My road ahead study protocol: a randomised controlled trial of an online psychological intervention for men following treatment for localised prostate cancer

There is a need for psychosocial interventions for men with prostate cancer to promote adaptive coping with the challenges and distress associated with diagnosis, treatment and recovery. In addition, interventions are needed that help to overcome barriers to psychosocial treatment such as limited face-to-face psychosocial support services, a shortage of adequately trained professionals, geographical distance, perceived and personal stigma and a preference for consumer-centric and self-directed learning. My Road Ahead is an online cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) intervention for prostate cancer. This protocol describes a randomised controlled trial (RCT) that will evaluate the efficacy of this online intervention alone, the intervention in combination with a moderated online forum, and the moderated online forum alone.

Preliminary results of a randomised controlled trial of an online psychological intervention to reduce distress in men treated for localised prostate cancer

Prostate cancer (PCa) poses many emotional and physical challenges for men following treatment. The unmet support needs of these men are well documented, and access to psychosocial support remains problematic.

IPA: Integrated predictive gene signature from gene expression based breast cancer patient samples

Background: Novel predictive markers are needed to accurately diagnose the breast cancer patients so they do not need to undergo any unnecessary aggressive therapies. Various gene expression studies based predictive gene signatureshave generated in the recent past to predict the binary estrogen-receptor subclass or to predict the therapy response subclass. However, the existing algorithms comes with many limitations, including low predictive performances over multiple cohorts of patients and non-significant or limited biological roles associated with thepredictive gene signatures. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop novel predictive markers with improved performances.Methods: We propose a novel prediction algorithm called IPA to construct a predictive gene signature for performing multiple prediction tasks of predicting estrogen-receptor based binary subclass and predicting chemotherapy response (neoadjuvantly) based binary subclass. The constructed gene signature with considering multiple classification techniques was used to evaluate the algorithm performance on multiple cohorts of breast cancer patients.Results: The evaluation on multiple validation cohorts demonstrated that proposed algorithm achieved stable and high performance to perform prediction tasks, with consideration given to any classification techniques. We show that the predictive gene signature of our proposed algorithm reflects the mechanisms underlying the estrogen-receptors or response to therapy with significant greater biological interpretations, compared with the other existing algorithm.

Psychosocial interventions to support partners of men with prostate cancer: a systematic and critical review of the literature

Prostate cancer poses many challenges for both the man and his partner. Partners have reported a range of issues that impact their own mental health following their partner's diagnosis of prostate cancer. The aim of this review is to summarise and critically evaluate the current literature reporting psychosocial intervention studies for partners of prostate cancer patients.

The impact of prostate cancer on partners: a qualitative exploration

Prostate cancer and its treatment can result in numerous physical and psychological morbidities for the patient as well as his partner. This qualitative study aimed to explore the experiences of intimate spouses or partners of men diagnosed and/or treated for prostate cancer to better understand the personal impact of prostate cancer on the partner.

Fe-bLf nanoformulation targets survivin to kill colon cancer stem cells and maintains absorption of iron, calcium and zinc

To validate the anticancer efficacy of alginate-enclosed, chitosan-conjugated, calcium phosphate, iron-saturated bovine lactoferrin (Fe-bLf) nanocarriers/nanocapsules (NCs) with improved sustained release and ability to induce apoptosis by downregulating survivin, as well as cancer stem cells.

Tumour but not stromal expression of β3 integrin is essential, and is required early, for spontaneous dissemination of bone-metastatic breast cancer.

Although many preclinical studies have implicated β3 integrin receptors (αvβ3 and αIIbβ3) in cancer progression, β3 inhibitors have shown only modest efficacy in patients with advanced solid tumours. The limited efficacy of β3 inhibitors in patients could arise from our incomplete understanding of the precise function of β3 integrin and, consequently, inappropriate clinical application. Data from animal studies are conflicting and indicate heterogeneity with respect to the relative contributions of β3-expressing tumour and stromal cell populations in different cancers. Here we aimed to clarify the function and relative contributions to metastasis of tumour versus stromal β3 integrin in clinically relevant models of spontaneous breast cancer metastasis, with particular emphasis on bone metastasis. We show that stable down-regulation of tumour β3 integrin dramatically impairs spontaneous (but not experimental) metastasis to bone and lung without affecting primary tumour growth in the mammary gland. Unexpectedly, and in contrast to subcutaneous tumours, orthotopic tumour vascularity, growth and spontaneous metastasis were not altered in mice null for β3 integrin. Tumour β3 integrin promoted migration, protease expression and trans-endothelial migration in vitro and increased vascular dissemination in vivo, but was not necessary for bone colonization in experimental metastasis assays. We conclude that tumour, rather than stromal, β3 expression is essential and is required early for efficient spontaneous breast cancer metastasis to bone and soft tissues. Accordingly, differential gene expression analysis in cohorts of breast cancer patients showed a strong association between high β3 expression, early metastasis and shorter disease-free survival in patients with oestrogen receptor-negative tumours. We propose that β3 inhibitors may be more efficacious if used in a neoadjuvant setting, rather than after metastases are established. Copyright © 2014 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

MicroRNAs: biogenesis, roles for carcinogenesis and as potential biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and prognosis

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are short non-coding RNAs of 20-24 nucleotides that play important roles in carcinogenesis. Accordingly, miRNAs control numerous cancer-relevant biological events such as cell proliferation, cell cycle control, metabolism and apoptosis. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge and concepts concerning the biogenesis of miRNAs, miRNA roles in cancer and their potential as biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and prognosis including the regulation of key cancer-related pathways, such as cell cycle control and miRNA dysregulation. Moreover, microRNA molecules are already receiving the attention of world researchers as therapeutic targets and agents. Therefore, in-depth knowledge of microRNAs has the potential not only to identify their roles in cancer, but also to exploit them as potential biomarkers for cancer diagnosis and identify therapeutic targets for new drug discovery.

YM155 down-regulates survivin and XIAP, modulates autophagy and induces autophagy-dependent DNA damage in breast cancer cells

The aim of this study was to determine the potency and molecular mechanism of action of YM155, a first-in-class survivin inhibitor that is currently under phase I/II clinical investigations, in various drug-resistant breast cancers including the oestrogen receptor positive (ER(+) ) tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer and the caspase-3-deficient breast cancer.

Molecular imaging of metabolism in cancer metastasis

Cancer progression is characterised by extensive metabolic reprogramming. Renewed enthusiasm in this field has been sparked in part by the realisation that metabolic pathways, oncogenes and tumour suppressors are intimately linked and regulate tumour growth and metastasis through complex reciprocal interactions. The identification of key pathways and enzymes regulating metabolism in cancer cells provides new opportunities for cancer therapy. This has motivated the development of several specific inhibitors targeting metabolic pathways and their therapeutic evaluation in pre-clinical models or in cancer patients. The unravelling of metabolic pathways associated with cancer progression has also highlighted the extensive metabolic heterogeneity that exists between, and within, each cancer type as well as between metastatic sites. The translation of these findings into personalised therapy remains a considerable challenge. To this end, the use of positron emission tomography to non-invasively visualise tumour metabolism is likely to facilitate the implementation of and assessment of new targeted therapies. Here, we briefly review the key metabolic changes associated with cancer progression and discuss recent advances in the field of positron emission tomography for metabolic imaging of cancer and their potential to improve the clinical management of cancer patients.