The prognostic significance of peripheral blood-derived inflammation markers in patients with gastric cancer (GC) has not been elucidated. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between systemic inflammatory markers and GC prognosis.

A prospective observational cohort study involving 598 patients was conducted to analyze the prognosis of GC based on systemic inflammatory markers. The following peripheral blood-derived inflammation markers were evaluated the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet lymphocyte ratio (PLR), systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), C-reactive protein/albumin (CRP/Alb) ratio, Glasgow Prognostic Score (GPS), modified Glasgow Prognostic Score (mGPS), prognostic nutrition index (PNI), and prognostic index (PI). The receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curve and the Youden index were used to determine the optimal cutoff values. click here Univariate and multivariate analysis of prognostic factors was conducted accordingly.

The optimal cutoff values of the PNI, fibrinogen, NLR, PLR, SII, and CRP/Alb were 49.5, 397 ng/dl, 2.5, 154, 556, and 0.05, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that age, PLR, TNM stage, and chemotherapy were the independent prognostic factors for advanced gastric cancer (AGC). Adjuvant chemotherapy improved the long-term prognosis of patients with PLR ≥154, but chemotherapy had no significant effect on the survival of patients with PLR < 154.

Our findings show that higher PLR (≥154) is an independent risk factor for poor prognosis in GC patients. Besides, PLR can predict adjuvant chemotherapy (oxaliplatin/5-fluorouracil combination) response in patients with GC after surgery.

Our findings show that higher PLR (≥154) is an independent risk factor for poor prognosis in GC patients. Besides, PLR can predict adjuvant chemotherapy (oxaliplatin/5-fluorouracil combination) response in patients with GC after surgery.

Early and accurate identification of sepsis patients with high risk of in-hospital death can help physicians in intensive care units (ICUs) make optimal clinical decisions. This study aimed to develop machine learning-based tools to predict the risk of hospital death of patients with sepsis in ICUs.

The source database used for model development and validation is the medical information mart for intensive care (MIMIC) III. We identified adult sepsis patients using the new sepsis definition Sepsis-3. A total of 86 predictor variables consisting of demographics, laboratory tests and comorbidities were used. We employed the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), random forest (RF), gradient boosting machine (GBM) and the traditional logistic regression (LR) method to develop prediction models. In addition, the prediction performance of the four developed models was evaluated and compared with that of an existent scoring tool – simplified acute physiology score (SAPS) II – using five differeill sepsis patients and thus may help improve the prognoses of sepsis patients in the ICU.

The machine learning-based models developed in this study had good prediction performance. Amongst them, the GBM model showed the best performance in predicting the risk of in-hospital death. It has the potential to assist physicians in the ICU to perform appropriate clinical interventions for critically ill sepsis patients and thus may help improve the prognoses of sepsis patients in the ICU.

Pathologists face major challenges in breast cancer diagnostics in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The major problems identified as impairing the quality of pathology reports are shortcomings of equipment, organization and insufficiently qualified personnel. In addition, in the context of breast cancer, immunohistochemistry (IHC) needs to be available for the evaluation of biomarkers. In the study presented, we aim to describe the current state of breast cancer pathology in order to highlight the unmet needs.

We obtained information on breast cancer pathology services within population-based cancer registries in SSA. A survey of 20 participating pathology centres was carried out. These centres represent large, rather well-equipped pathologies. The data obtained were related to the known population and breast cancer incidence of the registry areas.

The responding pathologists served populations of between 30,000 and 1.8 million and the centres surveyed dealt with 10-386 breast cancer cases per year. Time to fier pathology services ensuring state-of-the-art therapy are only available in a small fraction of centres in SSA. To overcome these limitations, many of the centres require larger numbers of experienced pathologists and technical staff. Furthermore, equipment maintenance, standardization of processing guidelines and establishment of an IHC service are needed to comply with international standards of breast cancer pathology.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Patients with cancer are more likely to incur poor clinical outcomes. Due to the prevailing pandemic, we propose some surgical strategies for gastric cancer patients.

The ‘COVID-19’ period was defined as occurring between 2020 and 01-20 and 2020-03-20. The enrolled patients were divided into two groups, pre-COVID-19 group (PCG) and COVID-19 group (CG). A total of 109 patients with gastric cancer were enrolled in this study.

The waiting time before admission increased by 4 days in the CG (PCG 4.5 [IQR 2, 7.8] vs. CG 8.0 [IQR 2,20]; p = 0.006). More patients had performed chest CT scans besides abdominal CT before admission during the COVID-19 period (PCG 22 [32%] vs. CG 30 [73%], p = 0.001). After admission during the COVID period, the waiting time before surgery was longer (PCG 3[IQR 2,5] vs. CG 7[IQR 5,9]; p < 0.001), more laparoscopic surgeries were performed (PCG 51[75%] vs. CG 38[92%], p = 0.021), and hospital stay period after surgery was longer (7[IQR 6,8] vs.9[IQR7,11]; p < 0.001). In addition, the total cost of hospitalization increased during this period, (PCG 9.22[IQR7.82,10.97] vs. CG 10.42[IQR8.99,12.57]; p = 0.006).

This study provides an opportunity for our surgical colleagues to reflect on their own services and any contingency plans they may have to tackle the COVID-19 crisis.

This study provides an opportunity for our surgical colleagues to reflect on their own services and any contingency plans they may have to tackle the COVID-19 crisis.