Generation and Characterization of Ex Vivo Expanded Tumor-infiltrating Lymphocytes From Renal Cell Carcinoma Tumors for Adoptive Cell Therapy.

Autologous therapeutic tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy is a promising strategy to enhance antitumor immunity. Optimization of ex vivo TIL expansion could expand current immunotherapy options. Previous attempts to generate TIL in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) have been technically challenging.

Plasma KIM-1 Is Associated with Recurrence Risk after Nephrectomy for Localized Renal Cell Carcinoma: A Trial of the ECOG-ACRIN Research Group (E2805).

Purpose: No circulating biomarkers are currently available to identify patients at highest risk of recurrence after nephrectomy for renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Kidney injury molecule-1 (KIM-1) is overexpressed in RCC and its ectodomain circulates in plasma. We investigated whether plasma KIM-1 is a prognostic biomarker in patients with localized RCC after nephrectomy.

From metrics to practice: identifying preventable emergency department visits for patients with cancer.

Background: Oncology patients disproportionately utilize the emergency department (ED) for symptom management. At our institution, approximately 1 in 4 visits to the ED by oncology patients led to discharge. We hypothesized that many of the visits leading to ED discharge would be potentially preventable (PP).

Hot or Not: Tumor Mutational Burden (TMB) as a Biomarker of Immunotherapy Response in Genitourinary Cancers.

Pembrolizumab was recently approved for treatment of cancers with high tumor mutational burden (TMB). We conduct a focused literature review of TMB as a predictive biomarker. TMB quantifies the sum of nonsynonymous coding mutations (typically single nucleotide substitutions and short insertion-deletions) per megabase of sequenced DNA.

Disproportionate longer-term opioid use among U.S. adults with mood disorders.

Adults with mood disorders frequently use prescription opioids. The factors associated with this increased use remain unclear. We used the Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys from 2005 to 2011 to measure the association of mood disorders with new opioid use and the transition to longer-term opioid use for a variety of pain conditions before and after controlling for patient characteristics and clinical disability.

Rates of and Reasons for Hospital Readmissions in Patients With Cirrhosis: A Multistate Population-based Cohort Study.

Background & Aims: There have been few population-based studies of the rates of and reasons for readmission to the hospital within 30 days among patients with cirrhosis.

Methods: We identified all adult patients with cirrhosis who were admitted in 2011 to hospitals in California, Florida Massachusetts, Mississippi, New York, and Washington (119,722 unique index admissions with cirrhosis). We analyzed data from the State Inpatient Databases, which are longitudinal all-payer databases.

Multivalent recognition of peptides by modular self-assembled receptors.

Developing nontraditional approaches to the synthesis and characterization of multivalent compounds is critical to our efforts to study and interface with biological systems and to build new noncovalent materials. This paper demonstrates a biomimetic approach to the construction of discrete, modular, multivalent receptors via molecular self-assembly in aqueous solution. Scaffolds presenting 1-3 viologen groups recruit a respective 1-3 copies of the synthetic host, cucurbit[8]uril, in a noncooperative manner and with a consistent equilibrium association constant (K(a)) value of 2 x 10(6) M(-1) per binding site.