The Prognostic Utility of the Metastatic Lymph Node Ratio and the Number of Regional Lymph Nodes Removed from Patients with Small Bowel Adenocarcinomas.

Background and Objectives: Small bowel adenocarcinomas (SBAs) are rare tumors of the gastrointestinal system. Lymph node metastasis in patients with curatively resected SBAs is associated with poor prognosis. In this study, we determined the prognostic utility of the number of removed lymph nodes and the metastatic lymph node ratio (the N ratio). Materials and Methods: The data of 97 patients who underwent curative SBA resection in nine hospitals of Turkey were retrospectively evaluated. Univariate and multivariate analyses of potentially prognostic factors including the N ratio and the numbers of regional lymph nodes removed were evaluated. Results: Univariate analysis showed that perineural and vascular invasion, metastatic lymph nodes, advanced TNM stage, and a high N ratio were significant predictors of poor survival. Multivariate analysis revealed that the N ratio was a significant independent predictor of disease-specific survival (DSS). The group with the lowest N ratio exhibited the longest disease-free survival (DFS) and DSS; these decreased significantly as the N ratio increased (both, p < 0.001). There was no significant difference in either DFS or DSS between groups with low and high numbers of dissected lymph nodes (i.e., <13 and ≥13) (both, p = 0.075). Conclusions: We found that the N ratio was independently prognostic of DSS in patients with radically resected SBAs. The N ratio is a convenient and accurate measure of the severity of lymph node metastasis.

Clinicopathological Features and Prognosis of Invasive Micropapillary Carcinoma Compared to Invasive Ductal Carcinoma-NOS: Worse or Better?

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether there are differences in invasive micropapillary carcinoma (IMPC) and invasive ductal carcinoma-NOS (IDC-NOS) according to the clinicopathological features and prognosis including molecular subtypes. STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: Department of Pathology, University of Health Sciences, Haydarpasa Numune Training and Research Hospital, Istanbul, Turkey, from 2003 to 2016. METHODOLOGY: Operated breast cancer cases (58 IMPC + 326 IDC-NOS), with long-term follow-up findings (cases followed up until 2020), were reviewed. The cases, whose other component was only IDC-NOS, were included in the mixed IMPC group. The clinical features, including clinical presentation, treatments, and follow-up information were obtained from the patient clinical database. The IMPC cases included in the study were re-examined, and micropapillary tumour components were confirmed based on the criteria set by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The clinicopathological findings, recurrence, and survival data of both groups were compared. In addition, IDC-NOS was divided into the molecular subgroups and compared with IMPC cases in terms of 5-year overall survival (OS). RESULTS: There was no significant difference between the two groups for the distribution of molecular subtypes. There was a statistically significant difference among the nuclear grade, tumour size, nodal status, lymphovascular, and perineural invasion. In the first 5-year period, the OS rate for IDC-NOS and IMPC was 90.8% and 86.2% (p<0.05). The 5-year OS rate of luminal A, luminal B, HER2, triple negative (TN), and IMPC patients was 97.6%, 91.3%, 90%, 70%, and 86.2%, respectively (p<0.05). The OS rate in patients with TN and IMPC was similar which was found significantly lower than the other groups (luminal A, luminal B, and HER2). The median OS was 51.3 months and 53.9 months for the patients with TN and IMPC, respectively (p<0.001). This difference disappeared in the 10th and 15th years of follow-up. CONCLUSION: The majority of the deaths in IMPC occurred within the first 5 years. The 5-year OS rates were similar in the TN and IMPC patients. The survival pattern of IMPC is parallel with TN, Therefore, clinical, therapeutic, and prognostic evaluation in IMPC can be done like TN. KEY WORDS: Invasive ductal carcinoma, Invasive micropapillary carcinoma, Survival.

Is the benefit of using adjuvant capecitabine in patients with residual triple-negative breast cancer related to pathological response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy?

BACKGROUND: Triple-negative-breast-cancer (TNBC) has a poor prognosis if pathologic complete response (pCR) cannot be achieved following neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC). The group of patients that benefit most from adjuvant capecitabine remains unclear. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We analyzed data of 160 consecutive patients with residual TNBC from eight cancer-center. Pathologic response was defined into two groups as having good-pathologic-response (MillerPayneGrading (MPG) IV-III) or poor-pathologic-response (MPG I-II). The characteristics of patients were compared regarding adjuvant capecitabine usage. RESULTS: Univariate-analysis revealed that age, histology, clinical-stage, tumor-size, lymph-nodes number, menopausal status, and pathological-stage were significantly different between two groups. In multivariate-analysis, menopausal status (p = 0.043) and residual tumor-size (p < 0.001) were found to be independent prognostic factors for pathological response. The hazard-ratio for disease recurrence and death in the poor-response group with adjuvant capecitabine was 2.94 (95% confidence-interval (CI), 1.21 to 7.10; p = 0.016) and 4.080 (95% CI, 1.22 to 13.64; p = 0.022), respectively. DFS (p = 0.58) and OS (p = 0.89) improvements with adjuvant capecitabine were not demonstrated in good-response groups. CONCLUSION: This multicenter-study suggested that only the poor-response group to NAC achieved benefit from adjuvant capecitabine. Postmenopausal status and residual tumor-size were related to poor prognosis.

FOLFIRINOX versus gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel as the first-line chemotherapy in metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Pancreas cancer (PCa) is one of the mortal cancer types with ranking as fourth leading cancer death in both sexes together. FOLFIRINOX (FFX) and Gemcitabine plus nab-paclitaxel (GNP) are approved as first-line metastatic treatment in PCa. The aim of this study was to compare the clinical outcomes, treated with FFX and GNP as first-line metastatic PCa. Medical records of patients diagnosed with metastatic PCa, from January 2010 to December 2020 were analyzed. This study was a retrospective cohort, multi-institution analysis. The focus of the present study was to compare the efficiency of FFX and GNP chemotherapy combinations in the first-line treatment of PCa. Efficacy had been measured by progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). 182 patients diagnosed with PCa receiving metastatic first-line treatment were retrospectively analyzed. Patients were divided into two groups one hundred and three (56.6%) patients treated with FFX and seventy-nine (43.4%) patients treated with GNP. Patients in the FFX group were younger and had a better ECOG performance status. Overall response rate (ORR) was 69.9% in FFX and 37.9% in GNP group (p: 0.000). Disease control rate (DCR) was 73.7% in patients treated with FFX and 39.2% in GNP group (p: 0.000). The median PFS was 8.3 months (FFX 9.1 vs. GNP 6.7, HR = 0.25, 95% CI: 0.16-0.38) the median OS was 12.2 months (FFX 14.1 vs. GNP 9.6, HR = 0.48, 95% CI: 0.31-0.72). Guidelines recommend both FFX and GNP regimens as a first-line treatment of metastatic PCa. In clinical routine, it is still unclear which regiment is more effective. The present study showed increased survival parameters with FFX versus GNP with similar toxicity profiles.

Frequency of HCV infection in renal cell carcinoma patients.

Chronic infections with hepatitis C virus (HCV) are frequently pronounced in the etiology of malignancies especially in hepatocellular carcinoma. The association between HCV and risk of renal cell carcinoma (RCC) development has been stated recently. The authors retrospectively evaluated hepatitis serology for HCV and HBV in patients who had RCC diagnosis between 2005 and 2010 in six oncology centers. Control group was also included from the three different published studies that hepatitis serology studied in healthy people that has been living in the same geographic regions. Histologically confirmed 903 RCC cases and 5,267 healthy subjects were included the study. Median age at diagnosis of RCC was 58 (range: 26-89). There was no increase in HCV positivity in RCC patients compared to healthy control group (1.7 vs. 1.5%; P = 0.77). Frequency of HBsAg positivity was 4.4 and 4.1% in RCC and control groups, respectively (P = 0.65). There is no increase in frequency of HCV and HBsAg positivity in RCC patients. HCV positivity in RCC patients were not different from the healthy people.