OBJECTIVE: To test the effectiveness of combining conventional antineoplastic drugs (cisplatin and etoposide) with metformin in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer in the NCI-H460 cell line, in order to develop new therapeutic options with high efficacy and low toxicity. METHODS: We used the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay and calculated the combination index for the drugs studied. RESULTS: We found that the use of metformin as monotherapy reduced the metabolic viability of the cell line studied. Combining metformin with cisplatin or etoposide produced a synergistic effect and was more effective than was the use of cisplatin or etoposide as monotherapy. CONCLUSIONS: Metformin, due to its independent effects on liver kinase B1, had antiproliferative effects on the NCI-H460 cell line. When metformin was combined with cisplatin or etoposide, the cell death rate was even higher.

There are several risk factors related to Breast Cancer (BC) risks and response to chemotherapy with SERMs. Recently some single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on ESR1 gene have been associated to this disease. However, data are still inconclusive. The present study aimed to investigate the association of SNPs c454-397T>C (also called PvuII) and c454-351A>G (so called XbaI) to incidence of sporadic BC; ERα expression in BC; tamoxifen hormonetherapy (HT-TMX) responsiveness. To do so, a cohort of BC patients was analyzed through retrospective data collection, immunohistochemistry to ERα protein, and genotyping for PvuII and XbaI SNPs by PCR-RFLP, confirmed by sequencing. Significant difference in PvuII alleles frequencies were found BC patients when compared to control samples. Patients with P allele have a 5.14-fold increased BC risk. We found higher P and X alleles frequencies in ERα positive BC and the pp and xx genotypes were observed exclusively in patients with HT-TMX-responsive BC. Taken together, data indicates that P allele as a novel sporadic BC biomarker whereas p and x alleles enhanced chemotherapy responsiveness.

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BackgroundOvarian cancer is sixth most common cancer among women and the leading cause of death in women with gynecological malignancies. Despite the great impact ovarian cancer has on women's health and its great impact in public economy, Brazil still lacks valuable information concerning epidemiological aspects of this diseaseMethodsWe've compiled clinical data of all ovarian tumors registered at the two public hospitals of reference (1997 - 2007), such as: patients' age at diagnosis, tumor histological type, tumor stage, chemotherapy regimens, chemotherapy responsiveness, disease-free survival, and overall survival.ResultsWomen's mean age at diagnosis was 54.67 ± 13.84 for ovarian cancer, 46.15 ± 11.15 for borderline tumors, and 42.01 ± 15.06 for adenomas. Among epithelial ovarian cancer cases, 30.1% were of serous, 13.7% were of mucinous, and 13.7% were of endometrioid type; exceptionally serous carcinoma was diagnosed in women younger than 30 years old. Endometrioid cancer had lower disease-free survival than others (p < 0.05). Cases were predominantly diagnosed as poor prognosis disease (FIGO III and IV, 56.2%). Regarding responsiveness to platinum-based therapy, 17.1% of patients were resistant, whereas 24.6%, susceptible. From these, we found equally responsiveness to platinum alone or its association with paclitaxel or cyclophosphamide.DiscussionOur data agreed with other studies regarding mean patients' age at diagnosis, histological type frequency, FIGO stages distribution, and chemotherapy regimens. However, the histological type distribution, with equal contribution of mucinous and endometrioid types seems to be a unique characteristic of the studied highly miscegenated population.ConclusionWe have enlighten the profile of the studied ovarian cancer population, which might enable the development of more efficient political strategies to control this malignancy that is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women.