Clinical subtype, treatment response, and survival in De Novo and recurrent metastatic breast cancer

Purpose: This study evaluated whether patients with de novo metastatic breast cancer (MBC) have superior outcomes compared to those with recurrent MBC in a contemporary treatment era and examined factors related to outcome differentials. Methods: Using an institutional database, we examined patient and tumor characteristics, treatment response, and outcome among 232 patients with de novo and 612 patients with recurrent MBC diagnosed between 2011 and 2017. Results: De novo MBC had 9-month (m) longer overall survival (OS) than recurrent MBC (36.4 vs 27.4 m, p < 0.001). Contributions to this difference included nearly twofold more HER2-positive (29.3% vs 15.2%) and significantly fewer triple-negative breast cancers (20.3% vs 32.4%, both p < 0.001) in de novo compared with recurrent MBC cohorts. Stratified by clinical subtype, progression-free survival (PFS) on first-line therapy was significantly longer in de novo MBC in all but the triple-negative subtype, 25.5 vs 11.6 m (p < 0.001) among 390 patients with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, 11.4 vs 5.4 m (p = 0.002) among 142 patients with HER2-positive, and 4.0 vs 3.0 m (p = 0.121) among 162 with triple-negative MBC. In multivariable analysis, de novo status remained independently associated with improved OS (hazard ratio 0.63, 95% CI 0.49–0.80), regardless of subtype and other features. Conclusion: Patients with de novo MBC have better outcomes than those with recurrent MBC. Differences in clinical subtype and response to therapy in the metastatic setting contribute to, but do not fully explain, this difference. Longer PFS to first-line therapy in de novo MBC suggests biologic differences compared to recurrent MBC, which may be intrinsic or due to acquired resistance from treatment for prior localized breast cancer in recurrent disease

DEPTH PROFILING AND MICROANALYSIS OF HYDROGEN IN TITANIUM

L'hydrogène a des effets importants sur les propriétés des métaux. En particulier la teneur en hydrogène et sa distribution dans le titane doivent être connues pour de nombreuses applications. Dans cette contribution on décrit diverses méthodes d'analyse chimique, de mesure de profil, de microanalyse et d'analyse de surface, méthodes utilisées pour caractériser la distribution et l'état de l'hydrogène dans le titane.Hydrogen has dramatic effects on the properties of metals and the quantity and distribution of hydrogen in titanium is an important consideration in many applications. This report describes methods of chemical analysis, depth profiling, microanalysis and surface analysis useful in studying the distribution and state of hydrogen in titanium

The nitric oxide synthesis inhibitor L-NAME produces anxiogenic-like effects in the rat elevated plus-maze test, but not in the social interaction test

The effects of the nitric oxide synthase inhibitor, Nw-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (L-NAME) were investigated in two animal models of anxiety: the elevated plus-maze and the social interaction test. In the elevated plus- maze, L-NAME (12.5-50 mg/kg) had an anxiogenic-like profile as indicated by dose-dependent reductions in the time spent on the open arms, open arm entries, the percentage of open arm entries and head dips, but there was no significant effect on the number of stretch attend postures. In contrast, L-NAME (12.5-50 mg/kg) failed to modify time spent in social interaction but did reduce a measure of vertical activity The differential effects of L-NAME in the two anxiety paradigms are discussed