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Cancer patients are at an increased risk of developing severe consequences due to the COVID-19 infection. However, psychological outcomes in this population have been overlooked in the literature. The present study aims to identify significant psychological differences between gynecological cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy before and during the pandemic. Additionally, we explore the correlations between COVID-19-related concerns and anxiety, depression, distress, and quality of life levels. Forty-two patients completed the STAI-Y, the EORTC QLQ-C30, the BDI II, the DT, and an ad-hoc questionnaire that investigated COVID-19-related concerns. The analyses did not show significant differences in the psychometric scales between the two groups, highlighting a considerable resilience against mental health and quality of life deterioration during the COVID-19 pandemic in gynecologic cancer patients. However, COVID-19-related concerns were positively associated with anxiety and inversely related to emotional functioning levels. These results emphasize the importance of a comprehensive patient care and the need to implement a multidisciplinary approach that includes psychological support in the treatment plan. Moreover, it is essential to encourage clear communication to convey comprehensive information about the impact of the pandemic on physical and psychological levels, as well as to offer psychoeducational tools to face the pandemic.

Precise correction of the CD40LG gene in T cells and hematopoietic stem/progenitor cells (HSPC) holds promise for treating X-linked hyper-IgM Syndrome (HIGM1), but its actual therapeutic potential remains elusive. Here, we developed a one-size-fits-all editing strategy for effective T-cell correction, selection, and depletion and investigated the therapeutic potential of T-cell and HSPC therapies in the HIGM1 mouse model. Edited patients’ derived CD4 T cells restored physiologically regulated CD40L expression and contact-dependent B-cell helper function. Adoptive transfer of wild-type T cells into conditioned HIGM1 mice rescued antigen-specific IgG responses and protected mice from a disease-relevant pathogen. We then obtained ~ 25% CD40LG editing in long-term repopulating human HSPC. Transplanting such proportion of wild-type HSPC in HIGM1 mice rescued immune functions similarly to T-cell therapy. Overall, our findings suggest that autologous edited T cells can provide immediate and substantial benefits to HIGM1 patients and position T-cell ahead of HSPC gene therapy because of easier translation, lower safety concerns and potentially comparable clinical benefits.

Aim To explore the potentiality of radiomics analysis, performed on 68Ga-DOTATOC and fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) PET/computed tomography (CT) images, in predicting tumour aggressiveness and outcome in patients candidate to surgery for pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms (PanNENs). Patients and methods Retrospective study including 61 patients who underwent 68Ga-DOTATOC and 18F-FDG PET/CT before surgery for PanNEN. Semiquantitative variables [SUVmax and somatostatin receptor density (SRD) for 68Ga-DOTATOC PET; SUVmax and MTV for 18F-FDG PET] and texture features [intensity variability, size zone variability (SZV), zone percentage, entropy; homogeneity, dissimilarity and coefficient of variation (Co-V)] have been analysed to evaluate their possible role in predicting tumour characteristics. Principal component analysis (PCA) was firstly performed and then multiple regression analyses were performed by using the extracted principal components. Results Regarding 68Ga-DOTATOC PET, SZV, entropy, intensity variability and SRD were predictive for tumour dimension. Regarding 18F-FDG PET, intensity variability, SZV, homogeneity, SUVmax and MTV were predictive for tumour dimension. Four principal components were extracted from PCA: PC1 correlated with all 18F-FDG variables, while PC2, PC3 and PC4 with 68Ga-DOTATOC variables. PC1 was the only significantly predicting angioinvasion (P = 0.0222); PC4 was the only one significantly predicting lymph nodal involvement (P = 0.0151). All principal components except PC4 significantly predicted tumour dimension (P <0.0001 for PC1, P = 0.0016 for PC2 and P < 0.0001 for PC3). Co-V from 68Ga-DOTATOC PET/CT was predictive of the outcome. Conclusion Specific texture features derived from preoperative 68Ga-DOTATOC and 18F-FDG PET/CT could noninvasively predict specific tumour characteristics and patients' outcome, delineating the potential role of dual tracer technique and texture analysis in the risk assessment of patients

FL patients younger than 40 have a median OS of 24 years and their outcome improved over time. However, they still have a significantly shorter life expectancy when compared with that of an age-matched general healthy population. FL in young adults, differently from paediatric FL, does not seem to represent a distinct entity

BACKGROUND: Some diseases, like tumors, can be related to chromosomal aberrations, leading to changes of DNA copy number. The copy number of an aberrant genome can be represented as a piecewise constant function, since it can exhibit regions of deletions or gains. Instead, in a healthy cell the copy number is two because we inherit one copy of each chromosome from each our parents. Bayesian Piecewise Constant Regression (BPCR) is a Bayesian regression method for data that are noisy observations of a piecewise constant function. The method estimates the unknown segment number, the endpoints of the segments and the value of the segment levels of the underlying piecewise constant function. The Bayesian Regression Curve (BRC) estimates the same data with a smoothing curve. However, in the original formulation, some estimators failed to properly determine the corresponding parameters. For example, the boundary estimator did not take into account the dependency among the boundaries and succeeded in estimating more than one breakpoint at the same position, losing segments. RESULTS: We derived an improved version of the BPCR (called mBPCR) and BRC, changing the segment number estimator and the boundary estimator to enhance the fitting procedure. We also proposed an alternative estimator of the variance of the segment levels, which is useful in case of data with high noise. Using artificial data, we compared the original and the modified version of BPCR and BRC with other regression methods, showing that our improved version of BPCR generally outperformed all the others. Similar results were also observed on real data. CONCLUSION: We propose an improved method for DNA copy number estimation, mBPCR, which performed very well compared to previously published algorithms. In particular, mBPCR was more powerful in the detection of the true position of the breakpoints and of small aberrations in very noisy data. Hence, from a biological point of view, our method can be very useful

FL patients younger than 40 have a median OS of 24 years and their outcome improved over time. However, they still have a significantly shorter life expectancy when compared with that of an age-matched general healthy population. FL in young adults, differently from paediatric FL, does not seem to represent a distinct entity