Gene expression profiling of breast cancer in Lebanese women

MPP grants MPP320046 and MPP320061

Clinical and prognostic features of plasmacytomas: A multicenter study of Turkish Oncology Group-Sarcoma Working Party

PubMed ID: 18543343To identify the outcomes of prognostic factors of solitary plasmacytoma mainly treated with local radiotherapy (RT). The data were collected from 80 patients with solitary plasmacytoma (SP). Forty patients (50.0%) received radiotherapy (RT) alone while 38 of them (47.5%) were treated with surgery (S) and RT. The median radiation dose was 46 Gy (range 30-64). The median follow up was 2.41 years (range 0.33-12.33). Ten-year overall survival (OS) and local relapse-free survival (LRFS) were 73% and 94%, respectively. The median progression-free survival (PFS) and multiple myeloma-free survival (MMFS) were 3.5 years and 4.8 years, respectively. On multivariate analyses, the favorable factors were radiotherapy dose of >50 Gy and RT + S for PFS and younger age for MMFS. For the patients with medullary plasmacytoma, the favorable factor was younger age for MMFS. RT at ?50 Gy and RT + S may be favorable prognostic factors on PFS. Younger patients, especially with head-neck lesion and without pre-RT macroscopic tumor, seem to have the best outcome when treated with RT ± S. Progression to MM remains as the main problem especially for older patients. © 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc

Role of increased mean platelet volume (MPV) and decreased MPV/platelet count ratio as poor prognostic factors in lung cancer

Objectives: In this study, they investigated whether mean thrombocyte volume (MPV) and MPV/platelet count ratio have a prognostic significance in advanced NSCLC or not. Methods: A total of 496 NSCLC patients at stage IIIB/IV and did not meet exclusion criteria were included in the study. The demographic features (age, gender, smoking habit), clinical characteristics (performance status, weight loss, disease stage, first-line treatment regimen), laboratory tests (levels of hemoglobin, lactate dehydrogenase and calcium as well as MPV, MPV/platelet count ratio and counts of white blood cell, platelet), and histological features (histologic type, tumor grade) were recorded. Results: The MPV levels of all patients were determined as 10.2 {plus minus} 3.4 (range, 6.4-14.1 fL). With ROC curve analysis, the MPV/PC ratio was associated with a sensitivity of 67.8% and a specificity of 84.8% at a cutoff value of 0.47424 for presence of brain metastasis at the time of diagnosis. Univariate analysis showed that OS was significantly shorter in the group with an increased MPV level than in the other group (median OS time 6.8 months vs. 11.5 months, log-rank, P =.032). Multivariate analysis confirmed that an increased MPV level was an independent poor prognostic factor for OS (HR: 1.704, 95% CI: 1.274-3.415, P =.014). Conclusions: Unlike results of previous studies, the study showed that increased MPV was an important prognostic factor in patients with NSCLC. Hence, an increased MPV level may be used as a prognostic biomarker to estimate for poor overall survival in patients with NSCLC. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Lt