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Prostate Cancer-Derived Urine Exosomes: A Novel Approach To Biomarkers For Prostate Cancer
UroToday.com - In the online edition of the British Journal of Cancer, Dr. J. Nilsson and an international team of investigators report on a new biomarker methodology for prostate cancer (CaP). The authors explain that prostatic secretions contain two types of microvesicles; prostasomes (150-500nm) are produced by prostatic ductal epithelial cells that are a normal component of seminal fluid and participate in male fertility and exosomes which are specialized nanovesicles (30-100nm) with cup-shaped morphology and are actively secreted by normal and tumor cells.
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Testing For Norovirus And Enterovirus Is Becoming Increasingly Important And Commonplace
High profile outbreaks associated with the viruses have kept EMSL Analytical scientists busy.
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PROSTVAC(TM) Data Presented At The ASCO Meeting Demonstrates The Potential For Significant Increases In Life Expectancy In Late-Stage Prostate Cancer
Detailed data from a randomized Phase 2 study with PROSTVAC(TM) were presented Saturday at the ASCO Annual Meeting in Orlando. The presentation was made by Philip Kantoff MD, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who is also the principal investigator of the study.
Public Health

For HCV-Positive Liver Transplant Recipients, Some Donor Factors Affect Outcomes

Two new studies address donor factors that could affect outcomes for liver transplant recipients, particularly those with chronic hepatitis C (HCV). One found that donor steatosis, or fat in the liver, does not affect liver disease progression or three-year survival in recipients with or without HCV. However, transplants from people higher on the Donor Risk Index did adversely affect the outcomes of HCV-positive recipients more than recipients without HCV. These studies are in the June issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal published by John Wiley & Sons. The article is also available online at Wiley Interscience (http://www.interscience.wiley.com). HCV is a common cause of end-stage liver disease. It accounts for almost half of the patients awaiting a liver transplant, 15 percent of whom will die before an organ becomes available. To address this critical shortage, researchers have searched for ways to expand the pool of potential donors. They have tried living donor liver transplantation, partial liver transplants, and the use of grafts from donors who may be less than ideal. Sub-optimal donors might include those of advanced age or with other medical conditions such as hepatic steatosis, also known as fatty liver disease, which is common in overweight individuals. Researchers led by Patrizia Burra of Padova, Italy examined the impact of donor livers with steatosis on recipients with and without HCV. They included 116 consecutive liver transplants on 56 HCV-positive and 60 HCV-negative recipients and followed-up with liver biopsies at 6, 12, 24 and 36 months. "There was no correlation between donor graft steatosis and fibrosis after liver transplantation, irrespective of the etiology of liver disease," the authors report. They also found no evidence that steatosis affected patient survival up to three years post-transplant. In another study, researchers led by Daniel Maluf of Virginia Commonwealth University performed a retrospective analysis of 16,678 patients who received a liver transplant between January 2000 and June 2006. They examined the impact of the donor risk index (DRI) on patient outcomes. "Increasing DRI was associated with a statistically significant increase in the relative risk of graft failure and patient death for both HCV-positive and HCV-negative individuals," they report. "However, HCV-positive recipients demonstrated a significantly higher increase in relative risk of patient and graft loss as a function of the DRI than HCV-negative subjects, even after adjustment for several recipient factors including MELD." Donor age was the most significant, but not the only, factor that correlated to worse outcomes. The authors concluded that high DRI grafts should be used carefully in HCV-positive patients. In an accompanying editorial, Sandy Feng of the UCSF Medical Center, supports the findings of these new studies, and highlights the need to focus on survival benefit for liver transplant recipients in a time of donor organ shortage. "It is now possible to create an allocation algorithm that can systematically and objectively account for the variable impact of donor characteristics on liver transplant outcomes within the context of recipient diagnosis and disease severity," she concludes. "I believe that this would be the most equitable and transparent way to distribute the differential risk posed by the donor pool to individual transplant candidates." Article: "Impact of the Donor Risk Index in the Outcome of HCV+ Liver Transplant Recipients." Maluf, Daniel; Edwards, Erick; Stravitz, R.; Kauffman, H. Liver Transplantation; June 2009. Article: "Donor Livers with Steatosis are Safe to Use in HCV-Positive Recipients." Burra, Patrizia; Loreno, Massimiliano; Russo, Francesco; Germani, Giacomo; Galligioni, Alessandra; Senzolo, Marco; Cillo, Umberto; Zanus, Giacomo; Fagiuoli, Stefano; Rugge, Massimo. Liver Transplantation; June 2009. Editorial: "Increased Donor Risk - Who Should Bear the Burden." Feng, Sandy. Liver Transplantation; June 2009. Sean Wagner Wiley-Blackwell


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