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National Cancer Institute Director Neil Sharpless says mortality from delays in cancer screenings due to COVID19 pandemic could result in tens of thousands of extra deaths in next decade

Posted in Cancer - General, CANCER BIOLOGY & Innovations in Cancer Therapy, Cancer Prevention: Research & Programs, Cancer Researchers Fighting COVID-19, Cancer Screening, coronavirus, Coronavirus Gene Expression, COVID-19: Pandemic Surgery Guidance, number of asymptomatic infections, Patient Experience, SARS-CoV-2, Treatment Protocols for COVID-19, tagged #COVID-19, #COVID19andcancer, breast cancer, breast cancer screening, colon cancer, colon cancer screening, coronavirus, COVID-19, NCI, SARS-CoV-2 on June 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »

National Cancer Institute Director Neil Sharpless says mortality from delays in cancer screenings due to COVID19 pandemic could result in tens of thousands of extra deaths in next decade

Reporter: Stephen J Williams, PhD

UPDATED: 08/14/2023

A Cross Sectional Study Reveals What Oncologists Had Feared: Cancer Screenings During Pandemic Has Decreased, leading to Decreased Early Detection

As discussed in many articles here on COVID-19 and cancer, during the pandemic many oncologists were worried that people slowed getting their cancer screenings due to health risks due to the COVID-19 outbreak.  Governmental agencies went as far to project upticks in future cancer rates, as preventative screening rates were down due to closed hospitals, shuttered services, or patient trepidation during the height of the pandemic.  As many oncologists voiced, a decrease in cancer screenings might lead to missing out on the early stages of the disease, when most treatable. Now, reported in a Lancet cross-sectional analysis by investigators at ACS and University of Texas Southwest (1), we have the first indication of the effects of this decrease in preventative screening, namely decreased early detection and diagnosis.

The authors used data from the US National Cancer Database, a nationwide hospital-based cancer registry, to perform a cross sectional nationwide assessment of the prevalence of new cancer diagnosis before, during, and after the height of the pandemic (March 1 2020 to December 31, 2020).  Newly diagnosed cases of first primary malignant cancer between Jan1, 2018 to Dec 31, 2020 were identified and monthly and annual counts and stage distributions were caluculated andpresented as adjusted odds ratios (aORs).  They also used the period from 2018 to Jan 2020 as a baseline or prepandemic level of newly diagnosed cancer.

Results of this analysis identified 2,404,050 adults with newly diagnosed cancer during study period 2018 to 2020.  The monthly number of new cancer diagnoses (all stages) decreased significantly after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020.  However new cancer diagnosis returned to pre-pandemic levels by end of 2020.  The decrease in diagnosis was largest for stage I diseases however the odds of being diagnosed with late stage IV disease were higher in 2020 than in 2019.  When the authors stratified the cohorts based on sociodemographic groups, interestingly those most affected (with lowest diagnosis rates during the pandemic) were those living in socioeconomic deprived areas, hispanics, asian americans, pacific Islanders, and uninsured individuals.

The authors’ interpretations are a warning: Substantial cancer underdiagnosis and decreases in the proportion of early stage diagnoses occurred during 2020 in the USA, particularly among medically underserved individuals. Monitoring the long-term effects of the pandemic on morbidity, survival, and mortality is warranted.

 

 

Evidence before this study

We searched PubMed using the terms “COVID”, “pandemic”, and “cancer” for studies published in English between

March 1, 2020, and Nov 30, 2022. Health care was disrupted during the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the USA, rapid decreases in screening were reported for nearly all types of cancer screening services after the declaration of the COVID-19 national emergency. Decreased screening, and delayed and forgone routine check-ups or health-care visits, can lead to underdiagnosis of cancer, especially for early stage disease for which treatment is most effective. Several studies have identified reduced use of diagnostic procedures and decreases in the number of newly diagnosed patients during 2020 in the USA. However, these studies were done in selected populations, in specific geographical areas, or for only a single cancer type, limiting understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer burden nationally.

Added value of this study

Using a recently released nationwide cancer registry dataset, we comprehensively evaluated changes in cancer diagnoses and stage distribution during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic by cancer type and key sociodemographic factors in the USA.

Implications of all the available evidence

Along with existing evidence, our findings should help to inform future policy and cancer care delivery interventions to improve access to care for underserved populations. Research is warranted to monitor the long-term effects of the underdiagnosis of early stage cancer identified in this study on morbidity, mortality, and disparities in health outcomes.

Results

The main results from the paper are summarized below:

 

Between 2020 and 2019, annual stage I diagnoses decreased by 17·2% (95% CI 16·8–17·6), and annual stage IV diagnoses decreased 9·8% (9·2–10·5). Notably, by race and ethnicity, the largest percentage reduction in stage I diagnoses was among Hispanic individuals and Asian American and Pacific Islander individuals, and the largest percentage reduction in stage IV diagnoses was among non-Hispanic Black and non-Hispanic White individuals. Diagnoses of lung cancer, colorectal cancer, melanoma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma had the largest percentage reduction among both stage I (>18%) and stage IV (>10%) diagnoses; cancers of the prostate, cervix, liver, oesophagus, stomach, and thyroid also had large percentage reductions in stage I diagnoses (>20).

After adjusting for sociodemographic and clinical factors, the stage distribution of new diagnoses changed in 2020 compared with 2019 (table 3). Specifically, the aOR for being diagnosed with stage I disease versus stage II–IV disease in 2020 compared with 2019 was 0·946 (95% CI 0·939–0·952), and the aOR for being diagnosed with stage IV disease versus stage I–III disease in 2020 compared with 2019 was 1·074 (1·066–1·083).

These results also confirmed results seen in other studies coming from Europe (2,3, 4).

References

1. Han X, Yang NN, Nogueira L, Jiang C, Wagle NS, Zhao J, Shi KS, Fan Q, Schafer E, Yabroff KR, Jemal A. Changes in cancer diagnoses and stage distribution during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA: a cross-sectional nationwide assessment. Lancet Oncol. 2023 Aug;24(8):855-867. doi: 10.1016/S1470-2045(23)00293-0. PMID: 37541271.
2. Kuzuu K, Misawa N, Ashikari K, et al. Gastrointestinal cancer stage at diagnosis before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. JAMA Netw Open 2021; 4: e2126334. DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.26334
3. Linck PA, Garnier C, Depetiteville MP, et al. Impact of the COVID-19 lockdown in France on the diagnosis and staging of breast cancers in a tertiary cancer centre. Eur Radiol 2022; 32: 1644–51. DOI: 10.1007/s00330-021-08264-3
4. Mynard N, Saxena A, Mavracick A, et al. Lung cancer stage shift as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns in New York City, a brief report. Clin Lung Cancer 2022; 23: e238–42.  DOI: 10.1016/j.cllc.2021.08.010

 

 

UPDATED: 10/11/2021

Source: https://cancerletter.com/articles/20200619_1/

NCI Director’s Report

Sharpless: COVID-19 expected to increase mortality by at least 10,000 deaths from breast and colorectal cancers over 10 years

By Matthew Bin Han Ong

This story is part of The Cancer Letter’s ongoing coverage of COVID-19’s impact on oncology. A full list of our coverage, as well as the latest meeting cancellations, is available here.

The COVID-19 pandemic will likely cause at least 10,000 excess deaths from breast cancer and colorectal cancer over the next 10 years in the United States.

Scenarios run by NCI and affiliated modeling groups predict that delays in screening for and diagnosis of breast and colorectal cancers will lead to a 1% increase in deaths through 2030. This translates into 10,000 additional deaths, on top of the expected one million deaths resulting from these two cancers.

“For both these cancer types, we believe the pandemic will influence cancer deaths for at least a decade,” NCI Director Ned Sharpless said in a virtual joint meeting of the Board of Scientific Advisors and the National Cancer Advisory Board June 15. “I find this worrisome as cancer mortality is common. Even a 1% increase every decade is a lot of cancer suffering.

“And this analysis, frankly, is pretty conservative. We do not consider cancers other than those of breast and colon, but there is every reason to believe the pandemic will affect other types of cancer, too. We did not account for the additional non-lethal morbidity from upstaging, but this could also be significant and burdensome.”

An editorial by Sharpless on this subject appears in the journal Science.

The early analyses, conducted by the institute’s Cancer Intervention and Surveillance Modeling Network, focused on breast and colorectal cancers, because these are common, with relatively high screening rates.

CISNET modelers created four scenarios to assess long-term increases in cancer mortality rates for these two diseases:

The pandemic has no effect on cancer mortality

Delayed screening—with 75% reduction in mammography and, colorectal screening and adenoma surveillance for six months

Delayed diagnosis—with one-third of people delaying follow-up after a positive screening or diagnostic mammogram, positive FIT or clinical symptoms for six months during a six-month period

Combination of scenarios two and three

Treatment scenarios after diagnosis were not included in the model. These would be: delays in treatment, cancellation of treatment, or modified treatment.

“What we did is show the impact of the number of excess deaths per year for 10 years for each year starting in 2020 for scenario four versus scenario one,” Eric “Rocky” Feuer, chief of the NCI’s Statistical Research and Applications Branch in the Surveillance Research Program, said to The Cancer Letter.

Feuer is the overall project scientist for CISNET, a collaborative group of investigators who use simulation modeling to guide public health research and priorities.

“The results for breast cancer were somewhat larger than for colorectal,” Feuer said. “And that’s because breast cancer has a longer preclinical natural history relative to colorectal cancer.”

Modelers in oncology are creating a global modeling consortium, COVID-19 and Cancer Taskforce, to “support decision-making in cancer control both during and after the crisis.” The consortium is supported by the Union for International Cancer Control, The International Agency for Research on Cancer, The International Cancer Screening Network, the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, and Cancer Council NSW, Australia.

A spike in cancer mortality rates threatens to reverse or slow down—at least in the medium term—the steady trend of reduction of cancer deaths. On Jan. 8, the American Cancer Society published its annual estimates of new cancer cases and deaths, declaring that the latest data—from 2016 to 2017—show the “largest ever single-year drop in overall cancer mortality of 2.2%.” Experts say that innovation in lung cancer treatment and the success of smoking cessation programs are driving the sharp decrease (The Cancer Letter, Feb. 7, 2020).

The pandemic is expected to have broader impact, including increases in mortality rates for other cancer types. Also, variations in severity of COVID-19 in different regions in the U.S. will influence mortality metrics.

“There’s some other cancers that might have delays in screening—for example cervical, prostate, and lung cancer, although lung cancer screening rates are still quite low and prostate cancer screening should only be conducted on those who determine that the benefits outweigh the harms,” Feuer said. “So, those are the major screening cancers, but impacts of delays in treatment, canceling treatment or alternative treatments—could impact a larger range of cancer sites.

“This model assumes a moderate disruption which resolves after six months, and doesn’t consider non-lethal morbidities associated with the delay. One thing I think probably is occurring is regional variation in these impacts,” Feuer said. “If you’re living in New York City where things were ground zero for some of the worst impact early on, probably delays were larger than other areas of the country. But now, as we’re seeing upticks in other areas of the country, there may be in impact in these areas as well”

How can health care providers mitigate some of these harms? For example, for people who delayed screening and diagnosis, are providers able to perform triage, so that those at highest risk are prioritized?

“From a strictly cancer control point of view, let’s get those people who delayed screening, or followup to a positive test, or treatment back on schedule as soon as possible,” Feuer said. “But it’s not a simple calculus, because in every situation, we have to weigh the harms and benefits. As we come out of the pandemic, it tips more and more to, ‘Let’s get back to business with respect to cancer control.’

“Telemedicine doesn’t completely substitute for seeing patients in person, but at least people could get the advice they need, and then are triaged through their health care providers to indicate if they really should prioritize coming in. That helps the individual and the health care provider  weigh the harms and benefits, and try to strategize about what’s best for any individual.”

If the pandemic continues to disrupt routine care, cancer-related mortality rates would rise beyond the predictions in this model.

“I think this analysis begins to help us understand the costs with regard to cancer outcomes of the pandemic,” Sharpless said. “Let’s all agree we will do everything in our power to minimize these adverse effects, to protect our patients from cancer suffering.”

UPDATED: 10/11/2021

Patients with Cancer Appear More Vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2: A Multicenter Study during the COVID-19 Outbreak

Source:

Mengyuan Dai, Dianbo Liu, Miao Liu, Fuxiang Zhou, Guiling Li, Zhen Chen, Zhian Zhang, Hua You, Meng Wu, Qichao Zheng, Yong Xiong, Huihua Xiong, Chun Wang, Changchun Chen, Fei Xiong, Yan Zhang, Yaqin Peng, Siping Ge, Bo Zhen, Tingting Yu, Ling Wang, Hua Wang, Yu Liu, Yeshan Chen, Junhua Mei, Xiaojia Gao, Zhuyan Li, Lijuan Gan, Can He, Zhen Li, Yuying Shi, Yuwen Qi, Jing Yang, Daniel G. Tenen, Li Chai, Lorelei A. Mucci, Mauricio Santillana and Hongbing Cai. Patients with Cancer Appear More Vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2: A Multicenter Study during the COVID-19 Outbreak

Cancer Discov June 1 2020 (10) (6) 783-791; DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-20-0422

Abstract

The novel COVID-19 outbreak has affected more than 200 countries and territories as of March 2020. Given that patients with cancer are generally more vulnerable to infections, systematic analysis of diverse cohorts of patients with cancer affected by COVID-19 is needed. We performed a multicenter study including 105 patients with cancer and 536 age-matched noncancer patients confirmed with COVID-19. Our results showed COVID-19 patients with cancer had higher risks in all severe outcomes. Patients with hematologic cancer, lung cancer, or with metastatic cancer (stage IV) had the highest frequency of severe events. Patients with nonmetastatic cancer experienced similar frequencies of severe conditions to those observed in patients without cancer. Patients who received surgery had higher risks of having severe events, whereas patients who underwent only radiotherapy did not demonstrate significant differences in severe events when compared with patients without cancer. These findings indicate that patients with cancer appear more vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 outbreak.

Significance: Because this is the first large cohort study on this topic, our report will provide much-needed information that will benefit patients with cancer globally. As such, we believe it is extremely important that our study be disseminated widely to alert clinicians and patients.

Introduction

A new acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, named SARS-CoV-2 by the World Health Organization (WHO), has rapidly spread around the world since its first reported case in late December 2019 from Wuhan, China (1). As of March 2020, this virus has affected more than 200 countries and territories, infecting more than 800,000 individuals and causing more than 40,000 deaths (2).

With more than 18 million new cases per year globally, cancer affects a significant portion of the population. Individuals affected by cancer are more susceptible to infections due to coexisting chronic diseases, overall poor health status, and systemic immunosuppressive states caused by both cancer and anticancer treatments (3). As a consequence, patients with cancer who are infected by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus may experience more difficult outcomes than other populations. Until now, there is still no systematic evaluation of the effects that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has of patients with cancer in a representative population. A recent study reported a higher risk of severe events in patients with cancer when compared with patients without cancer (4); however, the small sample size of SARS-CoV-2 patients with cancer used in the study limited how representative it was of the whole population and made it difficult to conduct more insightful analyses, such as comparing clinical characteristics of patients with different types of cancer, as well as anticancer treatments (5, 6).

Using patient information collected from 14 hospitals in Hubei Province, China, the epicenter of the 2019–2020 COVID-19 outbreak, we describe the clinical characteristics and outcomes [death, intensive care unit (ICU) admission, development of severe/critical symptoms, and utilization of invasive mechanical ventilation] of patients affected by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus for 105 hospitalized patients with cancer and 536 patients without cancer. We document our findings for different cancer types and stages, as well as different types of cancer treatments. We believe the information and insights provided in this study will help improve our understanding of the effects of SARS-CoV-2 in patients with cancer.

Results

Patients Characteristics

In total, 105 COVID-19 patients with cancer were enrolled in our study for the time period January 1, 2020, to February 24, 2020, from 14 hospitals in Wuhan, China. COVID-19 patients without cancer matched by the same hospital, hospitalization time, and age were randomly selected as our control group. Our patient population included 339 females and 302 males. Patients with cancer [median = 64.00, interquartile range (IQR) = 14.00], when compared with those without cancer (median = 63.50, IQR = 14.00) had similar age distributions (by design), experienced more in-hospital infections [20 (19.04%) of 105 patients vs. 8 (1.49%) of 536 patients;P < 0.01], and had more smoking history [36 (34.28%) of 105 patients vs. 46 (8.58%) of 536 patients; P < 0.01], but had no significant differences in sex, other baseline symptoms, and other comorbidities (Table 1). With respect to signs and symptoms upon admission, COVID-19 patients with cancer were similar to those without cancer except for a higher prevalence of chest distress [15 (14.29%) of 105 patients vs. 36 (6.16%) of 536 patients; P = 0.02].

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Table 1.

Characteristics of COVID-19 patients with and without cancer

Clinical Outcomes

Compared with COVID-19 patients without cancer, patients with cancer had higher observed death rates [OR, 2.34; 95% confidence interval (CI), (1.15–4.77); P = 0.03], higher rates of ICU admission [OR, 2.84; 95% CI (1.59–5.08); P < 0.01], higher rates of having at least one severe or critical symptom [OR, 2.79; 95% CI, (1.74–4.41); P < 0.01], and higher chances of needing invasive mechanical ventilation (Fig. 1A). We also conducted survival analysis on occurrence of any severe condition which included death, ICU admission, having severe symptoms, and utilization of invasive mechanical ventilation (see cumulative incidence curves in Fig. 1B). In general, patients with cancer deteriorated more rapidly than those without cancer. These observations are consistent with logistic regression results (Supplementary Fig. S1), after adjusting for age, sex, smoking, and comorbidities including diabetes, hypertension, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). According to our multivariate logistic regression results, patients with cancer still had an excess OR of 2.17 (P = 0.06) for death (Supplementary Fig. S1A), 1.99 (P < 0.01) for experiencing any severe symptoms (Supplementary Fig. S1B), 3.13 (P < 0.01) for ICU admission (Supplementary Fig. S1C), and 2.71 (P = 0.04) for utilization of invasive mechanical ventilation (Supplementary Fig. S1D; Supplementary Table S1). The consistency of observed ORs between the multivariate regression model and unadjusted calculation reassures the association between cancer and severe events even in the presence of other factors such as age differences.

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Figure 1.

Severe conditions in patients with and without cancer, and patients with different types, stages, and treatments of cancer. Severe conditions include death, ICU admission, having severe/critical symptoms, and usage of invasive mechanical ventilation. Incidence and survival analysis of severe conditions among COVID-19 patients with cancer and without cancer (A and B), among patients with different types of cancer (C and D), among patients with metastatic and nonmetastatic cancers (E and F), among patients with lung cancer, other cancers than lung with lung metastasis, and other cancers than lung without lung metastasis (G and H), and patients receiving different types of cancer treatments (I and J). P values indicate differences between cancer subgroups versus patients without cancer. For A, C, E, G, I, *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01. OR, 95% CI, and P values between different subgroups are listed in Supplementary Table S2. For B, D, F, H, J, HR, 95% CI, and P values are listed in Supplementary Table S3.

Cancer Types

Information regarding potential risks of severe conditions in SARS-CoV-2 associated with each type of cancer was calculated. We compared different conditions among cancer types (Table 2). Lung cancer was the most frequent cancer type [22 (20.95%) of 105 patients], followed by gastrointestinal cancer [13 (12.38%) of 105 patients], breast cancer [11 (10.48%) of 105 patients], thyroid cancer [11 (10.48%) of 105 patients], and hematologic cancer [9 (8.57%) of 105 patients]. As shown in Fig. 1C and D and Supplementary Table S2, patients with hematologic cancer including leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma have a relatively high death rate [3 (33.33%) of 9 patients], high ICU admission rate [4 (44.44%) of 9 patients], high risks of severe/critical symptoms [6 (66.67%) of 9 patients], and high chance of utilization of invasive mechanical ventilation [2 (22.22%) of 9 patients]. Patients with lung cancer had the second-highest risk levels, with death rate [4 (18.18%) of 22 patients], ICU admission rate [6 (27.27%) of 22 patients], risks of severe/critical symptoms [11 (50.00%) of 22 patients], and the chance of utilization of invasive mechanical ventilation [4 (18.18%) of 22 patients; Table 2].

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Table 2.

Severe events in 105 patients with cancer for each type of cancer

Cancer Stage

We found that patients with metastatic cancer (stage IV) had even higher risks of death [OR, 5.58; 95% CI (1.71–18.23); P = 0.01], ICU admission [OR, 6.59; 95% CI (2.32–18.72); P < 0.01], having severe conditions [OR, 5.97; 95% CI (2.24–15.91); P < 0.01], and use of invasive mechanical ventilation [OR, 55.42; 95% CI (13.21–232.47); P < 0.01]. In contrast, patients with nonmetastatic cancer did not demonstrate statistically significant differences compared with patients without cancer, with all P > 0.05 (Fig. 1E and F; Supplementary Tables S2 and S3). In addition, when compared with patients without cancer, patients with lung cancer or other cancers with lung metastasis also showed higher risks of death, ICU admission rates, higher critical symptoms, and use of invasive mechanical ventilation, with all P values below 0.01, but other cancers without lung metastasis had no statistically significant differences (all P values > 0.05; Fig. 1G and H; Supplementary Table S3) when compared with patients without cancer.

Cancer Treatments

Among the 105 COVID-19 patients with cancer in our study, 13 (12.26%) had radiotherapy, 17 (14.15%) received chemotherapy, 8 (7.62%) received surgery, 4 (3.81%) had targeted therapy, and 6 (5.71%) had immunotherapy within 40 days before the onset of COVID-19 symptoms. All of the targeted therapeutic drugs were EGFR–tyrosine kinase inhibitors for treatment of lung cancer, and all of the immunotherapy drugs were PD-1 inhibitors for the treatment of lung cancer. A patient with cancer may have more than one type of therapy. Our observation suggested that patients who received immunotherapy tended to have high rates of death [2 (33.33%) of 6 patients] and high chances of developing critical symptoms [4 (66.67%) of 6 patients]. Patients who received surgery demonstrated higher rates of death [2 (25.00%) of 8 patients], higher chances of ICU admission [3 (37.50%) of 8 patients], higher chances of having severe or critical symptoms [5 (62.50%) of 8 patients], and higher use of invasive ventilation [2 (25.00%) of 8 patients] than other treatments excluding immunotherapy. However, patients with cancer who received radiotherapy did not show statistically significant differences in having any severe events when compared with patients without cancer, with all P values > 0.10 (Fig. 1I and J). Clinical details on the cancer diagnoses and cancer treatments are summarized in Supplementary Table S4.

Timeline of Severe Events

To evaluate the time-dependent evolution of the disease, we conducted the timeline of different events for COVID-19 patients with cancer (Fig. 2A) and COVID-19 patients without cancer (Fig. 2B) with death and other severe events marked in the figure. COVID-19 patients with cancer had a mean length of stay of 27.01 days (SD 9.52) and patients without cancer had a mean length of stay of 17.75 days (SD 8.64); the difference is significant (Wilcoxon test, P < 0.01). To better clarify the contributing factors that might influence outcomes, we also included logistic regression of COVID-19 patients with cancer adjusted by immunosuppression levels in Supplementary Table S5. However, no significant association between immunosuppression and severe outcomes was observed from the analysis (with all P > 0.05).

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Figure 2.

Timeline of events for COVID-19 patients. A, Timeline of events in COVID-19 patients with cancer. B, Timeline of events in COVID-19 patients without cancer. For visualization purposes, patients without timeline information are excluded and only 105 COVID-19 patients without cancer are shown.

Discussion

The findings in this study suggest that patients with cancer infected with SARS-CoV-2 tend to have more severe outcomes when compared with patients without cancer. Patients with hematologic cancer, lung cancer, and cancers in metastatic stages demonstrated higher rates of severe events compared with patients without cancer. In addition, patients who underwent cancer surgery showed higher death rates and higher chances of having critical symptoms.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus has spread rapidly globally; thus, many countries have not been ready to handle the large volume of people affected by this outbreak due to a lack of knowledge about how this coronavirus affects the general population. To date, reports on the general population infected with SARS-CoV-2 suggest elderly males have a higher incidence and death rate (7, 8). Limited information is known about the outcome of patients with cancer who contract this highly communicable disease. Cancer is among the top causes of death. Asia, Europe, and North America have the highest incidence of cancer in the world (9), and at the moment of the writing of this study the SARS-CoV-2 virus is mainly spreading in these three areas (referred from https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/s0226-Covid-19-spread.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/world/coronavirusnews.html). Although COVID-19 patients with cancer may share some epidemiologic features with the general population with this disease, they may also have additional clinical characteristics. Therefore, we conducted this study on patients with cancer with coexisting COVID-19 disease to evaluate the potential effect of COVID-19 on patients with cancer.

On the basis of our analysis, COVID-19 patients with cancer tend to have more severe outcomes when compared with the noncancer population. Although COVID-19 is reported to have a relatively low death rate of 2% to 3% in the general population (10), patients with cancer and COVID-19 not only have a nearly 3-fold increase in the death rate than that of COVID-19 patients without cancer, but also tend to have much higher severity of their illness. Altogether, these findings suggest that patients with cancer are a much more vulnerable population in the current COVID-19 outbreak. Our findings are consistent with those presented in a previous study based on 18 patients with cancer (4). Because of the limited number of patients with cancer in the previous study, the authors concluded that among patients with cancer, age is the only risk factor for the severity of the illness. On the basis of our data on 105 patients with cancer, we have discovered additional risk factors, including cancer types, cancer stage, and cancer treatments, which may contribute to the severity of the disease among patients with cancer.

Our data demonstrate that the severity of SARS-CoV-2 infection in patients is significantly affected by the types of tumors. From our analysis, patients with hematologic cancer have the highest severity and death rates among all patients with cancer, and lung cancer follows second. Patients with hematologic cancer in our study include patients with leukemia, myeloma, and lymphoma, who have a more compromised immune system than patients with solid tumors (11). These patients all had a rapidly deteriorating clinical course once infected with COVID-19. Because malignant or dysfunctional plasma cells, lymphocytes, or white blood cells in general in hematologic malignancies have decreased immunologic function (12–14), this could be the main reason why patients with hematologic cancer have very high severity and death rates. All patients with hematologic cancer are prone to the complications of serious infection (12–14), which can exacerbate the condition which could have worsened in patients with COVID-19. In our study, 55.56% of patients with hematologic cancer had severe immunosuppression, which may be the main reason for deteriorated outcomes. Although the small sample size limits representativity of the observation, we believe our finding can serve as an informative starting point for further investigation when a larger cohort from a wide range of healthcare providers becomes available. Among solid tumors, lung cancer is the highest risk category disease in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection (Fig. 1C). Decreased lung function and severe infection in patients with lung cancer could contribute to the worse outcome in this subpopulation (15, 16).

In our analysis, we classified the SARS-CoV-2 infection–related high risk factors based on death, severe or critical illness, ICU admission, and the utilization of invasive mechanical ventilation. Using these parameters, we detected a multi-fold increase in risk in the cancer population, in contrast to the noncancer population. If there were primary or metastatic tumors in the lungs, patients were more prone to a deteriorated course in a short time. Intriguingly, when patients with cancer had only early-stage disease without metastasis, we did not observe any difference between the cancer and noncancer population in terms of COVID-19–related death rate or severity (Fig. 1E). The stage of cancer diagnosis seemed to play a significant role in the severity and death rate of COVID-19.

Patients with cancer received a wide range of treatments, and we also found that different types of treatments had different influences on severity and death when these patients contracted COVID-19. Recently, immunotherapy has assumed a very important role in treating tumors, which aids in treatment of cancer by blocking the immune escape of cancer cells. But in our study, in contrast to patients with cancer with other treatments, patients with immunotherapy had the highest death rate and the highest severity of illness, a very puzzling finding. According to pathologic studies on the patients with COVID-19, there were desquamation of pneumocytes and hyaline membrane formation, implying that these patients had acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS; ref. 17). ARDS induced by cytokine storm is reported to be the main reason for death of SARS-CoV-2–infected patients (18). It is possible that in this setting, immunotherapy induces the release of a large amount of cytokines, which can be toxic to normal cells, including lung epithelial cells (19–21), and therefore lead to a more severe illness. However, in this study the number of patients with immunotherapy was too small; further research with a large case population needs to be conducted in the future.

In addition, COVID-19 patients with cancer who are under active treatment or not under active treatment do not show differences in their outcomes, and there is a significant difference between COVID-19 patients with cancer but not with active treatment and patients without cancer (Supplementary Table S2). These results indicate that COVID-19 patients with both active treatment and just cancer history have a higher risk of developing severe events than noncancer COVID-19 patients. The possible reasons could be due to some known cancer-related complications, for example, anemia, hypoproteinaemia, or dyspnea in early phase of COVID-19 (22). We considered that cancer had a lifetime effect on patients and that cancer survivors always need routine follow-up after primary resection. Therefore, in clinical COVID-19 patient management, equivalent attention needs to be paid to those with cancer whether they are under active therapeutics or not during the outbreak of COVID-19.

This study has several limitations. Although the cohort of COVID-19 patients with cancer is one of the largest in Hubei province, China, the epicenter of the initial outbreak, a larger cohort from the whole country or even from multiple countries will be more representative. Large-scale national and international research collaboration will be necessary to achieve this. At the initial stage of the outbreak, data collection and research activities were not a priority of the hospitals. Therefore, it was not possible to record and collect some data that are potentially informative for our analysis in a timely manner. In addition, due to the urgency of clinical treatment, medical data used in this study were largely disconnected from the patients’ historical electronic medical records, which are mostly stored with a different healthcare provider than the medical center providing COVID-19 care. This left us with limited information about each patient.

Our study is the midsize cohort study on this topic and will provide much-needed information on risk factors of this population. We hope that our findings will help countries better protect patients with cancer affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

Study Design and Patients

We conducted a multicenter study focusing on the clinical characteristics of confirmed cases of COVID-19 patients with cancer in 14 hospitals in Hubei province, China; all of the 14 hospitals served as government-designated hospitals for patients diagnosed with COVID-19. SARS-CoV-2–infected patients without cancer matched by the same hospital and hospitalization time were randomly selected as our control group. In addition, as age is one of the major predictors of severity of respiratory diseases like COVID-19 (4), we excluded from our analysis 117 younger COVID-19 patients without cancer so that median ages of patients with cancer (median = 64.0, IRQ = 14.00) and patients without cancers (median = 63.5, IQR = 14.00) would be comparable.

End Points and Assessments

There were four primary outcomes analyzed in this study: death, admission into the ICU, development of severe or critical symptoms, and utilization of invasive mechanical ventilation. The clinical definition of severe/critical symptoms follows the 5th edition of the 2019Novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Diagnostic Criteria published by the National Health Commission in China, including septic shock, ARDS, acute kidney injury, disseminated intravascular coagulation, and rhabdomyolysis.

Case Fatality Rate of Cancer Patients with COVID-19 in a New York Hospital System

Source:

Vikas Mehta, Sanjay Goel, Rafi Kabarriti, Daniel Cole, Mendel Goldfinger, Ana Acuna-Villaorduna, Kith Pradhan, Raja Thota, Stan Reissman, Joseph A. Sparano, Benjamin A. Gartrell, Richard V. Smith, Nitin Ohri, Madhur Garg, Andrew D. Racine, Shalom Kalnicki, Roman Perez-Soler, Balazs Halmos and Amit Verma. Case Fatality Rate of Cancer Patients with COVID-19 in a New York Hospital System

Cancer Discov July 1 2020 (10) (7) 935-941; DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-20-0516

Abstract

Patients with cancer are presumed to be at increased risk from COVID-19 infection–related fatality due to underlying malignancy, treatment-related immunosuppression, or increased comorbidities. A total of 218 COVID-19–positive patients from March 18, 2020, to April 8, 2020, with a malignant diagnosis were identified. A total of 61 (28%) patients with cancer died from COVID-19 with a case fatality rate (CFR) of 37% (20/54) for hematologic malignancies and 25% (41/164) for solid malignancies. Six of 11 (55%) patients with lung cancer died from COVID-19 disease. Increased mortality was significantly associated with older age, multiple comorbidities, need for ICU support, and elevated levels of D-dimer, lactate dehydrogenase, and lactate in multivariate analysis. Age-adjusted CFRs in patients with cancer compared with noncancer patients at our institution and New York City reported a significant increase in case fatality for patients with cancer. These data suggest the need for proactive strategies to reduce likelihood of infection and improve early identification in this vulnerable patient population.

Significance: COVID-19 in patients with cancer is associated with a significantly increased risk of case fatality, suggesting the need for proactive strategies to reduce likelihood of infection and improve early identification in this vulnerable patient population.

Introduction

The novel coronavirus COVID-19, or severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), has spread rapidly throughout the world since its emergence in December 2019 (1). The virus has infected approximately 2.9 million people in more than 200 countries with more than 200,000 deaths at the time of writing (2). Most recently, the United States has become the epicenter of this pandemic, reporting an estimated 956,000 cases of COVID-19 infection, with the largest concentration in New York City (NYC) and its surrounding areas (approximately >203,000 cases or 35% of all U.S. infections; ref. 3).

Early data suggests that 14% to 19% of infected patients will develop significant sequelae with acute respiratory distress syndrome, septic shock, and/or multiorgan failure (1, 4, 5), and approximately 1% to 4% will die from the disease (2). Recent meta-analyses have demonstrated an almost 6-fold increase in the odds of mortality for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and a 2.5-fold increase for those with diabetes, possibly due to the underlying pulmonary and immune dysfunction (6, 7). Given these findings, patients with cancer would ostensibly be at a higher risk of developing and succumbing to COVID-19 due to immunosuppression, increased coexisting medical conditions, and, in cases of lung malignancy, underlying pulmonary compromise. Patients with hematologic cancer, or those who are receiving active chemotherapy or immunotherapy, may be particularly susceptible because of increased immunosuppression and/or dysfunction.

According the NCI, there were approximately 15.5 million cancer survivors and an estimated 1,762,450 new cases of cancer diagnosed in the United States in 2019 (8). Early case series from China and Italy have suggested that patients with malignancy are more susceptible to severe infection and mortality from COVID-19 (9–12), a phenomenon that has been noted in other pandemics (13). Many of these descriptive studies have included small patient cohorts and have lacked cancer site–specific mortality data or information regarding active cancer treatment. As New York has emerged as the current epicenter of the pandemic, we sought to investigate the risk posed by COVID-19 to our cancer population with more granular data regarding cancer type and active treatment, and identify factors that placed patients with cancer at highest risk of fatality from COVID-19.

Results

Outcomes of 218 Cancer Patients with COVID-19 Show High Overall Mortality with Tumor-Specific Patterns

A total of 218 patients with cancer and COVID-19 were treated in Montefiore Health System (New York, NY) from March 18, 2020, to April 8, 2020. These included 164 (75%) patients with solid tumors and 54 (25%) with hematologic malignancies. This cohort included 127 (58%) males and 91 (42%) females. The cohort was predominantly composed of adult patients (215/218, 98.6%) with a median age of 69 years (range 10–92 years).

Sixty-one (28%) patients expired as a result of COVID-19disease at the time of analysis (Table 1). The mortality was 25% among all patients with solid tumors and was seen to occur at higher rates in patients with lung cancers (55%), gastrointestinal (GI) cancers [colorectal (38%), pancreatic (67%), upper GI (38%)], and gynecologic malignancies (38%). Genitourinary (15%) and breast (14%) cancers were associated with relatively lower mortality with COVID-19 infection.

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Table 1.

Outcomes in patients with cancer and COVID-19

Hematologic malignancies were associated with higher rate of mortality with COVID-19 (37%). Myeloid malignancies [myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS)/acute myeloid leukemia (AML)/myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN)] showed a trend for higher mortality compared with lymphoid neoplasms [non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL)/chronic lymphoid leukemia (CLL)/acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)/multiple myeloma (MM)/Hodgkin lymphoma; Table 1]. Rates of ICU admission and ventilator use were slightly higher for hematologic malignancies than solid tumors (26% vs. 19% and 11% vs. 10%, respectively), but this did not achieve statistical significance.

Disease Characteristics of Cancer Patients with COVID-19 Demonstrate the Effect of Age, Comorbidities, and Laboratory Biomarkers on Mortality

Analysis of patient characteristics with mortality did not show any gender bias (Table 2). Older age was significantly associated with increased mortality, with median age of deceased cohort at 76 years when compared with 66 years for the nondeceased group (P = 0.0006; Cochran-Armitage test). No significant associations between race and mortality were seen.

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Table 2.

Disease characteristics of patients with cancer with COVID-19 and association with mortality

COVID-19 disease severity, as evident from patients who needed ICU care and ventilator support, was significantly associated with increased mortality. Interestingly, active disease (<1 year) and advanced metastatic disease showed a trend for increased mortality, but the association did not achieve statistical significance (P = 0.09 and 0.06, respectively). Active chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment were not associated with increased case fatality. Very few patients in this cohort were on immunotherapy, and this did not show any associations with mortality.

Analysis of comorbidities demonstrated increased risk of dying from COVID-19 in patients with cancer with concomitant heart disease [hypertension (HTN), coronary artery disease (CAD), and congestive heart failure (CHF)] and chronic lung disease (Table 2). Diabetes and chronic kidney disease were not associated with increased mortality in univariate analysis (Table 2).

We also analyzed laboratory values obtained prior to diagnosis of COVID-19 and during the time of nadir after COVID-19 positivity in our cancer cohort. Relative anemia pre–COVID-19 was associated with increased mortality, whereas pre-COVID platelet and lymphocyte counts were not (Table 3).Post–COVID-19 infection, lower hemoglobin levels, higher total white blood cell (WBC) counts, and higher absolute neutrophil counts were associated with increased mortality (Table 3). Analysis of other serologic biomarkers demonstrated that elevated D-dimer, lactate, and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) in patients were significantly correlated with dying (Table 3).

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Table 3.

Laboratory values of cancer patients with COVID-19 and association with mortality

Next, we conducted multivariate analyses and used variables that showed a significant association with mortality in univariate analysis (P < 0.05 in univariate was seen with age, ICU admission, hypertension, chronic lung disease, CAD, CHF, baseline hemoglobin, nadir hemoglobin, WBC counts, D-dimer, lactate, and LDH). Gender was forced in the model and we used a composite score of comorbidities from the sum of indicators for diabetes mellitus (DM), HTN, chronic lung disease, chronic kidney disease, CAD, and CHF capped at a maximum of 3. In the multivariate model (Supplementary Table S1), we observed that older age [age < 65; OR, 0.23; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.07–0.6], higher composite comorbidity score (OR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.02–2.33), ICU admission (OR, 4.83; 95% CI, 1.46–17.15), and elevated inflammatory markers (D-dimer, lactate, and LDH) were significantly associated with mortality after multivariate comparison in patients with cancer and COVID-19.

Interaction with the Healthcare Environment was a Prominent Source of Exposure for Patients with Cancer

A detailed analysis of deceased patients (N = 61; Supplementary Table S2) demonstrated that many were either nursing-home or shelter (n = 22) residents, and/or admitted as an inpatient or presented to the emergency room within the 30 days prior to their COVID-19 positive test (21/61). Altogether, 37/61 (61%) of the deceased cohort were exposed to the healthcare environment at the outset of the COVID-19 epidemic. Few of the patients in the cohort were on active oncologic therapy. The vast majority had a poor Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (ECOG PS; 51/61 with an ECOG PS of 2 or higher) and carried multiple comorbidities.

Patients with Cancer Demonstrate a Markedly Increased COVID-19 Mortality Rate Compared with Noncancer and All NYC COVID-19 Patients

An age- and sex-matched cohort of 1,090 patients at a 5:1 ratio of noncancer to cancer COVID-19 patients from the same time period and from the same hospital system was also obtained after propensity matching and used as control to estimate the increased risk posed to our cancer population (Table 4). We observed case fatality rates (CFR) were elevated in all age cohorts in patients with cancer and achieved statistical significance in the age groups 45–64 and in patients older than 75 years of age.

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Table 4.

Comparison of cancer and COVID-19 mortality with all NYC cases (official NYC numbers up to 5 p.m., April 12, 2020) and a control group from the same healthcare facility

To also compare our CFRs with a larger dataset from the greater NYC region, we obtained official case numbers from New York State (current up to April 12, 2020; ref. 3). In all cohorts, the percentage of deceased patients was found to rise sharply with increasing age (Table 4). Strikingly, CFRs in cancer patients with COVID-19 were significantly, many-fold higher in all age groups when compared with all NYC cases (Table 4).

Discussion

To our knowledge, this is the first large report of COVID-19 CFRs among patients with cancer in the United States. The overall case fatality among COVID-19–infected patients with cancer in an academic center located within the current epicenter of the global pandemic exceeded 25%. In addition, striking tumor-specific discrepancies were seen, with marked increased susceptibility for those with hematologic malignancies and lung cancer. CFRs were 2 to 3 times the age-specific percentages seen in our noncancer population and the greater NYC area for all COVID-19 patients.

Our results seem to mirror the typical prognosis of the various cancer types. Among the most common malignancies within the U.S. population (lung, breast, prostate, and colorectal), there was 55% mortality among patients with lung cancer, 14% for breast cancer, 20% for prostate cancer, and 38% for colorectal cancer. This pattern reflects the overall known lethality of these cancers. The percent annual mortality (ratio of annual deaths/new diagnosis) is 59.3% for lung cancer, 15.2% for breast cancer, 17.4% for prostate cancer, and 36% for colorectal cancer (8). This suggests that COVID-19 infection amplifies the risk of death regardless of the cancer type.

Patients with hematologic malignancies demonstrate a higher mortality than those with solid tumors. These patients tend to be treated with more myelosuppressive therapy, and are often severely immunocompromised because of underlying disease. There is accumulating evidence that one major mechanism of injury may be a cytokine-storm syndrome secondary to hyperinflammation, which results in pulmonary damage. Patients with hematologic malignancy may potentially be more susceptible to cytokine-mediated inflammation due to perturbations in myeloid and lymphocyte cell compartments (14).

Many of the predictive risk factors for mortality in our cancer cohort were similar to published data among all COVID-19 patients. A recent meta-analysis highlighted the association of chronic diseases including hypertension (OR, 2.29), diabetes (OR, 2.47), COPD (OR, 5.97), cardiovascular disease (OR, 2.93), and cerebrovascular disease (OR, 3.89) with a risk for developing severe COVID-19 infection among all patients (15). In our cancer patient dataset, a large proportion of patients had at least one of these concurrent risk factors. In a univariate model, we observed significant associations of death from COVID-19 infection in patients with hypertension, chronic lung disease, coronary heart disease, and congestive heart failure. Serologic predictors in our dataset predictive for mortality included anemia at time of infection, and elevated LDH, D-dimer, and lactic acid, which correlate with available data from all COVID-19 patients.

Rapidly accumulating reports suggest that age and race may play a role in the severity of COVID-19 infection. In our cancer cohort, the median age of the patients succumbing to COVID-19 was 76 years, which was 10 years older than patients who have remained alive. The CDC has reported a disproportionate number of African Americans are affected by COVID-19 in the United States, accounting for 33% of all hospitalized patients while constituting only 13% of the U.S. population (15). However, the racial breakdown of our patients was proportional to the Bronx population as a whole, and race was not a significant predictor of mortality in our univariate or multivariate models. Our data might argue that the increased mortality noted in the larger NYC populations might also likely be driven by socioeconomic and health disparities in addition to underlying biological factors. Overall mortality with COVID-19 has been higher in the Bronx, which is a socioeconomically disadvantaged community with a mean per capita income of $19,721 (16, 17). Our patients with cancer were predominantly from the Bronx and potentially had increased mortality in part due to socioeconomic factors and comorbidities. Even after accounting for the increased mortality seen in COVID-19 in the Bronx, the many-fold magnitude increase in death rates within our cancer cohort can potentially be attributed to the vulnerability of oncology patients. This was evident in the comparison with a control group from the same hospital system that demonstrated a significant association of cancer with mortality in patients between 45 and 64 years of age and older than 75 years of age.

Interaction with the healthcare environment prior to widespread knowledge of the epidemic within NYC was a prominent source of exposure for our patients with cancer. Many of those who succumbed to COVID-19 infection were older and frail with significant impairment of pulmonary and/or immunologic function. These findings could be utilized to risk-stratify patients with cancer during this pandemic, or in future viral airborne outbreaks, and inform mitigation practices for high-risk individuals. These strategies could include early and aggressive social distancing, resource allocation toward more outpatient-based care and telemedicine, testing of asymptomatic high-risk patients, and institution of strict infection-control measures. Indeed, such strategies were implemented early in the pandemic at our center, possibly explaining the relatively low number of infected patients on active therapy.

There were several limitations to our study. Data regarding do not resuscitate or intubate orders were not included in the analysis and could have significantly affected the decision-making and mortality surrounding these patients. Although an attempt was made to control for those receiving active cancer treatment or with additional comorbidities, we could not fully account for the patients’ preexisting health conditions prior to COVID-19 infection. Differential treatment paradigms for COVID-19 infection and sequelae were not controlled for in our analysis. Because of the limited follow-up, the full clinical course of these patients may not be included. Future comparative studies to noncancer patients will be needed to fully ascertain the risk posed to oncology patients. Finally, though our data does include those who were tested and discharged within our health system, we cannot fully account for those who were tested in nonaffiliated outpatient settings, which may potentially bias our study to more severe cases. We also acknowledge that the mortality rate is highly dependent on the breadth of testing, and therefore understand that more widespread detection of viral infection would likely alter the results.

Our data suggest significant risk posed to patients with cancer infected with COVID-19, with an observed significant increase in mortality. The highest susceptibility appears to be in hematologic or lung malignancies, suggesting that proactive strategies to reduce likelihood of infection and improve early identification of COVID-19 positivity in the cancer patient population are clearly warranted. Overall, we hope and expect that our data from the current epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic will help inform other healthcare systems, patients with cancer, and the public about the particular vulnerability of patients with cancer to this disease.

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https://pharmaceuticalintelligence.com/coronavirus-portal/

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Bioinformatic Tools for Cancer Mutational Analysis: COSMIC and Beyond

Posted in BioIT: BioInformatics, Cancer - General, Clinical Diagnostics, Clinical Genomics, tagged Bioinformatics, breast cancer, Cancer Genome Atlas, Cancer Genomics, CGAP, clinical genomics, colon cancer, COSMIC, gene mutations, mutational analysis, mutational signatures, mutational spectrum, TCGA, Wellcome trust sanger institute on December 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Bioinformatic Tools for Cancer Mutational Analysis: COSMIC and Beyond

Curator: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

Updated 7/26/2019

Updated 04/27/2019

Signatures of Mutational Processes in Human Cancer (from COSMIC)

From The COSMIC Database

The genomic landscape of cancer. The COSMIC database has a fully curated and annotated database of recurrent genetic mutations founds in various cancers (data taken form cancer sequencing projects). For interactive map please go to the COSMIC database here: http://cancer.sanger.ac.uk/cosmic

 

 

Somatic mutations are present in all cells of the human body and occur throughout life. They are the consequence of multiple mutational processes, including the intrinsic slight infidelity of the DNA replication machinery, exogenous or endogenous mutagen exposures, enzymatic modification of DNA and defective DNA repair. Different mutational processes generate unique combinations of mutation types, termed “Mutational Signatures”.

In the past few years, large-scale analyses have revealed many mutational signatures across the spectrum of human cancer types [Nik-Zainal S. et al., Cell (2012);Alexandrov L.B. et al., Cell Reports (2013);Alexandrov L.B. et al., Nature (2013);Helleday T. et al., Nat Rev Genet (2014);Alexandrov L.B. and Stratton M.R., Curr Opin Genet Dev (2014)]. However, as the number of mutational signatures grows the need for a curated census of signatures has become apparent. Here, we deliver such a resource by providing the profiles of, and additional information about, known mutational signatures.

The current set of mutational signatures is based on an analysis of 10,952 exomes and 1,048 whole-genomes across 40 distinct types of human cancer. These analyses are based on curated data that were generated by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC), and a large set of freely available somatic mutations published in peer-reviewed journals. Complete details about the data sources will be provided in future releases of COSMIC.

The profile of each signature is displayed using the six substitution subtypes: C>A, C>G, C>T, T>A, T>C, and T>G (all substitutions are referred to by the pyrimidine of the mutated Watson–Crick base pair). Further, each of the substitutions is examined by incorporating information on the bases immediately 5’ and 3’ to each mutated base generating 96 possible mutation types (6 types of substitution ∗ 4 types of 5’ base ∗ 4 types of 3’ base). Mutational signatures are displayed and reported based on the observed trinucleotide frequency of the human genome, i.e., representing the relative proportions of mutations generated by each signature based on the actual trinucleotide frequencies of the reference human genome version GRCh37. Note that only validated mutational signatures have been included in the curated census of mutational signatures.

Additional information is provided for each signature, including the cancer types in which the signature has been found, proposed aetiology for the mutational processes underlying the signature, other mutational features that are associated with each signature and information that may be relevant for better understanding of a particular mutational signature.

The set of signatures will be updated in the future. This will include incorporating additional mutation types (e.g., indels, structural rearrangements, and localized hypermutation such as kataegis) and cancer samples. With more cancer genome sequences and the additional statistical power this will bring, new signatures may be found, the profiles of current signatures may be further refined, signatures may split into component signatures and signatures

See their COSMIC tutorial page here for instructional videos

Updated News: COSMIC v75 – 24^th November 2015

COSMIC v75 includes curations across GRIN2A, fusion pair TCF3-PBX1, and genomic data from 17 systematic screen publications. We are also beginning a reannotation of TCGA exome datasets using Sanger’s Cancer Genome Project analyis pipeline to ensure consistency; four studies are included in this release, to be expanded across the next few releases. The Cancer Gene Census now has a dedicated curator, Dr. Zbyslaw Sondka, who will be focused on expanding the Census, enhancing the evidence underpinning it, and developing improved expert-curated detail describing each gene’s impact in cancer. Finally, as we begin to streamline our ever-growing website, we have combined all information for each gene onto one page and simplified the layout and design to improve navigation

may be found in cancer types in which they are currently not detected.

Mutational signatures across human cancer

Patterns of mutational signatures [Download signatures]

 COSMIC database identifies 30 mutational signatures in human cancer

Please goto to COSMIC site to see bigger .png of mutation signatures

Signature 1

Cancer types:

Signature 1 has been found in all cancer types and in most cancer samples.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 1 is the result of an endogenous mutational process initiated by spontaneous deamination of 5-methylcytosine.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 1 is associated with small numbers of small insertions and deletions in most tissue types.

Comments:

The number of Signature 1 mutations correlates with age of cancer diagnosis.

Signature 2

Cancer types:

Signature 2 has been found in 22 cancer types, but most commonly in cervical and bladder cancers. In most of these 22 cancer types, Signature 2 is present in at least 10% of samples.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 2 has been attributed to activity of the AID/APOBEC family of cytidine deaminases. On the basis of similarities in the sequence context of cytosine mutations caused by APOBEC enzymes in experimental systems, a role for APOBEC1, APOBEC3A and/or APOBEC3B in human cancer appears more likely than for other members of the family.

Additional mutational features:

Transcriptional strand bias of mutations has been observed in exons, but is not present or is weaker in introns.

Comments:

Signature 2 is usually found in the same samples as Signature 13. It has been proposed that activation of AID/APOBEC cytidine deaminases is due to viral infection, retrotransposon jumping or to tissue inflammation. Currently, there is limited evidence to support these hypotheses. A germline deletion polymorphism involving APOBEC3A and APOBEC3B is associated with the presence of large numbers of Signature 2 and 13 mutations and with predisposition to breast cancer. Mutations of similar patterns to Signatures 2 and 13 are commonly found in the phenomenon of local hypermutation present in some cancers, known as kataegis, potentially implicating AID/APOBEC enzymes in this process as well.

Signature 3

Cancer types:

Signature 3 has been found in breast, ovarian, and pancreatic cancers.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 3 is associated with failure of DNA double-strand break-repair by homologous recombination.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 3 associates strongly with elevated numbers of large (longer than 3bp) insertions and deletions with overlapping microhomology at breakpoint junctions.

Comments:

Signature 3 is strongly associated with germline and somatic BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations in breast, pancreatic, and ovarian cancers. In pancreatic cancer, responders to platinum therapy usually exhibit Signature 3 mutations.

Signature 4

Cancer types:

Signature 4 has been found in head and neck cancer, liver cancer, lung adenocarcinoma, lung squamous carcinoma, small cell lung carcinoma, and oesophageal cancer.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 4 is associated with smoking and its profile is similar to the mutational pattern observed in experimental systems exposed to tobacco carcinogens (e.g., benzo[a]pyrene). Signature 4 is likely due to tobacco mutagens.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 4 exhibits transcriptional strand bias for C>A mutations, compatible with the notion that damage to guanine is repaired by transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair. Signature 4 is also associated with CC>AA dinucleotide substitutions.

Comments:

Signature 29 is found in cancers associated with tobacco chewing and appears different from Signature 4.

Signature 5

Cancer types:

Signature 5 has been found in all cancer types and most cancer samples.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 5 is unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 5 exhibits transcriptional strand bias for T>C substitutions at ApTpN context.

Comments:

Signature 6

Cancer types:

Signature 6 has been found in 17 cancer types and is most common in colorectal and uterine cancers. In most other cancer types, Signature 6 is found in less than 3% of examined samples.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 6 is associated with defective DNA mismatch repair and is found in microsatellite unstable tumours.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 6 is associated with high numbers of small (shorter than 3bp) insertions and deletions at mono/polynucleotide repeats.

Comments:

Signature 6 is one of four mutational signatures associated with defective DNA mismatch repair and is often found in the same samples as Signatures 15, 20, and 26.

Signature 7

Cancer types:

Signature 7 has been found predominantly in skin cancers and in cancers of the lip categorized as head and neck or oral squamous cancers.

Proposed aetiology:

Based on its prevalence in ultraviolet exposed areas and the similarity of the mutational pattern to that observed in experimental systems exposed to ultraviolet light Signature 7 is likely due to ultraviolet light exposure.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 7 is associated with large numbers of CC>TT dinucleotide mutations at dipyrimidines. Additionally, Signature 7 exhibits a strong transcriptional strand-bias indicating that mutations occur at pyrimidines (viz., by formation of pyrimidine-pyrimidine photodimers) and these mutations are being repaired by transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair.

Comments:

Signature 8

Cancer types:

Signature 8 has been found in breast cancer and medulloblastoma.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 8 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 8 exhibits weak strand bias for C>A substitutions and is associated with double nucleotide substitutions, notably CC>AA.

Comments:

Signature 9

Cancer types:

Signature 9 has been found in chronic lymphocytic leukaemias and malignant B-cell lymphomas.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 9 is characterized by a pattern of mutations that has been attributed to polymerase η, which is implicated with the activity of AID during somatic hypermutation.

Additional mutational features:

Comments:

Chronic lymphocytic leukaemias that possess immunoglobulin gene hypermutation (IGHV-mutated) have elevated numbers of mutations attributed to Signature 9 compared to those that do not have immunoglobulin gene hypermutation.

Signature 10

Cancer types:

Signature 10 has been found in six cancer types, notably colorectal and uterine cancer, usually generating huge numbers of mutations in small subsets of samples.

Proposed aetiology:

It has been proposed that the mutational process underlying this signature is altered activity of the error-prone polymerase POLE. The presence of large numbers of Signature 10 mutations is associated with recurrent POLE somatic mutations, viz., Pro286Arg and Val411Leu.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 10 exhibits strand bias for C>A mutations at TpCpT context and T>G mutations at TpTpT context.

Comments:

Signature 10 is associated with some of most mutated cancer samples. Samples exhibiting this mutational signature have been termed ultra-hypermutators.

Signature 11

Cancer types:

Signature 11 has been found in melanoma and glioblastoma.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 11 exhibits a mutational pattern resembling that of alkylating agents. Patient histories have revealed an association between treatments with the alkylating agent temozolomide and Signature 11 mutations.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 11 exhibits a strong transcriptional strand-bias for C>T substitutions indicating that mutations occur on guanine and that these mutations are effectively repaired by transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair.

Comments:

Signature 12

Cancer types:

Signature 12 has been found in liver cancer.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 12 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 12 exhibits a strong transcriptional strand-bias for T>C substitutions.

Comments:

Signature 12 usually contributes a small percentage (<20%) of the mutations observed in a liver cancer sample.

Signature 13

Cancer types:

Signature 13 has been found in 22 cancer types and seems to be commonest in cervical and bladder cancers. In most of these 22 cancer types, Signature 13 is present in at least 10% of samples.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 13 has been attributed to activity of the AID/APOBEC family of cytidine deaminases converting cytosine to uracil. On the basis of similarities in the sequence context of cytosine mutations caused by APOBEC enzymes in experimental systems, a role for APOBEC1, APOBEC3A and/or APOBEC3B in human cancer appears more likely than for other members of the family. Signature 13 causes predominantly C>G mutations. This may be due to generation of abasic sites after removal of uracil by base excision repair and replication over these abasic sites by REV1.

Additional mutational features:

Transcriptional strand bias of mutations has been observed in exons, but is not present or is weaker in introns.

Comments:

Signature 2 is usually found in the same samples as Signature 13. It has been proposed that activation of AID/APOBEC cytidine deaminases is due to viral infection, retrotransposon jumping or to tissue inflammation. Currently, there is limited evidence to support these hypotheses. A germline deletion polymorphism involving APOBEC3A and APOBEC3B is associated with the presence of large numbers of Signature 2 and 13 mutations and with predisposition to breast cancer. Mutations of similar patterns to Signatures 2 and 13 are commonly found in the phenomenon of local hypermutation present in some cancers, known as kataegis, potentially implicating AID/APOBEC enzymes in this process as well.

Signature 14

Cancer types:

Signature 14 has been observed in four uterine cancers and a single adult low-grade glioma sample.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 14 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Comments:

Signature 14 generates very high numbers of somatic mutations (>200 mutations per MB) in all samples in which it has been observed.

Signature 15

Cancer types:

Signature 15 has been found in several stomach cancers and a single small cell lung carcinoma.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 15 is associated with defective DNA mismatch repair.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 15 is associated with high numbers of small (shorter than 3bp) insertions and deletions at mono/polynucleotide repeats.

Comments:

Signature 15 is one of four mutational signatures associated with defective DNA mismatch repair and is often found in the same samples as Signatures 6, 20, and 26.

Signature 16

Cancer types:

Signature 16 has been found in liver cancer.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 16 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 16 exhibits an extremely strong transcriptional strand bias for T>C mutations at ApTpN context, with T>C mutations occurring almost exclusively on the transcribed strand.

Comments:

Signature 17

Cancer types:

Signature 17 has been found in oesophagus cancer, breast cancer, liver cancer, lung adenocarcinoma, B-cell lymphoma, stomach cancer and melanoma.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 17 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Comments:

Signature 1Signature 18

Cancer types:

Signature 18 has been found commonly in neuroblastoma. Additionally, Signature 18 has been also observed in breast and stomach carcinomas.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 18 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Comments:

Signature 19

Cancer types:

Signature 19 has been found only in pilocytic astrocytoma.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 19 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Comments:

Signature 20

Cancer types:

Signature 20 has been found in stomach and breast cancers.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 20 is believed to be associated with defective DNA mismatch repair.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 20 is associated with high numbers of small (shorter than 3bp) insertions and deletions at mono/polynucleotide repeats.

Comments:

Signature 20 is one of four mutational signatures associated with defective DNA mismatch repair and is often found in the same samples as Signatures 6, 15, and 26.

Signature 21

Cancer types:

Signature 21 has been found only in stomach cancer.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 21 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Comments:

Signature 21 is found only in four samples all generated by the same sequencing centre. The mutational pattern of Signature 21 is somewhat similar to the one of Signature 26. Additionally, Signature 21 is found only in samples that also have Signatures 15 and 20. As such, Signature 21 is probably also related to microsatellite unstable tumours.

Signature 22

Cancer types:

Signature 22 has been found in urothelial (renal pelvis) carcinoma and liver cancers.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 22 has been found in cancer samples with known exposures to aristolochic acid. Additionally, the pattern of mutations exhibited by the signature is consistent with the one previous observed in experimental systems exposed to aristolochic acid.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 22 exhibits a very strong transcriptional strand bias for T>A mutations indicating adenine damage that is being repaired by transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair.

Comments:

Signature 22 has a very high mutational burden in urothelial carcinoma; however, its mutational burden is much lower in liver cancers.

Signature 23

Cancer types:

Signature 23 has been found only in a single liver cancer sample.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 23 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 23 exhibits very strong transcriptional strand bias for C>T mutations.

Comments:

Signature 24

Cancer types:

Signature 24 has been observed in a subset of liver cancers.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 24 has been found in cancer samples with known exposures to aflatoxin. Additionally, the pattern of mutations exhibited by the signature is consistent with that previous observed in experimental systems exposed to aflatoxin.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 24 exhibits a very strong transcriptional strand bias for C>A mutations indicating guanine damage that is being repaired by transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair.

Comments:

Signature 25

Cancer types:

Signature 25 has been observed in Hodgkin lymphomas.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 25 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 25 exhibits transcriptional strand bias for T>A mutations.

Comments:

This signature has only been identified in Hodgkin’s cell lines. Data is not available from primary Hodgkin lymphomas.

Signature 26

Cancer types:

Signature 26 has been found in breast cancer, cervical cancer, stomach cancer and uterine carcinoma.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 26 is believed to be associated with defective DNA mismatch repair.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 26 is associated with high numbers of small (shorter than 3bp) insertions and deletions at mono/polynucleotide repeats.

Comments:

Signature 26 is one of four mutational signatures associated with defective DNA mismatch repair and is often found in the same samples as Signatures 6, 15 and 20.

Signature 27

Cancer types:

Signature 27 has been observed in a subset of kidney clear cell carcinomas.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 27 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 27 exhibits very strong transcriptional strand bias for T>A mutations. Signature 27 is associated with high numbers of small (shorter than 3bp) insertions and deletions at mono/polynucleotide repeats.

Comments:

Signature 28

Cancer types:

Signature 28 has been observed in a subset of stomach cancers.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 28 remains unknown.

Additional mutational features:

Comments:

Signature 29

Cancer types:

Signature 29 has been observed only in gingivo-buccal oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Proposed aetiology:

Signature 29 has been found in cancer samples from individuals with a tobacco chewing habit.

Additional mutational features:

Signature 29 exhibits transcriptional strand bias for C>A mutations indicating guanine damage that is most likely repaired by transcription-coupled nucleotide excision repair. Signature 29 is also associated with CC>AA dinucleotide substitutions.

Comments:

The Signature 29 pattern of C>A mutations due to tobacco chewing appears different from the pattern of mutations due to tobacco smoking reflected by Signature 4.

Signature 30

Cancer types:

Signature 30 has been observed in a small subset of breast cancers.

Proposed aetiology:

The aetiology of Signature 30 remains unknown.

 

---

 

Examples in the literature of deposits into or analysis from the COSMIC database

The Genomic Landscapes of Human Breast and Colorectal Cancers from Wood et al., 318 (5853): 1108–1113 Science 2007

“analysis of exons representing 20,857 transcripts from 18,191 genes, we conclude that the genomic landscapes of breast and colorectal cancers are composed of a handful of commonly mutated gene “mountains” and a much larger number of gene “hills” that are mutated at low frequency. “

• found cellular pathways with multiple pathways
• analyzed a highly curated database (Metacore, GeneGo, Inc.) that includes human protein-protein interactions, signal transduction and metabolic pathways
• There were 108 pathways that were found to be preferentially mutated in breast tumors. Many of the pathways involved phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) signaling
• the cancer genome landscape consists of relief features (mutated genes) with heterogeneous heights (determined by CaMP scores). There are a few “mountains” representing individual CAN-genes mutated at high frequency. However, the landscapes contain a much larger number of “hills” representing the CAN-genes that are mutated at relatively low frequency. It is notable that this general genomic landscape (few gene mountains and many gene hills) is a common feature of both breast and colorectal tumors.
• developed software to analyze multiple mutations and mutation frequencies available from Harvard Bioinformatics at

 

http://bcb.dfci.harvard.edu/~gp/software/CancerMutationAnalysis/cma.htm

 

 

R Software for Cancer Mutation Analysis (download here)

 

CancerMutationAnalysis Version 1.0:

R package to reproduce the statistical analyses of the Sjoblom et al article and the associated Technical Comment. This package is build for reproducibility of the original results and not for flexibility. Future version will be more general and define classes for the data types used. Further details are available in Working Paper 126.

CancerMutationAnalysis Version 2.0:

R package to reproduce the statistical analyses of the Wood et al article. Like its predecessor, this package is still build for reproducibility of the original results and not for flexibility. Further details are available in Working Paper 126

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Update 04/27/2019

Review 2018. The COSMIC Cancer Gene Census: describing genetic dysfunction across all human cancers. Z. Sondka et al. Nature Reviews. 2018.

The Catalogue of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC) Cancer Gene Census (CGC) reevaluates the cancer genome landscape periodically and curates the findings into a database of genetic changes occurring in various tumor types.  The 2018 CGC describes in detail the effect of 719 cancer driving genes.  The recent expansion includes functional and mechanistic descriptions of how each gene contributes to disease etiology and in terms of the cancer hallmarks as described by Hanahan and Weinberg.  These functional characteristics show the complexity of the cancer mutational landscape and genome and suggest ” multiple cancer-related functions for many genes, which are often highly tissue-dependent or tumour stage-dependent.”  The 2018 CGC expands a second tier of genes, expanding the list of cancer related genes.

Criteria for curation of genes into CGC (curation process)

• choosing candidate genes are selected from published literature, conference abstracts, large cancer genome screens deposited in databases, and analysis of current COSMIC database
• COSMIC data are analyzed to determine presence of patterns of somatic mutations and frequency of such mutations in cancer
• literature review to determine the role of the gene in cancer
• Minimum evidence

– at least two publications from different groups shows increased mutation frequency in at least one type of cancer (PubMed)

–  at least two publications from different groups showing experimental evidence of functional involvement in at least one hallmark of cancer in order to classify the mutant gene as oncogene, tumor suppressor, or fusion partner (like BCR-Abl)

• independent assessment by at least two postdoctoral fellows
• gene must be classified as either Tier 1 of Tier 2 CGC gene
• inclusion in database
• continued curation efforts

definitions:

Tier 1 gene: genes which have strong evidence from both mutational and functional analysis as being involved in cancer

Tier 2 gene: genes with mutational patterns typical of cancer drivers but not functionally characterized as well as genes with published mechanistic description of involvement in cancer but without proof of somatic mutations in cancer

Current Status of Tier 1 and Tier 2 genes in CGC

Tier 1 genes (574 genes): include 79 oncogenes, 140 tumor suppressor genes, 93 fusion partners

Tier 2 genes (719 genes): include 103 oncogenes, 181 tumor suppressors, 134 fusion partners and 31 with unknown function

Updated 7/26/2019

The COSMIC database is undergoing an extensive update and reannotation, in order to ensure standardisation and modernisation across COSMIC data. This will substantially improve the identification of unique variants that may have been described at the genome, transcript and/or protein level. The introduction of a Genomic Identifier, along with complete annotation across multiple, high quality Ensembl transcripts and improved compliance with current HGVS syntax, will enable variant matching both within COSMIC and across other bioinformatic datasets. As a result of these updates there will be significant changes in the upcoming releases as we work through this process. The first stage of this work was the introduction of improvedHGVS syntax compliance in our May release. The majority of the changes will be reflected in COSMIC v90, which will be released in late August or early September, and the remaining changes will be introduced over the next few releases. The significant changes in v90 include: Updated genes, transcripts and proteins from Ensembl release 93 on both the GRCh37 and GRCh38 assemblies. Full reannotation of COSMIC variants with known genomic coordinates using Ensembl’s Variant Effect Predictor (VEP). This provides accurate and standardised annotation uniformly across all relevant transcripts and genes that include the genomic location of the variant. New stable genomic identifiers (COSV) that indicate the definitive position of the variant on the genome. These unique identifiers allow variants to be mapped between GRCh37 and GRCh38 assemblies and displayed on a selection of transcripts. Updated cross-reference links between COSMIC genes and other widely-used databases such as HGNC, RefSeq, Uniprot and CCDS. Complete standardised representation of COSMIC variants, following the most recent HGVS recommendations, where possible. Remapping of gene fusions on the updated transcripts on both the GRCh37 and GRCh38 assemblies, along with the genomic coordinates for the breakpoint positions. Reduced redundancy of mutations. Duplicate variants have been merged into one representative variant. Key points for you COSMIC variants have been annotated on all relevant Ensembl transcripts across both the GRCh37 and GRCh38 assemblies from Ensembl release 93. New genomic identifiers (e.g. COSV56056643) are used, which refers to the variant change at the genomic level rather than gene, transcript or protein level and can thus be used universally. Existing COSM IDs will continue to be supported and will now be referred to as legacy identifiers e.g. COSM476. The legacy identifiers (COSM) are still searchable. In the case of mutations without genomic coordinates, hence without a COSV identifier, COSM identifiers will continue to be used. All relevant Ensembl transcripts in COSMIC (which have been selected based on Ensembl canonical classification and on the quality of the dataset to include only GENCODE basic transcripts) will now have both accession and version numbers, so that the exact transcript is known, ensuring reproducibility. This also provides transparency and clarity as the data are updated. How these changes will be reflected in the download files As we are now mapping all variants on all relevant Ensembl transcripts, the number of rows in the majority of variant download files has increased significantly. In the download files, additional columns are provided including the legacy identifier (COSM) and the new genomic identifier (COSV). An internal mutation identifier is also provided to uniquely represent each mutation, on a specific transcript, on a given assembly build. The accession and version number for each transcript are included. File descriptions for each of the download files will be available from the downloads page for clarity. We have included an example of the new columns below. For example: COSMIC Complete Mutation Data (Targeted screens) [17:Q] Mutation Id – An internal mutation identifier to uniquely represent each mutation on a specific transcript on a given assembly build. [18:R] Genomic Mutation Id – Genomic mutation identifier (COSV) to indicate the definitive position of the variant on the genome. This identifier is trackable and stable between different versions of the release. [19:S] Legacy Mutation Id – Legacy mutation identifier (COSM) that will represent existing COSM mutation identifiers. We will shortly have some sample data that can be downloaded in the new table structure, to give you real data to manipulate and integrate, this will be available on the variant updates page. How this affects you We are aware that many of the changes we are making will affect integration into your pipelines and analytical platforms. By giving you advance notice of the changes, we hope much of this can be mitigated, and the end result of having clean, standardised data will be well worth any disruption. The variant updates page on the COSMIC website will provide a central point for this information and further technical details of the changes that we are making to COSMIC.

Kind Regards, The COSMIC Team cosmic@sanger.ac.uk Wellcome Sanger Institute Wellcome Genome Campus, Hinxton CB10 1SA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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New Generation of Platinated Compounds to Circumvent Resistance

Posted in Cancer and Current Therapeutics, CANCER BIOLOGY & Innovations in Cancer Therapy, tagged breast cancer, Cancer - General, Cell Biology, Chemotherapy, Cisplatin, colon cancer, Conditions and Diseases, DNA repair, GOG, health, HNPCC, medicine, mismatch repair, ovarian cancer, oxaliplatin, research, science on October 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

New Generation of Platinated Compounds to Circumvent Resistance

Curator/Writer: Stephen J. Williams, Ph.D.

Resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs continues to be a major hurdle in the treatment of neoplastic disorders, irregardless if the drug is a member of the cytotoxic “older” drugs or the cytostatic “newer” personalized therapies like the tyrosine kinase inhibitors.  For the platinatum compounds such as cisplatin and carboplatin, which are mainstays in therapeutic regimens for ovarian and certain head and neck cancers, development of resistance is often regarded as the final blow, as new options for these diseases have been limited.

Although there are many mechanisms by which resistance to platinated compounds may develop the purpose of this posting is not to do an in-depth review of this area except to refer the reader to the book   Ovarian Cancer and just to summarize the well accepted mechanisms of cisplatin resistance including:

• Decreased cellular cisplatin influx
• Increased cellular cisplatin efflux
• Increased cellular glutathione and subsequent conjugation, inactivation
• Increased glutathione-S-transferase activity (GST) and subsequent inactivation, conjugation
• Increased γ-GGT
• Increased metallothionenes with subsequent conjugation, inactivation
• Increased DNA repair: increased excision repair
• DNA damage tolerance: loss of mismatch repair (MMR)
• altered cell signaling activities and cell cycle protein expression

Williams, S.J., and Hamilton, T.C. Chemotherapeutic resistance in ovarian cancer. In: S.C. Rubin, and G.P. Sutton (eds.), Ovarian Cancer, pp.34-44. Lippincott, Wilkins, and Williams, New York, 2000.

Also for a great review on clinical platinum resistance by Drs. Maritn, Hamilton and Schilder please see the following Clinical Cancer Research link here.

This curation represents the scientific rationale for the development of a new class of platinated compounds which are meant to circumvent mechanisms of resistance, in this case the loss of mismatch repair (MMR) and increased tolerance to DNA damage.

An early step in the production of cytotoxicity by the important anticancer drug cisplatin and its analog carboplatin is the formation of intra- and inter-strand adducts with tumor cell DNA ^1-3. This damage triggers a cascade of events, best characterized by activation of damage-sensing kinases (reviewed in ⁴), p53 stabilization, and induction of p53-related genes involved in apoptosis and cell cycle arrest, such as bax and the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21^{waf1/cip1/sdi1} (p21), respectively ^5,6. DNA damage significantly induces p21 in various p53 wild-type tumor cell lines, including ovarian carcinoma cells, and this induction is responsible for the cell cycle arrest at G1/S and G2/M borders, allowing time for repair ^7,8.  DNA lesions have the ability of  to result in an opening of chromatin structure, allowing for transcription factors to enter ^56-58.  Therefore the anti-tumoral ability of cisplatin and other DNA damaging agents is correlated to their ability to bind to DNA and elicit responses, such as DNA breaks or DNA damage responses which ultimately lead to cell cycle arrest and apoptosis.  Therefore either repair of such lesions, the lack of recognition of such lesions, or the cellular tolerance of such lesions can lead to resistance of these agents.

Mechanisms of Cisplatin Sensitivity and Resistance. Red arrows show how a DNA lesion results in chemo-sensitivity while the beige arrow show common mechanisms of resistance including increased repair of the lesion, effects on expression patterns, and increased inactivation of the DNA damaging agent by conjugation reactions

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Increased DNA Repair Mechanisms of Platinated Lesion Lead to ChemoResistance

 

Description of Different Types of Cellular DNA Repair Pathways. Nucleotide Excision Repair is commonly up-regulated in highly cisplatin resistant cells

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Loss of Mismatch Repair Can Lead to DNA Damage Tolerance

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the following Cancer Research paper Dr. Vaisman in the lab of Dr. Steve Chaney at North Carolina (and in collaboration with Dr. Tom Hamilton) describe how cisplatin resistance may arise from loss of mismatch repair and how oxaliplatin lesions are not recognized by the mismatch repair system.

Cancer Res. 1998 Aug 15;58(16):3579-85.

The role of hMLH1, hMSH3, and hMSH6 defects in cisplatin and oxaliplatin resistance: correlation with replicative bypass of platinum-DNA adducts.

Vaisman A¹, Varchenko M, Umar A, Kunkel TA, Risinger JI, Barrett JC, Hamilton TC, Chaney SG.

Author information

Abstract

Defects in mismatch repair are associated with cisplatin resistance, and several mechanisms have been proposed to explain this correlation. It is hypothesized that futile cycles of translesion synthesis past cisplatin-DNA adducts followed by removal of the newly synthesized DNA by an active mismatch repair system may lead to cell death. Thus, resistance to platinum-DNA adducts could arise through loss of the mismatch repair pathway. However, no direct link between mismatch repair status and replicative bypass ability has been reported. In this study, cytotoxicity and steady-state chain elongation assays indicate that hMLH1 or hMSH6 defects result in 1.5-4.8-fold increased cisplatin resistance and 2.5-6-fold increased replicative bypass of cisplatin adducts. Oxaliplatin adducts are not recognized by the mismatch repair complex, and no significant differences in bypass of oxaliplatin adducts in mismatch repair-proficient and -defective cells were found. Defects in hMSH3 did not alter sensitivity to, or replicative bypass of, either cisplatin or oxaliplatin adducts. These observations support the hypothesis that mismatch repair defects in hMutL alpha and hMutS alpha, but not in hMutS beta, contribute to increased net replicative bypass of cisplatin adducts and therefore to drug resistance by preventing futile cycles of translesion synthesis and mismatch correction.

 

 

The following are slides I had co-prepared with my mentor Dr. Thomas C. Hamilton, Ph.D. of Fox Chase Cancer Center on DNA Mismatch Repair, Oxaliplatin and Ovarina Cancer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Multiple Platinum Analogs of Cisplatin (like Oxaliplatin )Had Been Designed to be Sensitive in MMR Deficient Tumors

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please see below video on 2015 Nobel Laureates and their work to elucidate the celluar DNA repair mechanisms.

Clinical genetics expert Kenneth Offit gives an overview of Lynch syndrome, a genetic disorder that can cause colon (HNPCC) and other cancers by defects in the MSH2 DNA mismatch repair gene. (View Video)

 

 

References

1. Johnson, S. W. et al. Relationship between platinum-DNA adduct formation, removal, and cytotoxicity in cisplatin sensitive and resistant human ovarian cancer cells. Cancer Res 54, 5911-5916 (1994).
2. Eastman, A. The formation, isolation and characterization of DNA adducts produced by anticancer platinum complexes. Pharmacology and Therapeutics 34, 155-166 (1987).
3. Zhen, W. et al. Increased gene-specific repair of cisplatin interstrand cross-links in cisplatin-resistant human ovarian cancer cell lines. Molecular and Cellular Biology 12, 3689-3698 (1992).
4. Durocher, D. & Jackson, S. P. DNA-PK, ATM and ATR as sensors of DNA damage: variations on a theme? Curr Opin Cell Biol 13, 225-231 (2001).
5. el-Deiry, W. S. p21/p53, cellular growth control and genomic integrity. Curr Top Microbiol Immunol 227, 121-37 (1998).
6. Ewen, M. E. & Miller, S. J. p53 and translational control. Biochim Biophys Acta 1242, 181-4 (1996).
7. Gartel, A. L., Serfas, M. S. & Tyner, A. L. p21–negative regulator of the cell cycle. Proc Soc Exp Biol Med 213, 138-49 (1996).
8. Chang, B. D. et al. p21Waf1/Cip1/Sdi1-induced growth arrest is associated with depletion of mitosis-control proteins and leads to abnormal mitosis and endoreduplication in recovering cells. Oncogene 19, 2165-70 (2000).
9. Davies, N. P., Hardman, L. C. & Murray, V. The effect of chromatin structure on cisplatin damage in intact human cells. Nucleic Acids Res 28, 2954-2958 (2000).
10. Vichi, P. et al. Cisplatin- and UV-damaged DNA lure the basal transcription factor TFIID/TBP. Embo J 16, 7444-7456 (1997).
11. Xiao, G. et al. A DNA damage signal is required for p53 to activate gadd45. Cancer Res 60, 1711-9 (2000).

Other articles in this Open Access Journal on ChemoResistance Include:

Cancer Stem Cells as a Mechanism of Resistance

An alternative approach to overcoming the apoptotic resistance of pancreatic cancer

Mutation D538G – a novel mechanism conferring acquired Endocrine Resistance causes a change in the Estrogen Receptor and Treatment of Breast Cancer with Tamoxifen

Can IntraTumoral Heterogeneity Be Thought of as a Mechanism of Resistance?

Nitric Oxide Mitigates Sensitivity of Melanoma Cells to Cisplatin

Heroes in Medical Research: Barnett Rosenberg and the Discovery of Cisplatin

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