposure to the drug is unlikely. However, the case deserves to be reported in the literature