Search

A new study investigates the effect on field-emission behavior of iron thin films deposited on textured silicon substrates.

Aim: Patient body composition is an important indicator of metabolic status and is associated with cancer progression. Because body composition varies between men and women, we aimed to examine the difference in clinical impact of preoperative body composition according to sex. Method: We used an integrated dataset of 559 colorectal cancer (CRC) patients. The association between preoperative body composition indices [body mass index (BMI), visceral to subcutaneous fat area ratio (VSR) and skeletal muscle index (SMI)] and patient outcome, clinicopathological factors and preoperative inflammation and nutritional status was analysed, comparing men and women. Results: Preoperative low BMI and low SMI in men was significantly associated with unfavourable overall survival (OS) [BMI: hazard ratio (HR) 2.22, 95% CI 1.28–4.14, P = 0.004; SMI: HR 2.54, 95% CI 1.61–4.07, P < 0.001] and high VSR in women was significantly associated with unfavourable OS (HR 1.79, 95% CI 1.03–3.02, P = 0.040). Additionally, low SMI in men was significantly associated with deeper tumour invasion and greater distant metastasis and high VSR in women was significantly associated with advanced age, right‐sided tumour, lower total lymphocyte count and lower albumin levels. Interestingly, low BMI in men was significantly associated with deeper tumour invasion, but also with favourable inflammation and nutritional status (lower C‐reactive protein and higher albumin). Conclusion: The clinical impact of preoperative body composition differed between men and women: SMI in men and VSR in women were good prognosticators. Our findings may provide a novel insight for CRC treatment strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: Preoperative anaemia is associated with adverse outcomes in colorectal cancer (CRC). To clarify the reason for this we aimed to comprehensively assess the association of preoperative anaemia with tumour characteristics, host systemic inflammation and nutrition status, and perioperative blood transfusion. Method: We used an integrated database of 592 CRC patients. The association of preoperative anaemic subtype, calculated from haemoglobin and erythrocyte mean corpuscular volume levels, with patient outcome, preoperative serum data relating to systemic inflammation and nutrition and perioperative blood transfusion was analysed. Results: Preoperative anaemia was significantly associated with poorer overall survival and relapse‐free survival (RFS); in particular microcytic anaemia had a trend to poorer RFS than other forms of anaemia (P = 0.0648). In addition, preoperative anaemia was significantly correlated with right‐sided tumours, greater depth of tumour invasion, use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, poorer prognostic nutritional index and higher modified Glasgow Prognostic Score (mGPS). Microcytic anaemia in particular had a strong association with a greater depth of tumour invasion (P = 0.0072) and higher mGPS (P = 0.0058) than other causes of anaemia. Perioperative blood transfusion for CRC patients with anaemia was associated with adverse outcomes. Conclusions: Preoperative anaemia, especially microcytic anaemia, was associated with poor patient outcomes, possibly due to poor systemic inflammatory and nutritional status, and it was not improved by perioperative blood transfusion. Our data suggest that preoperative anaemia and the anaemic subtype may serve as an easily available predictor of outcome in CRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, depletion of skeletal muscle mass (sarcopenia) has been linked to poor prognosis in several types of cancers, but has not been investigated in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma ( ESCC). This retrospective study investigates the relationship between sarcopenia and clinical outcome in ESCC patients treated by surgical resection or definitive chemoradiation therapy (d CRT). The study was retrospectively conducted in a single academic hospital in Kumamoto, Japan, and involved 325 ESCC patients (256 surgical cases and 69 d CRT cases) treated between April 2005 and April 2011. Skeletal muscle mass was quantified by radiologic measures using standard computed tomography scans. The skeletal muscle tissue in the 325 ESCC patients was distributed as follows: mean: 47.10; median: 46.88; standard deviation ( SD): 7.39; range: 31.48-71.11; interquartile range, 46.29-47.90. Skeletal muscle tissue was greater in male patients than in female patients ( P < 0.0001), but was independent of other clinical and tumor features. Sarcopenia was not significantly associated with overall survival (log rank P = 0.54). Lymph node involvement significantly altered the relationship between sarcopenia and survival rate ( P for interaction = 0.026). Sarcopenia significantly reduced the overall survival of patients without lymph node involvement (log rank P = 0.035), but was uncorrelated with overall survival in patients with lymph involvement (log rank, P = 0.31). The anastomosis leakage rate was significantly higher in the sarcopenia group than in the non-sarcopenia group ( P = 0.032), but other surgical complications did not significantly differ between the two groups. Sarcopenia in ESCC patients without lymph node involvement is associated with poor prognosis, indicating sarcopenia as a potential biomarker for identifying patients likely to experience an inferior outcome. Moreover, sarcopenia was associated with anastomosis leakage but no other short-term surgical outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]