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Approximately 5% of patients with cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) may develop recurrent or metastatic disease. The management of such cases is challenging and requires multi-disciplinary care. Immunotherapy using PD-1 inhibition was approved to treat unresectable or metastatic CSCC in 2018. Given limited data regarding clinical outcomes outside of published trials, we describe our experience using this therapy. We retrospectively reviewed all patients treated with PD-1 inhibition as therapy for locally advanced, regionally metastatic or distant metastatic CSCC at the University of Southern California. Clinicopathological characteristics, treatment data using PD-1 inhibitors, and outcomes were assessed. Among 26 patients treated with PD-1 inhibition, the objective response rate was 42.3%, with 19.2% of patients having partial response and 23.1% having complete response to therapy. The median progression-free survival was 5.4 months. Median tumor mutational burden (TMB) was higher among responders compared to non-responders (60 vs. 9 Mut/Mb, p = 0.04). Primary CSCC tumor location on the head/neck was also associated with response to PD-1 inhibition (p = 0.04). Two patients with mutations affecting mismatch repair deficiency were noted to have complete response to treatment. No other variables were associated with treatment outcomes. PD-1 inhibition produces durable responses among patients with advanced or metastatic CSCC. PD-1 inhibition therapy is well tolerated, but patients should be monitored closely for immune-related adverse events, particularly frail or immune-suppressed patients. Further investigation of potential biomarkers to help identify patients who will derive the most benefit from this therapeutic option is needed.

Approximately 4 million cases of nonmelanoma skin cancer affecting 2.5 million individuals were diagnosed in the United States in 2012, with nearly half being cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC).1 Risk factors for the development of CSCC include ultraviolet exposure, older age, and immunosuppression.2 There are no standard guidelines to manage advanced or recurrent CSCC. Various systems have been devised to predict which patients are at high risk of recurrence or metastasis, based on clinical or pathologic characteristics, including the American Joint Committee on Cancer and the Brigham and Women's Hospital staging systems. Management of these cases typically requires multidisciplinary care involving Mohs micrographic surgery, surgical oncology, medical oncology, and radiation oncology. The programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) receptor, found on the membranes of T cells, binds to the programmed death ligands 1 and 2 (PD-L1 and PD-L2), which are highly expressed in squamous cell cancers.3 The PD-1/PD-L1 interaction results in deactivation of T cells and thereby reduces anticancer immune surveillance. Increased PD-1 and PD-L1 expression levels have been associated with high-risk CSCC, perineural invasion, and organ transplant–associated CSCC compared with noncancerous skin specimens.4 A recent study examining the PD-1 inhibitor cemiplimab in unresectable and metastatic CSCC yielded response rates of 50% and 47%, respectively, with durable responses exceeding 6 months in more than 50% of patients.5 Subsequently, the US Food and Drug Administration approved cemiplimab for the treatment of unresectable and metastatic CSCC. Although PD-1 inhibition is now the standard of care for metastatic CSCC, its use in combination with other treatment modalities in the definitive setting is not yet well described. Here, we present the case of a patient with a diagnosis of locally advanced CSCC who showed complete response to concurrent radiation therapy and PD-1 inhibition.

This case report aimed to review the bone marrow features of patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) treated with isocitrate dehydrogenase 1/2 (IDH1/2) inhibitors. Five patients with AML treated with an IDH1/2 inhibitor were identified and retrospectively reviewed. We described the morphologic and immunophenotypic findings in the bone marrow, as well as ancillary study results. Two patients showed a hypercellular bone marrow with morphologic and immunophenotypic differentiation of blasts. The bone marrow of one patient displayed a hypoplastic phase. Four of the five patients demonstrated unusual morphologic and/or immunophenotypic populations, including basophilia with mild alterations on the myeloid blasts, a small subset of blasts with expression of T-cell markers not seen in the original immunophenotype, a cluster of differentiation 117 (CD117)-positive progenitor population with erythroid differentiation, and another population reminiscent of erythroid differentiation. Unusual morphologic and immunophenotypic populations can be seen in the bone marrows of patients treated with IDH1/2 inhibitors in the presence or absence of definite residual disease. The significance of these populations is uncertain, but further studies could be helpful to understand the meaning of these findings.

Approximately 5% of patients with cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC) may develop recurrent or metastatic disease. The management of such cases is challenging and requires multi-disciplinary care. Immunotherapy using PD-1 inhibition was approved to treat unresectable or metastatic CSCC in 2018. Given limited data regarding clinical outcomes outside of published trials, we describe our experience using this therapy.We retrospectively reviewed all patients treated with PD-1 inhibition as therapy for locally advanced, regionally metastatic or distant metastatic CSCC at the University of Southern California. Clinicopathological characteristics, treatment data using PD-1 inhibitors, and outcomes were assessed.Among 26 patients treated with PD-1 inhibition, the objective response rate was 42.3%, with 19.2% of patients having partial response and 23.1% having complete response to therapy. The median progression-free survival was 5.4 months. Median tumor mutational burden (TMB) was higher among responders compared to non-responders (60 vs. 9 Mut/Mb, p = 0.04). Primary CSCC tumor location on the head/neck was also associated with response to PD-1 inhibition (p = 0.04). Two patients with mutations affecting mismatch repair deficiency were noted to have complete response to treatment. No other variables were associated with treatment outcomes.PD-1 inhibition produces durable responses among patients with advanced or metastatic CSCC. PD-1 inhibition therapy is well tolerated, but patients should be monitored closely for immune-related adverse events, particularly frail or immune-suppressed patients. Further investigation of potential biomarkers to help identify patients who will derive the most benefit from this therapeutic option is needed.

PURPOSE Performance status (PS) is a key factor in oncologic decision making, but conventional scales used to measure PS vary among observers. Consumer-grade biometric sensors have previously been identified as objective alternatives to the assessment of PS. Here, we investigate how one such biometric sensor can be used during a clinic visit to identify patients who are at risk for complications, particularly unexpected hospitalizations that may delay treatment or result in low physical activity. We aim to provide a novel and objective means of predicting tolerability to chemotherapy. METHODS Thirty-eight patients across three centers in the United States who were diagnosed with a solid tumor with plans for treatment with two cycles of highly emetogenic chemotherapy were included in this single-arm, observational prospective study. A noninvasive motion-capture system quantified patient movement from chair to table and during the get-up-and-walk test. Activity levels were recorded using a wearable sensor over a 2-month period. Changes in kinematics from two motion-capture data points pre- and post-treatment were tested for correlation with unexpected hospitalizations and physical activity levels as measured by a wearable activity sensor. RESULTS Among 38 patients (mean age, 48.3 years; 53% female), kinematic features from chair to table were the best predictors for unexpected health care encounters (area under the curve, 0.775 ± 0.029) and physical activity (area under the curve, 0.830 ± 0.080). Chair-to-table acceleration of the nonpivoting knee ( t = 3.39; P = .002) was most correlated with unexpected health care encounters. Get-up-and-walk kinematics were most correlated with physical activity, particularly the right knee acceleration ( t = −2.95; P = .006) and left arm angular velocity ( t = −2.4; P = .025). CONCLUSION Chair-to-table kinematics are good predictors of unexpected hospitalizations, whereas the get-up-and-walk kinematics are good predictors of low physical activity.

© 2014, American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved. Tuberculosis is a leading cause of infectious disease-related death worldwide; however, only 10% of people infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis develop disease. Factors that contribute to protection could prove to be promising targets for M. tuberculosis therapies. Analysis of peripheral blood gene expression profiles of active tuberculosis patients has identified correlates of risk for disease or pathogenesis. We sought to identify potential human candidate markers of host defense by studying gene expression profiles of macrophages, cells that, upon infection by M. tuberculosis, can mount an antimicrobial response. Weighted gene coexpression network analysis revealed an association between the cytokine interleukin-32 (IL-32) and the vitaminDantimicrobial pathway in a network of interferon-g- and IL-15-induced "defense response" genes. IL-32 induced the vitamin D-dependent antimicrobial peptides cathelicidin and DEFB4 and to generate antimicrobial activity in vitro, dependent on the presence of adequate 25-hydroxyvitamin D. In addition, the IL-15-induced defense response macrophage gene network was integrated with ranked pairwise comparisons of gene expression from five different clinical data sets of latent compared with active tuberculosis or healthy controls and a coexpression network derived from gene expression in patients with tuberculosis undergoing chemotherapy. Together, these analyses identified eight common genes, including IL-32, asmolecularmarkers of latent tuberculosis and the IL-15-induced gene network. As maintaining M. tuberculosis in a latent state and preventing transition to active disease may represent a form of host resistance, these results identify IL-32 as one functional marker and potential correlate of protection against active tuberculosis.