BACKGROUND Nuclear receptors (NRs) are a class of transcription factors that regulate many cellular functions through manipulation of gene expression and also play important roles in tumorigenesis, proliferation, progression and prognosis in various kinds of cancers according to recent studies. This work aimed to determine the predictive ability of NRs in muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). ...

Diabetes as a latent risk factor for cancer has been extensively investigated, while its postoperative prognosis for esophageal cancer is rarely reported. We therefore sought to assess whether the elevated fasting blood glucose before surgery was associated with poor survival in esophageal cancer patients by eliciting a subset of data from the ongoing Fujian prospective investigation of cancer ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Outcomes of older patients with ESRD undergoing RRT or conservative management (CM) are uncertain. Adequate survival data, specifically of older patients, are needed for proper counseling. We compared survival of older renal patients choosing either CM or RRT. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS A retrospective survival analysis was performed of a single-ce...

OBJECTIVES To investigate the in-hospital health outcome and 10-year survival in patients undergoing redo coronary surgery with (redo-CABG) or without (redo-OPCAB) cardiopulmonary bypass. METHODS A total of 349 redo coronary surgery patients were identified from our registry. Of these, 143 redo-OPCAB patients (40.97%) were compared with 206 redo-CABG patients. To minimize the bias, we also co...

OBJECTIVE To study the relationship between expression of p57KIP2 and prognosis and other clinicopathological parameters in invasive breast cancers. METHODS We assessed the expression of p57KIP2 in 89 cases of invasive breast cancer and 20 cases of normal breast tissue by immunohistochemical methods and analyzed the results with SPSS software (ver. 16.0). RESULT The positive expression rate...

BACKGROUND Fluid balance is a fundamental management of patients with sepsis, and this study aimed to investigate the impact of cumulative fluid balance on critically ill patients with influenza admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU). METHODS This multicenter retrospective cohort study was conducted by the Taiwan Severe Influenza Research Consortium (TSIRC) which includes eight medical cent...

OBJECT Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common astrocytic brain tumor and carries a dire prognosis. Despite current therapeutic options--surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy--survival varies from 11.3 to 14.6 months. A group of drugs known as histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDIs) has demonstrated a potentially beneficial role in cancer treatment, particularly in combination with oth...

Background: Chemoradiotherapy (CRT) is a treatment standard in limited disease (LD) small cell lung cancer (SCLC). Currently, the timing of thoracic radiation therapy (TRT) remains the subject of randomised trials and meta-analyses. To investigate a correlation between CRT schedule parameters and overall survival (OS) in a real-life patient cohort, a temporal analysis was performed. Methods: 18...

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of Jianpi Ligan decoction (JLD) as an adjuvant therapy for patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) treated by transarterial chemoembolization (TACE). METHODS From March 2007 to March 2013, 103 patients with unresectable HCC who underwent TACE in our center were included in this retrospective study. Among the 103 patients...

OBJECTIVE To identify predictors for the safe use of antibiotic treatment without reoperation in patients with prosthetic valve endocarditis. SETTING Retrospective study in a tertiary care centre. SUBJECTS AND DESIGN All 49 episodes of definite prosthetic valve endocarditis (Duke criteria) diagnosed at one institution between 1980 to 1997 were analysed. Ten episodes (20%) were treated with ...