Research has shown that individuals with a current religious affiliation are more likely to use preventive health services. The aim of this study was to determine whether breast screening uptake in Northern Ireland is higher amongst women with a current affiliation to an organised religion and, for those with no ...

  Increasing breast specialization triggered a review of our surgical activity. All 10,000 elective inpatient and day case procedures between 1998 and 2008 were grouped into six categories: oncological, primary, secondary and revisional oncoplastic, and other breast and nonbreast procedures. Overall, surgical activity increased, with a rise in breast and ...

Prostate GVAX((R)) is an allogeneic cell-based prostate cancer vaccine engineered to secrete GM-CSF. The release of GM-CSF by this immunotherapy serves to recruit dendritic cells, which then present tumor antigens to T cells, thus initiating antitumor immune responses. However, preclinical data show that, when used alone, cell-based immunotherapy is generally ...

Prostate cancer immunotherapy clinical trials have been performed, but often in immunocompromised patients with limited clinical success. The study aim was to determine whether the stage of prostate cancer development at which immunization occurs affects vaccine efficacy, and if so which tumor-associated immunosuppressive mechanisms may be involved at later stages. ...

Intravesical Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Gu?rin (BCG) immunotherapy is a highly effective treatment for carcinoma in situ of the bladder, as well as high-risk nonmuscle invasive urothelial carcinoma of the bladder. Despite over 30 years of clinical experience with BCG, the therapy's mechanism has remained enigmatic. Observations regarding the role of ...

Since the first reported case of using adjuvant topical immunotherapy utilizing bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) was published by Herr and associates, several institutions have utilized numerous agents for topical infusion therapies (BCG, Mitomycin, Epirubicin, Thiotepa or combination therapy of BCG/INF) as adjuncts in the treatment of upper tract papillary transitional cell ...

Oncolytic virotherapy has demonstrated multimodal antitumor mechanisms in both preclinical and clinical settings for cancer treatment, including antitumor immunity. Compared with conventional immunotherapy, oncolytic viruses have the advantages of simultaneous cytoreduction and conferring personalized anticancer immunity, but without the need of personalized manufacture. Additionally, oncolytic viruses can be further engineered ...

In year 2, we made substantial progress in multiple areas. We have an efficient system in place to recruit patients into this study and procure their samples. However, limited numbers of subjects available and limited amounts of clinical materials available from each subject remain major challenges to the success of ...

We recently established a novel drug delivery system (DDS) using oligomannose-coated liposomes (OMLs) which are probably taken up by macrophages (Mvarphi) to carry anti-cancer drugs to milky spots known as preferential metastatic sites of gastric cancers [Y. Ikehara, T. Niwa, L. Biao, S.K. Ikehara, N. Ohashi, T. Kobayashi, Y. Shimizu, ...

Chemotherapy with docetaxel is the standard treatment for men with metastatic prostate cancer, and results in statistically significant improvements in survival, as well as in quality of life. However, the response rate to single-agent docetaxel is approximately 40% to 45%, emphasizing a need for alternative approaches. More significantly, with the ...

Antitumor vaccines, also known as active immunotherapies, have become an intense focus of research over the last decade as a means to ideally provide new targeted, and less toxic, therapies to patients with a variety of malignancies. Prostate cancer is among the diseases where a large amount of promising data ...

Over the last three decades, intravesical immunotherapy with the biological response modifier Mycobacterium bovis bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) has been established as the most effective adjuvant treatment for preventing local recurrences and tumor progression following transurethral resection of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. A large number of clinical trials have established a ...

The six-transmembrane epithelial antigen of prostate (STEAP) protein is an attractive candidate for T cell-based immunotherapy because it is overexpressed in prostate cancer and various other tumor types. Several peptide epitopes capable of stimulating CTLs that killed STEAP-expressing tumor cells have been described. Our goal was the identification of helper ...

Background: Local, sustained delivery of cytokines at a tumor can enhance induction of antitumor immunity and may be a feasible neoadjuvant immunotherapy for breast cancer. We evaluated the ability of intratumoral poly-lactic-acid-encapsulated microspheres (PLAM) containing interleukin 12 (IL-12), tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), and granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) in ...

Recently, it was described that an HLA-A24 restricted peptide derived from the survivin splice variant survivin-2B can be recognized by CD8+ cytotoxic T-cells. The identification of an HLA-A24 epitope is critical for survivin-based immunotherapy as HLA-24 is the most frequent HLA allele in Asia. Consequently, this survivin-2B epitope is already ...

The use of immunotherapy to attempt to treat cancer is not new. At the end of the last century, William Coley observed that the tumour of a patient with a sarcoma who developed streptococcal erysipelas regressed. This led Coley to develop a collection of heat-killed bacteria, known as Coley's toxins, ...

PURPOSE: For decades urologists have successfully used immunotherapy in the battle against cancer. Interleukin-2 in renal cell carcinoma and bacillus Calmette-Guerin in bladder cancer are standard primary and/or adjunctive therapies for these diseases. Recent advances in our understanding of mechanisms governing immune system activation have fostered a myriad of novel ...

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the US, largely because of the limitations of our current therapeutic options, especially once the cancer has metastasized. Investigators have long sought new therapeutic modalities such as angiogenesis inhibitors, vaccines, and gene therapy, among others. It appears that a ...

Interleukin (IL)-2 and IL-15 are two cytokine growth factors that regulate lymphocyte function and homeostasis. Early clinical interest in the use of IL-2 in the immunotherapy of renal cell carcinoma and malignant melanoma demonstrated the first efficacy for cytokine monotherapy in the treatment of neoplastic disease. Advances in our understanding ...

The primary role of immunotherapy for bladder cancer is to treat superficial transitional cell carcinomas (ie, carcinoma in situ, Ta, and T1). Immunotherapy in the form of bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG), interferon, bropirimine, keyhole limpet hemocyanin, and gene therapy is intended to treat existing or residual tumor, to prevent recurrence of ...

Cancer immunotherapy is still largely confined to the laboratory bench and experimental animal models. Yet the field is rapidly moving forward and some immunological tools are now entering into clinical use. The first and perhaps best example of such progress is given by bioengineered humanized monoclonal antibodies of which some ...

Recently, identification of tumor-associated antigens (TAAs) have led to an increased interest in vaccination strategies to treat cancer and/or prevent cancer relapse. Immunotherapy can be used as an adjuvant with other systemic therapy to target micro-metastatic disease and prevent cancer recurrence. Although preclinical/clinical trials using identified tumor-associated antigen for tumor ...

Advances in gene transfer technology have greatly expanded the opportunities for developing immunotherapy strategies for breast carcinoma. Genetic immunotherapy approaches include the transfer of genes encoding cytokines and costimulatory molecules to modulate immune function, as well as genetic immunization strategies which rely on the delivery of cloned tumor antigens. Improved ...

Linear IgA bullous dermatosis (LABD) in adults is characterized by subepidermal bullae associated with a linear deposition of IgA at the basement membrane zone. Its cause is unclear, although it appears to have an immune-mediated basis. The development of LABD in a cancer patient undergoing immunotherapy has been described in ...

Tn and sialyl-Tn carbohydrate structures, first identified in glycophorins of persons with the rare Tn syndrome, were found to be present on the surface of most cancer cells. In this article, the studies on Tn and sialyl-Tn antigens as diagnostic and prognostic tumor markers and as immunogens in vaccines for ...

OK-432 is an immunomodulatory agent prepared from a strain of Streptococcus pyogenes. We have previously reported that intratumoral injection of a mixture of OK-432 and fibrinogen (hereinafter referred to as OK/fbg) is very effective in the local immunotherapy for colorectal cancer. However, we found that the intratumoral injection of OK/fbg ...

An overview of antibody-guided immunotherapy for neoplasia is presented. The diversity of the antibody molecule is highlighted, through the many sophisticated strategies proposed and employed, to overcome a number of problems impeding successful targeting. An update of radioimmunotherapy of ovarian cancer is presented and the exciting concepts that are introduced ...

The stimulatory effect of IL-2 on cortisol rise represents an undesirable biological event during IL-2 cancer immunotherapy. At present, no cytokine has been proven to be able to counteract IL-2-induced cortisol increase. This study was carried out to evaluate the influence of IL-3 on IL-2 stimulation of cortisol secretion. Five ...

Human hybridomas were generated through the fusion of the human B-lymphoblastoid cell line HO-323 with the regional lymph node lymphocytes of colonic cancer patients who had received a local immunotherapy. A total of 353 hybridomas were obtained from 4 patients and 116 of these were found to secrete greater than ...

In this seminar, we describe 1) the immunogen TAA used for lung cancer immunotherapy and the immunogen TAA used for colon cancer immunotherapy, 2) the methods used in the administration of these immunogens in clinical trials of specific active TAA immunotherapy, 3) the results of clinical trials of specific active ...

The pineal hormone melatonin (MLT) has been shown to influence many biological functions, including immune response, cancer growth and brain neurotransmitter contents. On the basis of its biological properties, a study was started to evaluate the influence of MLT on IL-2 immunotherapy toxicity. The study was carried out in metastatic ...

A rather pessimistic wind is blowing over cancer chemotherapy, while a not very objective enthusiasm for second generation immunotherapy is raising its head. As the natural father of the first allogeneic bone marrow graft, of lymphocyte transfusions and of active immunotherapy, my duty is to show that chemotherapy is doing ...

Clinically, the prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma is very poor. It is considered that this depends on three factors. The first is the difficulty of early detection of this disease, because the symptoms of this cancer are latent. The second factor is the specificity of the histological character. The third is ...

The history and rationale for the use of cryosurgery are discussed, along with the association with stage and grade of the tumor. Also included are details of the surgical procedure used in the perineal approach, results of studies that address clinical benefit and the relatively few surgical complications, and, finally, ...

This study concerns the possible use of BCG in oncologic gynecology for loco regionauthorsl stimulation or loco aspecific active immunotherapy. The authors administered BCG into the portio of 45 women affected by cervical cancer (stage I and stage II) immediately after the cytohistologic diagnosis and 21 days before the surgical ...

Two groups of patients with advanced cancer of the prostate received adjuvant immunotherapy by direct intra-tumor injection of BCG. The first group had advanced metastatic disease that was failing to respond to conventional hormone therapy. The second group were new cases of stages III and IV tumor who were previously ...

This brief review of the more promising clinical trials suggests that immunotherapy is indeed beneficial for selected cancer patients. Because of its limited potency, it should not be used as primary treatment for malignant disease except as local immunotherapy for certain accessible tumors. It is effective for eradication of primary ...

It seems nonetheless reasonable to take a skeptical view of immunotherapy for cancer. If the immunologic response can be brought to bear meaningfully and effectively upon the tumorhost relationship so that the host is spared, then let it be proved by appropriate clinical trials. Without unrealistic expectations, it may be ...

The size of the lung cancer problem and the dismal results of conventional therapy justify close attention to the possibilities of immunotherapy. Lung cancer patients, like other tumor patients, are often relatively immunosuppressed although an immune response directed against autochthonous tumor cells can usually be demonstrated. All conventional forms of ...

Spermiogenesis in Cancer crabs was studied by light and electron microscopy. The sperm are aflagellate, and when mature consist primarily of a spherical acrosome surrounded by the nucleus with its short radiating arms. The acrosome forms by a coalescence of periodic acid-Schiff-positive (PAS-positive) vesicles. During spermiogenesis one edge of the ...