The burden of symptomatic skeletal events in castrate-resistant prostate cancer patients with bone metastases at three Canadian uro-oncology centres.

Introduction: Metastatic bone disease in castrate-resistant prostate cancer risks significant morbidity, including symptomatic skeletal events. We estimated the healthcare resource costs of managing skeletal events.

Methods: A retrospective chart review was conducted for patients who died from or were treated palliatively for metastatic castrate-resistant prostate cancer from 2006-2013 at Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (Montreal), Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (Toronto), or Vancouver General Hospital (Vancouver).

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition confers resistance to apoptosis in three murine mammary epithelial cell lines.

Epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an essential embryogenic and developmental process, characterized by altered cellular morphology, loss of cell adhesion, and gain of migratory ability. Dysregulation of this process has been implicated in tumorigenesis, mediating the acquisition of migratory and invasive phenotypes by tumor cells. Mammary epithelial cells provide an excellent model in which to study the process, being derived from mammary gland tissue that utilizes EMT to facilitate branching morphogenesis through which the developing gland migrates into and invades the fat pad.

A PANorama of PAX genes in cancer and development.

Populations of self-renewing cells that arise during normal embryonic development harbour the potential for rapid proliferation, migration or transdifferentiation and, therefore, tumour generation. So, control mechanisms are essential to prevent rapidly expanding populations from malignant growth. Transcription factors have crucial roles in ensuring establishment of such regulation, with the Pax gene family prominent amongst these.