OncoLog Volume 55, Volume 01, January 2010

Ocular Cancer: Tumors of the eye threaten sight and often indicate presence of extensive disease Eye Care for Cancer Patients Doctors Team Up to Battle Retinoblastoma Compass Winter 2010: Ductal Carcinoma In Situ: Choosing Treatment for a Common Group of Early, Confined Breast Cancers Toward Tomorrow House Call: Three Targets for New Year\u27s Resolutionshttps://openworks.mdanderson.org/oncolog/1198/thumbnail.jp

Eyelid Carcinoma in Patients with Systemic Lymphoma

Purpose: To describe a series of patients with Non-Hodgkin′s lymphoma (NHL) and concomitant eyelid carcinoma. Methods: In this non-comparative interventional case series, we retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 5 patients with NHL who developed eyelid carcinoma. Results: The patients included one female and four male subjects. Systemic lymphoma had been diagnosed 1 to 72 months prior to development of the eyelid carcinoma. The lesions were basal cell carcinoma in three, and squamous cell carcinoma in two cases. The lymphoma was advanced (stage III or IV) in all patients. Four patients underwent surgical excision of the carcinoma and one patient was awaiting surgical treatment after completing systemic chemotherapy. Three subjects had high-grade carcinomas. Two patients had perineural invasion; one received adjuvant radiotherapy postoperatively but the other did not due to receiving systemic chemotherapy for recurrent NHL. Conclusions: Systemic lymphoma may be associated with aggressive eyelid carcinomas. Perineural invasion is frequently encountered in this situation and should be treated with adjuvant radiation therapy to decrease the likelihood of local recurrence

Update on Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors for Conjunctival Melanoma

The management of conjunctival melanoma is challenging due to the more frequent local recurrence and metastasis compared to other conjunctival neoplasms. Locally advanced conjunctival melanoma may require an orbital exenteration, and treatment options for metastatic conjunctival melanoma have been limited until recently. This review aims to provide comprehensive updates on immunotherapy for conjunctival melanoma, focusing on immune checkpoint inhibitors. We reviewed the available literature on the use of immunotherapy for the treatment of conjunctival melanoma. Systemic immunotherapy, particularly with checkpoint inhibitors, has recently been reported to have improved outcomes for patients with conjunctival melanoma. Immune checkpoint inhibitors that are currently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for melanoma include anti-PD-1 (nivolumab and pembrolizumab), anti- PDL-1 (avelumab and atezolizumab), and anti-CTLA-4 inhibitors (ipilimumab). Most recent reports described using immune checkpoint inhibitors in patients with locally advanced conjunctival melanoma in an attempt to avoid orbital exenteration or in patients with metastatic conjunctival melanoma. Although the current data are limited to case reports and small case series, eye care providers should be aware of the potential role of immunotherapy for patients with locally advanced, recurrent, or metastatic conjunctival melanoma

Systematic genomic and translational efficiency studies of uveal melanoma

To further our understanding of the somatic genetic basis of uveal melanoma, we sequenced the protein-coding regions of 52 primary tumors and 3 liver metastases together with paired normal DNA. Known recurrent mutations were identified in GNAQ, GNA11, BAP1, EIF1AX, and SF3B1. The role of mutated EIF1AX was tested using loss of function approaches including viability and translational efficiency assays. Knockdown of both wild type and mutant EIF1AX was lethal to uveal melanoma cells. We probed the function of N-terminal tail EIF1AX mutations by performing RNA sequencing of polysome-associated transcripts in cells expressing endogenous wild type or mutant EIF1AX. Ribosome occupancy of the global translational apparatus was sensitive to suppression of wild type but not mutant EIF1AX. Together, these studies suggest that cells expressing mutant EIF1AX may exhibit aberrant translational regulation, which may provide clonal selective advantage in the subset of uveal melanoma that harbors this mutation

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin