三阴性乳腺癌用药进展

三阴性乳腺癌是缺乏雌激素受体、孕激素受体和人类表皮生长因子受体-2的特殊类型的乳腺癌，相比其他乳腺癌亚型，其临床特征为预后较差、高侵袭性、高转移性以及高复发率。目前三阴性乳腺癌的早期治疗手段主要为蒽环类和紫杉烷类化学疗法，但容易产生耐药性；而且三阴性乳腺癌对一些现有的靶向药物和内分泌治疗药物敏感性也不高。因此本文在介绍目前三阴性乳腺癌涉及的临床用药的基础上，还对联合用药、新药研发进展作简要综述，为今后的用药提供思路。     

丹芩消郁合剂治疗乳腺增生病疗效观察

目的:观察丹芩消郁合剂治疗乳腺增生病的临床疗效。方法:将80例乳腺增生病患者随机分为治疗组和对照组各40例,治疗组给予丹芩消郁合剂治疗,对照组给予消癥丸治疗,2个月为1个疗程,疗程结束后评价疗效。结果:两组患者治疗的总有效率均为92.5%,比较其差异无统计学意义(P0.05);两组愈显率分别为:治疗组52.5%,对照组30.0%,两组比较,差异有统计学意义(P0.05)。结论:丹芩消郁合剂治疗乳腺增生病疗效优于消癥丸。     

Epigenome‐wide DNA methylation changes with development of arsenic‐induced skin lesions in Bangladesh: A case–control follow‐up study

Studies have found an association between aberrant DNA methylation and arsenic‐induced skin lesions. However, little is known about DNA methylation changes over time in people who develop arsenic‐induced skin lesions. We sought to investigate epigenome‐wide changes of DNA methylation in people who developed arsenic‐induced skin lesions in a 10‐year period. In 2009–2011, we conducted a follow‐up study of 900 skin lesion cases and 900 controls and identified 10 people who developed skin lesions since a baseline survey in 2001–2003. The 10 cases (“New Cases”) were matched with 10 controls who did not have skin lesions at baseline or follow‐up (“Persistent Controls”). Drinking water and blood samples were collected, and skin lesion was diagnosed by the same physician at both time points. We measured DNA methylation in blood using Infinium HumanMethylation450K BeadChip, followed by quantitative validation using pyrosequencing. Two‐sample t‐tests were used to compare changes in percent methylation between New Cases and Persistent Controls. Six CpG (cytosine‐phosphate‐guanine) sites with greatest changes of DNA methylation over time among New Cases were further validated with a correlation of 93% using pyrosequencing. One of the validated CpG site (cg03333116; change of %methylation was 13.2 in New Cases versus ?0.09 in Persistent Controls; P < 0.001) belonged to the RHBDF1 gene, which was previously reported to be hypermethylated in arsenic‐exposed cases. We examined DNA methylation changes with the development of arsenic‐induced skin lesions over time but nothing was statistically significant given the small sample size of this exploratory study and the high dimensionality of data. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 55:449–456, 2014. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Toremifene in the treatment of breast cancer

Although more widespread screening and routine adjuvant therapy has improved the outcome for breast cancer patients in recent years, there remains considerable scope for improving the efficacy, safety and tolerability of adjuvant therapy in the early stage disease and the treatment of advanced disease. Toremifene is a selective estrogen receptor modifier (SERM) that has been widely used for decades in hormone receptor positive breast cancer both in early and late stage disease. Its efficacy has been well established in nine prospective randomized phase III trials compared to tamoxifen involving more than 5500 patients, as well as in several large uncontrolled and non-randomized studies. Although most studies show therapeutic equivalence between the two SERMs, some show an advantage for toremifene. Several meta-analyses have also confirmed that the efficacy of toremifene is at least as good as that of tamoxifen. In terms of safety and tolerability toremifene is broadly similar to tamoxifen although there is some evidence that toremifene is less likely to cause uterine neoplasms, serious vascular events and it has a more positive effect on serum lipids than does tamoxifen. Toremifene is therefore effective and safe in the treatment of breast cancer. It provides not only a useful therapeutic alternative to tamoxifen, but may bring specific benefits.     

Mammaglobin peptide as a novel biomarker for breast cancer detection

Among the different types of tests used for cancer diagnosis, molecular tests have been increrasingly incorporated because of their ability to detect either expression or functional changes in the molecules associated with the disease. Mammaglobin is a protein found in mammary tissue and can be detected in serum. This protein has been proposed as a biomarker to diagnose breast cancer, given that patients exhibit an increased amount of the protein in serum and tumor tissue, in comparison to healthy individuals. The ELISA test was used in the present study to detect mammaglobin in blood samples from 51 breast cancer patients and 51 control individuals. Antibodies against mamaglobin were generated in rabbits by using the following synthetic peptides: A (amino acids 13 to 21), B (amino acids 31 to 39), C (amino acids 56 to 64) and a D peptide, corresponding to the protein isoform without three amino acids (59, 60 and 61 amino acids) from peptide C. All peptides were immunogenic and allowed generation of antibodies that were able to discriminate patients from controls. The best results were obtained for antiserum B, achieving the best sensitivity (86.3%) and specificity (96%).