Multidisciplinary Cancer Investigation
Year:2018 | Volume:2 | Issue:3|Papers Count:4

Cancer is the one of most prevalent and leading causes of death in the world. Current advancements in technology improve the understanding of the pathogenesis and pathology of cancers. But, due to enlarging mortality rates, poor prognosis, and lacunae in clinical early predictive biomarkers provide an important momentum to investigate novel early diagnostic/ prognostic markers and specific targets for cancers therapeutics sufficiently sensitive to cancers. Recently, the emerging small noncoding microRNAs (miRNAs) are suggested as important and critical regulators in the oncogenesis pathways and serve as precise and useful early clinical biomarkers. This new class of biomarkers is emerging as a novel molecule for cancer diagnosis and prognosis and recent miRNA expression studies in tumors yield promising results. However, establishing miRNA expression in the blood circulation, cell-free as noninvasive marker, has advantages over determination of tumor in primary tissue. A better understanding of the involvement of this class of molecular markers in carcinogenesis could provide new insights into the mechanisms in the development of tumor and could be helpful to identify new specific novel early powerful markers for the early detection of cancer. The current review study aimed at summarizing the recent research studies supporting the utility of miRNAs as novel early diagnostic and prognostic tools, thus potentially illuminating future treatment strategies for cancers, which indicates the feasibility and clinical applications and the importance of miRNAs in cancer for researchers and clinical diagnostic centers.

Introduction: Gastrointestinal cancers constitute more than one-third of the most common cancers and half of the fatal cancers worldwide. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) are identified as pivotal receptors in innate immunity responses. TLR4 is the main receptor that plays a role in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) sensing of gram-positive bacteria. D299G (rs4986790) and T399I (rs4986791) polymorphisms in TLR4 lead to a decrease in immune response against LPS. The current study aimed at investigating the relationship between D299G and T399I polymorphisms and susceptibility to gastritis and gastric precancerous lesions in patients referred to Imam Reza Hospital, Tehran, Iran.Methods: The current case-control study was conducted on 201 individuals consisting of 90 patients with gastric cancer (GC) and 111 healthy controls. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood and the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) method was used to determine the mentioned polymorphisms. Results: Allelic frequencies and genetic distribution of polymorphisms were analyzed in the patient and control groups. Although 399C and 299A allele frequencies were higher in the patients` group, the difference was not statistically significant (P>0.05).Conclusions: No significant association was observed between TLR4 polymorphisms on positions 299 and 399, and susceptibility to GC. Also no significant correlation was observed between these two polymorphisms and precancerous lesions. The current study results showed that the studied polymorphisms cannot be used as a prognostic marker of GC in Iranian population.

Introduction: The growing trend of cancer incidence in the past few decades and its effects on physical, psychological, spiritual, and social dimensions both in patients and their families make cancer one of the major health hazards of the century. Of all cancers, breast cancer (BC) is the most prevalent among females. Thus, the current study aimed at comparing three components of BC between females with breast cancer and healthy ones: coping styles, psychological capital, and patience.Methods: Totally, 100 females with BC and 100 healthy ones were selected from the available sample based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The data were compared in accordance with coping styles, psychological capital, and patience by multivariable analysis and independent t-test.Results: The results revealed that there were significant differences between females with BC and healthy ones in emotion-based coping strategy (F(1,198)=5.20, P≤0.05), self-efficacy subscale (F(1,193)=5.58, P≤0.01), hopefulness (F(1,193)=4.50, P≤0.05), and patience (t=1.99, df=198, P≤0.05). Subjects with BC, compared to the healthy ones, use the emotion-based coping strategy more often and are more patient. Healthy females had a greater share of self-efficacy and hopefulness.Conclusions: An appropriate coping style, taking advantage of patience as a religious coping style, and a high degree of psychological capital can aid patients make better recoveries. These components have major roles in cancer control.

Introduction: Utilizing lower limit of bone marrow plasma cells (BMPCs) is the main existing criterion to diagnose multiple myeloma (MM). According to the revised international myeloma working group (IMWG) diagnostic criteria, the value of 10% is agreed among experts as the cut off level for diagnosis. Symptomatic patients with BMPC above this value are identified as definite cases of MM. However, there are MM patients who have BMPC of less than 10%. Therefore, the above-mentioned cut off point could delay the diagnosis, which in turn results in adverse effects in patients’ clinical course. Case Presentation: The current study represented data from consecutive patients with 5%-10% BMPC at our center from 2004 to 2013. MM existed among patients, as expected. This series provides a quantitative approximation of MM prevalence in the studied cases.Conclusion: The reported patients’ status demonstrated the limitations of the abovementioned cutoff criterion to diagnose myeloma, and emphasizes the importance of employing further diagnostic procedures in patients with marginal amounts of BMPC and high clinical suspicion. It is shown that supplementary examination is especially required for two subgroups of patients with certain clinical and laboratory characteristics.