Increasing evidence suggests a close relationship between systemic inflammation and cancer development and progression. The neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) has been shown to be an independent prognostic indicator in various advanced and localized cancers. We investigated the influence of markers of systemic inflammation such as leucocyte counts and metabolic co-morbidities on overall survival (OS) after radiotherapy for localized prostate cancer. We conducted a retrospective study of patients with localized prostate cancer treated with definitive external beam radiotherapy or brachytherapy. Univariate and multivariate cox proportional hazards models were used to investigate the influence of the following factors on OS: age, neutrophil and lymphocyte counts, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), Cancer of the Prostate Risk Assessment (CAPRA) score as well as comorbidities associated with inflammation such as cardiac history, diabetes and use of a statin. A stepwise selection of variable based on the Akaike information criterion (AIC) was used for multivariate analysis. In total, 1772 pts were included; blood count data was available for 950 pts. Median age was 68 years (44–87). Actuarial 5 years OS and biochemical recurrence-free survival (BRFS) for the 1772 patients were 93 % and 95 %, respectively, with a median follow-up of 44 months (1–156). On univariate analysis, neutrophil count (p = 0.04), cardiac history (p = 0.008), age (p = 0.001) and CAPRA (p = 0.0002) were associated with OS. Lymphocytes, NLR and comorbidities other than cardiac history were not associated with mortality. On multivariate analysis, neutrophil count (HR = 1.18, 95 % CI: 1.017-1.37, p = 0.028), age (HR = 1.06, 95 % CI: 1.01-1.1, p = 0.008) and CAPRA (HR = 1.16, 95 % CI: 1.03-1.31, p = 0.015) were independent predictors of OS. Neutrophil count, as a possible marker of systemic inflammation, appear to be an independent prognostic factor for overall mortality in localized prostate cancer. A validation cohort is needed to corroborate these results.

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the correlation between Twitter mentions and the number of academic citations of radiation oncology articles. Materials and Methods: We reviewed all 178 clinical manuscripts of the 2 most important radiation oncology journals and “Brachytherapy,” and all clinical manuscripts relating to radiation oncology from the top 10 impact factor oncology journals, published between January and February 2018. We collected the record of citations utilizing Scopus and Google Scholar platforms and the number of times an article was tweeted about using the “Altmetric Bookmarklet.” χ² test was used to compare distributions between groups and the Pearson coefficient was used for correlations between the Twitter metrics and academic citations. Results: Overall, 71% of all articles were tweeted about at least once. There was a significant correlation between the number of tweets and the number of citations in Google Scholar (r=0.55, P<0.001) and in Scopus (r=0.59, P<0.001). The 11% of articles with a prepublication Twitter “buzz” (defined as an article with ≥10 tweets before publication) had 3.6 times more citations in Scopus (mean: 14.8 vs. 4.2, P<0.001) and 2.9 times more citations in Google Scholar (17.8 vs. 6.0, P<0.001) when compared with papers with no “buzz.” Conclusions: Presence on Twitter was correlated with the number of academic citations of an article in radiation oncology. This suggests that Twitter is being utilized by the oncology community as a platform to discuss and disseminate high impact scientific articles. The correlation between Twitter and increasing the number of citations of an article through larger dissemination and exposure requires further studies.

Intraductal carcinoma of the prostate (IDC-P) is an independent biomarker of recurrence and survival with particular treatment response, yet no study has tested its response to radiotherapy. The aim of our project was to test the impact of adjuvant radiotherapy (ART) in patients with localized to locally advanced prostate cancer (PC) and IDC-P. We performed a retrospective study of men with pT2-T3 PC treated by radical prostatectomy (RP) with or without ART, from two centres (1993–2015). Exclusion criteria were the use of another type of treatment prior to biochemical recurrence (BCR), and detectable prostate- specific antigen (PSA) following RP or ART. Primary outcome was BCR (2 consecutive PSA ≥ 0.2 ng/ml). Patients were grouped by treatment (RPonly/RP + ART), IDC-P status, and presence of high-risk features (HRF: Grade Groups 4–5, positive margins, pT3 stage). We reviewed 293 RP specimens (median follow-up 99 months, 69 BCR). Forty-eight patients (16.4%) were treated by RP + ART. Multivariate Cox regression for BCR indicated that IDC-P had the strongest impact (hazard ratio [HR] = 2.39, 95% confidence interval [CI]:1.44–3.97), while ART reduced the risk of BCR (HR = 0.38, 95%CI: 0.17–0.85). Other HRF were all significant except for pT3b stage. IDC-P[+] patients who did not receive ART had the worst BCR-free survival (log-rank P = 0.023). Furthermore, IDC-P had the same impact on BCR-free survival as ≥1 HRF (log-rank P = 0.955). Men with IDC-P who did not receive ART had the highest BCR rates, and IDC-P had the same impact as ≥1 HRF, which are often used as ART indications. Once validated, ART should be considered in patients with IDC-P.