Dick Killander

Photodynamic therapy of non‐melanoma malignant tumours of the skin using topical δ‐amino levulinic acid sensitization and laser irradiation

Eighty basal cell carcinomas (BCCs) in 21 patients, 10 lesions of Bowens disease in three patients, and four lesions of cutaneous T‐cell lymphoma in two patients, were treated with photodynamic laser therapy (PDT), using topical application of the haem precursor δ‐amino levulinic acid (ALA). The diagnoses were confirmed histologically prior to treatment. Fifty‐five of the BCCs were superficial lesions, and 25 were nodular. Of the 80 BCCs, 39 (49%) were located on the trunk, 36 (45%) on the head and neck region, four (15%) on the leg and one on the arm. The two principal locations of the 10 Bowens disease lesions were the leg (50%) and the trunk (40%). The T‐cell lymphoma lesions were located on the shoulder and on the arm. A water‐in‐oil based cream containing 20% ALA was applied to the lesions, with a margin of about 10–20 mm beyond the visible tumour border, 4–6 h before the laser procedure. During this period of time the highly fluorescent and photodynamically active substance protoporphyrin IX (Pp IX) is synthesized via the haem cycle. Laser‐induced fluorescence (LJF) was used for real‐time monitoring of the Pp IX distribution in the tumour and in the normal surrounding skin, before and after treatment in all patients. Before laser treatment the Pp IX distribution demonstrated by LJF showed a demarcation between tumour and normal skin of about 15:1 for BCC and Bowens disease, and 5:1 for T‐cell lymphomas. Laser light from a pulsed frequency‐ doubled Nd: YAG laser pumping a dye laser with light emission at 630 nm was used for the therapy. The power density in the irradiation was kept below 110 mW/cm2, in order to avoid hyperthermal effects. A total energy of 60 J/cm2 was delivered for 10–20 min, depending on the tumour size. A complete response rate of 100% in superficial BCCs and 64% in nodular BCCs occurred after a single laser treatment, and a response rate of 100% was achieved after one additional treatment in the nodular BCCs. In the Bowens disease lesions a complete response of 90% was obtained with a single treatment. Two of the four T‐cell lymphomas resolved completely. The follow‐up time was between 6 and 14 months.

Indicators of prognosis in node-negative breast cancer

Measures of the proliferative activity of tumor cells have prognostic value in patients with node-negative breast cancer. We studied 367 women in southern Sweden who had undergone surgical resection for such cancer. Tumor specimens were analyzed with DNA flow cytometry in order to estimate both the DNA content (ploidy) and the fraction of cells in the synthetic phase of the cell cycle (S phase). The median duration of follow-up was four years; 28 percent of the patients received adjuvant therapy, usually with tamoxifen (n = 83). A multivariate analysis based on complete data on 250 patients included the following covariates: age (greater than or equal to 75, 50 to 74, and less than or equal to 49 years), tumor size (less than or equal to 20 vs. greater than 20 mm), concentration of estrogen and progesterone receptors (less than 10 vs. greater than or equal to 10 fmol per milligram of protein), ploidy (diploid vs. nondiploid), and S-phase category (fraction of cells in S phase: less than 7.0 percent, 7.0 to 11.9 percent, and greater than or equal to 12 percent). The S-phase fraction yielded the most prognostic information, followed by progesterone-receptor status and tumor size. A prognostic model based on these three variables identified 37 percent of the patients as constituting a high-risk group with a fourfold increased risk of distant recurrence. In the remaining 63 percent of the patients, the five-year overall survival rate (92 +/- 4 [+/- SE] percent) did not differ from the expected age-adjusted rate for Swedish women. We conclude that a prognostic index that includes indicators of the proliferative activity of tumor cells may be able to identify women with node-negative breast cancer in whom the risk of recurrence is sufficiently low that adjuvant chemotherapy can be avoided.

ERBB2 amplification is associated with tamoxifen resistance in steroid-receptor positive breast cancer

Amplification and overexpression of the ERBB2 (HER-2/neu) oncogene has been implicated as contributing to the development of human breast cancer, and as a predictor of poor survival. In the present non-randomized study of 871 primary invasive breast tumours, ERBB2 activation was significantly correlated to a shorter disease-free and overall survival in the subgroup of patients receiving adjuvant tamoxifen therapy, but not in the untreated group. Further subcategorization demonstrated the relationship to poor prognosis to be confined to lymph node positive and steroid receptor-positive tumours. We suggest that steroid receptor and ERBB2-positive breast tumours are resistant to tamoxifen therapy and, supported by experimental evidence showing an oestrogen receptor dependent up-regulation of ERBB2 expression upon tamoxifen administration, possibly even growth stimulated by the drug.

CVP—Remission—maintenance in stage I or II non‐Hodgkin's lymphomas Preliminary results of a randomized study

The effect of adjuvant combination chemotherapy when given to nonlaparotomized patients in remission after radiotherapy in stage I or II non‐Hodgkins lymphoma was studied in a prospective randomized multicenter study. Locally extended field radiotherapy was given to a target absorbed dose of 40 Gy in 20 fractions. Fifty‐five patients who were in complete remission 6 weeks after conclusion of radiotherapy were randomized to either no further therapy or to 9 cycles of CVP (cyclophosphamide +vincristine +prednisolone). The relapse‐free survival at 30 months was 41% for patients without and 86% for patients with adjuvant chemotherapy (p = 0.02). The survival was the same for both treatment arms, being 90% at 30 months. Fifteen patients have relapsed, 14 of them with extensions and 1 with a recurrence within the radiation target volume. Analysis of subgroups showed that adjuvant chemotherapy in the present series significantly prolonged the relapse‐free survival in diffuse histiocytic lymphoma.

Cellular DNA content and prognosis of high-grade soft tissue sarcoma: the Scandinavian Sarcoma Group experience.

The nuclear DNA content of 148 high-grade soft tissue sarcomas of the extremities and trunk was determined by flow cytometry, using tumor material from paraffin-embedded tissue. The patients were part of a prospective randomized clinical trial on the efficacy of adjuvant single-agent chemotherapy with doxorubicin. Chemotherapy did not improve the metastasis-free survival (MFS). After a median follow-up time of 48 months (range, 2 to 97), a multivariate analysis of prognostic factors for developing metastatic disease was performed. DNA aneuploidy was found to be an independent prognostic risk factor in addition to histologic malignancy grade IV, intratumoral vascular invasion, tumor size over 10 cm, and male sex. Patients with none or one risk factor had a 5-year MFS of 79%, with two risk factors 65%, with three risk factors 43%, and with four and five risk factors 0%. About one half (78 of 148) of the patients with three factors or less belonged to a group with a MFS over 60%. The combination of different risk factors, including DNA aneuploidy, seems to be a useful prognostic model for soft tissue sarcomas, which could be of value to select high-risk patients for further trials with adjunctive therapy.

Genetic Aberrations in Hypodiploid Breast Cancer : Frequent Loss of Chromosome 4 and Amplification of Cyclin D1 Oncogene

The evolution of somatic genetic aberrations in breast cancer has remained poorly understood. The most common chromosomal abnormality is hyperdiploidy, which is thought to arise via a transient hypodiploid state. However, hypodiploidy persists in 1 to 2% of breast tumors, which are characterized by a poor prognosis. We studied the genetic aberrations in 15 flow cytometrically hypodiploid breast cancers by comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH). Surprisingly, numerous copy number gains were detected in addition to the copy number losses. The number of gains per tumor was 4.3 +/- 3.2 and that of losses was 4.5 +/- 3.3 (mean +/- SD), which is similar to that previously observed in hyperdiploid breast cancers. Gains at chromosomes or chromosomal regions at 11q13, 1q, 19, and 16p and losses of 2q, 4, 6q, 9p, 13, and 18 were most commonly observed. Compared with unselected breast carcinomas, hypodiploid tumors showed certain differences. Loss of chromosome 4 (53%) and gain of 11q13 (60%) were significantly more common in hypodiploid tumors. The gain at 11q13 was found by FISH to harbor amplification of the Cyclin D1 oncogene, which is therefore three to four times more common in hypodiploid than in unselected breast cancers (15 to 20%). Structural chromosomal aberrations (such as Cyclin D1 amplification) were present both in diploid and hypodiploid tumor cell populations, as assessed by FISH and CGH after flow cytometric sorting. Together these results indicate that hypodiploid tumors form a distinct genetic entity of invasive breast cancer, although they probably share a common genetic evolution pathway where structural chromosomal aberrations precede gross DNA ploidy changes.

Flow cytometry in primary breast cancer : improving the prognostic value of the fraction of cells in the S-phase by optimal categorisation of cut-off levels

The use of continuous prognostic variables is clinically impractical, and arbitrarily chosen cut-off points can result in a loss of prognostic information. Here we report findings from a study of primary breast cancer, showing how the prognostic value of the fraction of cells in the S-phase of the cell cycle (SPF), as measured by flow cytometry, can be affected by the SPF cut-off level(s) adopted. It was possible to evaluate the SPF in 566 (94%) of 603 consecutive cases where fresh frozen specimens were available in a tumour bank at our department. Clinically, all patients were without distant spread at the time of diagnosis, and the median duration of follow-up was 4 years. Using different survival end-points and chi 2 values for each cut-off level, two optimal cut-off points, at the 7% and 12% levels, were consistently obtained for the SPF. Furthermore, both disease-free survival and the relative risk of recurrence exhibited a non-linear relationship with SPF values; the curves implied that the prognosis was better among patients with SPF values about 2-5% than in patients with lower SPF values (parabolic shape), though the relationship with higher SPF values approached linearity. The non-linearity of the curves is incompatible with the general use of the median SPF as a prognostic cut-off value. An alternative procedure might be to use two cut-off levels, one to distinguish patients with the lowest SPF values (i.e. within the parabolic survival curve) from those with higher values (i.e. with a survival curve approaching linearity), the other to distinguish between patients with intermediate SPF values and those with high values (i.e. within the almost linear part of the survival curve). The 7% and 12% obtained here would be suitable for this purpose. We conclude that prognostic information can be gained by dividing the SPF into three prognostic categories (less than 7.0%, 7.0-11.9% and greater than or equal to 12%), instead of using the median SPF level.

Urokinase plasminogen activator, a strong independent prognostic factor in breast cancer, analysed in steroid receptor cytosols with a luminometric immunoassay

Urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA) is involved in the activation of different proteases which participate in the degradation of extracellular matrix, thereby enhancing the invasive capacity of tumour cells. uPA has been shown to be of prognostic importance in breast cancer. We have analysed uPA with a new luminometric immunoassay (LIA), applicable in cytosol samples routinely used for oestrogen-receptor (ER) and progesterone-receptor (PgR) analyses. At a cut-off value of 0.62 ng uPA/mg protein, 33% (230/688) samples were classified as representing high uPA tumours. High uPA content was found to be associated with shorter recurrence-free survival (median observation time: 42 months), ER and PgR negativity, increased p53 expression, DNA non-diploidy and a high S-phase fraction (SPF), but not with lymph node involvement or tumour size (< or = 20 mm versus > 20 mm). In the subgroup of patients not treated with systemic adjuvant therapy, multivariate analysis showed uPA to be an independent prognostic factor together with lymph node status and SPF. If these results can be reproduced, uPA may be a factor suitable for inclusion in a prognostic index.

Flow Cytometric DNA Index and S-Phase Fraction in Breast Cancer in Relation to Other Prognostic Variables and to Clinical Outcome

One frequently used classification of flow cytometric DNA ploidy status (diploid versus nondiploid) was compared with a division into seven ploidy classes based on DNA index (DI) and number of cell populations (hypodiploid, diploid, near-hyperdiploid, hyperdiploid, tetraploid, hypertetraploid, and multiploid). The latter ploidy classification showed a better correlation with prognosis and other prognostic factors (i.e., lymph node involvement, estrogen and progesterone receptor status, and S-phase fraction). The improvement in correlation was mainly due to the identification of near-hyperdiploid cases (DI 1.00-1.14) which could be combined with the diploid cases to form a group with favourable prognosis. In contrast to cases with a small increase in DNA content (near-hyperdiploid), those with a small decrease of DNA content (hypodiploid) manifested a more aggressive disease. In multivariate analysis, S-phase fraction (SPF) was a more important prognostic factor than both the improved or the conventional ploidy classification.

Chromosomal aberrations in breast cancer: a comparison between cytogenetics and comparative genomic hybridization

The analysis of chromosomal imbalances in solid tumors using comparative genetic hybridization (CGH) has gained much attention. A survey of the literature suggests that CGH is more sensitive in detecting copy number aberrations than is karyotyping, although careful comparisons between CGH and cytogenetics have not been performed. Here, we compared cytogenetics and CGH in 29 invasive breast cancers after converting the karyotypes into net copy number gains and losses. We found 15 tumors (56%) with a significant agreement between the two methods and 12 tumors (44%) where the methods were in disagreement (two cases failed CGH analysis). Interestingly, in 13 of the 15 tumors where the two methods were concordant, there was also a strong correlation between chromosome index and DNA index by flow cytometry. In the opposite situation, i.e., when chromosome and DNA indices were not matching, there was disagreement between cytogenetics and CGH in 10 of the 12 tumors. Of the discordant cases, all except one had a “simple” abnormal karyotype. Unresolved chromosomal aberrations (marker chromosomes, homogeneously staining regions, double minutes) could not completely explain the differences between CGH and karyotyping. A likely explanation for the discrepancies is that the methods analyzed different cell populations. Gains and losses found by CGH represented the predominant (often aneuploid) clone, whereas the abnormal, near‐diploid karyotypes represented minor cell clone(s), which, for unknown reasons, had a growth advantage in vitro. Genes Chromosomes Cancer 25:115–122, 1999.