Prediction of prognosis of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma based on immune-related score.

BACKGROUND: Immune-related scores are currently used for prognostic evaluation and as an immunotherapy reference in various cancers. However, the relationship between immune-related score and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) prognosis has not yet been investigated. This study aimed to explore the clinical application value of immune-related score for predicting HCC prognosis-related indicators including disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS), and to construct a clinical nomogram prediction model related to verification. METHODS: This study included 284 HCC patients who were selected from the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and linked to the immune-related score downloaded from the public platform. A Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to estimate the adjusted risk ratio, and a nomogram was constructed based on multivariate analysis results and clinical significance. The model was internally verified by bootstrap. The performance of the prediction model was evaluated using the C-index and calibration curves. RESULTS: Patients were divided into three subgroups according to the immune-related score level. Compared with patients in the low immune-related score group, the DFS of patients in the medium and high immune-related score groups was significantly prolonged (HR: 0.53, 95% CI: 0.32-0.87; HR: 0.37, 95% CI: 0.21-0.63, respectively). The OS of patients in the medium and high immune-related score groups was also significantly prolonged (HR: 0.43, 95% CI: 0.20-0.95, p = 0.038; HR: 0.29, 95% CI: 0.14-0.58, p < 0.001, respectively). The C-indexes for predicting DFS and OS were 0.687 (95% CI: 0.665-0.700) and 0.743 (95% CI: 0.709-0.776), respectively. The calibration curves of 3-year and 5-year DFS and OS showed that the results predicted by the nomogram were in good agreement with the actual observations. CONCLUSIONS: Moderate/high-grade immune-related score was significantly associated with better DFS and OS in HCC patients. In addition, a nomogram for prognosis estimation can help clinicians predict the survival status of patients.

Differential expression of stromal aromatase in obese females is regulated by DNA methylation.

Obesity increases the incidence, progression and mortality of breast cancer among postmenopausal females. This is partly due to excessive estrogen production in the adipose tissue of obese females. Aromatase is a key enzyme in estrogen biosynthesis. In the current study, the tensional force­triggered inducibility of aromatase expression was observed to vary in ASCs isolated from different disease­free individuals. In addition, this phenomenon was associated with the activation of the aromatase PII promoter and its DNA methylation load. These findings highlight the impact of tensional forces on estrogen biosynthesis in obese females.