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Mark Pool, MD's Twitter Updates

Low-cost, mini microscope geared toward global health http://t.co/gL4ZxfI via @addthis 266 days ago
CDC warns of rising spread of babesiosis through blood transfusions http://t.co/lTwKaKL 266 days ago
Very disappointing study, scary how decisions based on so few #s: Cancer trial participation less than 1% http://t.co/RhY7Mkg via @addthis 277 days ago
You may have already seen blog @ Digital Pathology Blog but check out the Pathology Visions Conference-should be great! http://t.co/TVW0M7P 279 days ago
WCLC 2011 Oral Presentations: (More) Genomics http://t.co/xIOaw9j 280 days ago
 

Relapse-related molecular signature for lung adenocarcinoma

Posted Jul 15 2009 12:00am

I came across an intriguing study in J Clin Oncol (link to abstract) where a group from Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan have developed a genetic signature to identify patients with lung adenocarcinoma with a high probability of relapse.  They analyzed whole-genome expression profiles in 117 lung adenocarcinoma specimens using microarrays and identified a relapse-related molecular signature based on 82 probes on a training set of 60 patients specimens.  This signature was then validated with several independent data sets.  The most interesting subset is 30 stage 1 patients who underwent surgery and were sorted into high- and low-risk for relapse; the high-risk group all relapsed and died within the 5 year follow-up period.

This is one of numerous (and markedly disparate) recent lung cancer studies identifying various "signatures" and is obviously a small study that needs large-scale prospective validation.  But I think is intriguing because it identifies early stage 1 patients with an hitherto unexpected poor prognosis.  The same group concurrently has a paper in Cancer Res (link to abstract)(which I have not yet read in its entir) but, according to the abstract, uses something called connectivity map (C-MAP) analysis to link poor prognosis with pathways converging on mTOR--which could have implications regarding potential therapeutic agents targeting the mTOR pathway currently being studied.

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