Jian qiang Cai

Impact of hepatitis B virus infection on outcome following resection for intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma

Little is known about the prognosis of intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (ICC) patients with hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection following surgical resection.

Prognostic value of the albumin-bilirubin grade in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma: validation in a Chinese cohort.

The prognostic value of the newly raised objective liver function assessment tool, the albumin–bilirubin (ALBI) grade, in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma has not been fully validated. We aimed to compare the performance of ALBI grade with the specific Child–Pugh (C‐P) score in predicting prognosis in this study.

Prognostic Role of Phospho-STAT3 in Patients with Cancers of the Digestive System: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Objective The definite prognostic role of p-STAT3 has not been well defined. We performed a meta-analysis evaluating the prognostic role of p-STAT3 expression in patients with digestive system cancers. Methods We searched the available articles reporting the prognostic value of p-STAT3 in patients with cancers of the digestive system, mainly including colorectal cancer, gastric cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma, esophagus cancer and pancreatic cancer. The pooled hazard ratios (HRs) with 95 % confidence intervals (95 % CIs) of overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were used to assess the prognostic role of p-STAT3 expression level in cancer tissues. And the association between p-STAT3 expression and clinicopathological characteristics was evaluated. Results A total of 22 studies with 3585 patients were finally enrolled in the meta-analysis. The results showed that elevated p-STAT3 expression level predicted inferior OS (HR=1.809, 95% CI: 1.442-2.270, P<0.001) and DFS (HR=1.481, 95% CI: 1.028-2.133, P= 0.035) in patients with malignant cancers of the digestive system. Increased expression of p-STAT3 is significantly related with tumor cell differentiation (Odds ratio (OR) =1.895, 95% CI: 1.364-2.632, P<0.001) and lymph node metastases (OR=2.108, 95% CI: 1.104-4.024, P=0.024). Sensitivity analysis suggested that the pooled HR was stable and omitting a single study did not change the significance of the pooled HR. Funnel plots and Egger’s tests revealed there was no significant publication bias in the meta-analysis. Conclusion Phospho-STAT3 might be a prognostic factor of patients with digestive system cancers. More well designed studies with adequate follow-up are needed to gain a thorough understanding of the prognostic role of p-STAT3.

Evaluation of eight different clinical staging systems associated with overall survival of chinese patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a common cancer in China, an area of high hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Although several staging systems are available, there is no consensus on the best classification to use because multiple factors, such as etiology, clinical treatment and populations could affect the survival of HCC patients. Methods: This study analyzed 743 HBV-related Chinese HCC patients who received surgery first and evaluated the predictive values of eight different commonly used staging systems in the clinic. Results: The overall 1-, 3-, 5-year survival rates and a median survival were 91.5%, 70.3%, 55.3% and 72 months respectively. Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC) staging systems had the best stratification ability and showed the lowest Akaike information criterion (AIC) values (2896.577), followed by tumor-node-metastasis 7th (TNM 7th) (AIC = 2899.980), TNM 6th (AIC = 2902.17), Japan integrated staging score (AIC = 2918.085), Tokyo (AIC = 2938.822), Cancer of the Liver Italian Program score (AIC = 2941.950), Chinese University Prognostic Index grade (AIC = 2962.027), and Okuda (AIC = 2979.389). Conclusions: BCLC staging system is a better staging model for HBV infection patients with HCC in Chinese population among the eight currently used staging systems. These identifications afford a large group of Chinese HCC patients with HBV infection and could be helpful to design a new staging system for a certain population.

Excision Repair Cross-complementation Group 1 is a Prognostic Biomarker in Patients with Colorectal Cancer Receiving Chemotherapy.

Background: Conflicting results about the association between expression level of excision repair cross-complementation group 1 (ERCC1) and clinical outcome in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) receiving chemotherapy have been reported. Thus, we searched the available articles and performed the meta-analysis to elucidate the prognostic role of ERCC1 expression in patients with CRC. Methods: A thorough literature search using PubMed (Medline), Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science databases, and Chinese Science Citation Database was conducted to obtain the relevant studies. Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) or odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated to estimate the results. Results: A total of 11 studies were finally enrolled in this meta-analysis. Compared with patients with lower ERCC1 expression, patients with higher ERCC1 expression tended to have unfavorable overall survival (OS) (HR = 2.325, 95% CI: 1.720–3.143, P < 0.001), progression-free survival (PFS) (HR = 1.917, 95% CI: 1.366–2.691, P < 0.001) and poor response to chemotherapy (OR = 0.491, 95% CI: 0.243–0.990, P = 0.047). Subgroup analyses by treatment setting, ethnicity, HR extraction, detection methods, survival analysis, and study design demonstrated that our results were robust. Conclusions: ERCC1 expression may be taken as an effective prognostic factor predicting the response to chemotherapy, OS, and PFS. Further studies with better study design and longer follow-up are warranted in order to gain a deeper understanding of ERCC1s prognostic value.