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Background: Understanding the heterogeneity of a population at risk is an important step in the early detection of gastric cancer. We aimed to cluster demographic, hematological, and biochemical markers of gastric cancer in a heterogeneous sample of patients., Methods: Data of 695 adult patients (50.0% women) who were diagnosed with histologically confirmed gastric cancer, benign gastric disease, or identified as healthy individuals (December 2018 to August 2019, Hangzhou, China) were analyzed. We conducted hierarchical clustering using a factorial analysis of mixed data. To assess the clustering scheme, we also developed a machine-learning classification model using the Extreme Gradient Boosting algorithm and subsequently ranked the variables for differentiating patient phenotypes., Results: Three clusters were identified using patient characteristics. The classification model showed high performance (multi-class AUC = 0.921) for recognizing the clusters. The top five important variables in differentiating the clusters were sex, hemoglobin, albumin, creatinine, and high-density lipoprotein (all ANOVA P <0.001) in decreasing order of importance. The prevalence of gastric cancer in clusters I, II, and III was 95.8%, 53.8%, and 34%, respectively [χ 2 (2) = 164.050, P <0.001]. Cluster I (N = 167) predominantly had an inflammatory profile, Cluster II (N = 240) showed metabolic disturbances, and Cluster III (N = 288) presented a relatively favorable metabolic and inflammatory profile., Conclusion: There were distinct clinical phenotypes in the population, each with varying prevalence of gastric cancer. A combination of routine clinical data outperformed carbohydrate or carcinoembryonic antigens in capturing the heterogeneity of the population regarding gastric pathologies., (Copyright © 2025 Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Lynch syndrome (LS) is one of the commonest genetic cancer syndromes, with an incidence rate of 1 per 250-1000 population. The aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency and characteristics of MMR deficiency in endometrial cancer in Iranian women., Methods: One hundred endometrial carcinoma cases who referred to the gynecological oncology clinic of Imam Hossein Medical Center located in Tehran, Iran, from 2018 to 2020 were included in the study. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) evaluation was performed mainly on the hysterectomy specimens of all endometrial cancer (EC) patients to assess MMR proteins (MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, and PMS2) expression., Results: A total of 23 out of 100 (23%) cases were identified through IHC screening to be MMR-deficient. The most common types were loss of MLH1/PMS2 (17.4%) and solitary MSH2 (17.4%) expressions followed by PMS2/MSH2 loss (13%). MMR deficiency (dMMR) histopathology was significantly overrepresented in patients with family history of cancer or Lynch syndrome (LS) associated cancers (p-values of 0.016 and 0.005, respectively). The rate of myometrial invasion and lower uterine segment involvement were also significantly higher in dMMR EC patients compared to MMR-intact EC (p-value of 0.021 and 0.018, respectively)., Conclusion: MMR deficiency, observed in 23% of endometrial cancer cases, was associated with higher rates of poor prognostic factors including myometrial invasion and lower uterine segment involvement. The presence of positive family history of cancer and family history of LS-associated cancer increased the probability of MMR-deficiency in endometrioid endometrial cancer to 47% and 70%, respectively., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

On March 11th 2020, the coronavirus outbreak was declared a pandemic by the WHO. One of the groups that is considered high risk in this pandemic are cancer patients as they are treated with a variety of immune system suppressor treatment modalities and this puts them in a great risk for infectious disease (including COVID-19). Therefore, cancer patients require higher level measures for preventing and treating infectious diseases. furthermore, cancer patients may bear additional risk due to the restriction of access to the routine diagnostic and therapeutic services during such epidemic. Since most of the attention of health systems is towards patients affected with COVID-19, the need for structured and unified approaches to COVID-19 prevention and care specific to cancer patients and cancer centers is felt more than ever. This article provides the recommendations and possible actions that should be considered by patients, their caregivers and families, physician, nurses, managers and staff of medical centers involved in cancer diagnosis and treatment. We pursued two major goals in our recommendations: first, limiting the exposure of cancer patients to medical environments and second, modifying the treatment modalities in a manner that reduces the probability of myelosuppression such as delaying elective diagnostic and therapeutic services, shortening the treatment course, or prolonging the interval between treatment courses., (© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.)

Background/aims: Matrix Metalloproteinases 2 is a key molecule in cellular invasion and metastasis. Mitochondrial ROS has been established as a mediator of MMP activity. Coenzyme Q(10) contributes to intracellular ROS regulation. Coenzyme Q(10) beneficial effects on cancer are still in controversy but there are indications of Coenzyme Q(10) complementing effect on tamoxifen receiving breast cancer patients., Methods: In this study we aimed to investigate the correlation of the effects of co-incubation of coenzyme Q10 and N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) on intracellular H2O2 content and Matrix Metalloproteinase 2 (MMP-2) activity in MCF-7 cell line., Results and Discussion: Our experiment was designed to assess the effect in a time and dose related manner. Gelatin zymography and Flowcytometric measurement of H2O2 by 2'7',-dichlorofluorescin-diacetate probe were employed. The results showed that both coenzyme Q10 and N-acetyl-L-cysteine reduce MMP-2 activity along with the pro-oxidant capacity of the MCF-7 cell in a dose proportionate manner., Conclusions: Collectively, the present study highlights the significance of Coenzyme Q(10) effect on the cell invasion/metastasis effecter molecules.

Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) is grown as a spice crop all over the world. The seeds have been used to treat indigestion, diabetes, rheumatism and pain in the joints. In the present study, an ethanol extract of the seeds was investigated for effects on insulin release from the pancreatic beta cells in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. Blood samples were drawn from the retro-orbital sinus before and 1.5, 3 and 5 h after administration of the seed extract. Serum glucose levels were determined by the glucose oxidase method. To determine the insulin releasing activity, after extract treatment the animals were anaesthetized by diethyl ether, the pancreas was excised, fixed in 10% formaldehyde and embedded in paraffin for sectioning. Pancreatic sections of 5 microm were processed for examination of insulin-releasing activity using an immunocytochemistry kit. The results showed that administration of the ethanol extract (200 and 250 mg/kg, i.p.) exhibited a significant reduction in serum glucose. Administration of streptozotocin decreased the number of beta cells with insulin secretory activity in comparison with intact rats, but treatment with the coriander seed extract (200 mg/kg) increased significantly the activity of the beta cells in comparison with the diabetic control rats. The extract decreased serum glucose in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats and increased insulin release from the beta cells of the pancreas., ((c) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

Objective: The leaves of sage (Salvia officinalis L., Lamiaceae) are reported to have a wide range of biological activities, such as anti-bacterial, fungistatic, virustatic, astringent, eupeptic and anti-hydrotic effects. To determine the mnemogenic effect of sage leaves, we investigated the effects of ethanolic extract of sage leaves and its interaction with cholinergic system on memory retention of passive avoidance learning in rats., Methods: Post-training intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.) injections were carried out in all the experiments except ethanolic extract (i.p. intraperitoneally)., Results: Administration of ethanolic extract (50 mg/kg), pilocarpine (0.5 and 1 mg/rat), the muscarinic cholinoceptor agonist, and nicotine (0.1 and 1 microg/rat) increased, while mecamylamine (1, 5 microg/rat), the muscarinic cholinoceptor antagonist, and mecamylamine (0.01 and 0.1 microg/rat), the nicotine cholinoceptor antagonist decreased memory retention in rats. Activation of muscarinic cholinoceptors by pilocarpine potentiated the response of ethanolic extract. Also, pharmacological blockade of scopolamine attenuated potentiating effect of ethanolic extract. Activation of nicotinic cholinoceptor by nicotine potentiated the response of ethanolic extract. Blockade of nicotinic cholinoceptor by mecamylamine attenuated the response of ethanolic extract., Conclusion: It is concluded that the ethanolic extract of salvia officinalis potentiated memory retention and also it has an interaction with muscarinic and nicotinic cholinergic systems that is involved in the memory retention process.