Active clinical trials for "Carcinoma"

Aim 1: To compare the overall toxicant exposure in pregnant women who use electronic cigarettes (e-cigs, vapor, e-liquid, e-juice, vape, vaping devices) compared to women who smoke conventional cigarettes. Aim 2. To compare toxicant exposure and birth outcomes among infants born to pregnant women who use e-cigs compared to women who smoke conventional cigarettes. Aim 3. To explore potential mechanisms by which e-cigs could influence birth weight.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the 6th most common cancer in the world but the 2nd most important cause of cancer death. Because of its highly heterogeneous nature, the current approach to identifying druggable targets have not delivered efficacious therapies in HCC and is a main reason for the high case fatality. Even when surgical resection is potentially curative in early disease, tumor recurrence remains high and long term survival poor because of the absence of useful adjuvant therapy. To address these unmet needs, the investigators bring together internationally recognized scientists from genomics and immunology and established clinician investigators in a synergistic team. This TCR capitalizes on recent collaborative advances made by the PIs in the consortium. The investigators have shown through multi-region sampling of freshly resected HCC and phylogenetic analysis, that significant intra-tumoral heterogeneity exists and have identified the specific positions of known clonal drivers. Simultaneously the investigators have analyzed the immune landscape of the tumor microenvironment with deep immune-phenotyping and found unique inter-patient immune landscapes predictive of clinical trajectory. This TCR is a prospective study that samples resected HCC from multi-ethnic sites within the established Asia-Pacific Hepatocellular Carcinoma (AHCC) Trials Group, which has enrolled approximately 1000 patients through 6 multi-center trials in 35 centers in the region. Clinical trajectories are tracked and genomic and immunological studies are repeated when tumors recu r, to confirm clonally dominant driver mutations and immunological processes that are targetable. Concurrently, representative pre-clinical models will be developed from the tissues sampled. The investigators aim to combine these approaches to overcome the challenges posed by genomic heterogeneity and to guide the development of therapeutics and precision medicine in HCC.

Localized cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) is usually treated by radical surgery with or without radiotherapy. The cure rate is high around 90% of cases (1). Unresectable CSCC represents less than 10% of all CSCC. The prognosis of these advanced forms is poor, without any proven treatment option. The number of studies investigating systemic treatment of advanced or metastatic CSCC is limited, mostly based on phase II trials or case reports. Systemic treatment includes cytotoxic chemotherapy such as cisplatin and 5-Fluoro-uracil (5FU), immunotherapy (interferon alpha) or retinoic acid (13CRa) (1,2). Recently, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) targeting agents have been explored (1,2). The anti-EGFR monoclonal antibody Cetuximab has shown some clinical efficacy in advanced CSCC alone or concomitant with radiotherapy or chemotherapy (3-5). A recent phase II study aimed at investigating the role of Cetuximab in 36 patients with unresectable CSCC (6). The authors reported a disease control rate at 6 weeks of 69% (95% CI, 52% to 84%). The best responses were eight partial responses and two complete responses. There were no Cetuximab-related deaths. There were three related serious adverse events: two grade 4 infusion reactions and one grade 3 interstitial pneumopathy. Grade 1 to 2 acne-like rash occurred in 78% of patients and was associated with prolonged Progression Free Survival (PFS) (6). The authors concluded that regarding the Cetuximab therapeutic index it could be interesting in this particular situation mainly for elderly patient. Unfortunately, the small number of patient included not allowed to draw definitive conclusion. It was interesting to note that the Disease rate control (DRC) with Cetuximab increased of 15% comparatively of DRC with chemotherapy. Additionally it seems that in case of efficacy the functional improvement of Cetuximab-sensitive patients occurred after very few infusions. Taking these data together it seemed logical to design a larger retrospective clinical trial to confirm these results in "real life patients".

Observational study to evaluate, under real-world practice conditions, the safety and effectiveness of regorafenib in patients diagnosed with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (uHCC)

Although children and adolescents are more likely to have advanced disease at onset, they generally have a significantly better chance of survival. With combined chemotherapy and radiotherapy, overall survival has been reported more than 75% in most pediatric studies. However, little research focuses on long-term morbidities of children and adolescent nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) survivors, and most studies are small scale and have short follow-up time. Therefore, this study analyzed the long-term morbidities of children and adolescent NPC survivors after radiotherapy. Factors associated with those morbidities were also analyzed. We reviewed the medical records of all NPC patients younger than 18 years old treated at Sun Yat-sen University Cancer Center (SYSUCC) from February 1991 to October 2010. Detailed medical records were taken from our institutional database. Patients were also followed using comprehensive questionnaires and phone calls. We extracted data on clinical characteristics, histopathology, imaging findings, treatment, outcomes, and late morbidities. Patients with early-stage (stage I and II) disease were treated with radiotherapy alone, and patients with advanced-stage disease (stage III and IV) were treated with a combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Radiotherapy technology included conventional radiotherapy (CRT) and intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). We retrospectively reviewed these medical records to collect the required data. All survivors returned to the hospital for follow-up examinations at least every 3 months for the first year, at least every 6 months in the 2nd year, and at least every one year thereafter until the latest follow-up. As part of our routine clinical practice, all patients underwent follow-up MRI examinations of the nasopharynx and neck at least every 6 to 12 months. Radioactive toxicity on organs was evaluated based on National Cancer Institute Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (NCI-CTCAE) version 3.0. Analyses were performed using SPSS software, version 16.0 (SPSS, Chicago, IL). Chi-squared tests and binary regression analysis were used to compare the CI of treatment comorbidities between different groups of survivors. A P value of 0.05 was chosen as the criteria for statistical significance.

The goal of this imaging study is to evaluate and improve the treatment planning techniques for abdominal radiation therapy. To accurately treat a tumor with radiation, Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) are used to distinguish a tumor from normal, healthy tissue. However the quality of these images can be distorted by motion from breathing. To decrease motion, a patient may be asked to hold their breath or compress the abdomen, but currently there is no standard or best management option for all patients. This study will explore the use continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP), a pressurized breathing mask, during MRI or CT imaging to decrease motion in the abdomen and produce higher quality images. With these additional images, we will also explore the feasibility of creating treatment plans using the CPAP MRI images alone.

project is to study and develop anti-Signal Regulatory Protein α (SIRPα) antibodies (Ab) as a new immunotherapy strategy in cancer. Samples harvested from hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and ovarian cancer patients will be used in evaluation of the SIRP-CD47 expression and of the effect of the anti-human Signal Regulatory Protein (hSIRP) Ab on various cellular types from patients and healthy volunteers.

The investigators main objective is to show that OSNA technique is as accurate as pathological analysis (frozen section / HE staining and immunochemistry) to detect occult lymph node metastasis (micro and macrometastasis).

The investigators evaluated the efficacy of a single early intravesical instillation of doxetaxel in the prevention of bladder recurrence after nephroureterectomy or distal ureterectomy for upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma (UUT-UC).

Green tea is extracted from steam treated leaves, allowing the preservation of catechins, the active elements of the infusion. Catechins are recognized for their anti-cancer activity. Catechins act on the capacity of cancer to disseminate to other organs because of their anti-protease action. Proteases are proteins capable of digesting the cancer environment and facilitating the progression of cancer cells to blood vessels which will bring them to distant organs. We know that ovarian cancer responds well to the initial treatment of chemotherapy but tends to recur rapidly. We intend to provide green tea with higher concentrations of catechins to women with complete remission of their ovarian cancer in an attempt to delay cancer relapse. We also intend to identify, with molecular technologies, the proteases involved in ovarian cancer recurrence and response to catechins. Our objective is to test the hypothesis that green tea intake may delay ovarian cancer recurrence and to develop tools to predict which women will best benefit of the addition of green tea to their initial treatment.