Antineoplastic therapy-induced pulmonary toxicity

Bleomycin loaded exosomes enhanced antitumor therapeutic efficacy and reduced toxicity

BACKGROUND

Bleomycin (BLM) is a chemotherapeutic agent with potent antitumor activity against the tumor. However, lung fibrosis is the main drawback that limits BLM use. Tumor targeted, safe, efficient and natural delivery of BLM is important to increase the effectiveness and reduce the toxic side effects. Although tumor derived Exosomes (Exo), provide a potential vehicle for in vivo drug delivery due to their cell tropism. This study primarily focuses on generating a natural delivery platform for Exo loaded with BLM and testing its therapeutic efficacy against cancer.

METHODS

Exosomes were isolated from cancer cells and incubated with BLM. Exo were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, western blot analysis and nanoparticle tracking analysis. We performed in vitro and in vivo analyses to evaluate the effect of Exo-BLM.

RESULTS

Exosomes loaded with BLM are highly cancer targeting and cause the cytotoxicity of tumor cells by ROS. The fluorescence images showed that Exo-BLM accumulated in cancer cells. The results revealed that Exo-BLM induces tumor cell apoptosis by the caspase pathway. In vivo, the treatment of Exo-BLM showed targeted ability and enhanced the antitumor activity.

CONCLUSION

This study provides an avenue for specific BLM therapeutics with minimal side effects.

Expert Consensus on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Anticancer Drug-Induced Interstitial Lung Disease

Drug-induced interstitial lung disease (DILD) is the most common pulmonary adverse event of anticancer drugs. In recent years, the incidence of anticancer DILD has gradually increased with the rapid development of novel anticancer agents. Due to the diverse clinical manifestations and the lack of specific diagnostic criteria, DILD is difficult to diagnose and may even become fatal if not treated properly. Herein, a multidisciplinary group of experts from oncology, respiratory, imaging, pharmacology, pathology, and radiology departments in China has reached the "expert consensus on the diagnosis and treatment of anticancer DILD" after several rounds of a comprehensive investigation. This consensus aims to improve the awareness of clinicians and provide recommendations for the early screening, diagnosis, and treatment of anticancer DILD. This consensus also emphasizes the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration while managing DILD.

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome in Cancer Patients

Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a heterogeneous form of acute, diffuse lung injury that is characterized by dysregulated inflammation, increased alveolar-capillary interface permeability, and non-cardiogenic pulmonary edema. In the general population, the incidence and mortality associated with ARDS over the last two decades have steadily declined in parallel with optimized approaches to pneumonia and other underlying causes of ARDS as well as increased utilization of multimodal treatment strategies that include lung-protective ventilation. In the cancer settings, significant declines in the incidence and mortality of ARDS over the past two decades have also been reported, although these rates remain significantly higher than those in the general population. Epidemiologic studies identify infection, including disseminated fungal pneumonias, as a major underlying cause of ARDS in the cancer setting. More than half of cancer patients who develop ARDS will not survive to hospital discharge. Those who do survive often face a protracted and often incomplete recovery, resulting in significant long-term physical, psychological, and cognitive sequelae. The residual organ dysfunction and poor functional status after ARDS may delay or preclude subsequent cancer treatments. As such, close collaboration between the critical care physicians and oncology team is essential in identifying and reversing the underlying causes and optimizing treatments for cancer patients with ARDS. This chapter reviews the diagnosis and common causes of ARDS in cancer and gives an update on the general management principles for cancer patients with ARDS in the ICU.

Acute Respiratory Failure Before ICU Admission: A Practical Approach

Acute respiratory failure (ARF) is a common and life-threatening event in cancer patients. It is the leading cause of admission to ICU among the patients with hematologic and solid malignancies and is often associated with poor outcome. Timely identification of the cause of ARF and the initiation of the appropriate therapy may improve the survival. Pulmonary infections represent the leading cause of ARF in those patients, and unless proven otherwise, ARF must be considered as an infectious emergency. Noninfectious causes of ARF include cardiogenic and noncardiogenic pulmonary edema, acute pulmonary embolism, and complications related both to the underlying malignancy and the toxic effects of chemotherapy.

This chapter reviews the most common causes of ARF in oncologic patients and discusses the diagnostic and therapeutic approach before ICU admission.

Systematic analysis of the associations between adverse drug reactions and pathways

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are responsible for drug candidate failure during clinical trials. It is crucial to investigate biological pathways contributing to ADRs. Here, we applied a large-scale analysis to identify overrepresented ADR-pathway combinations through merging clinical phenotypic data, biological pathway data, and drug-target relations. Evaluation was performed by scientific literature review and defining a pathway-based ADR-ADR similarity measure. The results showed that our method is efficient for finding the associations between ADRs and pathways. To more systematically understand the mechanisms of ADRs, we constructed an ADR-pathway network and an ADR-ADR network. Through network analysis on biology and pharmacology, it was found that frequent ADRs were associated with more pathways than infrequent and rare ADRs. Moreover, environmental information processing pathways contributed most to the observed ADRs. Integrating the system organ class of ADRs, we found that most classes tended to interact with other classes instead of themselves. ADR classes were distributed promiscuously in all the ADR cliques. These results reflected that drug perturbation to a certain pathway can cause changes in multiple organs, rather than in one specific organ. Our work not only provides a global view of the associations between ADRs and pathways, but also is helpful to understand the mechanisms of ADRs.