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Is participation in a clinical trial associated with a survival benefit in patients with bladder cancer?
Bladder cancer that is unresponsive to intravesical therapies is difficult to treat. Patients with this disease usually have to try salvage therapies, partial cystectomy, or radical cystectomy. Unfortunately, the population afflicted by bladder cancer is older and frailer than those afflicted by other cancers with mortality approaching 1.5% and readmission rates approaching 64%. These patients are left with no other options aside from participating in a clinical trial to delay or avoid surgery. We hypothesized that participation in a clinical trial provides survival benefits when controlling for tumor stage and pathology in the case of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer that is refractory to intravesical Bacillus Calmette-GueÌrin (BCG). Using our Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved Columbia Urologic Oncology Database, 55 patients with BCG-refractory NMIBC (29 clinical trial patients, 26 non-clinical trial patients) were identified between 2008 and 2012. Clinical characteristics, demographics, and outcomes were obtained from the medical records. Non-clinical trial patients had fewer mean BCG instillations than their clinical trial counterparts (7.8 versus 11.5 doses, p < .01). Kaplan Meier (KP) curves for Overall Survival (OS) and Cancer Specific Survival (CSS) indicate an increased survival benefit for patients enrolled in a clinical trial (OS: Ï2 = 8.802, p< 0.01, median of 6.68 years versus 3.15 years; CSS: Ï2 = 10.205, p < 0.01, mean 5.6 years versus 2.65 years). The data support the notion that there may be an inherent survival benefit gained by virtue of being included in a clinical trial. The drivers of this survival benefit may include more interactions with the hospitals and clinics, greater patient involvement in their health care, and increased surveillance by clinicians
Prognostic importance of lymphovascular invasion in urothelial carcinoma of the renal pelvis
Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144274/1/cncr31372_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144274/2/cncr31372.pd
Distribution of a photographic atlas did not reduce postoperative care utilization after pediatric circumcision or the indispensability of the pediatric urology clinic nurse
Peptide Library Approach to Uncover Phosphomimetic Inhibitors of the BRCA1 CâTerminal Domain
Many
intracellular proteinâprotein interactions are mediated
by the phosphorylation of serine, and phosphoserine-containing peptides
can inhibit these interactions. However, hydrolysis of the phosphate
by phosphatases, and the poor cell permeability associated with phosphorylated
peptides has limited their utility in cellular and <i>in vivo</i> contexts. Compounding the problem, strategies to replace phosphoserine
in peptide inhibitors with easily accessible mimetics (such as Glu
or Asp) routinely fail. Here, we present an <i>in vitro </i>selection strategy for replacement of phosphoserine. Using mRNA display,
we created a 10 trillion member structurally diverse unnatural peptide
library. From this library, we found a peptide that specifically binds
to the C-terminal domain (BRCT)<sub>2</sub> of breast cancer associated
protein 1 (BRCA1) with an affinity comparable to phosphorylated peptides.
A crystal structure of the peptide bound reveals that the pSer-x-x-Phe
motif normally found in BRCA1 (BRCT)<sub>2</sub> binding partners
is replaced by a Glu-x-x-4-fluoroPhe and that the peptide picks up
additional contacts on the protein surface not observed in cognate
phosphopeptide binding. Expression of the peptide in human cells led
to defects in DNA repair by homologous recombination, a process BRCA1
is known to coordinate. Overall, this work validates a new <i>in vitro</i> selection approach for the development of inhibitors
of proteinâprotein interactions mediated by serine phosphorylation