Erythropoietic medications such as including erythropoietin (EPO) are known to be neuroprotective and to correlate with improved cognitive functions. However, it is not known whether supplementation ...with EPO reduces the risk of dementia in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients receiving hemodialysis (HD). Here, we determined whether EPO levels correlate with the incidence of different dementia subtypes, including Alzheimer's disease (AD), vascular dementia (VaD), and unspecified dementia (UnD), and whether such associations vary with annual cumulatively defined daily doses (DDDs) of EPO for ESRD patients receiving HD. This retrospective study included data from 43,906 adult ESRD patients who received HD between 1999 and 2010. Using hazard ratios and Cox regression models, we found that patients receiving EPO had a 39% lower risk of general dementia than those in the non-EPO group. Similarly, the risks of VaD and UnD was lower for patients in the EPO cohort. The risk of dementia was further reduced in HD patients treated with EPO in combination with iron. Our results suggest that the use of EPO medications in HD patients is associated with a reduced risk of VaD and UnD, but not AD, regardless of whether EPO is used alone or in combination with iron.
We investigate whether cigarette smoking is associated with survival in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) through a nationwide population-based cohort study in Taiwan. The Taiwan Cancer Registry ...and National Health Insurance Research Database were used to identify data from patients with CRC from 2011 to 2017. Tobacco use was evaluated based on the smoking status, intensity, and duration before cancer diagnosis. A total of 18,816 patients was included. A Kaplan-Meier survival analysis indicated smoking to be significantly associated with the CRC mortality risk (log-rank
= 0.0001). A multivariable Cox model indicated that smoking patients had a 1.11-fold higher mortality risk (HR = 1.11, 95% CI = 1.05-1.19) than nonsmoking patients did. This increased risk was also present in patients with CRC who smoked 11-20 cigarettes per day (HR = 1.16; 95% CI = 1.07-1.26) or smoked for >30 years (HR = 1.14; 95% CI = 1.04-1.25). Stratified analyses of sex and cancer subsites indicated that the effects of smoking were higher in male patients and in those with colon cancer. Our results indicate that cigarette smoking is significantly associated with poor survival in patients with CRC. An integrated smoking cessation campaign is warranted to prevent CRC mortality.
Recent studies have reported that SERPINE2 contributes to the development of various cancers. However, its association with urothelial carcinoma (UC) remains unclear. In this study, data on urinary ...bladder UC (UBUC) cases from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database were used to investigate the prognostic value of SERPINE2 mRNA expression. Then, SERPINE2 expression was analyzed with tissue microarrays constructed from 117 upper tract UC (UTUC) and 84 UBUC tissue specimens using immunohistochemical staining. Results were compared to clinicopathologic data by multivariate analysis. In the TCGA database, high SERPINE2 mRNA expression indicated a poor prognosis in patients with UBUC. Furthermore, Mann–Whitney U test showed that high SERPINE2 immunoexpression was significantly associated with adverse pathologic parameters including invasion, high grade, coexistence of UC in situ, and advanced pT stage (all p < 0.05, except for a marginal association with high-grade UBUC, p = 0.066). Kaplan–Meier analysis revealed that high SERPINE2 expression was associated with worse overall survival (OS; UTUC, p = 0.003; UBUC, p = 0.014) and disease-free survival (UTUC, p = 0.031; UBUC, p = 0.033). Moreover, multivariate analysis identified high SERPINE2 expression as an independent prognostic factor for OS (UTUC, p = 0.002; UBUC, p = 0.024). Taken together, our findings demonstrated that increased SERPINE2 expression is associated with adverse pathologic features and may serve as a prognostic biomarker for UC.
To investigate the levels of leptin and adiponectin in prediction of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) survival among patients without liver transplantation.
We measured pretreatment plasma leptin and ...adiponectin in 172 HCC cases who were prospectively followed-up over 7 years.
Gender, hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, high body mass index (BMI), diabetes mellitus (DM) history and Child-Pugh (CP) class were associated with leptin and adiponectin levels, while α-fetoprotein (AFP) and presence of metastasis, being outside the Milan criteria and Barcelona clinic liver cancer (BCLC) stage, were significantly associated with liver transplantation and HCC survival. No significant association was observed for leptin or adiponectin and HCC survival in the overall group. In subgroup analyses among those without liver transplantation, we found significant associations between metastasis, Milan criteria, BCLC stage, hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and HCC survival. When separately determining the Cox proportional hazard models and Kaplan-Meier survival curves by liver transplantation status, higher adiponectin was significantly associated with an increased hazard ratio (HR) of death of 1.72 (95% confidence interval (CI)=1.12-2.64), i.e. poor survival among patients without liver transplantation. A multivariate Cox proportional hazard model, including adiponectin, CP class, presence of metastasis, tumor outside of Milan criteria, AFP and BCLC stage B/C parameters, also showed significant association with poor HCC survival (likelihood ratio test p<0.0001). No significant impact was observed for leptin on HCC survival regardless of liver transplantation status.
Higher levels of plasma adiponectin may predict poor HCC survival among patients without liver transplantation.
We aimed to investigate the association between single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in mismatch repair (MMR) pathway genes and survival in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) who ...received adjuvant concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT).
Using the Sequenom iPLEX MassARRAY system, five SNPs in four major MMR genes were genotyped in 319 patients with OSCC who received CCRT treatment. Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Cox proportional hazard regression models were used to assess overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) among MMR genotypes.
The results of Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that the MutS homolog 2
rs3732183 polymorphism showed a borderline significant association with DFS (log-rank
= 0.089). Participants with the
rs3732183 GG genotype exhibited a relatively low risk of recurrence (hazard ratio (HR) = 0.45; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.22-0.96;
= 0.039). In addition, the MutL homolog 1 (
rs1800734 GG genotype carriers exhibited higher OS (HR = 0.52, 95% CI = 0.27-1.01;
= 0.054) and DFS (HR = 0.49, 95% CI = 0.26-0.92;
= 0.028) rates.
Our results indicated that the GG genotypes of
rs3732183 and
rs1800734 are associated with relatively high survival in OSCC patients treated using adjuvant CCRT. These polymorphisms may serve as prognosis predictors in OSCC patients.
Growth hormone (GH) is the main regulator of somatic growth, metabolism, and gender dimorphism in the liver. GH receptor (GHR) signaling in cancer is derived from a large body of evidence, although ...the GHR signaling pathway involved in the prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in patients with hepatitis C virus (HCV)-related HCC, remains unclear. We aimed to explore the expression of GHR and analyze its association with clinicopathologic features and prognosis of patients with chronic hepatitis C and HCC.
The expression of GHR mRNA was investigated by quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction in paired tumors and adjacent non-tumorous (ANT) liver tissues of 200 patients with chronic hepatitis C and HCC. Western blotting and immunofluorescence assays using the HCV-infected Huh7.5.1 cell model was performed.
GHR mRNA was significantly lower in HCV-HCC tissues than in corresponding ANT liver tissues. GHR mRNA and protein levels also decreased in the HCV-infected Huh7.5.1 cell model. Notably, lower GHR expression was associated with age of >60 years (P=0.0111) and worse clinicopathologic characteristics, including alpha-fetoprotein >100 ng/mL (P=0.0403), cirrhosis (P=0.0075), vascular invasion (P=0.0052), pathological stage II-IV (P=0.0002), and albumin ≤4.0 g/dL (P=0.0055), which were linked with poor prognosis of HCC. Most importantly, the high incidence of recurrence and poor survival rates in patients with a low ratio of tumor/ANT GHR (≤0.1) were observed, indicating that low expression levels of GHR had great risk for development of HCC in patients with chronic hepatitis C.
Our study demonstrates a significant down-regulation of GHR expression as a new unfavorable independent prognostic factor in patients with chronic hepatitis C and HCC.
Background
The impact of folate deficiency on global DNA methylation is uncertain. It also is unclear whether global DNA methylation is associated with outcome in HCC. LINE-1 methylation levels, as a ...surrogate marker of global methylation, may be influenced by folate deficiency. However, the interaction between LINE-1 methylation and folate level on overall survival (OS) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients is unknown. We evaluated whether LINE-1 hypomethylation and folate deficiency are associated with HCC prognosis.
Methods
We prospectively recruited 172 HCC patients between 2008 and 2012. LINE-1 methylation levels in plasma and white blood cells (WBC) were measured by pyrosequencing, and plasma folate levels by a radioprotein-binding assay.
Results
Patients with plasma LINE-1 methylation <70.0% (hypomethylation) had significantly worse OS compared with those with ≥70.0% methylation (hypermethylation) hazard ratio (HR) = 1.77; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.12–2.79;
P
= 0.015. HCC patients with lower plasma folate levels also had worse survival (<27.7 vs. ≥27.7 nmol/L; HR = 1.96; 95% CI, 1.24–3.09;
P
= 0.004). Furthermore, survival was poor in patients in whom both plasma LINE-1 methylation and folate levels were low compared with those patients in whom both levels were high (HR = 3.36; 95%CI, 1.77-6.40;
P
< 0.001). This interaction neared statistical significance (
P
= 0.057). No significant association was found between WBC LINE-1 methylation levels and survival.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that both lower plasma levels of LINE-1 methylation and folate are associated with worse survival in HCC patients.
Vitiligo is a common acquired disease of pigment loss. In lesions recalcitrant to non-invasive treatment, transplantation of cultured autologous melanocytes is an emerging choice. Conventionally, the ...recipient site is often prepared by laser-mediated or mechanical dermabrasion. Such preparation procedures have disadvantages including prolonged transplantation duration, long period for reepithelialization and potential scarring. We propose a method of preparing recipient sites by psoralen and controlled ultraviolet A (PUVA)-induced blistering followed by transplanting suspended melanocytes. We introduced this method in 10 patients with segmental vitiligo on their recipient site 3 to 5 days before transplantation and blistering developed in 2 to 3 days afterwards. On the day of transplantation, the blister roof could be peeled off easily without bleeding and the recipient site preparation could be completed in 20 min. The recipient site became reepithelialized within 1 week. Progressive repigmentation was observed for up to 6 months, with an average of 65.06% repigmentation in the recipient site without scarring at the end of follow-up. Hence, preparation of the recipient site by controlled PUVA-induced sunburn-like blistering can potentially facilitate melanocyte transplantation and prevent scarring.
Our retrospective cohort study investigated the effect of tumor site and stage on the associations between the allelic variants of glutathione S-transferase (GST) and DNA-repair genes and overall ...survival (OS) in CRC patients treated with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)-based adjuvant chemotherapy.
We genotyped GSTM1, GSTT1, GSTP1 Ile105Val, XRCC1 Arg399Gln, XRCC3 Thr241Met, and XPD Lys751Gln in 491 CRC patients between 1995 and 2001. A Cox proportional-hazards model was used to calculate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the relationships between the allelic variants and OS. Survival analyses were performed for each allelic variant by using the log-rank test and Kaplan-Meier analysis.
The CRC patients with the XPD Gln allelic variants had poorer survival than patients with the Lys/Lys genotype (HR =1.38, 95% CI =1.02-1.87), and rectal cancer patients had the poorest survival among them (HR =1.87, 95% CI =1.18-2.95). A significantly shorter OS was observed among stage II/III colon cancer patients with the XRCC1 Gln allelic variants (HR =1.69, 95% CI =1.06-2.71), compared to those with XRCC1 Arg/Arg genotype. In the combined analysis of the XRCC1 and XPD genes patients with stage II/III tumors, the poorest OS occurred in colon cancer patients with the XRCC1 Gln and XPD Gln allelic variants (HR =2.60, 95% CI =1.19-5.71) and rectal cancer patients with the XRCC1 Arg/Arg and XPD Gln allelic variants (HR =2.77, 95% CI =1.25-6.17).
The XPD and XRCC1 allelic variants may be prognostic markers for CRC patients receiving 5-FU based chemotherapy. The contributions of the XPD and XRCC1 allelic variants to OS are tumor site- and/or stage-dependent.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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