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Journal of Cancer Research Updates

COMMENTARY: BRCA1/2 Mutations, Vulnerability to Breast/Ovarian Cancer, and Current and Future Treatment Modalities
Pages 45-46
Ananda M. Chakrabarty

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6000/1929-2279.2016.05.02.1

Published: 15 April 2016

 


COMMENTARY

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Journal of Cancer Research Updates

Adaptive Edge Detection Technique Towards Features Extraction from Mammogram Images
Pages 47-58
Indra Kanta Maitra, Sangita Bhattacharjee, Debnath Bhattacharyya, Tai-Hoon Kim and Samir Kumar Bandyopadhyay

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6000/1929-2279.2016.05.02.2

Published: 15 April 2016 


Abstract: Cancer is one of the most dreaded diseases of modern world. Breast cancer is the second most type of cancer & the fifth most common cause of cancer related death so it’s a significant public health problem in the world especially for elderly females. Computer technology specifically computer aided diagnosis (CAD), relatively young interdisciplinary technology, has had a tremendous impact on medical diagnosis of cancer detection due to its accuracy and cost effectiveness. The accuracy of CAD to detect abnormalities on medical image analysis requires a robust segmentation algorithm. To achieve accurate segmentation, an efficient edge-detection algorithm is essential. The mammogram is a comparatively efficient and low cost diagnostic imaging technique for breast cancer detection. In this paper a robust mammogram enhancement and edge detection algorithm is proposed, using tree-based adaptive thresholding technique. The proposed technique has been compared with different classical edge-detection techniques yielding acceptable out come. The proposed edge-detection algorithm showing 0.07 p-values and 2.411 t-stat in one sample two tail t-test (α = 0.025). The edge is single pixeled and connected which is very significant for medical edge-detection.

Keywords: Mammogram, CAD, Edge Detection, Full and Complete Binary Tree, Adaptive Threshold, Histogram, Average Bin Distance (ABD), Maximum Difference Threshold (MDT), Prominent Bins, t-Test.

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Journal of Cancer Research Updates

Establishment and Characterization of Primary Human Ovarian Cancer Stem Cell Line (CD44+ve)
Pages 59-66
Amoura Abouelnaga, Ghada A. Mutawa, Hassan Abdelghaffar, Mohamed Sobh, Sahar Hamed and Shaker A. Mousa

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6000/1929-2279.2016.05.02.3

Published: 15 April 2016 


Abstract: Ovarian cancer is ranked as the 7th most lethal cancer worldwide with 239,000 new cases annually. The mortality rate is high because most ovarian tumors are diagnosed at advanced stages and are resistant to chemotherapy and thus incurable due to the lack of effective early detection of ovarian tumors. There is a small sub-population of ovarian tumor cells capable of self-renewal and differentiation into different cancer cell types, called cancer stem cells (CSCs), which might be responsible for cancer relapse. The CD44+ phenotype in ovarian tumor cells elucidates cancer initiating cell-like properties of promoting differentiation, metastasis, and chemotherapy-resistance. Increased expression of genes previously associated with CSCs promotes regenerative capacity by promoting stem cell function that can drive cancer relapse and metastasis. In this study we present a method to isolate the primary epithelial ovarian cancer cells from human solid tumor and establish CD44+ve primary ovarian cancer stem cell (OCSCCD44+ve) line using magnetic microbeads. Also we evaluated the expression of stemness genes Nanog, Sox2, Oct4, and Nestin by real-time qPCR analysis. Thequantitative analysis by real-time qPCRshows that OCSCCD44+ve overexpressed the embryonic stem cell marker genes Nanog, Oct4, Sox2, and Nestin when compared with ovarian cancer cells OCCCD44-ve as positive control and ovarian cells as negative control. We demonstrate that CD44 in malignant ovarian tumors is a critical molecule that exhibits cancer stem cell properties that enhance tumorigenicity and cancer metastasis. Our results provide a better understanding of ovarian CSCs, which is important for future in vivo studies with subsequent target therapy for preclinical studies.

Keywords: Ovarian cancer, Cancer stem cell, Stemness genes, CD44, Chemo-resistance.

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Journal of Cancer Research Updates

Irinotecan (CamptoR) Pharmacokinetics and Metabolism in Patients with Elevated Serum Bilirubin Levels
Pages 67-72
Najia Mansoor, Rafeeq Alam Khan, Johannes Schueller, Dagmar Ettlinger, Philipp Buchner, Martin Czejka and Tasneem Ahmad

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.6000/1929-2279.2016.05.02.4

Published: 15 April 2016 


Abstract: In this study, we have calculated and reported the pharmacokinetics of irinotecan and its active metabolite, SN-38, in patients with increased plasma bilirubin levels. Four patients suffering from metastatic colorectal cancer (CRC) with high bilirubin levels (0.7 to 15 mg/dl) were selected for our study. These patients were being treated by CPT -11 (Irinotecan) in the hospital setup. To all four patients, CPT-11 was administered as a 60 min IV- infusion (180 mg/m2, total dose 339 ± 32 mg). Blood samples were collected at 0, 15, 30, 45, 60, 90,120, 180, 240, 300 and 360 minutes after the drug administration. The drug and its pharmacologically active metabolite, SN38 were quantified in these samples by an HPLC method. The blood level profiles were analyzed for their PK behavior by Kinetica® software system. SN 38 levels were found to be decreasing with increasing bilirubin values. The possible rationalizing for lower SN38 levels with elevated bilirubin levels might be some liver impairment which slows the metabolic conversion of irinotecan into SN-38.

Keywords: Irinotecan (CPT-11), SN-38, Bilirubin, liver impairment, Pharmacokinetics, DLT.

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