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Background: The benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) in pathological T2N0M0 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients is not clear., Methods: One thousand and fifty pathological T2N0M0 NSCLC patients were included and divided into two groups: with and without ACT. A propensity score matching analysis was carried out to minimize selection bias. The significance of ACT in high-risk patients was further analyzed. The Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards model were used to assess the impact of ACT on the overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and cancer-specific survival., Results: For the entire cohort, 31.9% (335/1050) of patients received ACT. After propensity score matching, 325 pairs of patients were matched. OS and DFS were comparable between groups in the original or matched cohort, which was confirmed by the multivariate analysis (all P > 0.05). In high-risk patients, the data suggest that ACT could improve OS and DFS only in patients with tumours >4 cm (OS: P = 0.003; DFS: P = 0.013). ACT could significantly improve the 5-year OS in patients with wild-type epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) (P = 0.022). ACT, however, could not improve cancer-specific survival in any subgroup, including patients with tumours >4 cm or wild-type EGFR (all P > 0.05). For patients with other high-risk factors, ACT failed to benefit patients in long-term outcomes., Conclusions: In resected pT2N0M0 NSCLC patients, those with tumours >4 cm and wild-type EGFR are real high-risk patients and could gain survival benefit from ACT. Further prospective study is needed to confirm the definition., Competing Interests: Disclosure None declared., (Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)

Background: Microembolic signals (MESs) are direct markers of unstable large artery atherosclerotic plaques. In a previous study, we found that the number of MESs is associated with stroke recurrence and that clopidogrel plus aspirin more effectively reduce the number of MESs than does aspirin alone. Stroke recurrence is associated with not only the number of MESs but also the size of the MES, which can theoretically be estimated by monitoring the MES intensity via transcranial doppler (TCD). Thus, we compared the effects of clopidogrel and aspirin with aspirin alone on MES intensity using TCD., Methods: We recruited 100 patients who experienced acute ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) within 7days of symptom onset. All patients also had large artery stenosis in the cerebral or carotid arteries and the presence of MES as revealed by TCD. The patients were randomized to receive either aspirin or clopidogrel and aspirin for 7days. MES monitoring was performed on days 2 and 7., Results: Intent-to-treat (ITT) analysis (46 patients in the dual therapy group, 52 patients in the monotherapy group) and per-protocol (PP) analysis (25 patients in the dual therapy group, 31 patients in the monotherapy group) were performed on 98 patients. The primary finding was that the MES intensity was dramatically reduced in the dual therapy group. ITT analysis of the dual therapy group revealed that the MES intensity was 8.04 (0-16) dB before treatment, 0.00 (0-17) dB on day 2, and 0.00 (0-12) dB on day 7 (P=0.000). In the monotherapy group, the MES intensity was 9.00 (0-20) dB before treatment, 8.25 (0-17) dB on day 2, and 7.0 (0-18) dB on day 7 (P=0.577). PP analysis revealed similar results. No severe hemorrhagic complications were detected. The two patients in this study who experienced stroke recurrence were in the monotherapy group., Conclusions: Clopidogrel and aspirin more effectively decrease the MES intensity than aspirin alone in patients with large artery stenotic minor stroke or TIA., (Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.)

Purpose: This study aimed to determine the impact of prophylactic thoracic duct ligation on overall survival in resectable oesophageal cancer patients., Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of 1804 patients with oesophageal cancers who underwent complete resection between December 1996 and December 2008. Based on the management of the thoracic duct during surgery, patients were classified into the following two groups: no prophylactic thoracic duct ligation group (NPLG, n = 815) and prophylactic thoracic duct ligation group (PLG, n = 989). Log-rank test was used to assess the survival differences between groups. Subgroup analysis and the Cox proportional hazards model were used to further determine the impact of thoracic duct ligation on overall survival., Results: The occurrence rate of postoperative chylothorax was comparable between NPLG and PLG (0.9% vs. 1.0%, p = 0.739). The median survival times for patients in the NPLG and PLG were 54.4 months (95% interval confidence, CI: 46.9-61.9) and 42.9 months (95% CI: 36.1-49.7), respectively (p = 0.002). The 2-year, 3-year, 5-year, and 10-year survival rates were 75.1%, 64.1%, 46.1%, and 35.1%, respectively, in the NPLG and 65.3%, 54.7%, 43.3%, and 30.9%, respectively, in the PLG, with a statistically significant difference between the groups (p = 0.002). Multivariate Cox regression analysis and subgroup analyses also demonstrated that thoracic duct ligation during oesophagectomy unfavorably impacted the overall survival of oesophageal cancer patients., Conclusions: Prophylactic thoracic ligation reduces the overall survival, but doesn't reduce the occurrence of chylothorax of resectable oesophageal cancer patients. We suggest more data from other institutions to validate our results., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Background: Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (neo-CRT) followed by surgery has been shown to improve esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients' survival compared with surgery alone. However, the outcomes of CRT are heterogeneous, and no clinical or pathological method can currently predict CRT response. In this study, we aim to identify mRNA markers useful for ESCC CRT-response prediction., Patients and Methods: Gene expression analyses were carried out on pretreated cancer biopsies from 28 ESCCs who received neo-CRT and surgery. Surgical specimens were assessed for pathological response to CRT. The differentially expressed genes identified by expression profiling were validated by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), and a classifying model was built from qPCR data using Fisher's linear discriminant analysis. The predictive power of this model was further assessed in a second set of 32 ESCCs., Results: The profiling of the 28 ESCCs identified 10 differentially expressed genes with more than a twofold change between patients with pathological complete response (pCR) and less than pCR (

Purpose: To investigate the correlation between p300 (a transcriptional co-activator) expression and clinical/prognostic characteristics in surgically resected NSCLC patients for the purpose of identifying patients with increased risk of cancer recurrence and providing them with tailored therapy., Methods: One hundred and sixty-nine completely resected NSCLC patients were included in this study. Paraffin-embedded primary tumour tissues of patients were supplied to produce a tissue microarray, and immunohistochemistry was used for the evaluation of p300 expression. The clinical/prognostic significance of p300 expression was analysed for statistical significance. Survival was calculated by the Kaplan-Meier method, and the log-rank test was used to assess differences in survival between the groups. The prognostic impact of clinicopathologic variables and p300 expression was evaluated using a Cox proportional hazards model., Results: High expression of p300 was associated with poor disease-free survival (p = 0.027) and overall survival (p = 0.006) in NSCLC patients. Further analysis suggested that this difference in overall survival also existed in patients with T2 (p = 0.040), positive lymph nodes (p = 0.023), stage IIIA (p = 0.003), adenocarcinoma (p = 0.021), and a well-differentiated histological grade score (p = 0.011). The multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that low p300 expression is an independent marker of better disease-free survival (relative risk = 0.628, p = 0.047) and overall survival (relative risk = 0.545, p = 0.024) in operable NSCLC patients., Conclusions: Low p300 expression is an independent prognostic marker of better survival in operable NSCLC patients. The combination of clinicopathological TNM staging classification with p300 expression may be useful in identifying patients with increased risk of cancer recurrence to provide them with tailored therapy., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

In female rats, total estrone-3-sulfatase activity per liver in the nuclear fraction is comparable to the total activity per liver in the microsomal fraction. The combined estrone-3-sulfatase activity in the other fractions (lysosomal, mitochondrial, and cytosolic fractions) is negligible and only accounts for < 5% of the total nuclear or microsomal sulfatase activity. Nuclear and microsomal estrone-3-sulfatases have different pH optima (pH 8.0 and 7.2, respectively). The apparent Km values for the nuclear and microsomal estrone-3-sulfatases are 2.5 and 10.1 microM, respectively, suggesting that the nuclear sulfatase has a considerably higher affinity for estrone-3-sulfate than the microsomal sulfatase. Moreover, the nuclear estrone-3-sulfatase is more sensitive to inhibition by several steroids than the microsomal sulfatase. The results suggest that estrone-3-sulfatase in the nuclear fraction is a different isozyme than that in the microsomal fraction.