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Long-term outcomes of symptomatic optic pathway glioma: 32-year experience at a single Western Australian tertiary pediatric oncology centerOptic pathway gliomas (OPGs) are associated with significant risk of visual and endocrine morbidity, but data on long-term outcomes in symptomatic patients is sparse. This study reviews the clinical course, disease progression, survival outcomes and long-term sequelae in pediatric patients with symptomatic OPGs in our institution over three decades.
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Reproducible Bioinformatics Analysis Workflows for Detecting IGH Gene Fusions in B-Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia PatientsB-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (B-ALL) is characterised by diverse genomic alterations, the most frequent being gene fusions detected via transcriptomic analysis (mRNA-seq). Due to its hypervariable nature, gene fusions involving the Immunoglobulin Heavy Chain (IGH) locus can be difficult to detect with standard gene fusion calling algorithms and significant computational resources and analysis times are required. We aimed to optimize a gene fusion calling workflow to achieve best-case sensitivity for IGH gene fusion detection.
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A biobank of pediatric patient-derived-xenograft models in cancer precision medicine trial MAPPYACTS for relapsed and refractory tumorsPediatric patients with recurrent and refractory cancers are in most need for new treatments. This study developed patient-derived-xenograft (PDX) models within the European MAPPYACTS cancer precision medicine trial.
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A multi-institutional retrospective pooled outcome analysis of molecularly annotated pediatric supratentorial ZFTA-fused ependymomaZFTA-RELA (formerly known as c11orf-RELA) fused supratentorial ependymoma has been recognized as a novel entity in the 2016 WHO classification of CNS tumors and further defined in the recent 2021 edition.
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Identification of fatty acid amide hydrolase as a metastasis suppressor in breast cancerClinical management of breast cancer (BC) metastasis remains an unmet need as it accounts for 90% of BC-associated mortality. Although the luminal subtype, which represents >70% of BC cases, is generally associated with a favorable outcome, it is susceptible to metastatic relapse as late as 15 years after treatment discontinuation.
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The type II RAF inhibitor tovorafenib in relapsed/refractory pediatric low-grade glioma: the phase 2 FIREFLY-1 trialBRAF genomic alterations are the most common oncogenic drivers in pediatric low-grade glioma.
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Tretinoin improves the anti-cancer response to cyclophosphamide, in a model-selective mannerChemotherapy is included in treatment regimens for many solid cancers, but when administered as a single agent it is rarely curative. The addition of immune checkpoint therapy to standard chemotherapy regimens has improved response rates and increased survival in some cancers. However, most patients do not respond to treatment and immune checkpoint therapy can cause severe side effects. Therefore, there is a need for alternative immunomodulatory drugs that enhance chemotherapy.
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IDH-mutant gliomas in children and adolescents - from biology to clinical trialsGliomas account for nearly 30% of all primary central nervous system (CNS) tumors in children and adolescents and young adults (AYA), contributing to significant morbidity and mortality. The updated molecular classification of gliomas defines molecularly diverse subtypes with a spectrum of tumors associated with age-distinct incidence.
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Transcriptional rewiring in CD8+ T cells: implications for CAR-T cell therapy against solid tumoursT cells engineered to express chimeric-antigen receptors (CAR-T cells) can effectively control relapsed and refractory haematological malignancies in the clinic. However, the successes of CAR-T cell therapy have not been recapitulated in solid tumours due to a range of barriers such as immunosuppression, poor infiltration, and tumour heterogeneity.
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Disruption of cotranscriptional splicing suggests that RBM39 is a therapeutic target in acute lymphoblastic leukemiaThere are few options for patients with relapse/refractory B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, thus this is a major area of unmet medical need. Here, we reveal that inclusion of a poison exon in RBM39, which could be induced both by CDK9 or CDK9 independent CMGC (cyclin-dependent kinases, mitogen-activated protein kinases, glycogen synthase kinases, CDC-like kinases) kinase inhibition, is recognized by the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay pathway for degradation.