Journal of Cancer Biology

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020-2023 significantly affected emergency medical care. Physicians who regularly saw their patients by appointment were redeployed to emergency care, increasing their reported burnout. Understanding how the burnout of specialists increased from this redeployment during COVID-19 is relevant to finding ways to reduce redeployment burnout in these appointment-based physicians when preparing for future pandemics.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought many challenges to each sector of life. The most affected are the health in general and elective services in specific. The postponement of planned surgical procedures is one of the elective services that not only increased the waiting time in the short-term but will strain the healthcare services in the long-run

Background: Breast cancer remains a major global health burden despite therapeutic advances, necessitating further innovations to address persistent challenges like therapeutic resistance, adverse effects, and mortality in subgroups. Emerging technologies offer promising opportunities in this regard through data-driven, precise, and personalized approaches.

The incorporation of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) is essential for assessing whether a cancer treatment enhances overall patient well-being, beyond merely extending survival. This scoping review aimed to identify and analyze the use of PROs in ovarian cancer clinical trials.

Examining BRCA mutations in preoperative breast cancer patients is very important when selecting a surgical procedure. Although there are advantages and disadvantages associated with knowing about the presence of genetic mutations, including for the patient’s family, there are many benefits for the patient. BRCA genetic testing should be recommended for patients who are strongly suspected of being positive for a BRCA mutation. 

Liver masses account for 5 to 6% of pediatric cancer, which includes hepatoblastoma (HBL) along with rare cases of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The most dangerous form of pediatric liver cancer is aggressive HBL, which can be characterized by chemo-resistance and multiple nodules or metastases at diagnosis, all correlating with worse clinical prognosis. Despite intensive studies and a significant improvement in overall outcomes, very little is known about the key molecular pathways which determine the aggressiveness of pediatric liver cancer.

Background: lack of knowledge and awareness of COVID-19 and radiation safety among healthcare professionals will adversely affect their health and the patients’ safety due to unnecessary radiation exposure and rapid spread of COVID-19. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the knowledge and the awareness of both domains; COVID-19 and radiation awareness in one survey study. 

The COVID-19 pandemic presents unprecedented challenges for anesthesia professionals and their surgical patients. Beyond managing infection risk, positive COVID-19 surgical patients add additional challenges to their perioperative care, where its perioperative risk are superimposed onto an already baseline anesthesia risk in real-time with an unknown and unpredictable fashion.

This commentary focuses on two recent publications showing deregulation of the transcription factor Slug/Snail2 and TGF-β function in primary bronchial basal/progenitor cells of patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and the impact on proliferation and the expression of genes involved in stem cell maintenance. We discuss the molecular mechanisms related to the exhaustion of airway basal stem/progenitor cells in tobacco smoke-induced COPD, as well as putative links between COPD and lung cancer at the molecular level.

We recently published an article describing the importance of CXCL17 in T cell responses [1]. In summary, we observed the following:
1) Cxcl17 is necessary to maintain normal ratios of T cell subpopulations in lymph nodes (LN).
2) Cxcl17-/- mice develop more intense inflammatory responses than wild type mice.

Cancer biology involves complex dynamics and interactions between cells and the tissue environment. Mathematical modeling and computer simulation can provide a powerful instrument for considering this complexity. Agent-based modeling is a particular discrete hybrid modeling method.

Radiation therapy (RT) is one of the pillars of locally advanced head and neck cancer (HNSCC) treatment in combination with cisplatin or epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitors. Despite a very high local tumor control rate, approximately 50% of patients with locally advanced disease will develop a recurrence.

Streptococcus pyogenes infection continues to be a worldwide public health problem causing various diseases in humans, including impetigo and oropharyngeal infections that are responsible for the development of rheumatic fever (RF), a multi-organ inflammatory disorder, Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is its major sequel that leads to heart valves lesions, clinically classified as regurgitation and/or stenosis.

The effects of COVID-19 have been of increasing interest in all fields of medicine after the pandemic, especially considering the important impact and incidence of patients infected with coronavirus. Numerous studies have reported the vast clinical implications related to permanent organ and tissue damage after infection and long COVID. 

The COVID-19 pandemic that emerged in 2020 may affect the peripheral and central auditory system. According to studies in the literature, symptoms affecting the vestibulocochlear system such as sudden hearing loss, tinnitus, and vestibular neuritis are seen in individuals with COVID -19. 

Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a leading cause of blindness in the U.S. However, not much is known of underlying molecular mechanism and how oxidative stress contributes to its development. In the present study, we investigated the involvement of TGFβ signaling pathway on the effect of oxidative stress on VEGF secretion and viability of retinal cells. VEGF is the hallmark that exacerbates DR progression in prolonged diabetes. Some major concerns that have arisen are the underlying effects of antioxidants in elevating VEGF secretion in diabetes.

The trigeminal nerve is one of twelve pairs of cranial nerves that attach to the brain. The name “trigeminal” literally means three twins and refers to the fact that the fifth cranial nerve has three major divisions: the ophthalmic (V1), the maxillary (V2), and the mandibular (V3) [1]. The trigeminal nerve is the major sensory nerve of the face and is the nerve of the first branchial arch.

According to the International Organization of Physical Therapy in Mental Health (IOPTMH), physiotherapy in mental health is a recognized specialty of physical therapy, with a subgroup representing physiotherapists from around the world before the World Confederation of Physical Therapy (WCPT). It is implemented in different settings, in health, psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine.

In the nightmare of the coronavirus pandemic that is spreading around the world, parents could take comfort in one thing - early reports that the virus mysteriously spares children, even though this often leads to critical illness in older people. An article published in the Journal “Pediatrics”, based on 2,143 young people in China, provides the most comprehensive evidence of the spread of the virus among children, and there is bad news and good news [1].

Gastrointestinal stromal tumors are mesenchymal tumors which predominantly originate from the interstitial cells of Cajal in the intestinal lining. Around ~85% of malignant GISTs possess activating mutations in the tyrosine kinase receptors KIT or PDGFRA. The driver mutations in genes other than KIT or PDGFRA account for around 15% GISTs and belong to highly heterogeneous groups called wild-type GISTs. Around 20–40% of WT-GISTS are deficient for the succinate dehydrogenase complex (SDHA, SDHB, SDHC, SDHD).