A 57-year-old woman with a complaint of a right upper quadrant mass was referred to our hospital. Multimodal studies such as PET-CT revealed large hepatic tumors and swollen para-aortic lymph nodes, ...the origin of which was unclear. Pathological analysis of a biopsy specimen obtained from the liver tumor led to a diagnosis of neuroendocrine carcinoma. After 4 CDDP/CPT-11 chemotherapy treatment courses, remarkable shrinkage of liver tumors and disappearance of the swollen lymph nodes were achieved. Subsequently, liver tumor and extrahepatic bile duct resection and lymphatic dissection were performed. Pathological analysis of the resected specimens revealed that the liver tumors and metastatic lymph nodes originated from the gallbladder, leading to a diagnosis of mixed adenoneuroendocrine carcinoma. After 5 courses of adjuvant chemotherapy using the same regimen, the patient has remained disease free for 24 months since the initialdiagnosis.
Endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD) has recently been applied to the resection of gastric submucosal tumors other than carcinoid tumors. We describe a case of gastric carcinoid tumor enucleated ...with ESD. An 82‐year‐old woman was referred for treatment of a gastric tumor. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy revealed a solitary submucosal tumor in the greater curvature of the gastric body. We diagnosed a carcinoid tumor by histological examination of biopsy specimens. Endoscopic ultrasound revealed a hypoechoic mass in the submucosal layer. Neither lymph node nor liver metastasis was recognized. The serum gastrin level was normal, and this tumor was classified as a type III (sporadic) carcinoid tumor. Endoscopic resection was decided on considering her age, general status, and wishes. We used ESD techniques, because the tumor was too large to be resected by conventional endoscopic mucosal resection. En bloc resection was performed. Histological examination of the 13 × 19 × 11 mm resected specimen showed that the cut end was free of tumor cells. Type III carcinoid tumor is usually treated by surgical resection with lymph node dissection. However, in high‐risk elderly patients we consider ESD to be a therapeutic option for local control of gastric carcinoid tumors.
Immunogenicity is a key factor capable of influencing the efficacy and safety of therapeutic antibodies. A recently developed method called MHC-associated peptide proteomics (MAPPs) uses liquid ...chromatography/mass spectrometry to identify the peptide sequences derived from a therapeutic protein that are presented by major histocompatibility complex class II (MHC II) on antigen-presenting cells, and therefore may induce immunogenicity. In this study, we developed a MAPPs technique (called Ab-MAPPs) that has high throughput and can efficiently identify the MHC II-presented peptides derived from therapeutic antibodies using magnetic nanoparticle beads coated with a hydrophilic polymer in the immunoprecipitation process. The magnetic beads could identify more peptides and sequence regions originating from infliximab and adalimumab in a shorter measurement time than Sepharose beads, which are commonly used for MAPPs. Several sequence regions identified by Ab-MAPPs from infliximab corresponded to immunogenic sequences reported by other methods, which suggests the method's high potential for identifying significant sequences involved in immunogenicity. Furthermore, our study suggests that the Ab-MAPPs method can recognize the difference of a single amino acid residue between similar antibody sequences with different levels of T-cell proliferation activity and can identify potentially immunogenic peptides with high binding affinity to MHC II. In conclusion, Ab-MAPPs is useful for identifying the immunogenic sequences of therapeutic antibodies and will contribute to the design of therapeutic antibodies with low immunogenicity during the drug discovery stage.
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