PurposeThe aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic significance of the systemic inflammatory response index (SIRI) in patients with bladder cancer (BCa) treated with radical cystectomy (RC) and develop a survival predictive model through establishing a nomogram.Materials and MethodsA total of 203 BCa patients who underwent RC were included in this study. The relationship between the SIRI and overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and clinicopathological features were evaluated. Cox regression analysis was performed to investigate the effect of the factors on the OS and DFS. The results were applied in the establishment of a nomogram. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, decision curve analysis (DCA) curves, and calibration curves were performed to assess the predictive performance and accuracy of the nomogram, respectively.ResultsAccording to the classification of the SIRI, 81 patients (39.9%) were assigned to SIRI grade 1, 94 patients (46.3%) to SIRI grade 2, and the remaining 28 patients (13.8%) to SIRI grade 3. Multivariate Cox regression revealed that a higher SIRI grade was significantly associated with a poor prognosis and served as an independent prognostic factor for the OS [Grade 2 vs Grade 1, odds ratio = 2.54, 95% confidence interval (CI),1.39–4.64, P = 0.002; Grade 3 vs Grade 1, odds ratio = 4.79, 95%CI: 2.41–9.50, P < 0.001] and DFS [Grade 2 vs Grade 1, odds ratio = 2.19, 95% CI, 1.12–4.31, P = 0.023; Grade 3 vs Grade 2, odds ratio = 3.36, 95%CI, 1.53–7.35, P = 0.002]. The ROC and DCA analysis indicated that the nomogram based on the SIRI contained a better predictive performance compared with the TNM stage (AUC = 0.750 and 0.791; all P < 0.05). The ROC analysis showed that nomograms can better predict the 3- and 5-year OS and DFS. The calibration curves exhibited a significant agreement between the nomogram and the actual observation.ConclusionSIRI as a novel independent prognostic index and potential prognostic biomarker can effectively improve the traditional clinicopathological analysis and optimize individualized clinical treatments for BCa patients after RC.

BackgroundWe conducted a multi-institutional clinical study to assess the prognostic value of the advanced lung cancer inflammatory index (ALI) and modified ALI (mALI) in patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC).MethodsWe collected 440 patients who underwent laparoscopic nephrectomy at three centers from 2014 to 2019. ALI was defined as body mass index (BMI) × serum albumin (ALB)/neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and mALI as L3 muscle index × ALB/NLR. Kaplan-Meier curves, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and Cox survival analysis were used to assess the effect of ALI and mALI on overall survival (OS). In addition, we performed 1:1 propensity score matching (PSM) for the high mALI and low mALI groups to further explore the impact of mALI on survival in RCC patients.ResultsThe optimal cut-off values for ALI and mALI were 40.6 and 83.0, respectively. Based on the cut-off values, we divided the patients into high ALI and low ALI groups, high mALI and low mALI groups. ALI and mALI were significantly associated with the AJCC stage, Fuhrman grade, T stage, and M stage. Low ALI (p = 0.002) or low mALI (p < 0.001) was associated with poorer prognosis. ROC curves showed that mALI was a better predictor of OS than ALI. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that low mALI (aHR = 2.22; 95% CI 1.19–4.13, p = 0.012) was an independent risk factor for OS in RCC patients who underwent nephrectomy, while ALI (aHR = 1.40; 95% CI 0.73–2.66, p = 0.309) was not significantly associated. Furthermore, after PSM analysis, we found that mALI remained an independent risk factor for OS (aHR = 2.88; 95% CI 1.33–6.26, p = 0.007) in patients with RCC.ConclusionsFor RCC patients undergoing laparoscopic nephrectomy, low ALI and low mALI were associated with poor prognosis, and preoperative mALI can be used as a potential independent prognostic indicator for RCC patients.

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BackgroundInflammation is widely considered an important hallmark of cancer and associated with poor postoperative survival. The objective of this study is to assess the significance of preoperative C-NLR, a new inflammation-based index that includes preoperative C-reactive protein (CRP) and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), on therapeutic outcomes for bladder cancer (BC) patients after radical cystectomy (RC).Materials and MethodsBC patients who underwent RC between 2010 and 2019 were retrospectively analyzed from our medical center. The predictive effect of CRP, NLR, and C-NLR on the survival of BC patients were analyzed by the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The relationship between C-NLR and postoperative survival was investigated by Cox regression. The corresponding nomograms were built based on the Cox regression results of overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS), which were further validated by ROC curves, decision curve analysis (DCA) curves, and calibration curves.ResultsOf the 199 eligible patients, 83 (41.70%) were classified as high C-NLR group and the remaining 116 (58.30%) were classified as low C-NLR group. ROC analysis showed that C-NLR had the largest area under curve (AUC) compared to CRP and NLR. Multivariate analysis revealed that T-stage and C-NLR [high C-NLR vs. low C-NLR, hazard ratio (HR) = 2.478, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.538–3.993, p < 0.001] were independent predictors of OS, whereas T-stage, M-stage, and C-NLR (high C-NLR vs. low C-NLR, HR = 2.817, 95% CI, 1.667–4.762, p < 0.001) were independent predictors of DFS. ROC and DCA analysis demonstrated better accuracy and discrimination of 3- and 5-year OS and DFS with C-NLR-based nomogram compared to TNM stage. The calibration curve reconfirmed the accurate predicting performance of nomograms.ConclusionC-NLR is a reliable predictor of long-term prognosis of BC patients after RC and will contribute to the optimization of individual therapy for BC patients.

BackgroundSarcopenia as the loss of skeletal muscle mass is related with poor postoperative survival. This work purposed to evaluate the prognostic prediction of the total psoas index (TPI), albumin–globulin score (AGS), and the combination of TPI and AGS (CTA) in bladder cancer (BCa) patients after radical cystectomy.MethodsBCa patients that received radical cystectomy between 2012 and 2020 were retrieved from our medical center. The calculation of TPI was based on the plain computed tomography images. The predictive effects of TPI, AGS, and CTA grade on survival of BCa patients were analyzed and compared with the albumin–globulin ratio (AGR) through the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. A nomogram was further established based on the Cox regression results from CTA grade and clinicopathological characteristics, which are verified by the decision curve analysis (DCA).ResultsA total of 112 eligible patients diagnosed as BCa were included in this study for retrospective analysis. The patients with lower TPI or higher AGS grade (1/2) contained poorer overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS). Divided by CTA grade, there were 35 (31.25%) patients in grade 1 associated with the best postoperative prognosis, which was accompanied with increased TPI and decreased AGS. The CTA grade could better predict postoperative outcomes compared with TPI, AGR, and AGS for the highest area under the curve (AUC; 0.674 of OS and 0.681 of DFS). The 3- and 5-year OS and DFS nomograms were conducted based on CTA grade and clinical variables, with a higher predictive performance than the TNM stage.ConclusionThis study revealed that the novel index CTA functioned as an effective prognostic predictor for postoperative OS and DFS of BCa patients after radical cystectomy. Preoperative assessment of CTA would contribute to optimizing clinical therapies.

Background: We aimed to systematically identify novel susceptible factors related to the occurrence and development of chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CP/CPPS)-like symptoms that were not limited to lifestyles or dietary habits in Chinese population.Methods: We recruited participants from three centers (Shanghai [northeast], Hefei[east], and Lanzhou [northwest]) from August 2020 to June 2021. Demographics, lifestyles, dietary habits, past medical history, and national institutes of healthchronic prostatitis symptom index (NIH-CPSI) were collected from the individuals via optimized questionnaires. Logistic regression analysis and multivariate adjustment models were used to calculate the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI) to assess the association between these variables and CP/CPPS-like symptoms.Results: A total of 1851 participants were enrolled in this study (764 cases and 1087 controls). Age distributions differed between groups (median, range: 32, 18-74 vs.

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The combined heat, air and moisture (HAM) transport between building envelopes and indoor air has a significant effect on indoor thermal and humidity conditions, energy performance of buildings, indoor air quality and durability of constructions etc. The paper presents an analytical method to calculate combined hygrothermal transfer in porous building materials under different boundary conditions, which include: convection surface, adiabatic surface, and constant heat and moisture potential surface etc. An improved Luikov's equation was adopted to describe the heat and moisture transfer in porous media. The interactions between heat and moisture transport were modeled by introducing the temperature gradient coefficient.The governing equations were subjected to the Laplace transformation first, and then solved by Downloaded by [University of Sussex Library] at 07:08 15 August 2015 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 2 the Transfer Function Method in Laplace domain. The inversion theorems for the Laplace transformation were applied to all boundary conditions to get the final results in time domain.The results were compared with the measured values and numerical solutions obtained from previous studies of the authors; a good agreement was obtained. The analytical solutions can be used to develop a simpler algorithm for the quick evaluation of HAM transfer in building applications when the diurnal temperature variation is less than 10°C, and the relative humidity variation is between 10% and 90%