Immunotherapy for lung cancer: for whom the bell tolls?

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death and accounts for approximately 30% of all cancer deaths. Despite the recent developments in personalized therapy, the prognosis in lung cancer is still very poor. Immunotherapy is now emerging as a new hope for patients with lung cancer. It is well known that standard chemotherapeutic regimens have devastating effects for the patient's immune system. Therefore, the aim of immunotherapy is to specifically enhance the immune response against the tumour. Recently, many trials addressed the role of such therapies for metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) treatment: ipilimumab, tremelimumab, nivolumab and pembrolizumab are immunotherapeutic agents of high relevance in this field. Anti-tumour vaccines, as well as dendritic cell-based therapies, have emerged as potent inducers of immune response against the tumour. Herein, we will review some of the most promising cancer immunotherapies, highlighting their advantages and try to understand, in an immunological perspective, the missteps associated with the current treatments for cancer.

Insight into p95HER2 in breast cancer: molecular mechanisms and targeted therapies.

Breast cancer afflicts more than 1.3 million people worldwide and is the main cause of cancer-related deaths among women. Many efforts are underway to develop new therapeutic and biomarker strategies for the management of this disease. Hormone receptors and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) are currently the most important molecular tools in this regard. Moreover, targeted therapies including trastuzumab in particular are the primary treatment in both the adjuvant and recurrent settings. However, many studies reported that selected patients may present with resistance to trastuzumab due to the presence of p95HER2 fragments. To address this challenge, drugs such as lapatinib and others described in recent patents promise alternative therapeutic options. We discuss the most recent patents related to HER2 and p95HER2 fragments for breast cancer treatment.

Good outcome after neoadjuvant chemotherapy and extended surgical resection for a large radiation-induced high-grade breast sarcoma.

This article is a case report of a high grade, radio-induced, breast malignant fibrous histiocytoma (undifferentiated high grade pleomorphic sarcoma), which developed in a 44-year old female, seven years after breast conservative surgery and radiotherapy for a T1N0M0 invasive left breast ductal carcinoma. The sarcoma presented as a fast growing tumour, 9.5 cm in the largest diameter, with skin, left breast, chest wall muscle and rib invasion. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy was performed with epirubicin and ifosfamide. Extended radical surgery according to oncological standards and soft tissue reconstruction were carried out. Despite bad prognostic features of high grade and large invasive sarcoma, the patient is currently, after 44 months of follow up, without local recurrence, or metastases, exceeding the 12.8-month mean recurrence period and mortality rate for these tumours larger than 8.1 cm (+/- 1.2 cm) as described in the literature.