Aims/hypothesis The results from prospective cohort studies of prediabetes (impaired fasting glucose and/or impaired glucose tolerance) and risk of cancer are controversial. We conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the risk of cancer in association with impaired fasting glucose and impaired glucose tolerance. Methods The PubMed, EMBASE and Cochrane Library databases were searched for prospective cohort studies with data on prediabetes and cancer. Two independent reviewers assessed the reports and extracted the data. Prospective studies were included if they reported adjusted RRs with 95% CIs for the association between cancer and prediabetes. Subgroup analyses were conducted according to endpoint, age, sex, ethnicity, duration of follow-up and study characteristics. Results Data from 891,426 participants were derived from 16 prospective cohort studies. Prediabetes was associated with an increased risk of cancer overall (RR 1.15; 95% CI 1.06, 1.23).The results were consistent across cancer endpoint, age, duration of follow-up and ethnicity. There was no significant difference for the risk of cancer with different definitions of prediabetes. In a site-specific cancer analysis, prediabetes was significantly associated with increased risks of cancer of the stomach/colorectum, liver, pancreas, breast and endometrium (all p<0.05), but not associated with cancer of the bronchus/ lung, prostate, ovary, kidney or bladder. The risks of sitespecific cancer were significantly different (p=0.01) and were highest for liver, endometrial and stomach/colorectal cancer. Conclusions/interpretation Overall, prediabetes was associated with an increased risk of cancer, especially liver, endometrial and stomach/colorectal cancer.

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In conventional motion compensated 3-D subband/wavelet coding, where the motion compensation is unidirectional, incorrect classification of connected and unconnected pixels caused by incorrect motion vectors (MVs) has resulted in some coding inefficiency and visual artifacts in the embedded low frame-rate video. In this paper, we introduce bidirectional motion compensated temporal filtering (MCTF) with unconnected pixel detection and I blocks.We also incorporate a recently suggested lifting implementation of the subband/wavelet filter for improved MV accuracy in an MC-EZBC coder. Simulation results compare PSNR performance of this new version of MC-EZBC versus H.26L under the constraint of equal GOP size, and show a general parity with this state-of-the-art nonscalable coder on several test clips.

Prediabetes, defined as IFG 110, IGT, or combined IFG 110 and/or IGT, was associated with increased all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.

BackgroundThe levels of liver function tests (LFTs) are often used to assess liver injury and non-liver disease-related mortality. In our study, the relationship between pretreatment serum LFTs and overall survival (OS) was evaluated in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients.MethodsOur purpose was to investigate the prognostic value of the preoperative alanine aminotransferase/aspartate aminotransferase (ALT/AST) ratio and gamma glutamyltransferase (GGT) in ESCC patients. A retrospective study was performed in 447 patients with ESCC, and follow-up period was at least 60 months until death. The prognostic significance of serum LFTs were determined by univariate and multivariate Cox hazard models.ResultsLFTs including ALT, AST, LSR, GGT, TBA and LDH were analyzed. Serum LSR (HR: 0.592, 95% CI = 0.457–0.768, p < 0.001 and GGT (HR: 1.507, 95% CI = 1.163–1.953, p = 0.002) levels were indicated as significant predictors of OS. The 5-year OS among patients with higher LSR levels was longer compared with those patients with decreased LSR levels, not only in the whole cohort but also in the subgroups stratified by pathological stage (T1–T2 subgroup, T3–T4 subgroup, N0 subgroup and M0 subgroup). We also found that patients with a higher GGT might predict worse OS than patients with a normal GGT, not only in the whole cohort but also in the subgroups stratified by pathological stage (T3–T4 subgroup and N1-N2 subgroup).ConclusionsBoth increased levels of LSR and decreased levels of GGT might predict shorter overall survival in ESCC patients. Our findings suggest that serum LSR and GGT levels could be used as a key predictor of survival in patients with ESCC.