Abstract 5723: Inactivation of DNA repair triggers neoantigen generation and impairs tumor growth

Patient organisations' views, motivations and experiences on patient involvement in cancer research: a pilot study in Portugal

OBJECTIVES

To characterise Portuguese cancer-related patient organisations and analyse their views, motivations and experiences on patient involvement in cancer research.

DESIGN

A multistakeholder group, comprising patient representatives and researchers, codesigned a questionnaire after a literature review, online sessions and collaborative mind maps. In May 2021, a survey was conducted among representatives of Portuguese cancer-related patient organisations, focusing on four dimensions: experience in cancer research; perception of its outcomes; motivations and expectations on patient involvement in research; and organisation characteristics.

PARTICIPANTS

Twenty-seven representatives from Portuguese cancer-related patient organisations responded to the questionnaire, corresponding to a 64% response rate.

RESULTS

Among the surveyed organisations, 26% have participated in clinical studies. Their involvement occurred in few stages of the research process and, mostly, with low levels of engagement. They showed 'great interest' in participating in most research steps, although this is not reflected in a high perception of influence over these same steps. More than half claimed to have contributed to the increase in patient recruitment and to a better understanding of informed consent by patients involved. Ensuring that research results are more aligned with the true needs of patients is the greatest motivation. Also, our results suggest that the organisation's number of employees and its integration into a European/International network play a relevant role in patient involvement in research.

CONCLUSIONS

This study provides the first in-depth characterisation of Portuguese cancer-related patient organisations and their views, motivations and experiences on patient involvement in cancer research. Most importantly, this study revealed that most of these organisations show great interest in being involved in different R&D stages to ensure that research results are aligned with patients' needs. Their motivation should be turned into greater and more meaningful involvement in practice, so that the cancer community can benefit from the outcomes of truly patient-centred research.

Advancing childhood cancer research through young investigator and advocate collaboration

Cancer advocates and researchers share the same goal of driving science forward to create new therapies to cure more patients. The power of combining cancer researchers and advocates has become of increased importance due to their complementary expertise. Therefore, advocacy is a critical component of grant structures and has become embedded into the Stand Up 2 Cancer (SU2C) applications. To date, the optimal way to combine these skillsets and experiences to benefit the cancer community is currently unknown. The Saint Baldrick's Foundation (SBF)-SU2C now called St. Baldrick's Empowering Pediatric Immunotherapies for Childhood Cancer (EPICC) Team is comprised of a collaborative network across nine institutions in the United States and Canada. Since SU2C encourages incorporating advocacy into the team structure, we have assembled a diverse team of advocates and scientists by nominating a young investigator (YI) and advocate from each site. In order to further bridge this interaction beyond virtual monthly and yearly in person meetings, we have developed a questionnaire and conducted interviews. The questionnaire is focused on understanding each member's experience at the intersection between science/advocacy, comparing to previous experiences, providing advice on incorporating advocacy into team science and discussing how we can build on our work. Through creating a YI and advocate infrastructure, we have cultivated a supportive environment for meaningful conversation that impacts the entire research team. We see this as a model for team science by combining expertise to drive innovation forward and positively impact pediatric cancer patients, and perhaps those with adult malignancies.

Significance

Questionnaire results show both advocates and YI's see this structure to be valuable and beneficial. YI's communicated their research to a non-scientific audience and learned advocate's experience. This was their first advocacy experience for most YIs. Advocates learned more about the research being conducted to provide hope. They can also aid with fundraising, publicity and lobbying. This collaboration improves science communication, designing patient-friendly clinical trials and sharing experience across institutions.

Heterogeneity of MSI-H gastric cancer identifies a subtype with worse survival

BACKGROUND

Microsatellite instability-high (MSI-H) tumour patients generally have a better prognosis than microsatellite-stable (MSS) ones due to the large number of non-synonymous mutations. However, an increasing number of studies have revealed that less than half of MSI-H patients gain survival benefits or symptom alleviation from immune checkpoint-blockade treatment. Thus, an in-depth inspection of heterogeneous MSI-H tumours is urgently required.

METHODS

Here, we used non-negative matrix factorisation (non-NMF)-based consensus clustering to define stomach adenocarcinoma (STAD) MSI-H subtypes in samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas and an Asian cohort, GSE62254.

RESULTS

MSI-H STAD samples are basically clustered into two subgroups (MSI-H1 and MSI-H2). Further examination of the immune landscape showed that immune suppression factors were enriched in the MSI-H1 subgroup, which may be associated with the poor prognosis in this subgroup.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results illustrate the genetic heterogeneity within MSI-H STADs, with important implications for cancer patient risk stratification, prognosis and treatment.