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Sarcoma Patients (sarcoma + patient)

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Loss of antibody titers and effectiveness of revaccination in post-chemotherapy pediatric sarcoma patients,

PEDIATRIC BLOOD & CANCER, Issue 5 2007
Jennifer Yu BA
Abstract Background Little is known about the effects of chemotherapy on patient antibody titers to vaccine-preventable infectious diseases; thus, there is no standard protocol for revaccinating post-chemotherapy patients. Procedures To assess losses of detectable antibody titers due to chemotherapy, we retrospectively examined antibody titers for tetanus, varicella, measles, mumps, rubella, hepatitis B, and polio in 109 pediatric sarcoma patients. We also evaluated revaccination data to determine current practices and efficacy of revaccination. We limited our sample to osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma patients to control for the chemotherapy regimen patients received. Results Patients had pre-treatment detectable antibody titer that fell within the range of healthy children's antibody titers. However, 71% of patients had post-chemotherapy negative titers for at least one infectious disease. Patients most commonly had negative titers for hepatitis B (64%). Few patients had negative titers for measles (14%), mumps (9%), rubella (4%), polio 1 (0%), polio 2 (2.9%), polio 3 (4.8%), tetanus (5%), or varicella (11%). Revaccinations most frequently administered were hepatitis B and polio. Conclusions Our findings suggest that post-chemotherapy patients may need to be revaccinated against certain vaccine-preventable diseases including hepatitis B, tetanus, varicella, polio, measles, mumps, and rubella. Larger studies need to be performed to establish guidelines for revaccinating post-chemotherapy pediatric patients. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2007;49:656,660. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Concentration of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in the serum of patients with malignant bone tumors,

PEDIATRIC BLOOD & CANCER, Issue 6 2001
Gerold Holzer MD
Abstract Background Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is recognized as an important stimulator of angiogenesis. Formation of new blood vessels by angiogenic factors occurs in many biological processes, both physiological and pathological, among others in growth of primary solid malignant tumors and metastasis. This implies that the inhibition of angiogenic factors like VEGF would result in a suppression of tumor growth and metastasis formation. The aim of the present study was to compare preoperative serum VEGF levels of patients having malignant bone tumors with healthy controls to identify serum VEGF levels as a tumor marker. Procedure Blood sera from patients with high-grade osteosarcoma (n,=,17), chondrosarcoma (n,=,4) and Ewing sarcoma (n,=,6) were taken at the time of diagnosis before biopsy and compared with sera from 129 healthy persons. To measure VEGF levels in serum, a commercially available ELISA was used (Quantikine Human VEGF Immunoassay; R&D Systems). Results The observed geometric mean VEGF levels and 95% confidence intervals are 232.0 pg ml,1 (168.9,318.5) for patients with high-grade osteosarcoma, 325.5 pg ml,1 (169.3,625.8) for patients with chondrosarcoma, 484.3 pg ml,1 (284.0,826.0) for patients with Ewing sarcoma, as compared to 216.2 pg ml,1 (192.8,242.5) for healthy individuals. Conclusions While the sample means for the three groups of sarcoma patients were higher than the respective mean for the healthy controls, only the mean for the group with Ewing sarcoma is statistically significantly higher than the mean for the healthy controls. Despite the significant difference, VEGF levels are not suitable as a marker for Ewing sarcoma. Med. Pediatr. Oncol. 36:601,604, 2001. © 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

Prognostic significance of Wilms tumor gene (WT1) mRNA expression in soft tissue sarcoma

CANCER, Issue 10 2006
Tsukasa Sotobori M.D.
Abstract BACKGROUND There have been several recent reports that Wilms tumor gene (WT1) mRNA is overexpressed in many types of neoplasms, and those results suggested that WT1 has oncogenic properties. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the prognostic significance of WT1 mRNA expression in patients with soft tissue sarcoma. METHODS Levels of WT1 mRNA expression were examined by quantitative, real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction analysis in frozen tissue samples from 52 patients with soft tissue sarcoma. Various clinicopathologic factors were analyzed along with the disease-specific survival rate for correlations with WT1 mRNA expression levels. RESULTS The levels of WT1 mRNA expression in a variety of soft tissue sarcomas were significantly greater compared with the levels in normal soft tissue samples (P = .0212). No significant correlation was observed between the level of WT1 mRNA expression and clinicopathologic factors, including gender, age, primary tumor site, tumor depth, tumor size, histologic grade, and distant metastasis at initial presentation. The disease-specific survival rate for patients with high WT1 mRNA expression levels was found significantly poorer compared with the rate for patients with low WT1 mRNA expression levels (P = .0182). Moreover, multivariate analysis indicated that a high WT1 mRNA expression level was an independent, adverse prognostic factor for disease-specific survival (hazards ratio, 2.6; P = .0488). CONCLUSIONS WT1 mRNA expression level can serve as a potent prognostic indicator in soft tissue sarcoma patients. Cancer 2006. © 2006 American Cancer Society. [source]