Сurrent options and perspectives of systemic therapy for advanced or metastatic adrenocortical cancer

Adrenocortical cancer is an orphan tumor with poor prognosis. The combination of EDP chemotherapy regimen and mitotane is the standard for the first‑line therapy. But there are no effective options for the second and consequent lines of therapy. The standard of second‑line therapy is the combination of gemcitabine, capecitabine and mitotane, which provides an objective response in 4–7 % of patients. Achievement of the therapeutic concentration of mitotane is the most important predictive factor of efficiency of GemCap + mitotane regimen, and, therefore, it is recommended to continue mitotane therapy after progression to mitotane. Recently, many researches regarding the efficiency of targeted and immunotherapy of adrenocortical cancer have been published. However, there are no standards for the third and subsequent lines of treatment. This review outlines the current views and perspectives of systemic therapy for advanced and metastatic adrenocortical cancer.

Adrenocortical Cancer: A 20-Year Experience of a Single Referral Center in Prognosis and Outcomes

Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare but very aggressive endocrine malignancy with poor survival. Histopathology is important for diagnosis, while in some cases immunohistochemical markers and gene profiling of the resected tumor may be superior to current staging systems to determine prognosis. We aimed to present the 20-year experience at a tertiary hospital in patients with ACCs and correlate the immunohistochemical characteristics of ACCs with the clinical and morphological characteristics of the tumors and the survival of the patients. Forty-five patients with ACC were included in the study. All the resections were R0. The tumor size and weight, the disease stage (ENSAT classification), Weiss score and Helsinki score were examined along with immunohistochemical expression of inhibin-A, melan A, calretinin, Ki67, synaptophysin, p53, vimentin, CKAE1/AE3. The male to female ratio was 1:1.37. The median age at diagnosis was 55.5 years (IQR 19–77). The median size of ACCs was 9 cm (IQR 3.5–22 cm) and the median weight 127 g (IQR 18–1400 g). The median follow up period was 18 months (IQR 1–96). Ki67 varied from<1% to 75% (median: 16.4%). The expression of melan-A and lower expression of Ki-67 (≤4) were independently associated with longer OS time (p=0.01 and p=0.04, respectively). In multivariable analysis, tumor volume>400 cm3 (p=0.046), Weiss score>5 (p=0.007) and overexpression of p53 (p=0.036) were independent risk factors for shorter survival. Adrenocortical carcinoma is a rare and very aggressive endocrine malignancy. The most important factors that determine long-term prognosis of ACC are the disease stage at diagnosis, the Weiss score, and the Ki67 index. Immunohistochemical markers such as melan A could also serve as prognostic factors.

Molecular Mechanisms of Mitotane Action in Adrenocortical Cancer Based on In Vitro Studies

Mitotane is the only approved drug for the treatment of advanced adrenocortical carcinoma and is increasingly used for postoperative adjuvant therapy. Mitotane action involves the deregulation of cytochromes P450 enzymes, depolarization of mitochondrial membranes, and accumulation of free cholesterol, leading to cell death. Although it is known that mitotane destroys the adrenal cortex and impairs steroidogenesis, its exact mechanism of action is still unclear. The most used cell models are H295-derived cell strains and SW13 cell lines. The diverging results obtained in presumably identical cell lines highlight the need for a stable in vitro model and/or a standard methodology to perform experiments on H295 strains. The presence of several enzymatic targets responsive to mitotane in mitochondria and mitochondria-associated membranes causes progressive alteration in mitochondrial structure when cells were exposed to mitotane. Confounding factors of culture affecting in vitro experiments could reduce the significance of any molecular mechanism identified in vitro. To ensure experimental reproducibility, particular care should be taken in the choice of culture conditions: aspects such as cell strains, culture serum, lipoproteins concentration, and culture passages should be carefully considered and explicated in the presentation of results. We aimed to review in vitro studies on mitotane effects, highlighting how different experimental conditions might contribute to the controversial findings. If the concerns pointed out in this review will be overcome, the new insights into mitotane mechanism of action observed in-vitro could allow the identification of novel pharmacological molecular pathways to be used to implement personalized therapy.

Plant Natural Compounds in the Treatment of Adrenocortical Tumors

Plant natural products are a plethora of diverse and complex molecules produced by the plant secondary metabolism. Among these, many can reserve beneficial or curative properties when employed to treat human diseases. Even in cancer, they can be successfully used and indeed numerous phytochemicals exert antineoplastic activity. The most common molecules derived from plants and used in the fight against cancer are polyphenols, i.e., quercetin, genistein, resveratrol, curcumin, etc. Despite valuable data especially in preclinical models on such compounds, few of them are currently used in the medical practice. Also, in adrenocortical tumors (ACT), phytochemicals are scarcely or not at all used. This work summarizes the available research on phytochemicals used against ACT and adrenocortical cancer, a very rare disease with poor prognosis and high metastatic potential, and wants to contribute to stimulate preclinical and clinical research to find new therapeutic strategies among the overabundance of biomolecules produced by the plant kingdom.

Results of surgical treatment of localized and locally advanced adrenocortical cancer in children

Introduction. Adrenal cortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare cancer but is the most common primary cancer in the adrenal gland. Despite the low incidence of ACC the mortality rate ranges from 0.04 to 0.2 %, in the overall structure of cancer mortality. Treatment of ACC is mainly surgical and radical surgical excision is the treatment of choice for local disease stages.Aim of the study — to present our results of surgical treatment of localized and locally advanced ACC in children and to determine the risk factors of relapse.Materials and methods. Twenty-eight patients (median age of 47.8 (06—216) mo.) with localized and locally advanced ACC underwent a retrospectively analysis. Stage I, II, and III revealed in 12 (45 %), 7 (25 %), and 9 (30 %), respectively. In 19 (68 %) cases the secretion of one or more hormone observed. Macroscopically and microscopically complete resection were performed in 26 (93 %) and 23 (82 %) patients, respectively. The median tumor volume was 183 (3.6—1608) cm3 and the median tumor weight was 207.9 (48—710) g.Results. Five-year overall (OS) and relapse-free (RFS) survival were 71 % and 69 %, respectively. OS and RFS according to stage I, II, and III were 100 % vs. 71 % vs. 17 % and 100 % vs. 71 % vs. 14 % respectively. The radical surgical resection and the level of Ki-67 expression influenced significantly the rates of OS and RFS (p < 0.001).Conclusion. The main factor affecting the survival rate of ACC in children with stages I—III is the radical surgical resection. It should be taken into account when planning postoperative therapy. Some of biological characteristics of the tumor could also significantly affect the results of treatment.

IL-13Rα2 Is a Biomarker of Diagnosis and Therapeutic Response in Human Pancreatic Cancer

IL-13Rα2 is a high-affinity binding protein for its ligand IL-13 and a cancer-testis antigen as it is expressed in the testis. IL-13Rα2 is highly expressed in various cancers, including pancreatic cancer, and consists of three domains: extracellular, transmembrane, and cytoplasmic. The extracellular domain binds to the ligand to form a biologically active complex, which initiates signaling through AP-1 and other pathways. IL-13Rα2 is also expressed in diseased cells such as fibroblasts that are involved in various inflammatory diseases, including cancer. We have reported that IL-13Rα2 is a prognostic biomarker for malignant glioma, adrenocortical cancer, and pancreatic cancer. In pancreatic cancer, a small sample of tissue could be examined for the expression of IL-13Rα2 by using the endoscopic ultrasound-fine needle aspiration technique (EUS-FNA). In addition, a peptide-based targeted approach using Pep-1L peptide could be used to study the biodistribution and whole-body cancer imaging for the screening of pancreatic cancer in suspected subjects.

Circulating Fascin 1 as a Promising Prognostic Marker in Adrenocortical Cancer

Fascin-1 (FSCN1) is an actin-bundling protein associated with an invasive and aggressive phenotype of several solid carcinomas, as it is involved in cell cytoskeleton rearrangement and filopodia formation. Adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) is a rare endocrine malignancy characterized by poor prognosis, particularly when metastatic at diagnosis. Radical resection is the only therapeutic option for ACC patients in addition to the adjuvant treatment with mitotane. Novel specific biomarkers suggestive of tumor progression to refine diagnosis and prognosis of patients with advanced ACC are urgently needed. ACC intratumoral FSCN1 has previously been suggested as a valid prognostic marker. In the present study, we identified FSCN1 in the bloodstream of a small cohort of ACC patients (n = 27), through a specific ELISA assay for human FSCN1. FSCN1 can be detected in the serum, and its circulating levels were evaluated in pre-surgery samples, which resulted to be significantly higher in ACC patients from stage I/II and stage III/IV compared with nontumoral healthy controls (HC, n = 4, FI: 5.5 ± 0.8, P&lt;0.001, and 8.0 ± 0.5, P &lt; 0.001 for stage I/II and stage III/IV group vs HC, respectively). In particular, FSCN1 levels were significantly higher in advanced stage versus stage I/II (22.8 ± 1.1 vs 15.8 ± 1.8 ng/ml, P &lt; 0.005, respectively). Interestingly, circulating levels of pre-surgical FSCN1 can significantly predict tumor progression/recurrence (Log rank = 0.013), but not the overall survival (Log rank=0.317), in patients stratified in high/low PreS FSCN1. In conclusion, these findings—though very preliminary—suggest that circulating FSCN1 may represent a new minimally-invasive prognostic marker in advanced ACC, in particular when measured before surgery enables histological diagnosis.

Effects of Sorafenib, a Tyrosin Kinase Inhibitor, on Adrenocortical Cancer

The lack of an effective medical treatment for adrenocortical carcinoma (ACC) has prompted the search for better treatment protocols for ACC neoplasms. Sorafenib, a tyrosine kinase inhibitor has exhibited effectiveness in the treatment of different human tumors. Therefore, the aim of this study was to understand the mechanism through which sorafenib acts on ACC, especially since treatment with sorafenib alone is sometimes unable to induce a long-lasting antiproliferative effect in this tumor type. The effects of sorafenib were tested on the ACC cell line H295R by evaluating cell viability, apoptosis and VEGF receptor signaling which was assessed by analyzing VE-cadherin and β-catenin complex formation. We also tested sorafenib on an in vitro 3D cell culture model using the same cell line. Apoptosis was observed after sorafenib treatment, and coimmunoprecipitation data suggested that the drug prevents formation VEGFR-VE-cadherin and β-catenin proteins complex. These results were confirmed both by ultrastructural analysis and by a 3D model where we observed a disaggregation of spheres into single cells, which is a crucial event that represents the first step of metastasis. Our findings suggest that although sorafenib induces apoptotic cell death a small portion of cells survive the treatment and have characteristics of a malignancy. Based on our data we recommend against the use of sorafenib in patients with ACC.