Hospital Santa Paula SA

This systematic review aims to analyze and explore the risks, benefits, and efficacy of performing Mesencephalotomy in patients with unilateral facial pain secondary to cancer.

This study followed PRISMA guidelines and used the PubMed and "Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde" (BVS) databases. The risk of bias for all included studies was assessed individually with the "Risk Of Bias In Non-randomized Studies of Interventions (ROBINS-I)" tool.

Six articles were included in this review. The surgical outcomes were promising, supporting the safety and efficacy of mesencephalotomy for malignant facial pain and surpassing the general efficacy reported in the literature.

Mesencephalotomy should be considered a viable approach to pain management in patients with facial pain secondary to malignant neoplasms. This intervention has the potential for broader application within the field of palliative Care. This research is not registered in any database.

Pembrolizumab combined with neoadjuvant chemotherapy is the standard of care for stage II-III triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) based on the KEYNOTE-522 trial. However, 13 % of patients experienced immune-related adverse events (irAEs) of grade ≥3 in the trial. This study aims to describe patterns of irAEs in a real-world scenario during treatment with pembrolizumab for early-stage TNBC.

Patients treated with neoadjuvant pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy across ten Brazilian cancer centers were evaluated in the Neo-Real/GBECAM0123 study. This analysis focuses on irAE evaluation, including time to onset, management, and association between irAEs and pathological complete response (pCR).

A total of 368 patients were included. Overall, 31 % of patients (n = 114) presented with any grade irAEs. Most of irAEs (72.8 %) occurred during the neoadjuvant phase while 28.1 % happened during the adjuvant period. The most frequent irAEs were endocrine (12.8 % of the entire cohort), cutaneous (7.6 %) and gastrointestinal (7.1 %). A total of 50 patients (13.6 %) experienced grade ≥3 irAEs, predominantly gastrointestinal (32 %). 58 patients (56 %) needed corticosteroids. Immunotherapy rechallenge was possible in 53 % of the cases; permanent discontinuation of pembrolizumab was necessary for 16 %. No significant association was observed between irAEs and clinic-pathologic features nor pCR status.

In this real-world analysis, we observed a similar incidence of irAEs as reported in the KEYNOTE-522 trial. Most patients experienced resolution of their irAEs, but some required permanent discontinuation of pembrolizumab. Additionally, there were lasting dysfunctions, particularly endocrine, demanding lifelong support. Careful monitoring and management of these events are essential.

Estrogen receptor-low (ER-low) breast cancer (BC) present clinicopathological features and disease behavior resembling triple-negative breast cancer, but have been frequently excluded from pivotal trials designed for the latter. Since neoadjuvant pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy (P + CT) is the new standard of care for stage II-III triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), we aimed to access the effectiveness of this therapy for ER-low tumors.

We evaluated patients with ER-low BC included in the Neo-Real/ GBECAM-0123 study, a real-world data study evaluating patients treated with neoadjuvant P + CT since July 2020 across ten cancer centers. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of neoadjuvant P + CT through pathologic complete response (pCR).

Twenty patients were included in this analysis. Median age was 40 years (range 28-64). Most patients had grade 3 tumors (n = 18, 90%), with a median Ki67 index of 75% (range 30-95%), and 70% had stage II tumors. All the twenty patients were submitted to surgery, with a pCR observed in 12 cases (pCR rate of 60%). Receiving less than 6 cycles of pembrolizumab was associated with a trend towards worse pCR rates (20% vs 73.3%).

The clinicopathological features and the response to neoadjuvant P + CT observed in this ER-low BC cohort are similar to that observed in TNBC. Patients with stage II-III ER-low/HER2- BC should be treated with neoadjuvant P + CT following the treatment standards for TNBC, and proper adherence to the regimen is relevant to improve effectiveness.