Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0027819 (neuroblastoma)
 27,800 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Nuclear Medicine offers screening methods for oncology such as bone and bone marrow scintigraphy. During the last two decades, special procedures have gained widespread application. This paper is centered around the "tumor-specific" radiopharmaceuticals. In patients with thyroid cancer, I-131 still plays a significant role. Ga-67 still has its indications in lymphoma, while in other diseases Tl-201 chloride is now the agent of choice. Especially in thyroid cancer, Tl-201 has proved to be a reliable tumor imaging radiopharmaceutical. More recently, Tc-99m MIBI was introduced for tumor imaging. Tc-99m HMPAO may also be used for tumor scintigraphy, especially in brain lesions. In addition, I-123 IMP has successfully been used for imaging malignant melanoma. Another promising field of tumor diagnosis is receptor imaging. In neuroblastoma and malignant pheochromocytoma, I-131/123 mIBG is the radiopharmaceutical of choice and may be considered as a receptor imaging agent also. First clinical results with In-111 octreotide show potentials as somatostatin-receptor radiopharmaceutical in insulinoma, islet cell carcinoma, medullary and lung cancer, while I-123 estradiol needs some improvement until it may be recommended as diagnostic tool in breast cancer. Since 1978, radiolabeled poly- or monoclonal tumor antibodies and their fragments have gained widespread application. Especially the Tc-99m 225.28S melanoma antibody, I-131 or Tc-99m CEA and In-111/I-131 labeled OC-125 antibodies have proven to be of clinical significance in melanoma, colorectal and ovarian cancer.
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PMID:The role of nuclear medicine in oncology. 138 87

We developed a new approach for detecting the gene amplification of cancer DNAs with restriction landmark genomic scanning (RLGS). In cancer research, much effort has been made to find the amplified loci of cancer DNAs, because many lines of evidence indicate association between oncogene amplification and carcinogenesis. Conventionally, such gene amplification has been detected by using Southern hybridization with DNA probes. However, only the information of one locus can be obtained by one hybridization procedure, and analysis of many loci throughout the genome is too laborious and time consuming, even if only several candidate genes are investigated. On the other hand, the "in-gel renaturation method" was reported as another alternative for detection of amplified regions. However, even though this method is much improved, it is difficult to detect less than 7-fold amplification, which is often higher than the amplification of many cancer cases. To overcome these limitations and, in addition, to locate the amplified DNA two dimensionally, we applied RLGS for analysis of DNA amplification in cancer tissues, such as breast cancer (infiltrative tubuloadenocarcinoma), neuroblastoma, meningioma (endotheliomatous meningioma), and thyroid cancer (papillary adenocarcinoma). In some cases of breast cancer, several amplified spots located on the same amplicon were detected. In thyroid cancer, in which no amplification has yet been reported, low-grade amplification was also detected. In this report, we demonstrated that RLGS allows us to screen 2000-3000 restriction landmarks distributed on the genome simultaneously, and even low-grade amplification could be detected effectively. Thus, RLGS has proven to be a very useful method in detecting DNA amplification.
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PMID:New approach for detection of amplification in cancer DNA using restriction landmark genomic scanning. 161 37

Today nuclear medicine is expected to be the most sensitive approach to measure in vivo physiology, biochemistry and metabolism. Since in most of the pathophysiological process, the alternation of the organ function occurs much earlier than morphological changes. To achieve quantitatively this measurement improvements in instrumentation (SPECT, PET) and radiopharmaceuticals are essential. Nuclear physicians and researchers in many institutions and industries are continuing to provide new radiopharmaceuticals, instruments and methodologies. Nuclear medicine is defined as topographic physiological chemistry, not anatomical orientation, marking it possible to evaluate the biochemical and physiological abnormalities at the cellular level, so that it could guide to treat the patients more effectively and predict the response to the treatments. The future developement of nuclear medicine depends on an infrastructure of physics, mathematics and chemical biology. Another important role of nuclear medicine is the application of radiopharmaceuticals emitting beta-ray for the treatment of diseases, especially malignant neoplasms. At present we have several options; thyroid cancer and thyrotoxicosis with I-131, neuroblastoma and pheochromocytoma with I-131-MIBG, and bone pain palliation in patients with bone metastases with Sr-89. The expansion of this field is crucial for nuclear medicine, and we believe this could happen more extensively than expected.
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PMID:[Future prospects for nuclear medicine]. 872 45

The author reviewed present status and progress of endocrine nuclear medicine including thyroid, parathyroid, adrenocortical, adrenomedullary and somatostatin receptor imaging and also radionuclide therapy of Basedow's disease, metastatic foci of post-operative thyroid cancer and malignant neural crest tumor. Relatively new imaging agents include 99mTc-MIBI and 99mTc-tetrofosmin for parathyroid imaging and 111In-pentetreotide for somatostatin receptor imaging. It is hoped that therapy of malignant neural crest tumors such as metastatic pheochromocytoma and neuroblastoma with 131I-MIBG and somatostatin receptor imaging will be available in Japan as soon as possible.
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PMID:[Present status and progress of endocrine nuclear medicine]. 1008 59

Therapeutic use of radionuclides includes 131I for thyroid cancer and hyperthyroid Graves' disease, 89SrCl3 for metastatic bone tumors, 131I-MIBG for malignant pheochromocytoma and neuroblastoma, and radioimmunotherapies. 131I is concentrated in 60-70% of metastases from differentiated thyroid cancer following total thyroidectomy. Radioiodine uptake in metastatic lesions is greater in younger patients than in older ones. Hypothyroidism is often mild or even absent in patients with a large amount of tumor tissue, indicating that thyroid hormones produced by highly differentiated tumors compensate partially or even completely for hypothyroidism following total thyroidectomy. Adequate uptake of 131I has been reported to be associated with significant reduction in the size and number of metastases, and with lower recurrence and higher survival rates. Other favorable factors for longer survival are younger age, well-differentiated histological type, small disease extent, and early discovery of metastases. Older patients with extensive metastases and/or bulky tumor masses in the bone have a poor prognosis. Therefore, it is important to discover metastases as early as possible, when patients are still young. Long-term follow-up with periodic thyroglobulin measurements and imaging studies is strongly recommended. In Japan, 131I treatment for Graves' disease is performed only in selected patients in whom antithyroid drugs cannot be used because of side effects or not effective, considering the high prevalence of permanent hypothyroidism. 89SrCl3 is useful for reducing pain due to bone metastases of malignant tumors. 131I-MIBG therapy is effective for improvement of QOL in some patients with metastatic malignant pheochromocytoma. Radioimmuno-therapy using anti-CD20 has been used successfully in clinical application in patients with malignant B cell lymphoma.
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PMID:[Recent progress in radionuclide therapy]. 1114 Mar 21

The thyroid gland in children is among the most sensitive organs to the carcinogenic effects of ionizing radiation, and very young children are at especially high risk. Risk associated with exposure to external X- or gamma-radiation increases linearly with increasing dose to the thyroid gland at low-to-moderate doses, but the dose-response relationship appears to flatten at the very high doses characteristic of cancer radiotherapy. Because of the extreme sensitivity of the thyroid gland in children, there is a risk of radiation-induced thyroid cancer even when the thyroid gland is outside of the irradiated field. Increased incidence of thyroid cancer has been noted following radiotherapy for childhood Hodgkin disease, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, neuroblastoma, Wilms tumor, acute lymphocytic leukemia and tumors of the central nervous system. Radiation-induced tumors begin to appear 5-10 years after irradiation and excess risk persists for decades, perhaps for the remainder of life. The background incidence of thyroid cancer is two- to threefold higher among females than males, and the absolute increase in risk due to irradiation is higher in females as well. Most of the thyroid cancers that occur in association with irradiation are of the papillary type, for which the cure rate is high if tumors are detected early. This highlights the importance of long-term surveillance of persons irradiated during childhood. Important areas for research include the possibility that children with certain types of first cancer are especially susceptible, the basis of the greater female susceptibility, the joint effects of radiation and other factors, and genetic mechanisms in radiation-induced and spontaneously occurring thyroid cancer.
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PMID:Thyroid cancer after radiotherapy for childhood cancer. 1134 Jun 14

With the development of new radiopharmaceuticals there is a tendency to apply nuclear medicine therapy for malignancies of higher incidence (lymphoma, prostate) than the ones which have been treated for many years (thyroid cancer, neuroendocrine tumours). One of the most important areas of current development in radionuclide cancer therapy is the monotherapeutic use of new or already available radiopharmaceuticals in preclinical or phase I studies and to a lesser degree in phase II trials. In this context, the radioimmunotherapy is showing important advances in the treatment of medullary thyroid carcinoma, malignant lymphomas en brain tumours with potential extension to neuroblastoma therapy. The development of DOTA as a chelating agent has lead to the use of Y-90-DOTATOC in the treatment of neuroendocrine tumours, particularly carcinoid tumours, and non-I131I-avid thyroid carcinomas. In an effort to improve tumour targeting together with simultaneous reduction of physiological organ uptake, 131I-MIBG is being used in combination with interferon a and pre-targeting with unlabelled MIBG in the treatment of carcinoid tumours. New routes of administration of radiopharmaceuticals (intratumoral, intra-arterial) have enhanced the treatment of malignancies of liver, pancreas and brain as well as the potential use of radioimmunotherapy by intravesical administration for bladder carcinoma. Another significant tendency in radionuclide therapy is its evolution from monotherapy towards a combined application with other anticancer modalities. Some recent examples of combined therapy with demonstrated anti-tumour effect are found in neuroblastoma (131I-MIBG and chemotherapy), bone metastases of prostatic carcinoma (addition of 89Sr to chemotherapy schedules), brain malignancies (adjuvant use of radioimmnunotherapy in relation to surgery and external radiotherapy) and lymphoma (radioimmunotherapy combined with chemotherapy or immunotherapy). Reinforcing this trend in phase II and III studies as well as the planning of multicenter trials following the guidelines and criteria of clinical oncology will determine the future advances in this field.
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PMID:[Therapeutic advances of nuclear medicine in oncology]. 1170 41

Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) is a powerful tool that allows digital analysis of overall gene expression patterns. SAGE provides quantitative and comprehensive expression profiling in a given cell population. Because SAGE does not require a preexisting clone, it can be used to identify and quantitate new as well as known genes. It works by isolating short fragments of genetic information from the genes expressed in the cell being studied. These short sequences, called SAGE tags, are linked together for efficient sequencing. SAGE is particularly well suited for organisms whose genome is not completely sequenced, because it does not require a hybridization probe for each transcript and allows new genes to be discovered. New modifications of SAGE now permit the analysis of gene expression in cell sub-populations or micro-anatomic structures, providing access to unexplored transcriptomes of normal and disease biology. Data derived using the SAGE technology have been used to identify tumor markers for a variety of cancers, including gastrointestinal cancer, lung and thyroid cancer, breast and ovarian cancer, neuroblastoma and glioblastoma, prostate cancer, and renal cell carcinoma. In this review we present an outline of the method and updated information on the applications of SAGE technology to various cancers.
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PMID:Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE): application in cancer research. 1517 83

The importance and methodology of contemporary patient dosimetry in well-established radionuclide therapies are reviewed. The different protocols used for radioiodine treatment of thyrotoxicosis are discussed. Special attention is paid to patient dosimetry in the largest safe dose approach for curative radioiodine therapy of thyroid remnants and metastases in the post-surgical treatment of differentiated thyroid cancer. Nowadays, meta-[131I]iodobenzylguanidine (131I-MIBG) therapy for neuroblastoma relies on bone marrow dose levels. Issues related to whole-body and tumour dosimetry in this type of radionuclide therapy, where, traditionally, dosimetry has played an important role, are discussed. A relatively large number of patients are treated with radiolabelled Lipiodol for hepatocellular carcinoma. Administered activities are restricted to 2.22 GBq (60 mCi) when using 131I-lipiodol because of the radioprotection measures to be taken. These radiation protection issues can be avoided by using 188Re labelled Lipiodol allowing further dose escalation. The follow-up of these patients also necessitates whole-body dosimetry. It is concluded that for treatment of malignant diseases reliable patient dosimetry is now a keystone of high quality radionuclide therapy. Where dosimetry of present medical applications focuses generally on the critical organs, in the near future accurate 3-dimensional tumour dosimetry also will become feasible by the introduction of the combined SPECT-CT and PET-CT imaging systems in the dosimetric methodology. This will allow treatment protocols based on tumour dose prescriptions as performed in external beam radiotherapy.
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PMID:Patient dosimetry in radionuclide therapy: the whys and the wherefores. 1594 79

This article describes the historical development of pediatric pulmonary metastasectomy but demonstrates that progress has been slow in understanding its proper applications. Because many pediatric metastatic tumors are rare, surgeons have grouped together patients of different histologies for the generation and analysis of case series. By examining tumor types individually, however, it is seen that certain histologies (adrenocortical carcinoma, alveolar soft part sarcoma, osteosarcoma) mandate surgical metastasectomy for patient survival. Other pediatric tumors (Wilms tumor, Ewing's sarcoma) are radiation sensitive, and the application of metastasectomy is controversial. In the case of still other types of tumor (neuroblastoma, differentiated thyroid cancer, rhabdomyosarcoma), metastasectomy is seldom performed except in highly unusual situations. Techniques for minimally invasive biopsy and for muscle-sparing thoracotomy are described for pediatric patients.
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PMID:Pulmonary metastasectomy in pediatric patients. 1680 6


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