BackgroundBreast cancer is the most
common invasive cancer to affect women in the world. Studies showed tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes can exhibit both beneficial and harmful effects on the biology and clinical outcome of breast cancer, the conclusion still remains incomplete. Here, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the relationship between tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and breast cancer.MethodsA comprehensive search strategy was used to search relevant literatures in PubMed and the ISI Web of Science. The correlation among TILs and breast cancer clinicopathological features and prognosis was analyzed by using Review Manager 5.3 and Stata 12.0.ResultSeventeen eligible studies consisting of 12,968 participants were included. We found that higher value of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes had no relationship with breast cancer clinicopathological variables. Interestingly, it was correlated with response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in majority (pooled RR 2.43, 95 % CI 1.99–2.97). Moreover, higher value of total tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (both intraepithelial and stromal) was associated with better prognosis (pooled HR 0.88, 95 % CI 0.83–0.94), whereas some subtypes predicted a worse prognosis.ConclusionThis meta-analysis indicated that high value of total TILs is not associated with breast cancer clinicopathological features, but can predict a favorable outcome for neoadjuvant chemotherapy in majority except for hormone receptor (−) subtype. And higher total TILs (both intraepithelial TILs and stromal TILs) may be the potential better prognostic indicators, while some subtypes like PD-1+ TILs and Foxp3+ TILs show a worse prognosis.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12094-015-1391-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Witness testimony is a fundamental component of any modern, adversarial judicial system. The criminal trial is particularly reliant on the testimony and cross-examination of witnesses to furnish to the judge and/or jury the relevant facts of the case. Chinese law and regulation, in particular the Chinese Criminal Procedural Law of 2012, stipulates that witnesses have a general responsibility to testify and establishes a series of supporting measures to facilitate witnesses testifying at trial. However, the appearance rate of witnesses to orally testify at criminal trials in China is and has long been extremely low. In keeping with common and civil law pre-trial preparation, it is common in China for witnesses to provide written statements at police stations or to procurators prior to trial. The difference is that these written statements often form the principal, and sole, evidence of the prosecution case at trial without appearance, examination or contradiction of the source witness. Chinese judges decide guilt on the written witness statements which are made pre-trial and at varying times prior to the trial. We briefly examine the detriments of this non-oral scrutiny of evidence. We examine the Chinese cultural adherence to a written criminal trial, despite provisions for an oral examination in the Chinese Criminal Procedural Law, and explain nine reasons why witnesses do not appear at trial. Our reasons are based on empirical study conducted in ten pilot programmes across District or Intermediate Courts in mainland China. We argue that our review of the need for an oral-based scrutiny of procurator-led evidence in criminal trials in China is indicative and instructive of the need for China to continue its current focus on considering and adapting common and civil law-based methods of judicial scrutiny and oversight into its criminal justice system.
Evidence law was famously deemed ‘the child of the jury’, its development widely perceived as a by-product of the jury trial. Conventional wisdom tells us that juries, because of their cognitive and epistemic failings, can hardly be trusted and thus need rules of evidence to steer them in the right direction. Therefore, given that jury trials are vanishing in the United States and other common law countries, we must question whether the traditional evidence-law model is sustainable. At the same time that juries have been on the decline, rapid developments in science and technology have led to new forms of evidence, including scientific evidence, electronic evidence and process-based evidence. Presenting these new types of evidence at trials, however, often creates a mismatch with the traditional evidence-law framework. A systematic redesign of 21st-century evidence law to better accommodate the intensified interplay between science, technology and the law seems to be the next natural development. This essay explores these two distinct paths of evidence law—the old, jury-driven model and a new, science-directed model—and argues for preserving the old path while at the same time spending more resources and making greater effort to accommodate these new forms of evidence.
Current results represent valuable advancements in Gal-1 research and provided further support for using Gal-1 as a diagnostic biomarker and immunotherapeutic target for LSCC.
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