Marius Eugen Ciurea

Biobanking in a constantly developing medical world.

Biobank is a very sophisticated system that consists of a programmed storage of biological material and corresponding data. Biobanks are created to be used in medical research, in clinical and translational medicine, and in healthcare. In the past 20 years, a large number of biobanks have been set up around the world, to support the modern research directions in medicine such as omix and personalized medicine. More recently, embryonic and adult stem cell banks have been developed. Stem cell banking was reported to be required for medical research as well as clinical transplant applications. The quality of the samples stored in a biobank is very important. The standardization is also important; the biological material stored in a biobank must be processed in a manner that allows compatibility with other biobanks that preserve samples in the same field. In this paper, we review some issues related to biobanks purposes, quality, harmonization, and their financial and ethical aspects.

Cancer Stem Cells: Biological Functions and Therapeutically Targeting

Almost all tumors are composed of a heterogeneous cell population, making them difficult to treat. A small cancer stem cell population with a low proliferation rate and a high tumorigenic potential is thought to be responsible for cancer development, metastasis and resistance to therapy. Stem cells were reported to be involved in both normal development and carcinogenesis, some molecular mechanisms being common in both processes. No less controversial, stem cells are considered to be important in treatment of malignant diseases both as targets and drug carriers. The efforts to understand the role of different signalling in cancer stem cells requires in depth knowledge about the mechanisms that control their self-renewal, differentiation and malignant potential. The aim of this paper is to discuss insights into cancer stem cells historical background and to provide a brief review of the new therapeutic strategies for targeting cancer stem cells.

Autophagy in colorectal cancer: An important switch from physiology to pathology

Colorectal cancer (CRC) remains a leading cause of cancer death in both men and women worldwide. Among the factors and mechanisms that are involved in the multifactorial etiology of CRC, autophagy is an important transformational switch that occurs when a cell shifts from normal to malignant. In recent years, multiple hypotheses have been considered regarding the autophagy mechanisms that are involved in cancer. The currently accepted hypothesis is that autophagy has dual and contradictory roles in carcinogenesis, but the precise mechanisms leading to autophagy in cancer are not yet fully defined and seem to be context dependent. Autophagy is a surveillance mechanism used by normal cells that protects them from the transformation to malignancy by removing damaged organelles and aggregated proteins and by reducing reactive oxygen species, mitochondrial abnormalities and DNA damage. However, autophagy also supports tumor formation by promoting access to nutrients that are critical to the metabolism and growth of tumor cells and by inhibiting cellular death and increasing drug resistance. Autophagy studies in CRC have focused on several molecules, mainly microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3, beclin 1, and autophagy related 5, with conflicting results. Beneficial effects were observed for some agents that modulate autophagy in CRC either alone or, more often, in combination with other agents. More extensive studies are needed in the future to clarify the roles of autophagy-related genes and modulators in colorectal carcinogenesis, and to develop potential beneficial agents for the prognosis and treatment of CRC.

Focus on alcoholic liver disease:From nosography to treatment

Abusive alcohol intake currently ranks as a major cause of liver disease, and is associated with significant mortality worldwide. Alcoholic liver disease (ALD) generically defines liver abnormalities ranging from liver steatosis to the end-stages of disease such as liver cirrhosis. Information regarding the precise incidence and prevalence of ALD is still limited by a lack of large population-based studies and by the absence of large systematic reviews of all epidemiological data available. However, existing collected data show an overall increase in the number of alcohol abusers and alcohol-related liver disease. The burden exerted on medical systems worldwide is significant, with hospitalization and management costs rising constantly over the years. A great number of all cirrhosis-related deaths in Europe and a significant percentage worldwide are associated with alcohol consumption. The main possible risk factors for ALD are the amount and duration of alcohol abuse, patterns of drinking and the type of alcoholic beverage consumed. However, ALD does not progress to cirrhosis in all patients, therefore a series of additional factors are implicated. Even though insufficiently studied, genetic factors are generally regarded as highly important, and the presence of comorbidities and dietary habits seem to play a role in disease onset and progression. This lack of clear pathophysiological data further translates in the absence of definite treatment for ALD and shall prove challenging in the coming years. In this article, we aimed to briefly review epidemiologic data on the burden of ALD, risk factors, clinical and nosographic as well as therapeutic aspects of this disease. Without attempting to be exhaustive, this short topic highlight emphasizes each point and may serve as a general guidance tool in the complicated literature related to ALD.

Diagnosis System for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Based on Fractal Dimension of Morphometric Elements Integrated in an Artificial Neural Network

Background and Aims. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains a leading cause of death by cancer worldwide. Computerized diagnosis systems relying on novel imaging markers gained significant importance in recent years. Our aim was to integrate a novel morphometric measurement—the fractal dimension (FD)—into an artificial neural network (ANN) designed to diagnose HCC. Material and Methods. The study included 21 HCC and 28 liver metastases (LM) patients scheduled for surgery. We performed hematoxylin staining for cell nuclei and CD31/34 immunostaining for vascular elements. We captured digital images and used an in-house application to segment elements of interest; FDs were calculated and fed to an ANN which classified them as malignant or benign, further identifying HCC and LM cases. Results. User intervention corrected segmentation errors and fractal dimensions were calculated. ANNs correctly classified 947/1050 HCC images (90.2%), 1021/1050 normal tissue images (97.23%), 1215/1400 LM (86.78%), and 1372/1400 normal tissues (98%). We obtained excellent interobserver agreement between human operators and the system. Conclusion. We successfully implemented FD as a morphometric marker in a decision system, an ensemble of ANNs designed to differentiate histological images of normal parenchyma from malignancy and classify HCCs and LMs.

Dendritic cell immunotherapy versus bevacizumab plus irinotecan in recurrent malignant glioma patients: a survival gain analysis

Background The bevacizumab and irinotecan protocol is considered a standard treatment regimen for recurrent malignant glioma. Recent advances in immunotherapy have hinted that vaccination with dendritic cells could become an alternative salvage therapy for the treatment of recurrent malignant glioma. Methods A search was performed on PubMed, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Embase in order to identify studies with patients receiving bevacizumab plus irinotecan or dendritic cell therapy for recurrent malignant gliomas. The data obtained from these studies were used to perform a systematic review and survival gain analysis. Results Fourteen clinical studies with patients receiving either bevacizumab plus irinotecan or dendritic cell vaccination were identified. Seven studies followed patients that received bevacizumab plus irinotecan (302 patients) and seven studies included patients that received dendritic cell immunotherapy (80 patients). For the patients who received bevacizumab plus irinotecan, the mean reported median overall survival was 7.5 (95% confidence interval [CI] 4.84–10.16) months. For the patients who received dendritic cell immunotherapy, the mean reported median overall survival was 17.9 (95% CI 11.34–24.46) months. For irinotecan + bevacizumab group, the mean survival gain was −0.02±2.00, while that for the dendritic cell immunotherapy group was −0.01±4.54. Conclusion For patients with recurrent malignant gliomas, dendritic cell immunotherapy treatment does not have a significantly different effect when compared with bevacizumab and irinotecan in terms of survival gain (P=0.535) and does not improve weighted survival gain (P=0.620).

Quantitative RT-PCR analysis of MMR genes on EUS-guided FNA samples from focal pancreatic lesions.

BACKGROUND/AIMS Pancreatic cancer is characterized by a variety of molecular alterations. Mismatch excision repair (MMR) is a DNA repair system that eliminates mismatched base pairs and it plays an important role in the maintaining of genomic integrity. The aim of the study was to assess the role of several MMR genes in the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer in samples collected by EUS-FNA procedure. METHODOLOGY The prospective study included 44 consecutive patients with pancreatic cancer (n=24) and chronic pseudotumoral pancreatitis (n=20). EUS-FNA was performed in all the patients. Gene analysis was performed by extracting the mRNA and by determining the expression of DNA repair genes (MLH1, MLH3, MSH6) using a standard algorithm. RESULTS Total RNA was successfully isolated from all the EUS-FNA pancreatic samples. We analyzed ROC curves to assess the significance of determining the expression of analyzed genes in EUS-FNA samples, obtaining a cutoff value of 476621mRNA copies/mL for MSH6, and sensitivity and specificity of 75.0% and 100%, respectively. For MLH1 and MLH3, sensitivity and specificity were only satisfactory (64.65% and 76.11%, and 75.0% and 63.64%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS The quality and amount of cellular sampling using pancreatic EUS-FNA allow the extraction of sufficient quantities of RNA to perform qRT-PCR analysis. The use of MMR genes for the differentiation between pseudotumoral chronic pancreatitis and pancreatic cancer using a minimally invasive sampling technique could be a promising technique.

Comparative effect of immunotherapy and standard therapy in patients with high grade glioma: a meta-analysis of published clinical trials

Immunotherapy holds great promise in the treatment of high grade glioma (HGG). We performed a comprehensive meta-analysis of clinical trials involving dendritic cell (DC) therapy and viral therapy (VT) for the treatment of HGG, in order to assess their clinical impact in comparison to standard treatments in terms of overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). To our knowledge, this is the first meta-analysis to evaluate VT for the treatment of HGG, allowing comparison of different immunotherapeutic approaches. Thirteen eligible studies of 1043 cases were included in the meta-analysis. For DC vaccination, in terms of OS, both newly diagnosed patients (HR, 0.65) and patients who suffered from recurrent HGGs (HR = 0.63) presented markedly improved results compared to the control groups. PFS was also improved (HR = 0.49) but was not statistically significant (p = 0.1). A slight improvement was observed for newly diagnosed patients receiving VT in terms of OS (HR = 0.88) while PFS was inferior for patients in the experimental arm (HR = 1.16). Our results show that DC therapy greatly improves OS for patients with both newly diagnosed and recurrent HGGs. VT, however, did not provide any statistically significant improvements in terms of OS and PFS for patients with newly diagnosed HGGs.

Mismatch repair gene expression in gastroesophageal cancers

BACKGROUND/AIMS Mismatch repair (MMR) genes play a critical role in maintaining genomic stability, and the impairment of MMR machinery is associated with different human cancers, mainly colorectal cancer. The purpose of our study was to analyze gene expression patterns of three MMR genes (MSH2, MHS6, and EXO1) in gastroesophageal cancers, a pathology in which the contribution of DNA repair genes remains essentially unclear. MATERIALS AND METHODS A total of 45 Romanian patients diagnosed with sporadic gastroesophageal cancers were included in this study. For each patient, MMR mRNA levels were measured in biopsied tumoral (T) and peritumoral (PT) tissues obtained by upper endoscopy. Quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) with specific TaqMan probes was used to measure gene expression levels for MSH2, MSH6, and EXO1 genes. RESULTS A significant association was observed for the investigated MMR genes, all of which were detected to be upregulated in gastroesophageal tumor samples when compared with paired normal samples. In the stratified analysis, the association was limited to gastric adenocarcinoma samples. We found no statistically significant associations between MMR gene expression and tumor site or histological grade. CONCLUSION In our study, MSH2, MSH6, and EXO1 genes were overexpressed in gastroesophageal cancers. Further investigations based on more samples are necessary to validate our findings.

Comparative study of contour detection methods for intestinal sessile polyps

The past decade represented a step forward in a new direction in the exploration of the small bowel, with the introduction of the wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE). Lesions like intestinal polyps became easier to diagnose in early stages, reducing thus the risk of small bowel cancer. Since the curved shape of polyps represents the most important feature in their automatic identification, proper edge detection techniques are necessary for emphasizing their contour. This paper presents a comparative study of three edge detection methods applied on a set of original and noise processed WCE images containing sessile polyps, based on correct edge localization and a proper contour detection. The oriented Gabor phase congruency method presented better results compared to Sobel and Canny operators, both for original and processed images, recommending it for further use in computer-aided diagnostic systems.