Rare cancers

Abstract

Rare cancers account for about 22 per cent of all cancers diagnosed worldwide, disproportionately affecting some demographic groups, with an occurrence of less than 6 per 100,000 individuals annually. Many rare cancers in adults, adolescents and children are not curable, and patients and care providers have little option to take therapeutic decisions. The epidemiology of rare cancers is a challenging area of study but is inadequately addressed. Despite efforts mainly in some European nations, a few improvements have been observed in the management of rare cancers. Reasons for this obvious stagnation are multifactorial and are mainly inherent to logistical difficulties in carrying out clinical trials in very small patient populations, hesitation of the pharmaceutical industry to spend in small markets and complexity in creating adequate information for the development of cost-effective drugs. Rare cancers also face specific challenges that include late and incorrect diagnosis, lack of clinical expertise and lack of research interest and development of new therapies. The utilization of nationally representative study findings for the patients’ evaluation may possibly offer chances to find out pathogenesis and prevalence, and this will eventually lead to control and prevention. Currently, advancing targeted therapies offer a great opportunity for the better management of rare cancers. Conducting clinical trials with small patient population, innovative clinical trial approach, prevailing controlling obstacles for international cooperation and financial support for research are the present challenges for rare cancers. The International Rare Cancers Initiative functions as a main platform for achieving new international clinical trials in rare tumours. This review delineates the current challenges and issues in the interpretation, management and research scenarios of rare cancers.

Immunoinformatic design of multi epitopes peptide-based universal cancer vaccine using matrix metalloproteinase-9 protein as a target

“…The core epitopes (YRYGYTRVA/ YGYTRVAEM) were noticed to be the dominant binders with 7 alleles for each(HLA-C*06:02,HLA-C*07:01,HLA-C*12:03,HLA-C*14:02,HLA-B*27:05,HLA-C*07:02,HLA-B*39:01/HLA-C*03:03,HLA-C*14:02,HLA-C*12:03,HLA-C*06:02,HLA-B*08:01,HLA-C*15:02,HLA-C*07:01). Followed by (YLYRYGYTR,WRFDVKAQM, ALWSAVTPL, LLLQKQLSL, LIADKWPAL, KLFGFCPTR, MYPMYRFTE, FLIADKWPA) which binds with (8, 5, 5, 3, 3, 5, 1, 3) alleles. (Table 3).…”

“…Usually any cancer with a number of cases below 6 in 100000 annually is considered rare type. (8) All types of cancers cause common clinical symptoms including weight-loss, fatigue, pain, nausea, vomiting and constipation, etc. (9) Additional symptoms are specific to the site of malignancy.…”

Misdiagnosis of Small Cell Prostate Cancer: Lessons Learned

“…Unfortunately, misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis contribute to the poor outcome of cancers, especially rare cancers, as it increases the risk for disease progression, which potentially affect outcomes because the medical treatment necessary to eradicate a later stage of the malignancy can be significantly more difficult for a patient to endure [11,12].…”

Efficacy and Safety of CAP7.1 as Second-Line Treatment for Advanced Biliary Tract Cancers: Data from a Randomised Phase II Study

“…Moreover, the incidence and mortality of BTC are increasing, making it one of the fastest rising cancers worldwide [3][4][5][6]. Prognosis for BTC is poor; where surgery is a potential curative option, 5-year survival is 33.3%, but it is only 4.1% for unresectable tumours [7,8]. Most patients present with unresectable disease and, therefore, standard of care focuses on relieving symptoms [1,9].…”