Latest Research
All publications from the Cancer3.AI database, newest first.
Gasdermin as a Molecular Signature and Predictor of Adult-Type Diffuse Glioma Severity and Grading.
Kaczor S, et al
Researchers investigated whether Gasdermin D (GSDMD), a protein that drives an inflammatory form of programmed cell death known as pyroptosis, could serve as a reliable diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for adult-type diffuse gliomas—a group of aggressive brain tumors. The team measured GSDMD expression levels in glioma patients versus healthy controls and supplemented their findings with transcriptomic data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). GSDMD levels were significantly elevated in glioma patients compared to healthy individuals and rose progressively with increasing tumor grade, while also correlating positively with tumor size, collectively pointing to its reflection of disease severity. Diagnostic testing showed a high specificity of 96%, meaning elevated GSDMD reliably distinguished patients from healthy individuals, and survival analysis confirmed that higher GSDMD expression was linked to poorer disease-specific outcomes. The protein also correlated with the red blood cell parameter mean corpuscular hemoglobin and inversely with the inflammatory marker C-reactive protein, hinting at broader systemic interactions. These findings position GSDMD as a promising, non-sex-specific blood-based biomarker that could support earlier glioma diagnosis and ongoing disease monitoring in clinical practice.
Journal of clinical medicine
Source →Comparative Performance of Large Language Models on European Gastroenterology Board-Style Questions: Analysis of Reasoning Versus Non-Reasoning Architectures.
Simsek C, et al
Researchers evaluated five leading artificial intelligence language models — ChatGPT-o1, ChatGPT-4o, DeepSeek-R1, Llama-3.1-405B, and Gemini-1.5-Pro — on 203 board-style questions drawn from validated European Society of Gastroenterology and Hepatology examination preparation materials, comparing their performance against that of practicing gastroenterologists. ChatGPT-o1 achieved the highest overall accuracy at 84.0%, and all five models exceeded the official ESEGH passing threshold of 61.5%, with the top four surpassing it by 15.7 to 22.5 percentage points. A key architectural finding was that reasoning models, which employ explicit chain-of-thought strategies, outperformed non-reasoning counterparts by 5.7 percentage points (81.5% vs. 75.8%), with the advantage most pronounced on therapeutic and complex bait-and-switch questions. In striking contrast, four practicing gastroenterologists achieved a mean accuracy of only 50.9%, falling below all AI models and even below the passing threshold, highlighting a potential gap between specialist knowledge recall and AI-assisted performance. Domain analysis revealed that AI excelled on diagnostic questions and small intestine topics but struggled most with bariatric and pancreatic disorders, suggesting areas where targeted model improvement is warranted. These findings suggest that reasoning-capable AI models could serve as powerful study tools and clinical decision-support aids in gastroenterology education and practice.
Journal of clinical medicine
Source →Unusual Site of Solitary PSMA-Positive Recurrence of Prostate Cancer in an Undescended Testis.
Pinaquy J, et al
Researchers from the field of nuclear medicine report a rare and unusual case of prostate cancer recurrence detected in an undescended testis, identified using an advanced imaging technique called PSMA PET/CT. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, and biochemical recurrence — indicated by rising levels of the PSA blood marker — affects up to 40% of treated patients, presenting a major clinical challenge. In this case, the radiotracer [¹⁸F]-Piflufolastat PSMA PET/CT successfully pinpointed a solitary metastatic lesion in an anatomically atypical location that conventional imaging would likely have missed. This finding underscores the superior sensitivity of PSMA-based molecular imaging, particularly when PSA levels are low and standard scans fall short. The case highlights that prostate cancer can spread to unexpected sites, and that accurate detection of such atypical metastases can directly influence treatment decisions, potentially sparing patients from unnecessary systemic therapy.
Clinical nuclear medicine
Source →[Role of a National Multidisciplinary Tumor Board in the diagnostic and therapeutic management of patients with cancers of unknown primary (CUP)].
Jacquin N, et al
A new study describes the role of France's National Multidisciplinary Tumor Board (MTB) for cancers of unknown primary (CUP), a challenging group of malignancies in which the original tumor site cannot be identified, representing 2–5% of all cancers and carrying a poor prognosis. The French National MTB for CUP, established in 2020, integrates clinical, pathological, and molecular profiling data to guide personalized treatment decisions for these patients. In real-world practice, this centralized approach has been shown to enable tailored treatment orientation for the majority of patients, moving beyond the standard empirical platinum-based chemotherapy that has historically defined CUP management. Crucially, patients guided by the MTB demonstrated improved overall survival compared to those receiving standard empirical therapy, highlighting the clinical value of molecular-guided decision-making. This initiative represents a significant step toward equitable access to precision oncology for CUP patients across France, a country where access to such advanced diagnostics had previously been heterogeneous.
Bulletin du cancer
Source →Malignant Brenner tumour of ovary causing ureteric obstruction.
Khoiwal K, et al
Malignant Brenner tumours (MBT) of the ovary are exceptionally rare gynecological cancers, and this case report describes a woman in her 40s who presented with a left adnexal mass causing obstruction of the ureter, leading to six months of lower abdominal pain. The patient, who had previously undergone an abdominal hysterectomy, was found to have a stage IIIA1(i) MBT involving the distal left ureter, requiring a nephrostomy tube to manage urinary drainage. She underwent complete surgical staging that included resection of the affected portion of the ureter and ureteric reimplantation using a psoas hitch technique, followed by six cycles of platinum-based chemotherapy. At one-year follow-up, the patient remains in remission, demonstrating that aggressive surgical and chemotherapeutic management can yield favorable outcomes. This case highlights the importance of considering rare ovarian tumour subtypes in the differential diagnosis when a pelvic mass presents with ureteric obstruction, and underscores the value of multidisciplinary surgical planning.
BMJ case reports
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