Open Access

DFG Final Report: DFG reference number: MA 7865/3-1, SCHM 3423/3-1, STE 1493/6-1 Project number: 438839893

Adjuvant pembrolizumab prolonged recurrence-free survival (RFS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) in patients with resected stage IIB/IIC melanoma in KEYNOTE-716. Results of a post hoc 4-year analysis are reported, including progression/recurrence-free survival 2 (PRFS2).Patients were randomly assigned 1:1 to pembrolizumab 200 mg or placebo intravenously every 3 weeks (part 1). [...]

The relations between coffee and tea consumption and head and neck cancer (HNC) incidence are unclear. With increasing global HNC burden, this study aims to examine the association between coffee, tea, and HNC.A pooled analysis of 9548 HNC cases and 15,783 controls from 14 individual-level case-control studies was conducted from the International Head and Neck Cancer Epidemiology consortium. [...]

Metastasis-directed therapy (MDT) for oligometastatic breast cancer (≤ 5 metastases) has shown little effect in specific scenarios of randomized trials. Therefore, we aimed to assess outcomes after metastasis-directed stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) in various clinical scenarios. [...]

We aimed to evaluate the correlation of progression-free (PFS) and overall survival (OS) after first-line treatment of classical Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) and the potential of PFS to serve as a surrogate parameter for OS.We analyzed individual patient data obtained during and after treatment with polychemotherapy within nine randomized phase III trials (GHSG HD7-HD15) between 01/93 - 08/18. Effects of 16 experimental treatments on PFS and OS on trial level were evaluated by estimation of the treatment effects with Cox proportional hazards (PH) regression and a linear weighted least squares regression. [...]

Melanoma, a highly aggressive form of skin cancer, has seen significant advancements in treatment through the introduction of immunotherapy. However, the variability in patient responses underscores the need for reliable biomarkers to guide treatment decisions. [...]

Manual contour corrections during fractionated magnetic resonance (MR)-guided radiotherapy (MRgRT) are time-consuming. Conventional population models for deep learning auto-segmentation might be suboptimal for MRgRT at MR-Linacs since they do not incorporate manual segmentation from treatment planning and previous fractions.In this work, we investigate patient-specific (PS) auto-segmentation methods leveraging expert-segmented planning and prior fraction MR images (MRIs) to improve auto-segmentation on consecutive treatment days.Data from 151 abdominal cancer patients treated at a 0.35 T MR-Linac (151 planning and 215 fraction MRIs) were included. [...]

Stage at diagnosis is a key prognostic factor for colorectal cancer (CRC) survival. We aimed to assess the global distribution of CRC staging at diagnosis using population-based or hospital-based registry data.We systematically searched in MEDLINE and Embase from their inception until 6 December 2023. [...]

Rapid mapping of the mechanical properties of soft biological tissues from light microscopy to macroscopic imaging can transform fundamental biophysical research by providing clinical biomarkers to complement in vivo elastography. This work introduces superfast optical multifrequency time-harmonic elastography (OMTHE) to remotely encode surface and subsurface shear wave fields for generating maps of tissue stiffness with unprecedented detail resolution. [...]

Loss-of-function variants in ATP6V0A2, encoding the trans Golgi V-ATPase subunit V0a2, cause wrinkly skin syndrome (WSS), a connective tissue disorder with glycosylation defects and aberrant cortical neuron migration. We used knock-out (Atp6v0a2-/-) and knock-in (Atp6v0a2RQ/RQ) mice harboring the R755Q missense mutation selectively abolishing V0a2-mediated proton transport to investigate the WSS pathomechanism. [...]