Vol 31, No 1 (2026)

Background: The criteria for therapy effectiveness and disease prognosis remain a pressing issue in oncology. The study of prognostic markers in blood serum is a promising approach for monitoring the course of B-cell lymphomas during treatment.

Aim: To analyze the relationship between the presence of the tumor process and the level of the E-cadherin marker.

Methods: The study included 53 patients (30 men, 23 women) with B-cell lymphomas (stage 1, 1 patient; stage 2A/2B, 9 patients; stage 3A/3B, 9 patients, stage 4A/4B, 34 patients). Soluble E-cadherin (sEcad) levels were measured before treatment initiation and after the third and sixth cycles of chemotherapy. The dynamics of sEcad levels were assessed both in the overall patient group and separately in subgroups of patients without relapse and with lymphoma relapse. The subgroups were comparable in age and disease stage. The control group consisted of 25 individuals (18 men, 7 women) without cancer pathology. The normal value (in patients without tumor disease) was defined as sEcad ≤1.0 ng/mL.

Results: Lymphoma relapse was observed in 22 of 53 patients (42%). Seven patients (13%) died from causes unrelated to the tumor, and one patient (2%) was lost to follow-up. The sEcad level in the overall patient group before treatment was 3.7 ± 0.4 ng/mL compared with 0.9 ± 0.1 ng/mL in the control group, p < 0.0001. During therapy, a decrease in sEcad level was observed after the third and sixth chemotherapy cycles to 2.8 ± 0.3 ng/mL and 2.4±0.4 ng/mL, respectively.

In the subgroups without relapse (n = 31) and with lymphoma relapse (n = 22), sEcad levels before treatment, after three cycles, and after six cycles were 3.5 ± 0.4, 2.4 ± 0.3 , and 1.5 ± 0.2 ng/mL versus 4.1 ± 0.9, 3.4 ± 0.5 , and 3.5 ± 0.7 ng/mL (p = 0.5, p = 0.1 , and p = 0.003, respectively). The sEcad level in patients without relapse significantly decreased after the sixth chemotherapy cycle compared with the time of diagnosis (p = 0.0001). Relapse-free survival (RFS) in the overall patient group was 50.3% ± 8% ; the median follow-up period was 43.9 ± 5.2 months. RFS at sEcad levels ≤1.0 ng/mL and >1.0 ng/mL after six chemotherapy cycles was 58.3 ± 16% versus 43.3 ± 11% with a median follow-up of 46.4 ± 10.3 months versus 28.2 ± 4.1 months, respectively (p = 0.045).

Conclusion: The risk of B-cell lymphoma relapse is lower when sEcad level is ≤1.0 ng/mL after six therapy cycles than at higher values of this marker. A decrease in this marker during treatment indicates a favorable response to therapy. Further studies require larger patient cohorts and standardization of sEcad measurement methods.

The review is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of modern aspects of diagnosis, treatment, and outcome prognostication in patients with spinal metastases (SM) . The relevance of the topic stems from the widespread prevalence of this pathology. The work examines the pathogenetic mechanisms of SM development, involving various molecular pathways such as RANK/RANKL/OPG in the process of bone destruction, as well as the clinical picture characterized by pain syndrome, neurological disorders, and a high risk of pathological fractures. Special attention is paid to modern diagnostic methods: positron emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT/CT), which are used to detect metastatic disease. The importance of morphological tumor identification using histological methods with core needle biopsy under imaging guidance is noted. The multimodal approach to SM treatment is based on the NOMS framework (Neurologic, Oncologic, Mechanical, Systemic), which combines assessment of neurological impairment, tumor characteristics, mechanical stability of the spinal column (using the SINS scale), and systemic risk factors. SM treatment includes conservative therapy (anti-resorptive drugs and analgesics), stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS/SBRT), minimally invasive surgical methods (vertebroplasty, kyphoplasty), and open surgical methods (separation and decompression-stabilization procedures). A personalized multidisciplinary approach integrating various methods allows effective control of disease progression and improves patients’ quality of life by managing associated pain, correcting neurological deficits, and enabling early mobilization The review also discusses promising directions in targeted therapy, which may become possible through in-depth study of the RSPO2/LGR4 signaling pathway and the application of artificial intelligence technologies to improve the diagnostic accuracy of SM.

Cancers in older and elderly adults constitute the majority of oncological cases worldwide; however, research on this age group remains insufficiently covered in randomized clinical trials. The main reason is the natural restructuring of the immune system, but its systemic molecular-clinical analysis remained fragmentary in geriatric oncology for a long time. This review analyzes modern data on the molecular-cellular mechanisms of immunosenescence, inflammatory aging, and how these processes affect tumor development. The search was conducted in six databases (PubMed/MEDLINE, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, eLIBRARY.ru, CyberLeninka) for the period 2020–2026; 82 sources were included in the final analysis. Available data show that aging and chronic smoldering inflammation help create conditions within the tumor that prevent the immune system from fighting cancer. This is associated with decreased diversity of the T-cell receptor repertoire, accumulation of SASP-secreting senescent cells that maintain low-grade inflammation, and a shift in macrophage polarization toward the M2 phenotype. Nosological analysis revealed that these changes manifest differently in various types of cancer, such as papillary thyroid cancer, glioblastoma, breast cancer, and tumors of the gastrointestinal tract. Therefore, it is important to consider tumor-specific features when treating older adults. Furthermore, according to research data, drugs aimed at enhancing the immune response work approximately equally in young and older patients for the majority of cancer types. However, older adults have a higher risk of side effects, and limited data are available for some patient groups, which complicates the definitiveness of conclusions.

Introduction: Differential diagnosis of malignant neoplasms in the neck region presents considerable difficulties from the viewpoint of detecting a primary organ-confined tumor and a non-organ-confined primary lesion. It is particularly difficult to detect when enlarged regional metastatic lymph nodes are located virtually on the border with the primary tumor localization. In tumors of the salivary glands, even modern capabilities of radiological and morphological diagnostics do not always allow clear differentiation of organ specificity, categories of benignity or malignancy , as well as distinguishing a primary tumor from a metastatic process.

Case description: In a patient with obvious clinical signs of nodular thyroid gland lesion after initial referral to the outpatient clinic, a malignant process was cytologically excluded. However, during additional examination, tumor pathology of the upper third of the neck was detected, which did not confirm its organ specificity to the major salivary glands and regional lymph nodes according to combined data from modern radiological imaging methods. The results of cytological diagnostics of several tumor-like formations on the neck contributed to radical treatment in the setting of a head and neck surgical oncology department, with planned histological and immunohistochemical investigation. The morphologically confirmed malignant origin from salivary gland tissue without organ specificity yielded varying histological reports. In the absence of disease recurrence , given contradictory morphological findings, a review of histological slides and immunohistochemical investigation of the tumor was conducted at a reference center. The review confirmed the presence of a pleomorphic adenoma of aberrant salivary glands in the variant of retrograde differential diagnosis.

Conclusion: A clinical observation is presented in which only the results of a control immunohistochemical investigation allowed formulation of a final clinicopathological diagnosis of pleomorphic adenoma of the ectopic salivary gland with a multicentric growth pattern in the variant of retrograde differential diagnosis with different forms of carcinoma.

This article analyzes the scientific work of Nikolai Petrov on experimental carcinogenesis in primates. It is shown that he was a brilliant organizer of healthcare. In 1927, on the initiative of Petrov, the first oncological institute in the country was created in Leningrad, which in 1945 became part of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences and for many years determined the strategy and tactics of the entire oncological service of the country. He also participated in the organization of Kuban University, the First All-Union Anti-Cancer Congress in Kharkiv (1931), the International Union Against Cancer in Paris (1934), the All-Union Congress of Surgeons in Leningrad (1935), and the laboratory of experimental cancer at the branch of the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine in Sukhumi (Abkhazian ASSR) in 1938. The first studies started in Sukhumi addressed solar radiation and the possible occurrence of tumors in rats, as well as Shope viral skin tumors (Shope papillomas) in rabbits. During this period, Petrov’s monograph Comparative Pathology of Tumors in Animals and Humans was published, which was awarded the USSR State Prize in 1941. It is noted that all these studies prepared the ground for the transition to more critical studies on the induction of malignant tumors in monkeys. The first experiments on primates were conducted by Petrov and his closest assistants Nadezhda Krotkina and Alla Vadova, the head of the laboratory, in January 1939. In 1952, the fundamental work of Petrov and his students Dynamics of the Occurrence and Development of Malignant Growth in Experiments on Monkeys was published by the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences. The laboratory worked persistently to advance Petrov’s idea of creating a transplantable strain of a malignant monkey tumor.