Adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL) is a peripheral T-cell neoplasm with poor prognosis that can present as HTLV-1-associated bronchioloalveolar disease (HABA). Chemotherapy is recommended for ATL; however, it is not very effective against all types of ATL. Furthermore, there are no effective treatments for smoldering HABA-associated ATL. We present a case in which amplified natural killer cell (ANK) therapy was effective in a woman in her early 80s who was previously diagnosed with ATL-related smoldering HABA and presented with dyspnea and productive cough on exertion. The symptoms were suppressed for approximately 10 months after the first treatment, but then gradually worsened. About a year later, a second treatment was followed by mild side effects. Suppression of ATL cell proliferation by repeated doses of ANK therapy appears to be effective in this patient. The therapeutic effect was high even with long treatment intervals, and the efficacy and safety of repeated treatments have been demonstrated. ANK therapy is expected to be the mainstay of treatment ATL and HABA. ANK therapy has been reported to kill PD-L1 positive tumor cells and some solid tumors with excellent responses have many PD-L1-positive tumor cells. ANK therapy is thought to be effective for ATL because there are many PD-L1-positive tumor cells. Furthermore, administration of activated NK cells may increase tumor-killing activity in those patients with reduced NK activity. While future studies are needed, PD-L1 positive rate and NK activity may be biomarkers for the effectiveness of ANK therapy.
Amplified Natural Killer (ANK) therapy is modified to increase the safety and efficacy of the original (LAK) immunotherapy. It is a method of removing natural killer (NK) cells from the patient's own blood, culturing and amplifying the NK cells, specifically increasing their ability to attack cancer and returning them for treatment. It is generally effective against all cancers. The two cases presented here and the other treated cases show that ANK therapy is very safe and effective against ATL. Further research suggests that ANK therapy, rather than chemotherapy, is likely to be the first-line therapy for ATL. In addition, low activity of NK cells means accumulation of bacterial load. Therefore, ANK therapy with high doses of activated NK cells may be effective not only for ATL and cancer, but also for patients with chronic bacterial and viral infections.
BACKGROUND Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) constitutes up to 1% of all malignant neoplasms of the gastrointestinal tract, with the stomach and small intestine being the most frequently affected organs. The purpose of this report is to present the first published case of synchronous duodenal and jejunal GISTs. CASE REPORT A 57-years old male patient with type II diabetes complained of asthenia and vertigo, resulting from anemia. On upper digestive endoscopy, a friable lesion was found in the second portion of the duodenum. The biopsy diagnosed GIST and its removal was indicated. During the surgical procedure, a second tumor was found in the jejunum, which was also removed. Anatomopathological examination of this second lesion also revealed GIST with the same cytological features. Digestive reconstruction was performed in Roux-en-Y of the jejunum sectioned distally to the tumor with the open part of the duodenum. The patient evolved without complications, was discharged on the third postoperative day and has been followed up for eleven years without any other treatment and without neoplastic recurrence. Food transit occurs almost exclusively through the duodenum. CONCLUSION This is the first report of two synchronous GISTs of duodenum and jejunum. After removal of both tumors, the Roux-en-Y reconstruction adequately closed the opened duodenum, but food transit persisted physiological through the duodenum.
OBJECTIVE Advances in systemic therapy together with better diagnostic and surgical techniques have contributing to survival improvement of many tumor types. Patients with cancer have an increased risk of suicide and the psychological impact of cancer is due the diagnosis itself, side effects of the therapy and cancer-related symptoms. METHOD The purpose of this study is to present the clinical case of an advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor patient who committed suicide after 6 years of treatment. RESULT A 49-years-old male with a history positive only for an anxiety-depressive disorder was diagnosed with a locally advanced gastrointestinal stromal tumor. After 6 months of neoadjuvant imatinib, with stable disease, the patients decided to undergo surgery, with the subsequent resumption of adjuvant imatinib. Once the patient experienced disease progression, he preferred a surgical approach, even though he was aware that surgery was not the standard treatment and that a second-line systemic therapy was recommended. When the start of a second line therapy was the only possible treatment option, the patient has resigned himself to the idea that he would never be able to heal from cancer. After few months of second-line therapy he died of suicideSIGNIFICANCE OF RESULTS This case report shows that suicidality in cancer patients is a continuum spectrum from wanting to live, through the decreasing will to live, the readiness to die and then actively ending one’s life. Multidisciplinary teams should focus their attention not only on the disease itself but also on the cancer-related long-term psychological distress. Therefore, patient palliative care on psychological aspects should be improved strengthening psycho-social interventions during the entire cancer treatment history, not only at the end of life.
BACKGROUNDThe cancer stem cell (CSC) hypothesis of tumor genesis suggests that unlike most cancer cells within tumor CSC resist chemotherapy and can regenerate various cell types in tumor thereby causing relapse. Hence drugs that selectively target CSC may offer great promise for cancer therapy especially when combined with chemotherapy. Current treatment options for colorectal cancer (CRC) and other gastrointestinal (GI) tumors rely on combination of surgical resection, cytotoxic and targeted drugs. Recent findings showed that metformin, an ant diabetic drug was associated with a significantly lower risk of CRC (0.63 [0.47 - 0.84]; P = 0.002) in patients with type 2 diabetes. We therefore hypothesize that administration of metformin will reduce CSC.METHODSPatients with CRC and other GI cancers undergoing resection were enrolled. Metformin was administered at 500 mg orally twice daily for up to 14 days and terminated 24 hours, prior to planned surgery. Both tumor and normal tissue was procured. Adverse events (AEs) were graded according to NCI CTCAE Version 3.0. Primary objective was to establish the safety of administering metformin prior to resection. Secondary objective was to evaluate the effects of metformin on the expression of CSC markers by measuring relative mRNA levels of CD133, OCT4 and NANOG by RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry.RESULTSA total of 10 patients (4 Male; 6 Female) received metformin. Grade 3 AEs included anemia, hypoalbuminemia, alanine aminotransferase elevation, abdominal pain and nausea but none of these were related to metformin. No hypoglycemia and lactic acidosis were observed. No unexpected post-operative complications were witnessed. Comparison of markers of CCSC results showed that expression of CD133, OCT4 and NANOG expression were decreased following metformin.CONCLUSIONSOur pilot study showed feasibility of metformin before surgery in GI cancers and indicated impact on CSC. This preliminary data warrants further investigation in a larger randomized placebo-control study to assess these markers and their correlation with survival.
