Neoadjuvant chemotherapy in Barrett's carcinoma - prognosis and response prediction.
In spite of endoscopic surveillance programs, 90% of patients initially presenting with Barrett's carcinoma have locally advanced disease. In these patients, preoperative chemotherapy increases the chance of a curative resection in responding patients. Unfortunately, response occurs in only 50% of patients after chemotherapy with cisplatin, 5-fluorouracil and leucovorin. Response prediction seems to be possible by measuring metabolic activity by positron emission tomography (PET) scan. Differentiation of responders from non-responders even before starting chemotherapy might be possible using microarray technology and immunhistology in tumour biopsies. A pattern of at least two-fold differentially regulated genes comparing responding and non-responding oesophageal adenocarcinomas was identified. The strongest difference can be seen for tumour necrosis factor, polyribonucleotide nucleotidyltransferase and the ephrin-B3-receptor. In conclusion, our experience suggests that it may be possible to characterize patients responding to chemotherapy by PET two weeks after starting the chemotherapy or even before treatment using customized microarray analysis.
Schauer
Matthias
M
Department of General, Visceral, and Children's Surgery, Universitaetsklinikum Duesseldorf, Heinrich Heine Universitaet, Duesseldorf, Germany. matthias.schauer@med.uni-duesseldorf.de
Knoefel
Wolfram Trudo
WT
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D001471:Barrett Esophagus / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D017024:Chemotherapy, Adjuvant; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D020360:Neoadjuvant Therapy; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D011379:Prognosis