Long-term survival in advanced non-squamous NSCLC patients treated with first-line bevacizumab-based therapy

Simultaneous Administration of Bevacizumab with Bee-Pollen Extract-Loaded Hybrid Protein Hydrogel NPs Is a Promising Targeted Strategy against Cancer Cells

Bevacizumab (Bev) a humanized monoclonal antibody that fights vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A). It was the first specifically considered angiogenesis inhibitor and it has now become the normative first-line therapy for advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). In the current study, polyphenolic compounds were isolated from bee pollen (PCIBP) and encapsulated (EPCIBP) inside moieties of hybrid peptide-protein hydrogel nanoparticles in which bovine serum albumin (BSA) was combined with protamine-free sulfate and targeted with folic acid (FA). The apoptotic effects of PCIBP and its encapsulation (EPCIBP) were further investigated using A549 and MCF-7 cell lines, providing significant upregulation of Bax and caspase 3 genes and downregulation of Bcl2, HRAS, and MAPK as well. This effect was synergistically improved in combination with Bev. Our findings may contribute to the use of EPCIBP simultaneously with chemotherapy to strengthen the effectiveness and minimize the required dose.

First-line PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors plus chemotherapy versus bevacizumab plus chemotherapy for advanced non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer: A Bayesian network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Chemotherapy in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) or bevacizumab has demonstrated a superior effect for non-squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NS-NSCLC). There are still few randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the differences between ICI plus chemotherapy (ICI-chemotherapy) and bevacizumab plus chemotherapy (Bev-chemotherapy) in first-line treatment of NS-NSCLC. We identified RCTs in databases and conference abstracts presented at international conferences by Sep 1, 2021. Bayesian network meta-analysis was performed using randomized effect consistency model to estimate hazard ratio (HR) and odds ratio (OR). The outcomes included overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), overall response rate (ORR), and grade ≥ 3 treatment-related adverse events (TRAEs). Fifteen RCTs (17 articles) of 6561 advanced NS-NSCLC patients receiving ICI-chemotherapy, Bev-chemotherapy, or chemotherapy at first-line were eligible for analysis. NMA results showed that first-line ICI-chemotherapy prolonged OS (HR 0.79, 0.66-0.94) in patients with advanced NS-NSCLC compared with Bev-chemotherapy, while no differences were in PFS, ORR, and grade ≥ 3 TRAEs (p > 0.05). Ranking plots suggested that ICI-chemotherapy had the most probability to offer the best OS (probability 0.993), PFS (probability 0.658), and ORR (probability 0.565), and Bev-chemotherapy had the most risks of grade ≥ 3 TRAEs (probability 0.833). Therefore, our findings showed that first-line ICI-chemotherapy was associated with better OS than Bev-chemotherapy in patients with advanced NS-NSCLC, and more clinical trials are warranted to confirm these results.

Clinical application of thioredoxin reductase as a novel biomarker in liver cancer

Hepatic cancer is often amenable to surgery, including percutaneous ablation, trans-arterial chemoembolization. However, in metastatic cases, surgery is often not an effective option. Chemotherapy as a conventional clinical method for treatment of malignant diseases may be useful in such cases, but it is likewise not always able to slow or halt progression, therefore novel approaches for treatment of hepatic cancer are needed. Current research suggests that molecular tumor markers (TM) can play a crucial role for diagnosis and prognostic evaluation of malignancies, and TM such as AFP, CEA, CA19-9 have been reported in many malignant diseases. Thioredoxin reductase (TrxR), a type of anti-oxidant biomarker, has become a TM of significant interest. However, little is known about the above TM and TrxR activity in liver cancer. Therefore, this paper aimed to assess these TM with regards to diagnosis and and monitoring treatment efficacy in both primary and metastatic liver cancer. Our results showed TrxR had superior performance for discriminating between liver cancer patients and healthy controls than AFP, CEA, and CA19-9. TrxR also exhibited superior performance for assessing benefits of chemotherapy regardless if patients had PLC or MLC. Meanwhile, due to diagnostic efficiency of unresponsive chemotherapy patients, TrxR also showed a higher activity levels than other general markers in liver metastasis patients. Our results suggest that application of TrxR in combination with other tumor markers may maximize the efficiency of diagnosis and assessment of therapeutic efficiency, and provide new insights for the clinical application of TrxR as a candidate biomarker for liver cancer.