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Background: Tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) at diagnosis are reported to be prognostic in triple-negative breast cancer (BC). Analysis of a small subset of 209 HER2+ patients (pts) with 49 events concluded that higher levels of S-TILs are associated with increased trastuzumab benefit (Loi, 2014). Here we report the largest study to date evaluating S-TILs and their prognostic and predictive association with clinical outcome in N9831 pts treated with either chemotherapy or chemotherapy plus trastuzumab. Methods: Samples assessed were from primary tumors of pts on N9831 arm A (standard AC→T chemotherapy) and arm C (concurrent chemotherapy with trastuzumab) (Perez, 2011). S-TILs were evaluated on H&E whole tumor slides by a single pathologist with ∼10% of cases read by two pathologists in tandem. The percent of stromal lymphocytic infiltrates (S-TILs) was quantitated in deciles; ≥60% S-TILs was used for the categorical cutoff (Denkert, 2010). The association between S-TILs, treatment (tx) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) was studied and the interaction between S-TILs, trastuzumab benefit and RFS was calculated. Results: 489 pts from arm A (chemo) and 456 pts from arm C (chemo with trastuzumab) were assessed and were similar to pts in the overall trial; all had RFS information and a median follow-up of 4.4yr. Tumors from 54% of pts in arms A and C were HR+; 14% were node-negative. Tumors with high S-TILs were more likely to be hormone receptor-negative (p< 0.0001). In multivariable analyses including nodal status, hormone receptor status, tx arm, tumor size, tumor grade, and age, ≥60% S-TILs was significantly associated with RFS (HR 0.20; 95%CI 0.064–0.65, p=0.007) in arm A but not in arm C (HR 1.1; 95%CI 0.42–2.8, p=0.87); the interaction term of arm and ≥60% S-TILs was significant (p=0.042). Semi-continuous deciles were associated with RFS in arm A (p Arm A (N=489)Arm C (N=456)VariableHR (95% CI)p-valueHR (95% CI)p-valueNodal statusLymph node(-)1.00 (ref) Conclusions: In exploratory analyses from this subset HER2+ population from N9831, S-TILs were associated with RFS in patients treated with chemotherapy alone, and were not shown to be associated with RFS in patients treated with chemotherapy plus trastuzumab. Citation Format: Edith A Perez, Karla V Ballman, S Keith Anderson, E Aubrey Thompson, Sunil S Badve, Helen Bailey, Frederick L Baehner. Stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes(S-TILs): In the alliance N9831 trial S-TILs are associated with chemotherapy benefit but not associated with trastuzumab benefit [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Seventh Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2014 Dec 9-13; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(9 Suppl):Abstract nr S1-06.

The androgen receptor (AR) is the principal target for treatment of non–organ-confined prostate cancer (PCa). Androgen deprivation therapies (ADT) directed against the AR ligand–binding domain do not fully inhibit androgen-dependent signaling critical for PCa progression. Thus, information that could direct the development of more effective ADTs is desired. Systems and bioinformatics approaches suggest that considerable variation exists in the mechanisms by which AR regulates expression of effector genes, pointing to a role for secondary transcription factors. A combination of microarray and in silico analyses led us to identify a 158-gene signature that relies on AR along with the transcription factor SRF (serum response factor), representing less than 6% of androgen-dependent genes. This AR-SRF signature is sufficient to distinguish microdissected benign and malignant prostate samples, and it correlates with the presence of aggressive disease and poor outcome. The AR-SRF signature described here associates more strongly with biochemical failure than other AR target gene signatures of similar size. Furthermore, it is enriched in malignant versus benign prostate tissues, compared with other signatures. To our knowledge, this profile represents the first demonstration of a distinct mechanism of androgen action with clinical relevance in PCa, offering a possible rationale to develop novel and more effective forms of ADT. Cancer Res; 71(5); 1978–88. ©2011 AACR.

Recent studies have shown that associations between common genetic variation and gene expression in breast tumors provide insight into the functional mechanisms underlying breast cancer risk loci. However, the relationship between genetic variation, gene expression, and risk of triple negative (TN) breast cancer remains largely unexplored. We performed a genome-wide expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analysis of TN breast cancer using 668 formalin-fixed paraffin embedded TN tumors from the Triple Negative Breast Cancer Consortium (TNBCC) to identify novel genes relevant to TN breast cancer risk and to further explore the biology underlying known TN risk loci. Cis-eQTLs were defined as correlations between single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) and expression of genes within 1Mb, and trans-eQTLs were defined as the remainder of all SNP-gene correlations. In a genome-wide analysis, we identified 68,012 cis-eQTLs, representing correlations between 42,193 SNPs and 2,092 genes that were significant at a 10% false discovery rate (FDR). We also identified 70 trans-eQTLs across two unique genes at the same FDR threshold. Five cis-eQTLs involved SNPs previously associated with TN breast cancer risk (p Citation Format: Kristen S. Purrington, Drakoulis Yannoukakos, Jane Carpenter, Heli Nevanlinna, Angela Cox, Gianluca Severi, Christine Ambrosone, Amanda Ewart Toland, Andrew K. Godwin, Hiltrud Brauch, Peter A. Fasching, Penelope Miron, Jenny Chang-Claude, Nicholas G. Martin, Grant W. Montgomery, Vessela Kristensen, Hoda Anton-Culver, Paul Goodfellow, Janet E. Olson, Hugues Sicotte, Naresh Prodduturi, Daniel W. Visscher, Jeanette E. Eckel-Passow, S. Keith Anderson, Seth Slettedahl, Curtis Olswold, Xianshu Wang, V. Shane Pankratz, Susan Slager, Wei Zheng, Arto Mannermaa, Ute Hamann, Diana M. Eccles, Celine M. Vachon, Fergus J. Couch. Expression quantitative trait locus analysis of triple negative breast cancer. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 3266. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-3266

Purpose: Surrogate biomarkers are lacking for predicting or monitoring response to anti-angiogenesis therapies. We investigated whether circulating biomarkers (CBMs) of angiogenesis (i.e., bFGF, SDF-1α, HGF, sKIT, Ang-2, and PlGF) correlated with treatment efficacy in a pooled analysis of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) and recurrent glioblastoma multiforme (rGBM) patients (pts) treated with bevacizumab/sorafenib (BEV/SOR). Experimental procedures: Peripheral blood samples were obtained for CBM analyses from pts enrolled in the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) phase II studies N054C (mCRC, n=75, Grothey, ASCO 2010) and N0776 (rGBM, n=54, Galanis, ASCO 2010). Blood collection time points were: baseline (BL), cycle 1 day 3 (C1D3), prior to treatment cycles 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, and after the pt went off study. Plasma CBM levels were determined by commercially-available ELISAs (R&D Systems) and performed according to manufacturer's instructions. For each CBM, a linear regression model that adjusted for study was used to evaluate the correlation with either progression-free survival (PFS) success/failure or progression within 14 days of the last blood draw for the following measures: absolute BL levels, log2 BL levels; C1D3 log2-fold change (FC) from BL, prior to cycle 2 log2-FC from BL, last draw log2-FC from BL, and last draw log2-FC from prior draw. Results summary: There appears to be no significant difference in the PFS or overall survival (OS) between the pts on these two studies; therefore, we pooled the patients from both studies for a combined analyses. We found no difference in absolute or log2 levels for any of the CBMs during the course of BEV/SOR treatment. In these pooled analyses, we found increased absolute and increased log2 BL SDF-1α levels were significantly correlated with PFS success (p=0.023 and p=0.02, respectively). After correcting for multiple comparisons (method of Benjamini & Hochberg) the p-values 0.10). Conclusions: This study provides preliminary evidence that SDF-1α may be a useful CBM for determining treatment efficacy in these pts treated with BEV/SOR. Further prospective validation of SDF-1α for predicting pt progression with this treatment combination in advanced disease (e.g., mCRC and rGBM) appears warranted. Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 103rd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2012 Mar 31-Apr 4; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2012;72(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 5562. doi:1538-7445.AM2012-5562