FOLFOX-bevacizumab chemotherapy in patients with metastatic neuroendocrine tumors.

Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are highly vascularized neoplasms. While FOLFOX chemotherapy has shown efficacy in patients with advanced NETs, its combination with antiangiogenics has been scarcely described. Here, we report the efficacy and tolerance of FOLFOX-bevacizumab in this setting. We retrospectively studied all consecutive patients with metastatic NET treated by FOLFOX-bevacizumab in two expert centers from 2013 to 2020. We assessed time to treatment failure (TTF), objective response rate (ORR) and toxicity. We explored factors associated with TTF and ORR using multivariate analyses. We included 57 patients (35.1% female, median age 61.7 years), with pancreatic (66.7%), small-intestine (14%) or lung (7%) NETs. Most patients (57.9%) had extra-hepatic metastases and G3 NETs accounted for 40.3% of cases. Patients received a median of 17 cycles of treatment, including a median of seven cycles of bevacizumab and/or 5-fluorouracile maintenance. Median TTF was 15.5 months (95% CI: 9.8-21.2) and was shorter in patients age > 60 years (HR 2.56, 95% CI: 1.16-5.64), p = .020) and >1 previous systemic treatment line (HR 4.15, 95% CI: 1.96-8.78), p < .001). The ORR was 42.9% and was higher in cases of performance status at 0 (OR 5.25, 95% CI: 1.13-24.35), p = .034) and G3 NET (OR 5.39, 95% CI: 1.23-23.52), p = .025). The FOLFOX-bevacizumab combination has promising efficacy in patients with progressive metastatic NETs and notably for G3 NETs, for which optimal treatment as yet remains ill-defined. Hence, it could be a relevant alternative to alkylating-based chemotherapy in this setting and should be further explored prospectively.

Biomarkers of Response to Etoposide-Platinum Chemotherapy in Patients with Grade 3 Neuroendocrine Neoplasms.

Etoposide-platinum (EP) chemotherapy has long been the reference treatment for grade 3 neuroendocrine neoplasms (G3 NEN). However, G3 NEN are heterogeneous, including well-differentiated tumors (NET) and poorly differentiated large (LCNEC) or small (SCNEC) cell carcinomas, whose response to EP chemotherapy varies considerably. Our aim was to evaluate predictive biomarkers for the response to EP chemotherapy in G3 NEN. We retrospectively studied 89 patients with lung (42%) and digestive (58%) G3 NEN treated by EP chemotherapy between 2006 and 2020. All cases were centrally reviewed for cytomorphology/Ki-67 and immunohistochemistry of retinoblastoma protein (Rb)/p53/p16, analyzed using a semi-quantitative score. The absence of Rb staining (Rbinap) or the absence of very intense p53 staining (p53inap) were considered inappropriate. Rb staining was also studied as a quantitative marker, the best threshold being determined by ROC curve. Intense p16 staining (p16high) also suggested cell cycle dysregulation. Our primary endpoint was the objective response rate (ORR). We included 10 G3 NET, 31 LCNEC and 48 SCNEC, which showed ORR of 20%, 32% and 75%, respectively (NET vs. NEC, p = 0.040; LCNEC vs. SCNEC, p < 0.001). The ORR was significantly higher in NEN presenting with Rbinap (63% vs. 42%, p = 0.025) and p16high (66% vs. 35%, p = 0.006). Rb < 150 optimally identified responders (AUC = 0.657, p < 0.001). The ORR was 67% in Rb < 150 (vs. 25%, p = 0.005). On multivariate analysis, only Rb < 150 was independently associated with ORR (OR 4.16, 95% CI 1.11-15.53, p = 0.034). We confirm the heterogeneity of the response to EP treatment in G3 NEN. Rb < 150 was the best predictive biomarker for the response to EP, and p53 immunostaining had no additional value.

Rapid screening of classic galactosemia patients: a proof-of-concept study using high-throughput FTIR analysis of plasma.

Classic galactosemia is an autosomal recessive metabolic disease involving the galactose pathway, caused by the deficiency of galactose-1-phosphate uridyltransferase. Galactose accumulation induces in newborns many symptoms, such as liver disease, cataracts, and sepsis leading to death if untreated. Neonatal screening is developed and applied in many countries using several methods to detect galactose or its derived product accumulation in blood or urine. High-throughput FTIR spectroscopy was investigated as a potential tool in the current screening methods. IR spectra were obtained from blood plasma of healthy, diabetic, and galactosemic patients. The major spectral differences were in the carbohydrate region, which was first analysed in an exploratory manner using principal component analysis (PCA). PCA score plots showed a clear discrimination between diabetic and galactosemic patients and this was more marked as a function of the glucose and galactose increased concentration in these patients' plasma respectively. Then, a support vector machine leave-one-out cross-validation (SVM-LOOCV) classifier was built with the PCA scores as the input and the model was tested on median, mean and all spectra from the three population groups. This classifier was able to discriminate healthy/diabetic, healthy/galactosemic, and diabetic/galactosemic patients with sensitivity and specificity rates ranging from 80% to 94%. The total accuracy rate ranged from 87% to 96%. High-throughput FTIR spectroscopy combined with the SVM-LOOCV classification procedure appears to be a promising tool in the screening of galactosemia patients, with good sensitivity and specificity. Furthermore, this approach presents the advantages of being cost-effective, fast, and straightforward in the screening of galactosemic patients.