Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of clinicopathological factors and treatments on the overall survival (OS) and esophageal cancer-specific survival (ECSS) of stages I-III esophageal cancer (EC) patients and to establish a prognostic visual nomogram. Methods: We collected clinical data of patients diagnosed with stages I-III EC without receiving chemotherapy from 2004 to 2014 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Prognoses were analyzed using the R language software, and nomograms were obtained according to the visual processing logistic regression model, which was verified using the Harrell C-index, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, and calibration curve. Results: A total of 4,305 patients were selected, mostly white males. Most patients were over 60 years old and old age predicted poor prognosis. EC, primarily adenocarcinoma, occurred mostly in the lower third of the esophagus. About half of the patients had T1 (58.00%) and grade II (50.41%) cancer. Of all the patients, 2,448 was treated with surgery and the majority (n = 1,476; 64.85%) of these patients had stage I EC. Stages I-III patients underwent surgery had significantly better OS and ECSS, and endoscopic therapy was associated with the best outcome amongst all the surgical methods. 3.67% of the patients received radiotherapy, predominantly postoperative radiotherapy (2.69%). Older age, squamous cell carcinoma, overlapping lesion of the esophagus, and grades II and III were high-risk factors for poor OS and ECSS for stage I patients, whereas endoscopic therapy, esophagectomy, and esophagectomy with gastrectomy were low-risk factors. Stage II patients with older age, male sex, T3, N1, and grades II and III had shorter OS and ECSS, but patients with any surgical treatment had significantly longer OS and ECSS. T4, N1, and grade III correlated negatively with OS and ECSS in stage III patients, and any surgical treatment correlated positively with longer OS and ECSS. The OS and ECSS rates of stages I-III EC patients with a total score of more than 150 points in the nomogram were both only 40% after 3 years and 30% after 5 years. The C-index, ROC curve, and calibration curve indicated that the nomograms established in this study were suitable to assess patient prognosis. Conclusion: The nomogram established in this study is an effective clinical tool to predict the prognosis of stages I-III EC patients without chemotherapy.

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Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies in the world, and is well-known for its bad prognosis. Potassium calcium-activated channel subfamily N member 4 (KCNN4) is a type of intermediate conductance calcium-activated potassium channel, and increasing evidence suggests that KCNN4 contributes to the regulation of invasion and metastasis in a number of cancers. However, its clinical significance and biological function remain unclear in the HCC disease process. In this study, the expression levels of KCNN4 in 86 HCC samples were compared with corresponding paracancerous tissues. sh-RNA was used to reduce the expression of KCNN4 in Hep3B HCC cells in vitro; this was confirmed by Real time-PCR and western blotting. Wound healing, transwell assays and high content analysis were performed to investigate the tumor-promoting characteristics of KCNN4 in Hep3B HCC cells. As results, KCNN4 expression was significantly associated with preoperative serum alpha-fetoprotein level (p=0.038) and TNM stage (p=0.039). Additionally, patients with high KCNN4 amplification in HCC tissue exhibited shorter disease-free survival, whereas there was no statistical significance between KCNN4 amplification and overall survival. Wound healing and transwell assays showed that knockdown of KCNN4 expression could reduce migration and invasion abilities of HCC cells. High content analysis result showed that down-regulated KCNN4 could inhibit the ability of HCC cell proliferation. The mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway is active in cell proliferation, differentiation, migration, senescence, and apoptosis. Matrix metallopeptidase 9 and extracellular signal regulated kinase 1/2 (ERK1/2) were important biomarkers of MAPK/ERK pathway, knockdown of KCNN4 reduced the expression of MMP9 and ERK1/2. These findings showed that KCNN4 promotes HCC invasion and metastasis through the MAPK/ERK pathway.

Objective: Cancer is expected to be the leading cause of death worldwide within the 21st century and is the single most important obstacle to extending life expectancy. Unfortunately, the most effective approach to combating cancers remains a complex and unsolved problem. Siglec-15 is a member of the Siglec family and plays a conserved regulatory role in the immune system of vertebrates. Previous studies on Siglec-15 have focused on its function in osteoclast regulation. The purpose of this study was to explore the significance of Siglec-15 mRNA in human cancer mainly based on information obtained from online databases. Method: Data were collected from several online databases. Serial analysis of gene expression (SAGE) and Virtual Northern, UALCAN Database Analysis, Catalog of Somatic Mutations in Cancer (COSMIC) analysis, the cBio cancer genomics portal, Cancer Regulome tools and data, Kaplan-Meier Plotter Analysis and the UCSC Xena website were used to analyze the data. Results: Compared with normal tissues, Siglec-15 up-regulation was widely observed in tuomrs. Differences in Siglec-15 expression were associated with different prognoses. Siglec-15 mutations are widely observed in tumors and interact with different genes in different cancer types. Conclusion: Siglec-15 is a potential target for the expansion of cancer immunotherapy.

The combination of chemodynamic and photothermal materials can not only improve the therapeutic effect of chemodynamic therapy (CDT) by thermal stimulation, but also play a synergistic therapeutic role. Benefitting from...

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Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) of the gastrointestinal tract often spread to the liver, while primary hepatic NETs (PHNETs), first described by Edmondson in 1958, are very rare. The majority of existing reports regarding PHNETs have small sample sizes, and the clinicopathological characteristics and prognostic factors are still unclear. The aim of the present study was to analyze the clinicopathological features and explore the prognostic factors of PHNETs. From March 2012 to March 2017, 28 cases of PHNETs were retrospectively evaluated to analyze the clinicopathological features and explore the prognostic factors of PHNETs. The 28 PHNETs patients were males (n=15) and females (n=13) aged between 32 and 76 years (mean=53 years). Among them, 16 patients had clinical symptoms. The remaining 12 patients had no obvious clinical symptoms, only hepatoncus was observed during physical examination. Single-factor analysis showed that carbohydrate antigen 125 (CA125), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), hemoglobin (HB), Ki-67 positive index (PI), surgical treatment and pathological grading were correlated to PHNET prognosis (P<0.05); multifactor analysis revealed that Ki-67 PI was associated with the prognosis (P<0.05). Thus, the prognosis of PHNETs may be effectively predicted using the indexes of CA125, ALT, AST, HB, Ki-67 PI, pathological grading and surgical treatment. Pathological classification of grade 3, high expression of Ki-67 PI, abnormal elevation of CA125, abnormalities of ALT and AST, anemia and lack of radical operation indicated a poor prognosis. High expression of Ki-67 PI was an independent prognostic factor for PHNETs.