To describe accurately the pattern, timing, and predictors of disease recurrence after a potentially curative resection for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).
After surgery for PDAC, most ...patients will develop disease recurrence. Understanding the patterns and timing of disease failure can help guide improvements in therapy.
Patients who underwent pancreatectomy for PDAC at the Johns Hopkins Hospital between 2000 and 2010 were included. Exclusion criteria were incomplete follow-up records, follow-up <24 months, and neoadjuvant therapy. The first recurrence site was recorded and recurrence-free survival (RFS) was estimated using Kaplan-Meier curves. Predictive factors for specific recurrence patterns were assessed by univariate and multivariate analyses using Cox-proportional hazard regression models.
From the identified cohort of 1103 patients, 692 patients had comprehensive and detailed follow-up data available. At a median follow-up of 25.3 months, 531 (76.7%) of the 692 had recurred after a median RFS of 11.7 months. Most patients recurred at isolated distant sites (n = 307, 57.8%), while isolated local recurrence was seen in 126 patients (23.7%). Liver-only recurrence (n = 134, 25.2%) tended to occur early (median 6.9 mo), while lung-only recurrence (n = 78, 14.7%) occurred later (median 18.6 mo). A positive lymph node ratio >0.2 was a strong predictor for all distant disease recurrence. Patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy had fewer recurrences and a longer RFS of 18.0 and 17.2 months, respectively.
Specific recurrence locations have different predictive factors and possess distinct RFS curves, supporting the hypothesis that unique biological differences exist among tumors leading to distinct patterns of recurrence.
The rates and routes of lethal systemic spread in breast cancer are poorly understood owing to a lack of molecularly characterized patient cohorts with long-term, detailed follow-up data. Long-term ...follow-up is especially important for those with oestrogen-receptor (ER)-positive breast cancers, which can recur up to two decades after initial diagnosis
. It is therefore essential to identify patients who have a high risk of late relapse
. Here we present a statistical framework that models distinct disease stages (locoregional recurrence, distant recurrence, breast-cancer-related death and death from other causes) and competing risks of mortality from breast cancer, while yielding individual risk-of-recurrence predictions. We apply this model to 3,240 patients with breast cancer, including 1,980 for whom molecular data are available, and delineate spatiotemporal patterns of relapse across different categories of molecular information (namely immunohistochemical subtypes; PAM50 subtypes, which are based on gene-expression patterns
; and integrative or IntClust subtypes, which are based on patterns of genomic copy-number alterations and gene expression
). We identify four late-recurring integrative subtypes, comprising about one quarter (26%) of tumours that are both positive for ER and negative for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2, each with characteristic tumour-driving alterations in genomic copy number and a high risk of recurrence (mean 47-62%) up to 20 years after diagnosis. We also define a subgroup of triple-negative breast cancers in which cancer rarely recurs after five years, and a separate subgroup in which patients remain at risk. Use of the integrative subtypes improves the prediction of late, distant relapse beyond what is possible with clinical covariates (nodal status, tumour size, tumour grade and immunohistochemical subtype). These findings highlight opportunities for improved patient stratification and biomarker-driven clinical trials.
Background
Although there are numerous reports focusing on surgical indication for intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN), the recurrence patterns following surgery are less widely reported. ...To ascertain optimal treatment and postoperative surveillance for IPMN patients, we analyzed patterns and risk factors for recurrence after surgery for IPMN.
Methods
This study is a retrospective, multi-institutional, observational study, including 1074 patients undergoing surgery for IPMN at 11 academic institutions. We analyzed the risk factors for recurrence after classifying postoperative recurrences into metachronous high-risk lesions (malignant progression of IPMN and/or metachronous pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma) in the remnant pancreas and extra-pancreatic recurrence.
Results
Of 1074 patients undergoing surgery for IPMN, 155 patients (14.4%) developed postoperative recurrence. We found that 34.3% of 70 high-risk lesions in the remnant pancreas occurred over 5 years after surgery, and survival of 36 patients undergoing second operation for high-risk lesions was better than that of 34 patients who did not (
P
= 0.04). We found four independent risk factors for metachronous high-risk lesions in remnant pancreas: symptoms
P
= 0.005, hazard ratio (HR) 1.988, location of pancreatic body/tail (
P
< 0.001, HR 3.876), main duct size ≥ 10 mm (
P
= 0.021, HR 1.900), and high-grade dysplasia/invasive intraductal papillary mucinous carcinoma (IPMC) (
P
< 0.001, HR 3.204). Although six patients (0.7%) with low- or high-grade dysplasia IPMN developed extra-pancreatic recurrence, invasive IPMC was the strongest risk factor for extra-pancreatic recurrence (
P
< 0.001, HR 39.667).
Conclusion
We suggest that life-time continuous surveillance might be necessary for IPMN patients. Second surgery for metachronous high-risk lesions in remnant pancreas should be considered to improve survival.
Up to 30% of patients with breast cancer relapse after primary treatment. There are no sensitive and reliable tests to monitor these patients and detect distant metastases before overt recurrence. ...Here, we demonstrate the use of personalized circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) profiling for detection of recurrence in breast cancer.
Forty-nine primary patients with breast cancer were recruited following surgery and adjuvant therapy. Plasma samples (
= 208) were collected every 6 months for up to 4 years. Personalized assays targeting 16 variants selected from primary tumor whole-exome data were tested in serial plasma for the presence of ctDNA by ultradeep sequencing (average >100,000X).
Plasma ctDNA was detected ahead of clinical or radiologic relapse in 16 of the 18 relapsed patients (sensitivity of 89%); metastatic relapse was predicted with a lead time of up to 2 years (median, 8.9 months; range, 0.5-24.0 months). None of the 31 nonrelapsing patients were ctDNA-positive at any time point across 156 plasma samples (specificity of 100%). Of the two relapsed patients who were not detected in the study, the first had only a local recurrence, whereas the second patient had bone recurrence and had completed chemotherapy just 13 days prior to blood sampling.
This study demonstrates that patient-specific ctDNA analysis can be a sensitive and specific approach for disease surveillance for patients with breast cancer. More importantly, earlier detection of up to 2 years provides a possible window for therapeutic intervention.
Abstract
Background
We conducted a meta-analysis in nonmetastatic breast cancer patients treated by neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCT) to assess the clinical validity of circulating tumor cell (CTC) ...detection as a prognostic marker.
Methods
We collected individual patient data from 21 studies in which CTC detection by CellSearch was performed in early breast cancer patients treated with NCT. The primary end point was overall survival, analyzed according to CTC detection, using Cox regression models stratified by study. Secondary end points included distant disease–free survival, locoregional relapse–free interval, and pathological complete response. All statistical tests were two-sided.
Results
Data from patients were collected before NCT (n = 1574) and before surgery (n = 1200). CTC detection revealed one or more CTCs in 25.2% of patients before NCT; this was associated with tumor size (P < .001). The number of CTCs detected had a detrimental and decremental impact on overall survival (P < .001), distant disease–free survival (P < .001), and locoregional relapse–free interval (P < .001), but not on pathological complete response. Patients with one, two, three to four, and five or more CTCs before NCT displayed hazard ratios of death of 1.09 (95% confidence interval CI = 0.65 to 1.69), 2.63 (95% CI = 1.42 to 4.54), 3.83 (95% CI = 2.08 to 6.66), and 6.25 (95% CI = 4.34 to 9.09), respectively. In 861 patients with full data available, adding CTC detection before NCT increased the prognostic ability of multivariable prognostic models for overall survival (P < .001), distant disease–free survival (P < .001), and locoregional relapse–free interval (P = .008).
Conclusions
CTC count is an independent and quantitative prognostic factor in early breast cancer patients treated by NCT. It complements current prognostic models based on tumor characteristics and response to therapy.
Systemic androgen-signaling inhibition added to ongoing androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) improved clinical outcomes in patients with nonmetastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer without ...detectable metastases by conventional imaging (nmCRPC). Prostate-specific membrane antigen ligand positron emission tomography (PSMA-PET) detects prostate cancer with superior sensitivity to conventional imaging, but its performance in nmCRPC remains largely unknown. We characterized cancer burden in high-risk patients with nmCRPC using PSMA-PET.
We retrospectively included 200 patients with nmCRPC, prostate-specific antigen (PSA) >2 ng/mL, and high risk for metastatic disease PSA doubling time (PSADT) of ≤10 months and/or Gleason score of ≥8 from six high-volume PET centers. We centrally reviewed PSMA-PET detection rate for pelvic disease and distant metastases (M1). We further evaluated SPARTAN patients stratified by risk factors for PSMA-PET-detected M1 disease.
PSMA-PET was positive in 196 of 200 patients. Overall, 44% had pelvic diseases, including 24% with local prostate bed recurrence, and 55% had M1 disease despite negative conventional imaging. Interobserver agreement was very high (κ: 0.81-0.91). PSA ≥ 5.5 ng/mL, locoregional nodal involvement determined by pathology (pN1), prior primary radiation, and prior salvage radiotherapy independently predicted M1 disease (all
< 0.05).
PSMA-PET detected any disease in nearly all patients and M1 disease in 55% of patients previously diagnosed with nmCRPC, including subgroups with PSADT of ≤10 months and Gleason score of ≥8. The value of PSMA-PET imaging for treatment guidance should be tested in future studies.
Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA)-ligand positron emission tomography (PET) allows detection of metastatic prostate cancer (PC) lesions at low prostate-specific antigen (PSA) values. To ...facilitate their intraoperative detection during salvage surgery, we recently introduced PSMA-targeted radioguided surgery (RGS).
To describe the outcome of a large cohort of patients treated with PSMA-targeted RGS and to establish prognostic factors.
A total of 121 consecutive patients with recurrent PC as defined by PSMA-ligand PET (median PSA: 1.13ng/ml) underwent PSMA-targeted RGS.
The frequency of a complete biochemical response (cBR; PSA <0.2ng/ml) without additional treatment and the duration of biochemical recurrence-free survival (bRFS, time from PSMA-targeted RGS with PSA <0.2ng/ml without further treatment) were evaluated and correlated with preoperatively available clinical variables.
In almost all patients (120/121, 99%) metastatic tissue could be removed. A cBR was achieved in 77 patients (66%). The chance of cBR was highest in patients with both low preoperative PSA and a single lesion (38/45: 84%). Median bRFS was 6.4mo in the whole patient cohort and 19.8mo for patients with cBR. Significantly longer median bRFS was observed in patients with a low preoperative PSA value (p=0.004, hazard ratio 1.48, 95% confidence interval 1.13–1.93) and with a single lesion in preoperative PSMA-ligand PET (14.0 vs 2.5mo, p=0.002).
PSMA-targeted RGS leads to a remarkable interval of bRFS in a subset of patients. The frequency of cBR and the duration of bRFS were highest in patients with a low preoperative PSA value and a single lesion on PSMA-ligand PET.
Prostate-specific membrane antigen radioguided surgery delays disease progression in selected patients with recurrent prostate cancer after radical prostatectomy. Patients with a single lesion of recurrence and a low prostate-specific antigen value had the best outcome.
Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) radioguided surgery leads to a substantial prostate-specific antigen (PSA) reduction in the vast majority of patients with recurrent prostate cancer. A low PSA value and the presence of only one lesion on preoperative imaging with PSMA-ligand positron emission tomography are prognostic factors for a better outcome.
Summary Background Recurrent medulloblastoma is a therapeutic challenge because it is almost always fatal. Studies have confirmed that medulloblastoma consists of at least four distinct subgroups. We ...sought to delineate subgroup-specific differences in medulloblastoma recurrence patterns. Methods We retrospectively identified a discovery cohort of all recurrent medulloblastomas at the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, ON, Canada) from 1994 to 2012 (cohort 1), and established molecular subgroups using a nanoString-based assay on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues or frozen tissue. The anatomical site of recurrence (local tumour bed or leptomeningeal metastasis), time to recurrence, and survival after recurrence were assessed in a subgroup-specific manner. Two independent, non-overlapping cohorts (cohort 2: samples from patients with recurrent medulloblastomas from 13 centres worldwide, obtained between 1991 and 2012; cohort 3: samples from patients with recurrent medulloblastoma obtained at the NN Burdenko Neurosurgical Institute Moscow, Russia between 1994 and 2011) were analysed to confirm and validate observations. When possible, molecular subgrouping was done on tissue obtained from both the initial surgery and at recurrence. Results Cohort 1 consisted of 30 patients with recurrent medulloblastomas; nine with local recurrences, and 21 with metastatic recurrences. Cohort 2 consisted of 77 patients and cohort 3 of 96 patients with recurrent medulloblastoma. Subgroup affiliation remained stable at recurrence in all 34 cases with available matched primary and recurrent pairs (five pairs from cohort 1 and 29 pairs from cohort 2 15 SHH, five group 3, 14 group 4). This finding was validated in 17 pairs from cohort 3. When analysed in a subgroup-specific manner, local recurrences in cohort 1 were more frequent in SHH tumours (eight of nine 89%) and metastatic recurrences were more common in group 3 and group 4 tumours (17 of 20 85% with one WNT, p=0·0014, local vs metastatic recurrence, SHH vs group 3 vs group 4). The subgroup-specific location of recurrence was confirmed in cohort 2 (p=0·0013 for local vs metastatic recurrence, SHH vs group 3 vs group 4,), and cohort 3 (p<0·0001). Treatment with craniospinal irradiation at diagnosis was not significantly associated with the anatomical pattern of recurrence. Survival after recurrence was significantly longer in patients with group 4 tumours in cohort 1 (p=0·013) than with other subgroups, which was confirmed in cohort 2 (p=0·0075), but not cohort 3 (p=0·70). Interpretation Medulloblastoma does not change subgroup at the time of recurrence, reinforcing the stability of the four main medulloblastoma subgroups. Significant differences in the location and timing of recurrence across medulloblastoma subgroups have potential treatment ramifications. Specifically, intensified local (posterior fossa) therapy should be tested in the initial treatment of patients with SHH tumours. Refinement of therapy for patients with group 3 or group 4 tumours should focus on metastases. Funding Canadian Institutes of Health Research, National Institutes of Health, Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation, Garron Family Chair in Childhood Cancer Research at The Hospital for Sick Children and The University of Toronto.
Summary Background We previously found that dual HER2 blockade with trastuzumab and lapatinib led to inhibition of tumour growth in patient-derived xenografts of HER2 -amplified metastatic colorectal ...cancer. In this study, we aimed to assess the antitumour activity of trastuzumab and lapatinib in patients with HER2-positive colorectal cancer. Methods HERACLES was a proof-of-concept, multicentre, open-label, phase 2 trial done at four Italian academic cancer centres. We enrolled adult patients with KRAS exon 2 (codons 12 and 13) wild-type and HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer refractory to standard of care (including cetuximab or panitumumab), an Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status of 0 or 1, and at least one measurable lesion. We defined HER2 positivity in tumour samples by use of immunohistochemistry and fluorescence in-situ hybridisation in accordance with our previously validated colorectal cancer-specific diagnostic criteria. Eligible patients received intravenous trastuzumab at 4 mg/kg loading dose followed by 2 mg/kg once per week, and oral lapatinib at 1000 mg per day until evidence of disease progression. The primary endpoint was the proportion of patients achieving an objective response (defined as complete response or partial response), which was assessed by independent central review in the intention-to-treat population. This trial is registered with EudraCT, number 2012-002128-33. Findings Between Aug 27, 2012, and May 15, 2015, we screened 914 patients with KRAS exon 2 (codons 12 and 13) wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer and identified 48 (5%) patients with HER2-positive tumours, although two died before enrolment. Of these patients, 27 were eligible for the trial. All were evaluable for response. At the time of data cutoff on Oct 15, 2015, with a median follow-up of 94 weeks (IQR 51–127), eight (30%, 95% CI 14–50) of 27 patients had achieved an objective response, with one patient (4%, 95% CI −3 to 11) achieving a complete response, and seven (26%, 95% CI 9–43) achieving partial responses; 12 (44%, 95% CI 25–63) patients had stable disease. Six (22%) of 27 patients had grade 3 adverse events, which consisted of fatigue in four patients, skin rash in one patient, and increased bilirubin concentration in one patient. No grade 4 or 5 adverse events were reported. We detected no drug-related serious adverse events. Interpretation The combination of trastuzumab and lapatinib is active and well tolerated in treatment-refractory patients with HER2-positive metastatic colorectal cancer. Funding Associazione Italiana Ricerca Cancro (AIRC), Fondazione Oncologia Niguarda Onlus, and Roche.
Purpose
Research to date on fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) shows that moderate to high FCR affects 22–87 % of cancer survivors and is associated with higher psychological morbidity (Simard et al J ...Cancer Surviv 7:300–322,
2013
). Despite growing research interest in FCR, the lack of consensus on its definition and characteristics when it reaches a clinical level has impeded knowledge transfer into patient services.
Methods
In order to address these gaps, expert researchers, policy makers, trainees, and patient advocates attended a 2-day colloquium at the University of Ottawa in August 2015. A Delphi method was used to identify the most relevant definition of FCR, and the attendees generated possible diagnostic characteristics of clinical FCR.
Results
After three rounds of discussion and voting, the attendees reached consensus on a new definition of FCR: “Fear, worry, or concern relating to the possibility that cancer will come back or progress.” Regarding clinical FCR, five possible characteristics were proposed: (1) high levels of preoccupation, worry, rumination, or intrusive thoughts; (2) maladaptive coping; (3) functional impairments; (4) excessive distress; and (5) difficulties making plans for the future.
Conclusions
The new proposed definition of FCR reflects the broad spectrum in which patients experience FCR. A consensual definition of FCR and the identification of the essential characteristics of clinical FCR are necessary to accurately and consistently measure FCR severity and to develop effective interventions to treat FCR. We hope this broad definition can encourage further research and the development of inclusive policies for all cancer patients and survivors who are struggling with this issue.
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