Patients’ views on failure to gain expected clinical beneficial outcomes from participation in palliative medicine clinical trials

Reason for the Study: This study aims to understand patients' views on failing to gain expected beneficial outcomes from palliative medicine clinical trials. This is a qualitative study involving semistructured interviews. Main Findings: Seven patients were interviewed. Despite loss of initial hope in benefiting themselves in terms of better disease or symptom control, patients interviewed still found joining clinical trials meaningful experience in terms of benefiting future patients and being valuable life experience. Experience in interacting with research staff partly formulated final impressions on clinical trial participation experience. Principal CONCLUSIONS: Joining well-designed clinical trials unlikely causes harm to patients. Caring attitudes of researchers and maintaining good researcher-patient relationships can help patients in meaning-finding process, especially if they have failed to gain anticipated clinical benefits

Psychological coping outcomes of Chinese breast cancer survivors: the role of trait resilience and cognitive appraisals

Theme: Integration and Collaboration - the Way ForwardYoung Investigator Award - Psychosocial Oncology: abstract no. A8

Bevacizumab after cetuximab failure in Kras wild-type metastatic colorectal carcinoma

Posters: P-0248INTRODUCTION: Bevacizumab and cetuximab both improve treatment efficacy when given with chemotherapy for metastatic colorectal carcinoma (mCRC) in both first-and second-line setting. Cetuximab has enhanced efficacy in Kras wild-type tumor. However, inferior outcomes were reported in two phase III randomised controlled trials for the concurrent use of bevacizumab and cetuximab with chemotherapy. There is an urgent need to define the optimal sequence of use of these two agents. With regard to the pre-clinical data that increased VEGF expression is associated with acquired resistance to anti-EGFR antibody, we performed a retrospective analysis on the outcomes of patients who received bevacizumab-containing …link_to_OA_fulltex

Care about your care: the needs of advanced cancer patients and their caregivers

Young Investigator Award - Psychosocial Oncology: abstract no. A62The 17th Hong Kong International Cancer Congress (HKICC 2010), Hong Kong, 3-5 November 2010

Correlation of ADC on DWI and SUV max on PET/CT in primary rectal cancer: a preliminary experience

Session - SST04: Gastrointestinal (Rectal Cancer: Advanced Imaging)PURPOSE: Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) is an emerging, whereas PET/CT an established tool for tumor assessment. Tumors often demonstrate decreased apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) on DWI, and increased standard uptake value (SUV) on FDG-PET/CT. The aim of this study was to assess the relationship between ADC and SUV in primary rectal cancer. METHOD AND MATERIALS: From Nov 08 to Apr 09, 16 consecutive patients (10 men, 6 women; age 55-88 years) with pathologically proven rectal cancer and having undergone both MRI and PET/CT were included in this study. All MRs were performed on a 3T scanner (Achieva, Philips). Routine T1, T2, DWI and contrast-enhanced sequences were obtained. Axial pelvic DWI was obtained by single-shot EPI with STIR fat-suppression and slice-selection gradient reversal technique (TR/TE/TI=7779/47/260ms, matrix 188×151, FOV 40×32 cm, b-value=0 and 1000 s/mm2, slice thickness 5mm). ROIs were manually drawn along contours of the tumor on each slice of ADC maps covering the entire tumor. ADC values were calculated by Image J software (NIH, US). ADCmean was defined as average ADC value for all voxels in each tumor, and ADCmin as the lowest ADC value among all voxels in each tumor. All PET/CT exams (Discovery VCT, GE) were performed within 1 week of MRI. A 3D ROI was placed over the entire tumor on Advanced Workstation (GE) to calculate SUVmax. Maximum diameter of the tumor was measured on both MRI (M_D) and PET/CT (P_D). Relationship between ADC and SUVmax values was assessed by pearsons correlation test. RESULTS: ADCmean and ADCmin for all tumors were 0.96±0.23 and 0.37±0.19 (10-3mm2/s) respectively. SUVmax values were 10.55±6.13. M_D values were 5.78±2.19 cm and P_D 6.11±2.12 cm. Statistically significant negative correlation was found between ADCmin and SUVmax (r=-0.57, p=0.02), and ADCmean and SUVmax (r=-0.65, p=0.006). M_D was significantly correlated with P_D (r=0.49, p=0.02). CONCLUSION: Our preliminary results showed that both ADCmin and ADCmean of the primary rectal cancer are inversely correlated with SUVmax, which has been shown to correlate with tumor aggressiveness and treatment response in many malignancies. CLINICAL RELEVANCE/APPLICATION: ADC values may be potential surrogate biomarkers for detection, characterization, prognostication and monitoring treatment response of rectal cancer.link_to_OA_fulltex

Curcumin alters the migratory phenotype of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells through up-regulation of E-cadherin

Background: Curcumin is a natural polyphenol. It is a potent suppressor of nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB). High NF-κB levels have suppressive effect on E-cadherin (molecule related to cell-cell adhesion) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) cells. We hypothesized that suppressing NF-κB by curcumin could up-regulate E-cadherin expression in NPC cells. Materials and Methods: NPC cell lines HK1 and HONE1 were used. Real-time quantitative PCR and Western blotting were used to examine the expression changes of NF-κB and E-cadherin. A mouse xenograft model was used to validate the results. Results: With curcumin treatment, NF-κB was down-regulated and E-cadherin was up-regulated in NPC cells. The negative correlation of NF-κB and E-cadherin was confirmed in the mouse xenograft model. Conclusion: Our results suggest that curcumin could be used in preventing NPC migration by suppressing NF-KB and activating E-cadherin expression.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Addition of cetuximab to oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy on liver and spleen size and thrombocytopenia in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer

Posters: P-0224INTRODUCTION: A previous retrospective study revealed that oxaliplatin could induce splenic enlargement which in turn was associated with thrombocytopenia in patients with early stage colorectal cancer. However it has not still been known whether cetuximab aggravates or alleviates such effects in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. We performed a retrospective study to investigate the effect of addition of cetuximab to oxaliplatin-based regimen as 1st line palliative chemotherapy on liver and spleen size and its association with thrombocytopenia in patients with metasta…link_to_OA_fulltex