Browsing by Author "Hau, Peter"

Central nervous system primitive neuroectodermal tumors (CNS-PNET) and pineoblastomas (PBL) are rare in adulthood. Knowledge on clinical outcome and the efficacy and toxicities of chemotherapy in addition to radiotherapy is limited. Patients older than 21 years at diagnosis were followed in the observational arm of the prospective pediatric multicenter trial HIT 2000. After surgery, craniospinal irradiation and maintenance or sandwich chemotherapy were recommended. Radiotherapy was normo- (35.2 Gy; tumor region, 55.0 Gy; metastasis, 49.6 Gy) or hyperfractionated (40.0 Gy; tumor bed, 68.0 Gy; metastasis, 50-60 Gy). Maintenance chemotherapy consisted of eight courses (vincristine, lomustine, cisplatin). Sandwich chemotherapy included two cycles of postoperative chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy, and four courses of maintenance chemotherapy. Seventeen patients (CNS-PNET, n = 7; PBL, n = 10), median age 30 years, were included. Eight patients had a postoperative residual tumor and four patients metastatic disease. The median follow-up of ten surviving patients was 41 months. The estimated rates for 3-year progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival were 68 +/- A 12 and 66 +/- A 13 %, respectively. PBL compared to CNS-PNET tended towards a better PFS, although the difference was not clear (p = 0.101). Both chemotherapeutic (maintenance, n = 6; sandwich, n = 8) protocols did not differ in their PFS and were feasible with acceptable toxicities. Intensified regimens of combined chemo- and radiotherapy are generally feasible in adults with CNS-PNET/PBL. The impact of intensified chemotherapy on survival should be further assessed.

Purpose In patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma that harbors a nonmethylated O-6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase promotor, standard temozolomide (TMZ) has, at best, limited efficacy. The GLARIUS trial thus explored bevacizumab plus irinotecan (BEV+IRI) as an alternative to TMZ. Patients and Methods In this phase II, unblinded trial 182 patients in 22 centers were randomly assigned 2: 1 to BEV (10mg/kg every 2 weeks) during radiotherapy (RT) followed by maintenance BEV (10mg/kg every 2 weeks) plus IRI(125 mg/m(2) every 2 weeks) or to daily TMZ (75 mg/m(2)) during RT followed by six courses of TMZ (150-200 mg/m(2)/d for 5 days every 4 weeks). The primary end point was the progression-free survival rate after 6 months (PFS-6). Results In the modified intention-to-treat (ITT) population, PFS-6 was increased from 42.6% with TMZ(95% CI, 29.4% to 55.8%) to 79.3% with BEV+IRI (95% CI, 71.9% to 86.7%; P < .001). PFS was prolonged from a median of 5.99 months (95% CI, 2.7 to 7.3 months) to 9.7 months (95% CI, 8.7 to 10.8 months; P < .001). At progression, crossover BEV therapy was given to 81.8% of all patients who received any sort of second-line therapy in the TMZ arm. Overall survival (OS) was not different in the two arms: the median OS was 16.6 months (95% CI, 15.4 to 18.4 months) with BEV+IRI and was 17.5 months (95% CI, 15.1 to 20.5 months) with TMZ. The time course of quality of life (QOL) in six selected domains of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality-of-Life Questionnaire (QLQ)-C30 and QLQ-BN20 (which included cognitive functioning), of the Karnofsky performance score, and of the Mini Mental State Examination score was not different between the treatment arms. Conclusion BEV+IRI resulted in a superior PFS-6 rate and median PFS compared with TMZ. However, BEV+IRI did not improve OS, potentially because of the high crossover rate. BEV+IRI did not alter QOL compared with TMZ. (C) 2016 by American Society of Clinical Oncology

Brain and leptomeningeal metastasis (LMM) of non-small cell lung cancer is still associated with poor prognosis. Moreover, the current diagnostic standard for LMM often yields false negative results and the scientific progress in this field is still unsatisfying. We present a case of a 71-year old patient with an isolated LMM. While standard diagnostics could only diagnose a cancer of unknown primary, the use of [68Ga]-Pentixafor-PET/CT (CXCR4-PET/CT, a radiotracer targeting CXCR4) and a liquid biopsy of the cerebrospinal fluid revealed the primary NSCLC. The detection of L858R-EGFR, a common driver mutation in NSCLC, enabled us to treat the patient with Afatinib and monitor treatment using [68Ga]-Pentixafor PET/CT. To estimate the impact of CXCR4 signaling and its ligands in NSCLC brain metastasis we looked at their expression and correlation with EGFR mutations in a primary and brain metastasis data set and investigated the previously described binding of extracellular ubiquitin to CXCR4. In conclusion, we describe a novel approach to improve diagnostics towards LMM and underline the impact of the CXCL12/CXCR4 axis in brain metastasis in a subset of NSCLC patients. We cannot confirm a correlation of CXCR4 expression with EGFR mutations or the binding of extracellular ubiquitin as previously reported.

Background. Optimal treatment and precise classification for anaplastic glioma are needed. Methods. The objective for long-term follow-up of NOA-04 is to optimize the treatment sequence for patients with anaplastic gliomas. Patients were randomized 2: 1: 1 to receive the standard radiotherapy (RT) (arm A), procarbazine, lomustine and vincristine (PCV) (arm B1), or temozolomide (TMZ) (arm B2). Results. Primary endpoint was time-to-treatment-failure (TTF), defined as progression after 2 lines of therapy or any time before if no further therapy was administered. Exploratory analyses examined associations of molecular marker status with TTF, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS). At 9.5 (95% CI: 8.6-10.2) years, no difference between arms (A vs B1/B2) was observed: median TTF (4.6 [3.4-5.1] y vs 4.4 [3.3-5.3) y), PFS (2.5 [1.3-3.5] y vs 2.7 [1.9-3.2] y), and OS (8 [5.5-10.3] y vs 6.5 [5.4-8.3] y). Oligodendroglial versus astrocytic histology-but more so the subgroups according to CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) and 1p/19q co-deletion status-revealed a strong prognostic value of CIMPpos with (CIMPcodel) versus without 1p/19 co-deletion (CIMPnon-codel) versus CIMPneg. but no differential efficacy of RT versus chemotherapy for any of the endpoints. PFS was better for PCV-than for TMZ-treated patients with CIMPcodel tumors (HR B1 vs B2 0.39 [0.17-0.92], P = .31). In CIMPneg. tumors, hypermethylation of the O6-methyl-guanyl-DNA methyltransferase promoter (MGMT) provided a risk reduction for PFS with chemotherapy. Conclusions. There is no differential activity of primary chemotherapy versus RT in any subgroup of anaplastic glioma. Molecular diagnosis is superior to histology. Trial Registration: clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00717210.

Background: Due to the rarity of metastatic medulloblastoma in adults, knowledge about the efficacy and toxicity of intensified chemotherapy and radiotherapy is limited. Patients and methods: Adults with disseminated medulloblastoma registered in the HIT2000 trial as observational patients and treated according to one of two different treatment regimens were analysed. The sandwich strategy MET-HIT2000AB4 consists of postoperative chemotherapy, hyperfractionated craniospinal radiotherapy, and maintenance chemotherapy; while the HIT091 maintenance strategy consists of postoperative craniospinal radiotherapy, and maintenance chemotherapy. Results: Twenty-three patients (median age: 30.7 years), diagnosed from November 2001 to July 2009, and treated in 18 institutions in Germany and Austria, were eligible. The median follow-up of surviving patients was 3.99 years. The 4-year event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) +/- standard error (SE) were 52% +/- 12% and 91% +/- 6%, respectively. The survival was similar in both treatment groups (HIT'91 maintenance strategy, n = 9; MET-HIT2000AB4 sandwich strategy, n = 14). Patients with large cell/anaplastic medulloblastoma relapsed and died (n = 2; 4-year EFS/OS: 0%) and OS differed compared to patients with classic (n = 11; 4-year EFS/OS: 71%/91%) and desmoplastic medulloblastoma (n = 10; 4-year EFS/OS: 48%/100%), respectively (p = 0.161 for EFS and p = 0.033 for OS). Treatment-induced toxicities consisted mainly of neurotoxicity (50% of patients, >= degrees II), followed by haematotoxicity and nephrotoxicity/ototoxicity. The professional outcome appeared to be negatively affected in the majority of evaluable patients (9/10). Conclusions: Treatment of adults with metastatic medulloblastoma according to the intensified paediatric HIT2000 protocol was feasible with acceptable toxicities. EFS rates achieved by both chemotherapeutic protocols were favourable and appear to be inferior to those obtained in older children/adolescents with metastatic disease. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Combined radiochemotherapy followed by maintenance chemotherapy with cisplatin, lomustine and vincristine within the NOA-07 study resulted in considerable short-term toxicity in adult medulloblastoma patients. Here we investigated the long-term impact of this treatment, focusing on neurocognitive functioning and health-related quality of life (HRQoL).