Patho week 13 article review

1. One paragraph that introduces your topic and explains why it is important to you

Squamous cell carcinoma is a type of skin cancer that can be found on the face and neck. The tumor on the epidermis does not cause pain and are most often caused by extreme sun exposure. This type of skin cancer can also develop in the mouth from smoking. Signs and symptoms include a scaly and red lesion, irregular border of the lesion, and central ulceration. The malignant neoplasm spreads to lymph nodes in the general area but does not often spread to distant areas (Hubert & VanMeter, 2018; Johnson et al., 2020). This topic is important to me because I take meticulous care of my skin and enjoy learning about dermatology and skin disorders.

1. Author, year, title, journal

Li, B., Cui, Y., Nambiar, D. K., Sunwoo, J. B., & Li, R. (2019). The immune subtypes and landscape of squamous cell carcinoma. Clinical Cancer Research, 25(12), 3528-3537.

1. Purpose of the article: research, theoretical, program implementation

The article analyzed different immune subtypes and explored the etiology and molecular characteristics of squamous cell carcinomas (Li, Cui, Nambiar, Sunwoo, & Li, 2019).

1. From what discipline was the literature review drawn?

The discipline of the article was drawn from cancer biology as the journal is called Clinical Cancer Research and the article explores the etiology and molecular structures of a skin cancer (Li et al., 2019).

1. What were the gaps, issues, purposes identified from the synthesis of the literature?

One issue with the article is that one of the authors (Sunwoo) is part of an advisory board team for Indapta Therapeutics and therefore presents as a conflict of interest in the study. Other potential complications include that the supportive references used in the article are not all published within the last three to five years. This potentially allows the study to include obsolete data. Also, the study was provided financial support from the National Institutes of Health (Li et al., 2019).

1. What design and methods were used for the purpose of the project?

The researchers utilized consensus clustering to establish a group of 938 participants. The researchers analyzed immune gene expression data of over 1300 individuals with squamous cell carcinoma. The data in the study was analyzed using graph structure learning-based dimensionality reduction (Li et al., 2019).

1. Were the sample, size, and setting (or choice of articles) adequate for the project?

The researchers showed careful selection of immune gene expression data by using consensus clustering to identify 938 relevant data profiles. The data came from a credible resource as the patient profiles were from the Cancer Genome Atlas (Li et al., 2019).

1. What were the findings and conclusions?

The researchers established six immune subtypes with different traits. The immune-cold subtype was associated with a poor prognosis, while the immune-hot subtype was associated with the greatest prognosis. There were also subtypes identified to have levels of prognosis between the other two subtypes. The researchers concluded that identifying six different immune subtypes provides more information about the malignancy of squamous cell carcinomas and further research is indicated for providing effective treatment (Li et al., 2019).

1. What are the implications for future research?

Further research is indicated for providing effective treatment for patients with squamous cell carcinoma. Identifying subtypes helps provide cancer research with more ways to support immune responses due to the identified characteristics of the subtypes (Li et al., 2019).

1. How could the information in this article be applied to advanced nursing practice?

Advanced nursing practice could utilize this information to provide treatment modalities that target specific immune responses in patients with squamous cell carcinoma. The subtypes identify specific immunity traits that providers could focus on to determine the best treatment modality for a patient (Li et al., 2019).

1. Would you recommend this article to others as an example to add to the understanding of this information?

Yes. The article provides extensive information on the different traits of subtypes that can be used to treat individuals with squamous cell carcinomas. The identifiable characteristics of the subtypes allows patients with cancer to receive treatment that best supports their immune system’s response (Li et al., 2019).

1. Conclusion/summary paragraph

The article provides an in depth understanding of how the body’s immune response is different in everyone. The subtypes identified have different numbers of cells that carry out the immune response in patients with squamous cell carcinomas. For example, patients with an immune-cold subtype have a low number of leukocytes. This information is important for cancer research and advanced practice nurses to provide effective treatment for patients with this type of cancer. Introducing treatment modalities of immunotherapy that best supports the individual’s immune response could lead to a better prognosis (Li et al., 2019).

References

Hubert, R. J., & VanMeter, K. C. (2018). Gould’s pathophysiology for the health professions (6th ed.). Elsevier.

Johnson, D. E., Burtness, B., Leemans, C. R., Lui, V. W. Y., Bauman, J. E., & Grandis, J. R. (2020). Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Nature Reviews Disease Primers, 6(92).

Li, B., Cui, Y., Nambiar, D. K., Sunwoo, J. B., & Li, R. (2019). The immune subtypes and landscape of squamous cell carcinoma. Clinical Cancer Research, 25(12), 3528-3537.