The New England journal of medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Efficacy of intravitreal bevacizumab for stage 3+ retinopathy of prematurity.
Retinopathy of prematurity is a leading cause of childhood blindness worldwide. Peripheral retinal ablation with conventional (confluent) laser therapy is destructive, causes complications, and does not prevent all vision loss, especially in cases of retinopathy of prematurity affecting zone I of the eye. Case series in which patients were treated with vascular endothelial growth factor inhibitors suggest that these agents may be useful in treating retinopathy of prematurity. ⋯ Intravitreal bevacizumab monotherapy, as compared with conventional laser therapy, in infants with stage 3+ retinopathy of prematurity showed a significant benefit for zone I but not zone II disease. Development of peripheral retinal vessels continued after treatment with intravitreal bevacizumab, but conventional laser therapy led to permanent destruction of the peripheral retina. This trial was too small to assess safety. (Funded by Research to Prevent Blindness and others; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00622726.).
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Amplification and activating mutations of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) oncogene are molecular hallmarks of glioblastomas. We hypothesized that deletion of NFKBIA (encoding nuclear factor of κ-light polypeptide gene enhancer in B-cells inhibitor-α), an inhibitor of the EGFR-signaling pathway, promotes tumorigenesis in glioblastomas that do not have alterations of EGFR. ⋯ Deletion of NFKBIA has an effect that is similar to the effect of EGFR amplification in the pathogenesis of glioblastoma and is associated with comparatively short survival.