Sha Zhu

Urological cancer is a collective term for cancers of the bladder, kidney, ureter, penis, prostate, and testicles. Last year, more than 444,000 people were diagnosed with urinary cancers in the United States. In this review, we talk about the complexity of prostate and kidney cancer.

Chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR T) cells immunotherapy is rapidly developed in treating cancers, especially relapsed or refractory B-cell malignancies. To assess the efficacy and safety of CAR T therapy, we analyzed clinical trials from PUBMED and EMBASE. Results showed that the pooled response rate, 6-months and 1-year progression-free survival (PFS) rate were 67%, 65.62% and 44.18%, respectively. We observed that received lymphodepletion (72% vs 44%, P = 0.0405) and high peak serum IL-2 level (85% vs 31%, P = 0.04) were positively associated with patients’ response to CAR T cells. Similarly, costimulatory domains (CD28 vs CD137) in second generation CAR T was positively associated with PFS (52.69% vs 33.39%, P = 0.0489). The pooled risks of all grade adverse effects (AEs) and grade ≥ 3 AEs were 71% and 43%. Most common grade ≥ 3 AEs were fatigue (18%), night sweats (14%), hypotension (12%), injection site reaction (12%), leukopenia (10%), anemia (9%). In conclusion, CAR T therapy has promising outcomes with tolerable AEs in relapsed or refractory B-cell malignancies. Further modifications of CAR structure and optimal therapy strategy in continued clinical trials are needed to obtain significant improvements.

To estimate the prognostic value of inflammatory markers in patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). A total of 361 resected LSCC patients were included. The preoperative and postoperative neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and l actate dehydrogenase (LDH) were assessed. The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox regression analysis were conducted on overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS). Both Kaplan-Meier analysis and univariate analysis demonstrated significant prognostic value of preoperative and postoperative NLR, PLR and MLR. However, only preoperative ALP was predictive of OS and PFS, and LDH failed to be predictor of OS and PFS. The multivariate analysis showed that preoperative NLR (OS: HR = 1.64, 95%CI: 1.06–2.54, p = 0.026; PFS: HR = 1.52, 95%CI: 1.04–2.23, p = 0.029) and postoperative MLR (OS: HR = 2.02, 95%CI: 1.29–3.14, p = 0.002; PFS: HR = 1.57, 95%CI: 1.05–2.34, p = 0.026) were independently related with survival. The elevated preoperative NLR, PLR, MLR and ALP were significantly associated with worse survival and cancer progression. The preoperative NLR and postoperative MLR might be independent prognostic markers of OS and PFS in LSCC patients undergoing surgical resection.