Search

Aim The prognostic value of the newly raised objective liver function assessment tool, the albumin-bilirubin (ALBI) grade, in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma has not been fully validated. We aimed to compare the performance of ALBI grade with the specific Child-Pugh (C-P) score in predicting prognosis in this study. Methods The clinical data of 491 C-P class A patients who underwent liver resection as initial therapy from January 2000 to December 2007 in Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (Beijing, China) were retrospectively analyzed. The prognostic performances of ALBI and C-P score in predicting the short- and long-term clinical outcomes were compared. Results The ALBI score gained a significantly larger area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for predicting the occurrence of severe postoperative complications than that of C-P score. With a median follow-up of 57 months, the 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year overall survival rates of the patients were 92.1%, 65.8%, and 45.2%, respectively. Tumor number, tumor size, and ALBI grade were proved to be the independent prognostic factors for overall survival in the multivariate analysis. Prognostic performance was shown to be better for ALBI grade when it was compared to C-P score in terms of both the Akaike information criterion value and χ2 value of likelihood ratio test. Conclusions The ALBI grade, which was featured by simplicity and objectivity, gained a superior prognostic value than that of C-P grade in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma who underwent liver resection. Future well-designed studies with larger sample sizes are warranted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To investigate the expression characteristics of peroxiredoxin 1 (PRDX1) mRNA and protein in liver cancer cell lines and tissues., Methods: The RNA sequencing data from 374 patients with liver cancer were obtained from The Cancer Genome Atlas. The expression and clinical characteristics of PRDX1 mRNA were analyzed in this dataset. The Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression survival analysis was performed to determine the relationship between PRDX1 levels and patient survival. Subcellular fractionation and Western blotting were used to demonstrate the expression of PRDX1 protein in six liver cancer cell lines and 29 paired fresh tissue specimens. After bioinformatics prediction, a putative post-translational modification form of PRDX1 was observed using immunofluorescence under confocal microscopy and immunoprecipitation analysis in liver cancer cells., Results: The mRNA of PRDX1 gene was upregulated about 1.3-fold in tumor tissue compared with the adjacent non-tumor control (P = 0.005). Its abundance was significantly higher in men than women (P < 0.001). High levels of PRDX1 mRNA were associated with a shorter overall survival time (P = 0.04) but not with recurrence-free survival. The Cox regression analysis demonstrated that patients with high PRDX1 mRNA showed about 1.9-fold increase of risk for death (P = 0.03). In liver cancer cells, PRDX1 protein was strongly expressed with multiple different bands. PRDX1 in the cytosol fraction existed near the theoretical molecular weight, whereas two higher molecular weight bands were present in the membrane/organelle and nuclear fractions. Importantly, the theoretical PRDX1 band was increased, whereas the high molecular weight form was decreased in tumor tissues. Subsequent experiments revealed that the high molecular weight bands of PRDX1 might result from the post-translational modification by small ubiquitin-like modifier-1 (SUMO1)., Conclusion: PRDX1 was overexpressed in the tumor tissues of liver cancer and served as an independent poor prognostic factor for overall survival. PRDX1 can be modified by SUMO to play specific roles in hepatocarcinogenesis.

Aim: To investigate the expression of key biomarkers in hepatoma cell lines, tumor cells from patients' blood samples, and tumor tissues., Methods: We performed the biomarker tests in two steps. First, cells plated on coverslips were used to assess biomarkers, and fluorescence intensities were calculated using the NIH Image J software. The measured values were analyzed using the SPSS 19.0 software to make comparisons among eight cell lines. Second, eighty-four individual samples were used to assess the biomarkers' expression. Negative enrichment of the blood samples was performed, and karyocytes were isolated and dropped onto pre-treated glass slides for further analysis by immunofluorescence staining. Fluorescence intensities were compared among hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients, chronic HBV-infected patients, and healthy controls following methods similar to those used for cell lines. The relationships between the expression of biomarkers and clinical pathological parameters were analyzed by Spearman rank correlation tests. In addition, we studied the distinct biomarkers' expression with three-dimensional laser confocal microscopy reconstructions, and Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed to understand the clinical significance of these biomarkers., Results: Microscopic examination and fluorescence intensity calculations indicated that cytokeratin 8/18/19 (CK) expression was significantly higher in six of the seven HCC cell lines examined than in the control cells, and the expression levels of asialoglycoprotein receptor (ASGPR) and glypican-3 (GPC3) were higher in all seven HCC cell lines than in the control. Cells obtained from HCC patients' blood samples also displayed significantly higher expression levels of ASGPR, GPC3, and CK than cells from chronic HBV-infected patients or healthy controls; these proteins may be valuable surface biomarkers for identifying HCC circulating tumor cells isolated and enriched from the blood samples. The stem cell-like and epithelial-mesenchymal transition-related biomarkers could be detected on the karyocyte slides. ASGPR and GPC3 were expressed at high levels, and thus three-dimensional reconstructions were used to observe their expression in detail. This analysis indicated that GPC3 was localized in the cytoplasm and membrane, but that ASGPR had a polar localization. Survival analyses showed that expression of GPC3 and ASGPR is associated with a patient's overall survival (OS)., Conclusion: ASGPR, GPC3, and CK may be valuable HCC biomarkers for CTC detection; the expression of ASGPR and GPC3 might be helpful for understanding patients' OS.

Objective: To analyze the clinicopathologic characteristics and prognostic factors of small gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) of the stomach., Methods: A total of 31 small gastric GIST patients, including 10 males and 21 females, with a median age of 58 years (37-81 years), who underwent surgery at any time from 1999 to 2012 were included in this study. The clinical records of the patients were analyzed retrospectively., Results: Abdominal discomfort and pain (10 cases, 32.3%, respectively) were the two most common complaints among the patients. All patients received surgery, 11 received gastric wedge resection, 11 received subtotal gastrectomy, 5 received laparoscopic gastric wedge resection, and 4 received endoscopic submucosal dissection. No severe adverse complication was observed. A total of 29 patients (93.5%) were followed up. During the follow-up, 2 patients were found to exhibit tumor recurrence, and 1 patient had liver metastases. One patient died of tumor progression, while another died of another malignant tumor. Median progression free survival (PFS) time was 120.3 months, and median overall survival (OS) time was 130.4 months., Conclusion: Small gastric GIST has better prognosis. Surgery is the best choice for therapy. Micro-invasive procedures are safe and effective for elective patients. Tumor necrosis, tumor bleeding, and muscle invasion are potential prognostic factors of small gastric GIST.

Objective: To explore the clinicopathological characteristics of rectal gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) and elucidate their associated prognostic factors., Methods: The clinicopathological data were collected for 27 patients with rectal gastrointestinal stromal tumors at our hospital from January 2000 to December 2011. Univariate analyses were performed to evaluate the prognostic factors., Results: Changed habit of discharge and hematochezia were the most common symptoms. Most GISTs were localized in lower rectum. The 1, 3 and 5-year progression-free survival (PFS) rates were 85.19%, 65.04% and 52.04% respectively. Overall survival (OS) and PFS rates were significantly correlated with incisional margin and invasion of surrounding organs. There was no significant difference in PFS and OS between different resection procedures.Due to the limitation of cases multivariate survival analysis can not be performed., Conclusion: Incisional margin and invasion of surrounding organs are two important prognostic factors. And transanal excision is both safe and effective for those properly indicated patients.

Objective: To investigate the clinicopathological features and prognostic factors of primary clear cell carcinoma of the liver (PCCCL)., Methods: The clinical data of 41 PCCCL patients who underwent hepatic resection for PCCCL from October 1998 to June 2012 in our department were retrospectively analyzed. There were 31 male and 10 female patients. The median age was 56 years (range, 25 to 80 years), and the diagnosis was confirmed by postoperative pathological examination. The data of 106 well or moderately differentiated non-clear cell hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients and 86 poorly differentiated non-clear cell HCC patients who underwent hepatic resection in the same period in our hospital in the same period were compared. The χ(2) test or Fischer's exact test, as appropriate, was used to compare group frequencies. Survival analysis was estimated by Kaplan-Meier method. Cox proportional hazards model was used in multivariate analysis., Results: The proportion of fibrous capsule formation in the PCCCL tumors (46%, 19/41) was significantly higher than that of the other two groups (P < 0.05), whereas the PCCCL group had a lower rate of intravascular tumor embolus (2/41) and vascular invasion (1/41) (P < 0.05). The median survival time of PCCCL group was 65 months, the 1-, 3-, 5-year survival rates for PCCCL patients were 90.2%, 67.4% and 42.0%, significantly better than that of poor differentiated NCCHCC group's (82.9%, 33.3%, 7.2%, P < 0.01). However, there were no statistic significant differences between PCCCL group and well or moderately differentiated NCCHCC group (84.7%, 55.7%, 34.4%, P > 0.05). Tumor capsule formation was an independent favorable prognostic factor. In contrast, preoperative serum α-fetoprotein (AFP) level and hepatitis B virus infection were independent unfavorable prognostic factors for PCCCL., Conclusions: PCCCL is a rare, low degree malignant pathological subtype of HCC. Surgical resection may achieve favorable prognosis and even long-term survival.

Objective: To investigate the prognostic factors of hepatocellular carcinoma., Methods: The purpose of this study was to retrospectively analyze the surgical outcomes of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in 832 patients who underwent hepatic resection between February 2002 and June 2010 in the Cancer Hospital of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Post-resection prognostic factors were assessed using a univariate Kaplan-Meier analysis and a multivariate Cox proportional hazards model., Results: The overall 1-, 3- and 5-year survival rates were 92.0%, 70.2% and 53.6%, respectively. The disease free survival rates (DFS) were 90.2%, 61.5% and 40.5%, respectively. The univariate analysis showed that a better prognosis for overall survival (OS) was associated with asymptomatic presentation, small tumor, single lesion, high-grade histological differentiation, no vascular tumor embolus, negative serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), negative serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP), Child-Pugh class A, no ascites, no/mild cirrhosis, new surgical techniques, no blood transfusion, no regional lymph node metastasis, no major vascular invasion, and no extra-hepatic invasion. The multivariate analysis showed that asymptomatic presentation, small tumor, single lesion, no tumor embolus, negative serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), no regional lymph node metastasis, no major vascular invasion, no extra-hepatic invasion, no/mild cirrhosis, and surgical techniques are independent factors for a longer overall survival., Conclusions: The prognosis of HCC after resection is influenced by a number of factors. Therefore, regularly screening and early diagnosis, applying surgical techniques to minimize the liver injury, and preventing the aggravation of cirrhosis are important measures to improve the overall survival of HCC patients. For those patients with high risk factors of recurrence, routine follow-up is one of the best methods to be recommended.