Determination of miRNA Signature in Gastric Cancer Patients Assigned to Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy.

• Grant number: 12/12551-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): October 01, 2012
• Effective date (End): February 29, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Medicine - Pathological Anatomy and Clinical Pathology
• Principal Investigator: Maria Dirlei Ferreira de Souza Begnami
• Grantee: Michelle Maccarini Barcelos Baldoni
• Host Institution: A C Camargo Cancer Center. Fundação Antonio Prudente (FAP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Gastric cancer (GC) is considered highly aggressive and lethal, being the second leading cause of cancer mortality globally. Currently, surgery is the main option for treating GC. However, depending on the stage, the results are disappoint because in average 85% of GC patients experience a recurrence of the disease after performing curative resection. In the past decade, searching for improvements at the survival rates at GC, several strategies of care complimentary to surgery were applied. Different standards of treatment were established in some parts of the world. When compared with surgery stand alone, neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy showed an increase of 3 years in relapse free survival, and also an increase in overall and median survival. The research about this matter, however, has been presenting mixed results, due to the non-existence of consensus about the effects of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy. The selection of patients with chemosensitive tumors prior to the neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy is key to prevent the possible complications derived from the chemoradiotherapy and the inadequate delay of the surgical treatment. Recent comprehensive analyses of gene expression, such as a miRNA analysis, are able to identify relevant genes which expression profiles appeared to be linked to tumor stage, histological grade, susceptibility to chemotherapy, clinical aggressiveness or prognosis. There are many published reports focusing on the association between GC and signature miRNA. These studies show from the relation between miRNAs and histologic subtype and tumor size up to the capacity of tumor suppression, risk of reccurence and progression of disease. However there were not found any studies analyzing the miRNA signature with the response in patients assigned to different treatments currently available.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

MARTINS, MARIO RINO; ALMEIDA, RENATA SANTOS; LUCENA-SILVA, NORMA; COUTINHO-CAMILO, CLAUDIA MALHEIROS; TORJAL, ISRAEL; DOS SANTOS, ROGERIO LUIZ; MIRANDA-FURTADO, CRISTIANA LIBARDI; LOPES RIOS, ALVARO FABRICIO; TORRES, LEURIDAN CAVALCANTE; BEGNAMI, MARIA DIRLEI F. S.. MicroRNA expression profiling provides novel insights into immune-related pathways involved in gastric cancer. MEDICAL ONCOLOGY, v. 36, n. 9, AUG 9 2019. (12/12551-9)