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Somatostatin analogues (SSA) control the hormonal hypersecretion in pancreatic and midgut neuroendocrine tumours (NETs), with antiproliferative, antiangiogenic and proapoptotic effects. Lanreotide autogel is a long-acting SSA that is considered the therapy of choice along with octreotide, in controlling symptoms associated with gastroenteropancreatic (GEP)-NETs.
Women account for a disproportionate percentage of new human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in sub-Saharan Africa, comprising 59% of 18 million new adult HIV infections in 2017.
Kidney transplants are the best treatment for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), with better survival outcomes than haemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis. However, in Hong Kong as well as much of the rest of the world, there is an increasing gap between the number of patients requiring a transplant and the number of organs available.
Seasonal influenza is common between January to March, and July to August in Hong Kong. Baloxavir marboxil is the first influenza antiviral with a novel mechanism of action to be approved in almost two decades, and was registered for use in Hong Kong in February 2019.
Know all the United States Food and Drug Administration (U.S. FDA) approved immune-checkpoint inhibitors. Members of MediPaper can download the free PPT slides summarising the U.S. FDA approved immune-checkpoint inhibitors and other U.S. FDA approved immunotherapies.
Conventional imaging with computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and bone scans, are the current standard of care for imaging prostate cancer. Accurate imaging primarily relies on nodal metastases size for detection.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) accounts for 80% of all liver cancers, and 55% of all HCC cases worldwide are reported from China. In Hong Kong, liver cancer is the fourth most common cancer and the third most common cause of cancer death.
RAS is the most frequently mutated gene family in cancers, with KRAS mutations being involved as a driver in three of the most lethal cancers – lung cancer, colorectal cancer, and pancreatic cancer. Incidence of KRAS mutations vary between ethnicity with Caucasians having a higher incidence than African-Americans or Asians. In non-small lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common KRAS mutation is G12C. In Asia, G12C mutations in particular account for 14.5% of KRAS mutations in the Chinese population. KRAS G12C was identified in 4.3% of lung cancer samples and 2.5% of colorectal cancer samples.
A number of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are now available for the treatment of various types of non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC), including epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-mutated and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK)-rearranged NSCLC. However, amplification of the MET gene, which codes for the hepatocyte growth factor receptor (HGFR), has been found to be one of the most prominent mechanisms of secondary resistance to EGFR TKIs. Similarly, the MET exon 14 (METex14) mutation has also emerged as a potential tumour driver due to its role in cancer proliferation, and thus also a promising target for NSCLC.
Aberrant RET activation has shown to be a clinical driver of tumour growth and proliferation. It is reported that 1-2% of non-small cell lung cancer patients have activating RET fusions. Clinical characteristics of these patients are generally younger (<60 years) with minimal or no smoking history, and frequent presentation with brain metastases at diagnosis of advanced disease. RET mutations are mutually exclusive with other common lung cancer genetic abberations, such as reported for KRAS, EGFR, and ALK.