Highlights

Jarkko Ahvonen

Jarkko Ahvonen, who specializes in lung cancer treatment, was nominated as the Oncologist of the Year 2021 by the Finnish Cancer Foundation.

Ahvonen conducts research on the treatment outcomes of lung cancer patients in Finland, aiming to understand how the treatment of Finnish patients could be further improved. He is also an active clinical trialist. Jarkko Ahvonen is a popular lecturer in the field of lung cancer.

He has been praised as a versatile and wide-ranging expert. In addition to treating lung cancer, his work at the outpatient clinic also includes patients with metastatic head and neck cancers, lymphoma and urological cancers. Special expertise includes rare cancers of the thoracic region, such as thymus tumors and pleural cancer. According to colleagues, Ahvonen is a versatile specialist but also a warm-hearted doctor who listens to and appreciates the patient. “A combination of solid professionalism, the ability to face people and care. He is exactly the person you would like to take care of yourself or your loved ones,” say colleagues.

Elina Kiviniemi

Elina Kiviniemi, who works at Tampere University Hospital’s Outpatient Clinic of Oncology. was nominated as Cancer Nurse of the Year 2022 by the Finnish Cancer Foundation.

Nurse and assistant head nurse Elina Kiviniemi has extensive expertise in neurological nursing of cancer patients as well as palliative and terminal care in home hospitals Her professionalism is combined with her ability to face cancer patients humanely. In the work community, Elina is described as calm, competent, empathetic and respectful. Colleagues tell about her good communication skills: “Even in difficult situations, Elina knows how to maintain her own professionalism and help her colleagues in the work community. Elina’s essence is unhurried and friendly. She treats colleagues and patients alike gently. She is invariably in a good mood and gives positive feedback easily.” In addition to good interaction skills, Elina Kiviniemi is a top professional in palliative competence with a high level of expertise.

Turkka Lehtonen

Radiographer Turkka Lehtonen was awarded as the Radiographer of the Year 2023 by Society of Radiographers in Finland. He is the first radiographer working in radiotherapy to be chosen as Radiographer of the Year. He has been working since his graduation in Tampere University Hospital, and over 10 years in the department of radiotherapy.

He has developed his skills continuously and open-mindedly and always works as a professional who shares his knowledge with his colleagues altruistically. Lehtonen is a careful, focused, genuinely caring radiographer who always wants the patient to receive the best possible radiotherapy. He also shares his expertise at the University of Applied Sciences by lecturing radiographer students on radiotherapy.

In the nomination, he was described as an exemplary and ironclad radiotherapy professional who works in a customer-oriented manner, always altruistically does more than he needs and is thus a credit to the entire profession. His expertise is top-notch, and in addition to his professional skills, he is known in the work community as a helping, guiding and flexible colleague.

Olli Lohi started his work as Finland’s first professor of paediatric cancer and haematology on 1.1.2024

Finnish society for effectiveness in social and healthcare is a politically independent association founded by private individuals. The society was founded in 2019 with the aim of promoting impact-based healthcare in Finnish social and health care. The society gives awards for activities which support its aims.

Impact Culture Act of the Year 2021

In the organisation-level category, the Pirkanmaa Hospital District (PSHP, Tampere University Hospital) as a whole was awarded as an Impact Culture Act , including a total of four competition entries: PSHP’s Impact Programme, Pacemaker Life Cycle Model, Reform of Eye Care and Elderly Cancer Patients. The aim of the Pirkanmaa Hospital District’s impact programme is to initiate and promote a broad change in operating culture by building an impact programme that applies to the entire hospital district’s organisation and crosses it. During 2021, the project has set up systematic structures for impact management throughout the organisation. Information management, data utilisation, its visualisation and reporting have been developed. The clinical divisions and the responsibilities within them have been organised in terms of impact management and development and have built a common impact concept with the support of knowledge management. PSHP has succeeded in instilling an impact-based operating culture, the results of which can be seen in several projects. Across the board, the aim is to implement effective solutions that have been implemented and successfully rooted in permanent operations in a forward-looking manner.

Impact Act of the Year 2022

Improving the effectiveness of multidisciplinary planning meetings for cancer patients with knowledge-based management tools, Tays Cancer Centre Breast Cancer Team.

Cancer treatment requires multidisciplinary cooperation. The cornerstone of effective cancer treatment is the identification of treatment needs and treatment options and their effective connection to multiprofessional care. The activities of the Division of Cancer Care, Division of Surgery, Fimlab Laboratories, and the Imaging Centre and the Pharmacy Unit in improving the effectiveness of multiprofessional planning meetings for the treatment of cancer patients with knowledge-based management tools have succeeded in developing the operating culture in a more effective direction by making effective use of both IT and information tools to enable and ensure individual care. The activities make the use of resources more efficient and thus improve cost-effectiveness.

Honorable mention 2023

Tays Cancer Center received an honourable mention from the Finnish Society for Impact 2023 for reducing pharmaceutical waste.

The generation of pharmaceutical waste and drug loss can be curbed by optimising dosing by utilising information on vial sizes. The evaluation jury would like to give special mention to the aim of developing an opportunity to utilise information technology to improve the sufficiency of scarce resources in the pharmacotherapy of cancer. The jury considers that the act promotes a culture of waste elimination and highlights the potential of automation.

TOP 10
Research Highlights 2021 – 2023

The Cancer Center’s Scientific committee selected the top 10 research achievements for the years 2021-2023. They are listed here in random order. Tays Cancer Center’s researchers are marked in bold in the author lists. The link to the original publication is attached in blue. More information about the scientific committee: https://www.ficanmid.fi/tieteellinen-tyoryhma/

Outcomes of Screening for Prostate Cancer Among Men Who Use Statins

Arla Vettenranta 1 , Teemu J Murtola 1 2, Jani Raitanen 3 4, Paavo Raittinen 5 , Kirsi Talala 6 , Kimmo Taari 7 , Ulf-Håkan Stenman 7 8 , Teuvo L J Tammela 1 2 , Anssi Auvinen 1 3
JAMA Oncol. 2022;8(1):61-68.
PMID: 34817559 PMCID: PMC8777566 DOI: 10.1001/jamaoncol.2021.5672

The prostate cancer screening study examined the effect of cholesterol-lowering drugs, statins, in prostate cancer screening. Fewer low-risk cancers were detected in men using statins than non-users, but no difference was found in detection of high-risk cancers. The results suggest that the benefit/harm ratio of prostate cancer screening may be more favorable in men using statins

Therapeutic targeting of LCK tyrosine kinase and mTOR signaling in T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia

Saara Laukkanen,1,∗ Alexandra Veloso,2,3,4,∗ Chuan Yan,2,3,4 Laura Oksa,1 Eric J. Alpert,2,3,4 Daniel Do,2,3,4 Noora Hyvärinen,1 Karin McCarthy,2,3,4 Abhinav Adhikari,2,3,4 Qiqi Yang,2,3,4 Sowmya Iyer,2,3,4 Sara P. Garcia,2,3,4 Annukka Pello,5 Tanja Ruokoranta,6 Sanni Moisio,7 Sadiksha Adhikari,5 Jeffrey A. Yoder,8 Kayleigh Gallagher,9 Lauren Whelton,2,3,4 James R. Allen,2,3,4 Alex H. Jin,2,3,4 Siebe Loontiens,10 Merja Heinäniemi,7 Michelle Kelliher,9 Caroline A. Heckman,5 Olli Lohi,1,11,†∗∗ and David M. Langenau2,3,4,∗†
Blood. 2022 Oct 27; 140(17): 1891–1906. Published online 2022 May 13.
PMID: 35544598 PMCID: PMC10082361 DOI: 10.1182/blood.2021015106

The study utilized experimental laboratory approaches to discover drug combinations that could effectively treat treatment-resistant or relapsed T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) in children with a poor treatment prognosis. The study demonstrated that the drug dasatinib combined with the so-called AKT/mTORC1 inhibitors effectively eradicated T-ALL leukemia cells in laboratory experiments. This promising combination is now ready to advance to early-phase human clinical trials.

Adjuvant Capecitabine for Early Breast Cancer: 15-Year Overall Survival Results from a Randomized Trial

Joensuu H, Kellokumpu-Lehtinen PL, Huovinen R, Jukkola A, Tanner M, Ahlgren J, Auvinen P, Lahdenperä O, Villman K, Nyandoto P, Nilsson G, Poikonen-Saksela P, Kataja V, Bono P, Junnila J, Lindman H.
J Clin Oncol 2022 Apr 1;40(10):1051-1058.
PMID: 35020465 PMCID: PMC8966968 DOI: 10.1200/JCO.21.02054

Breast cancer is the most common cancer type in females in the western world. and postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy has been shown to increase patients’ survival. Our goal was to develop a more effective adjuvant chemotherapy treatment by adding capecitabine-drug to each of the six cycles of normal chemotherapy. 1500 patients took part in the randomized trial and it showed that patients lived longer when they took capecitabine; 77 % of the patients that received capecitabine were alive after 15 years.

Sustainability of neutralising antibodies induced by bivalent or quadrivalent HPV vaccines and correlation with efficacy: a combined follow-up analysis of data from two randomised, double-blind, multicentre, phase 3 trials

Filipe Colaço Mariz, Penelope Gray, Noemi Bender, Tiina Eriksson, Hanna Kann, Dan Apter, Jorma Paavonen, Emma Pajunen, Kristina M Prager, Peter Sehr, Heljä-Marja Surcel, Tim Waterboer, Martin Müller, Michael Pawlita, Matti Lehtinen
The Lancet Infectious Diseases Volume 21, Issue 10, October 2021, Pages 1458-1468
PMID: 34081923 DOI: 10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30873-2

We studied the effect of the two most common vaccines directed against the cervical cancer-causing HPV virus during a 12-year follow-up period. Of these, the double vaccine (so-called HPV16/18 vaccine) elicited significantly higher antibody levels than the quadruple vaccine (HPV6/11/16/18 vaccine). The immune response induced by the double vaccine was significantly associated with protection against prolonged and cervical cancer-predisposing HPV virus types and thus also with protection against cervical cancer.

Single-cell ATAC and RNA sequencing reveal pre-existing and persistent cells associated with prostate cancer relapse

S Taavitsainen 1 , N Engedal 2 , S Cao 3 , F Handle 4 5 , A Erickson 6 , S Prekovic 7 , D Wetterskog 8 , T Tolonen 1 9 , E M Vuorinen 1 , A Kiviaho 1 , R Nätkin 1 , T Häkkinen 1 , W Devlies 4 10 , S Henttinen 1 , R Kaarijärvi 11 , M Lahnalampi 11 , H Kaljunen 11 , K Nowakowska 8 , H Syvälä 1 , M Bläuer 1 , P Cremaschi 8 , F Claessens 4 , T Visakorpi 12 13 , T L J Tammela 1 , T Murtola 1 , K J Granberg 1 , A D Lamb 6 14 , K Ketola 11 , I G Mills 6 15 16 , G Attard 8 , W Wang 3 , M Nykter 17 ,A Urbanucci 18
Nat Commun. 2021 Sep 6;12(1):5307. Published: 06 September 2021.
PMID: 34489465 PMCID: PMC8421417 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25624-1

A team led by Dr. Urbanucci found that certain patterns in gene expression and DNA structure can predict a patient’s response to treatment. Various laboratory models and research methods were utilised in the study. This revealed existing subgroups of cells that were treatment-resistant and showed stem cell-like and regenerative gene expression patterns. The results suggest that the presence of such patterns in cancer tissue may predict the risk of recurrence and disease progression. Such information can help tailor treatment to different types of prostate cancer patients.

International ESTO2 -clinical drug trial, which is managed from Tampere

ESTO2 is an international, randomized clinical drug trial initiated by a medical doctor. The study evaluates the effectiveness of atorvastatin (cholesterol lowering drug) in improving the response to androgen deprivation therapy and the survival of advanced prostate cancer patients. The leading researcher of the study is the professor of urology Murtola from Tampere.

EudraCT Number: 2016-004774-17. Clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT04026230

Deep whole-genome ctDNA chronology of treatment-resistant prostate cancer

Cameron Herberts*, Matti Annala*, Joonatan Sipola*, Sarah W. S. Ng, Xinyi E. Chen, Anssi Nurminen, Olga V. Korhonen, Aslı D. Munzur, Kevin Beja, Elena Schönlau, Cecily Q. Bernales, Elie Ritch, Jack V. W. Bacon, Nathan A. Lack, Matti Nykter, Rahul Aggarwal, Eric J. Small, Martin E. Gleave, SU2C/PCF West Coast Prostate Cancer Dream Team, David A. Quigley, Felix Y. Feng, Kim N. Chi & Alexander W. Wyatt *These authors contributed equally
Nature. 2022 Aug;608(7921):199-208.
PMID: 35859180 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04975-9

The study demonstrated that careful analysis of circulating tumor DNA collected via
minimally invasive blood samples from cancer patients allows constructing a whole genome mutation profile of cancer cell populations growing in the patient’s body, their differences, and their evolution during cancer treatments. The study also showed that activity of the androgen receptor, the key target of prostate cancer hormone therapies, can be measured in cancer cells by examining the amount of circulating tumor DNA fragments originating from androgen receptor binding sites.

Genomic characterization of IDH-mutant astrocytoma progression to grade 4 in the treatment setting.

Rautajoki*, K.J., Jaatinen*, S., Hartewig, A., Tiihonen, A.M., Annala, M., Salonen, I., Valkonen, M., Simola, V., Vuorinen, E.M., Kivinen, A., Rauhala, M.J., Nurminen, R., Maass, K.K., Lahtela, S-L., Jukkola, A., Yli-Harja, O., Helén, P., Pajtler, K.W., Ruusuvuori, P., Haapasalo, J., Zhang, W., Haapasalo, H., Nykter, M.
* They contributed equally
Acta Neuropathol Commun. 2023 Nov 6;11(1):176.
PMID: 37932833 PMCID: PMC10629206 DOI: 10.1186/s40478-023-01669-9

In the study, we identified how mutation-induced inactivation of certain genes that normally suppress cell division simultaneously provides treatment resistance and leads to tumor progression in astrocytoma brain tumors. This is most often detected when tumor progresses after combination therapy (radio- and chemotherapy). We also detected other changes in the brain tumor cells of advanced disease. The results help to better understand brain tumor progression in connection with therapy.

Ecological diversity proﬁles of non-vaccine-targeted HPVs after gender-based community vaccination efforts

Ville N. Pimenoff, Penelope Gray,1 Karolina Louvanto,3,6 Tiina Eriksson,3 Camilla Lagheden,1 Anna Soderlund-Strand, 4 Joakim Dillner,1 and Matti Lehtinen1,2
Cell Host Microbe. 2023 Nov 8;31(11):1921-1929.e3.
PMID: 37944494 DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2023.10.001

We studied the effects of HPV vaccination that prevents cervical cancer in different situations: 1) if only girls are vaccinated or 2) if both girls and boys are vaccinated, the comparison group was non-vaccinated persons. The study found replacement of cancer-causing HPV types by other, less cancer-causing HPV types, especially when HPV vaccination was given to both girls and boys in studies that were carried out 8 years after vaccination.

Research professors

FICAN professor Matti Nykter, Tampere University
The 3-year research professor awarded by the Cancer Institute (2021-2023)

Professor of Cancer Research, Toni Seppälä, Tampere University
Toni Seppälä started as a new professor of cancer research (tenure track) in 2022.

Professor of pediatric cancer and blood diseases, Olli Lohi, Tampere University
Olli Lohi was nominated as the first professor of pediatric cancers and blood diseases in Finland in 2023.