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Purpose Despite recognition of both the growing cancer burden in low- and middle-income countries and the disproportionately high mortality rates in these settings, delivery of high-quality cancer care remains a challenge. The disparities in cancer care outcomes for many geographic regions result from barriers that are likely complex and understudied. This study describes the development and use of a streamlined needs assessment questionnaire (NAQ) to understand the barriers to providing quality cancer care, identifies areas for improvement, and formulates recommendations for implementation. Methods Using a comprehensive NAQ, in-depth interviews were conducted with 17 hospital staff involved in cancer care at two teaching hospitals in Nigeria. Data were analyzed using content analysis and organized into a framework with preset codes and emergent codes, where applicable. Results Data from the interviews were organized into six broad themes: staff, stuff, system, space, lack of palliative care, and provider bias, with key barriers within themes including: financial, infrastructural, lack of awareness, limited human capacity resources, lack of palliative care, and provider perspective on patient-related barriers to cancer care. Specific solutions based on ability to reasonably implement were subcategorized into short-, medium-, and long-term goals. Conclusion This study provides a framework for a streamlined initial needs assessment and a unique discussion on the barriers to high-quality oncology care that are prevalent in resource-constrained settings. We report the feasibility of collecting and organizing data using a streamlined NAQ and provide a thorough and in-depth understanding of the challenges in this setting. Knowledge gained from the assessments will inform steps to improve oncology cancer in these settings.

Background The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway is a driver of breast tumorigenesis. The mTOR inhibitor everolimus reverses antihormonal therapy resistance and is an approved therapy for metastatic breast cancer. A synergistic effect with fluoropyrimidine has been suggested. The present study evaluated the safety and tolerability of an all-oral combination of everolimus and capecitabine for metastatic breast cancer (MBC). Patients and Methods MBC patients naive to capecitabine and mTOR inhibitors who had received ≤ 3 previous chemotherapy regimens in the metastatic setting were eligible for the present study. The patients were scheduled to receive capecitabine 825 mg/m 2 twice daily for 14 days in a 21-day cycle, combined with everolimus in 5 separate dose cohorts: 2.5 mg every other day, 2.5 mg daily, 5 mg daily, 7.5 mg daily, and 10 mg daily. A 3+3 design was used. The maximum tolerated dose was based on the dose-limiting toxicity of everolimus plus capecitabine. Results A total of 18 patients were enrolled in the present trial. The median age was 58 years. Most had received previous anthracycline (83%) and taxane (94%) therapy. The maximum tolerated dose was everolimus 7.5 mg daily and capecitabine 825 mg/m 2 . The incidence of grade 3 events was low and mainly hematologic in nature. One incident each of grade 4 neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, hyperglycemia, and mucositis occurred. No grade 5 events occurred. The clinical benefit rate was 50%. The median progression-free survival was 196 days, and the median overall survival was 569 days. Conclusion The all-oral regimen of everolimus with capecitabine is active and well tolerated, with encouraging results for progression-free survival, overall survival, and clinical benefit rate in patients with MBC.

BackgroundOrganizations that issue guidance on breast cancer recommend the use of immunohistochemistry (IHC) for providing appropriate and precise care. However, little focus has been directed to the identification of maximum allowable turnaround times for IHC, which is necessary given the diversity of hospital settings in the world. Much less effort has been committed to the development of digital tools that allow hospital administrators to monitor service utilization histories of their patients.MethodsIn this retrospective cohort study, we reviewed electronic and paper medical records of all suspected breast cancer patients treated at one secondary-care hospital of the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), located in western Mexico. We then followed three years of medical history of those patients with IHC testing.ResultsIn 2014, there were 402 breast cancer patients, of which 30 were tested for some IHC biomarker (ER, PR, HER2). The subtyping allowed doctors to adjust (56.7 %) or confirm (43.3 %) the initial therapeutic regimen. The average turnaround time was 56 days. Opportune IHC testing was found to be beneficial when it was available before or during the first rounds of chemotherapy.ConclusionsThe use of data mining tools applied to health record data revealed that there is an association between timely immunohistochemistry and improved outcomes in breast cancer patients. Based on this finding, inclusion of turnaround time in clinical guidelines is recommended. As much of the health data in the country becomes digitized, our visualization tools allow a digital dashboard of the hospital service utilization histories.

The mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway is a driver of breast tumorigenesis. The mTOR inhibitor everolimus reverses antihormonal therapy resistance and is an approved therapy for metastatic breast cancer. A synergistic effect with fluoropyrimidine has been suggested. The present study evaluated the safety and tolerability of an all-oral combination of everolimus and capecitabine for metastatic breast cancer (MBC).MBC patients naive to capecitabine and mTOR inhibitors who had received ≤ 3 previous chemotherapy regimens in the metastatic setting were eligible for the present study. The patients were scheduled to receive capecitabine 825 mg/mA total of 18 patients were enrolled in the present trial. The median age was 58 years. Most had received previous anthracycline (83%) and taxane (94%) therapy. The maximum tolerated dose was everolimus 7.5 mg daily and capecitabine 825 mg/mThe all-oral regimen of everolimus with capecitabine is active and well tolerated, with encouraging results for progression-free survival, overall survival, and clinical benefit rate in patients with MBC.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are emerging as rare but clinically significant non-invasive cellular biomarkers for cancer patient prognosis, treatment selection, and treatment monitoring. Current CTC isolation approaches, such as immunoaffinity, filtration, or size-based techniques, are often limited by throughput, purity, large output volumes, or inability to obtain viable cells for downstream analysis. For all technologies, traditional immunofluorescent staining alone has been employed to distinguish and confirm the presence of isolated CTCs among contaminating blood cells, although cells isolated by size may express vastly different phenotypes. Consequently, CTC definitions have been non-trivial, researcher-dependent, and evolving. Here we describe a complete set of objective criteria, leveraging well-established cytomorphological features of malignancy, by which we identify large CTCs. We apply the criteria to CTCs enriched from stage IV lung and breast cancer patient blood samples using the High Throughput Vortex Chip (Vortex HT), an improved microfluidic technology for the label-free, size-based enrichment and concentration of rare cells. We achieve improved capture efficiency (up to 83%), high speed of processing (8 mL/min of 10x diluted blood, or 800 μL/min of whole blood), and high purity (avg. background of 28.8±23.6 white blood cells per mL of whole blood). We show markedly improved performance of CTC capture (84% positive test rate) in comparison to previous Vortex designs and the current FDA-approved gold standard CellSearch assay. The results demonstrate the ability to quickly collect viable and pure populations of abnormal large circulating cells unbiased by molecular characteristics, which helps uncover further heterogeneity in these cells.

Background: The use of HER2 targeting therapy has revolutionized the treatment of HER2 positive breast cancers. Here, we investigate whether a sequential approach to dual HER2 blockade of lapatinib followed by trastuzumab will result in improved clinical outcomes. Methods: This was a single institution, open label, single arm, phase II trial in women with HER2 positive breast cancer. Volunteers were treated with sequential neoadjuvant doxorubicin (60 mg/m2) and cyclophosphamide (600 mg/m2) (AC) for 4 cycles followed by docetaxel (100 mg/m2) concurrent with lapatinib (1,250 mg) (TL) daily for 21 days for four cycles before definitive surgery. The primary end point was pathologic complete response (pCR). Results: The study accrued only 21 of the 71 planned patients from 2/28/2007 to 5/25/2010. All patients (100%) experienced down staging. The pCR rate was 41% (7/18). 11 patients had tumor size of T3 or greater, 3 of which experienced pCR and only 1 underwent breast conservation (lumpectomy). The most common hematologic AE (all grades) was anemia 17/21 (81%). There were no incidences of grade 3 or 4 anemia. 10 of 21 (48%) patients experience a non-hematologic grade 3 AE. The most common non-hematologic AEs (all grades) were irregular menses 20/21 (95%) and hand-foot-skin reactions 20/21 (95%). No increase cardiac abnormalities were noted. The DFS at data cut off was 87.5%. Conclusion: The provocative pCR and DFS results in this high risk locally advanced patient population should be viewed with caution given results of the Adjuvant Lapatinib And/Or Trastuzumab Treatment Optimisation study (ALTTO) clinical trial.

The innate and adaptive immune systems have the capacity to recognize and eliminate transformed cells while the ability of tumors to evade and abrogate immune functions appears to be a requisite for disease progression. Abnormalities in essentially every immune population have been documented in cancer patients and murine tumor models. Thus, the immune system is a crucial target for cancer therapeutics in order to achieve a true cure. The cytokine JAK-STAT signaling network is a key instrument of immune system communication and directs a multitude of immune functions. Because of the integral role in regulation of immune functions as well as the intricate crosstalk that occurs within cytokine signaling networks, alterations in these networks in cancer patients are likely to be key contributing factors in immune dysfunction. We have previously shown that IFNα and IFNγ signaling are impaired in lymphocytes from breast cancer, melanoma, and gastrointestinal cancer patients. In this study we sought to determine whether additional cytokine signaling pathways are altered in immune cells from cancer patients. Phospho-flow cytometry was used to measure STAT phosphorylation in response to 10 cytokines from the IFN, gp130, γC, and the IL3 cytokine families, to provide a broad picture of the global cytokine network in peripheral blood immune cells. Included in this analysis were patient cohorts with various carcinomas including breast, lung, gastrointestinal, and melanoma, as well as patients with psoriasis, an epidermal hyperplasia resulting from chronic inflammatory cytokine production by persistently activated immune cells. Preliminary analysis of our study has revealed that compared with healthy controls, cancer and psoriasis patients exhibit altered responses to multiple additional cytokines in various immune cell subsets. We hypothesize that chronic inflammation which occurs in the settings of both cancer and psoriasis contributes to cytokine signaling defects and are exploring the mechanisms and the functional consequences of these defects on T cell function. Understanding how alterations in cytokine responsiveness contribute to immune dysfunction will enable correction of these signaling defects to restore anti-tumor immune function and enhance the ability of the host immune response to control cancer. This work was supported by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command under W81XWH-10-1-0616 and W81XWH-06-1-0417, NIH Molecular and Cellular Immunobiology Training Grant No. 5 T32 AI07290-24, and NIH R01 CA130817. Citation Format: Andrea K. Miyahira, Diana L. Simons, Frederick Dirbas, Ellie Guardino, Shruti Sheth, Robert Carlson, Peter P. Lee. Identification of cytokine network signaling abnormalities in immune cells from cancer patients. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Tumor Immunology: Multidisciplinary Science Driving Basic and Clinical Advances; Dec 2-5, 2012; Miami, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(1 Suppl):Abstract nr A51.

Background To improve cancer therapy, it is critical to target metastasizing cells. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are rare cells found in the blood of patients with solid tumors and may play a key role in cancer dissemination. Uncovering CTC phenotypes offers a potential avenue to inform treatment. However, CTC transcriptional profiling is limited by leukocyte contamination; an approach to surmount this problem is single cell analysis. Here we demonstrate feasibility of performing high dimensional single CTC profiling, providing early insight into CTC heterogeneity and allowing comparisons to breast cancer cell lines widely used for drug discovery. Methodology/Principal Findings We purified CTCs using the MagSweeper, an immunomagnetic enrichment device that isolates live tumor cells from unfractionated blood. CTCs that met stringent criteria for further analysis were obtained from 70% (14/20) of primary and 70% (21/30) of metastatic breast cancer patients; none were captured from patients with non-epithelial cancer (n = 20) or healthy subjects (n = 25). Microfluidic-based single cell transcriptional profiling of 87 cancer-associated and reference genes showed heterogeneity among individual CTCs, separating them into two major subgroups, based on 31 highly expressed genes. In contrast, single cells from seven breast cancer cell lines were tightly clustered together by sample ID and ER status. CTC profiles were distinct from those of cancer cell lines, questioning the suitability of such lines for drug discovery efforts for late stage cancer therapy. Conclusions/Significance For the first time, we directly measured high dimensional gene expression in individual CTCs without the common practice of pooling such cells. Elevated transcript levels of genes associated with metastasis NPTN, S100A4, S100A9, and with epithelial mesenchymal transition: VIM, TGFß1, ZEB2, FOXC1, CXCR4, were striking compared to cell lines. Our findings demonstrate that profiling CTCs on a cell-by-cell basis is possible and may facilitate the application of ‘liquid biopsies’ to better model drug discovery.