Biomarkers in Barrett's esophagus and esophageal adenocarcinoma:Predictors of progression and prognosis

Barrett’s esophagus is a well-known premalignant lesion of the lower esophagus that is characterized by intestinal metaplasia of the squamous epithelium. It is clinically important due to the increased risk (0.5% per annum) of progression to esophageal adenocarcinoma (EA), which has a poor outcome unless diagnosed early. The current clinical management of Barrett’s esophagus is hampered by the lack of accurate predictors of progression. In addition, when patients develop EA, the current staging modalities are limited in stratifying patients into different prognostic groups in order to guide the optimal therapy for an individual patient. Biomarkers have the potential to improve radically the clinical management of patients with Barrett’s esophagus and EA but have not yet entered mainstream clinical practice. This is in contrast to other cancers like breast and prostate for which biomarkers are utilized routinely to inform clinical decisions. This review aims to highlight the most promising predictive and prognostic biomarkers in Barrett’s esophagus and EA and to discuss what is required to move the field forward towards clinical application.

Optical diagnosis of colorectal polyps using convolutional neural networks

Colonoscopy remains the gold standard investigation for colorectal cancer screening as it offers the opportunity to both detect and resect pre-malignant and neoplastic polyps.Although technologies for image-enhanced endoscopy are widely available,optical diagnosis has not been incorporated into routine clinical practice,mainly due to significant inter-operator variability.In recent years,there has been a growing number of studies demonstrating the potential of convolutional neural networks(CNN)to enhance optical diagnosis of polyps.Data suggest that the use of CNNs might mitigate the inter-operator variability amongst endoscopists,potentially enabling a“resect and discard”or“leave in”strategy to be adopted in real-time.This would have significant financial benefits for healthcare systems,avoid unnecessary polypectomies of non-neoplastic polyps and improve the efficiency of colonoscopy.Here,we review advances in CNN for the optical diagnosis of colorectal polyps,current limitations and future directions.

Breath Biopsy^(®) to Identify Exhaled Volatile Organic Compounds Biomarkers for Liver Cirrhosis Detection

Background and Aims:The prevalence of chronic liver dis-ease in adults exceeds 30%in some countries and there is significant interest in developing tests and treatments to help control disease progression and reduce healthcare burden.Breath is a rich sampling matrix that offers non-invasive so-lutions suitable for early-stage detection and disease moni-toring.Having previously investigated targeted analysis of a single biomarker,here we investigated a multiparametric approach to breath testing that would provide more robust and reliable results for clinical use.Methods:To identify can-didate biomarkers we compared 46 breath samples from cir-rhosis patients and 42 from controls.Collection and analysis used Breath Biopsy OMNI™,maximizing signal and contrast to background to provide high confidence biomarker detec-tion based upon gas chromatography mass spectrometry(GC-MS).Blank samples were also analyzed to provide de-tailed information on background volatile organic compounds(VOCs)levels.Results:A set of 29 breath VOCs differed significantly between cirrhosis and controls.A classification model based on these VOCs had an area under the curve(AUC)of 0.95±0.04 in cross-validated test sets.The seven best performing VOCs were sufficient to maximize classifica-tion performance.A subset of 11 VOCs was correlated with blood metrics of liver function(bilirubin,albumin,prothrom-bin time)and separated patients by cirrhosis severity using principal component analysis.Conclusions:A set of seven VOCs consisting of previously reported and novel candidates show promise as a panel for liver disease detection and mon-itoring,showing correlation to disease severity and serum biomarkers at late stage.

医学是终极的个体化技术

现代医学将科学与交流、照护个体患者的艺术相结合。临床医生通过与患者交谈来确定最佳治疗方案一直是各种临床照护情境的中心环节。由于巨大的技术进步，二十一世纪医学的科学成分与艺术成分不相上下。在分子水平上展现肿瘤特点的技术能力已经降低了治疗的副作用，提高了患者的生存率和生活质量。

青少年和青年肿瘤患者的化疗：远期副作用的管理

癌症是西方国家青少年和青年中与疾病相关死亡的主要原因。在英国，癌症分别占青少年和青年中男性和女性死亡人数的9％和15％，并且从20世纪90年代中期以来，癌症发病率上升了19％，从2011年至2013年平均每年新增2300例癌症患者。在日本，从2000年至2006年，因癌症死亡的人数达到近7000人。