Aim: To evaluate the immunogenicity and safety of the CoronaVac vaccine in patients with cancer receiving active systemic therapy. Methods: This multicenter, prospective, observational study was co... Tweetable abstract Immunogenicity developed with CoronaVac in 25 (59.5%) of 42 patients who received at least one cytotoxic drug and in all patients (n = 5) who received monoclonal antibody or immu...

Background and aim: In this study, we aimed to investigate the neutrophil/lymphocyte (N/L) ratio, variations in leukocytes and leukocyte subtypes, and the relationship between N/L ratio and insulin resistance (IR) in obesity. Materials and Methods: Ninety six patients and 40 healthy controls were included in this study. Patients’ blood glucose levels, insulin levels, and hemogram parameters upon 8 hours of fasting were determined. Body mass index (BMI) and homeostasis model assessment insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) values were calculated. Results: Neutrophil numbers were found to be higher among IR obese patients than among non-IR obese patients. The N/L ratio was, moreover, found to be higher among IR obese patients, when compared to non IR obese. A positive correlation was found between insulin resistance and both neutrophil and WBC counts. Another positive correlation was also found between insulin levels and the N/L ratio, WBC, and neutrophil counts. Discussion: In our study, leukocyte numbers and subtypes were determined to be higher among obese individuals than among healthy individuals. The N/L ratio had increased significantly only among obese patients who have insulin resistance. Further studies are needed in order to better demonstrate the relationship between the N/L ratio and insulin resistance/inflammation. Key Words: Neutrophil-Lymphocyte Ratio, Obesity, Insulin Resistance

Objective: To compare the chemoradiotherapy for esophageal cancer followed by surgery study (CROSS) and continuous infusion 5-FU, leucovorin, oxaliplatin, and docetaxel (FLOT) protocols administered in distal esophageal and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) tumors in terms of effectiveness and toxicity. Study Design: Descriptive study. Place and Duration of Study: Ankara Oncology Training and Research Hospital, Turkey between 2015 and 2020. Methodology: Patients diagnosed with distal esophageal and GEJ squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) or adenocarcinoma (ADC), older than 18 years of age, in localised or locally advanced stage were included. Metastatic stages were excluded. Kaplan-Meier was used for survival analysis, log-rank test was performed for comparisons between groups. Results: A total of 25 patients (44.6%) were treated with CROSS protocol (15 distal esophageal and 10 GEJ tumor), 31 patients (55.4%) with GEJ tumors were treated with the FLOT regimen. Eight of the patients who were administered the CROSS protocol before the operation demonstrated complete pathologicial response, no patients in the FLOT group had complete response to the treatment. In patients with GEJ tumors and ADC histopathology, CROSS and FLOT group had similar second years survival (60% and 59.3%, respectively) (p = 0.803). The frequency of neutropenia was significantly higher in the CROSS group compared to the FLOT group (p = 0.004.) Conclusion: Postoperative pathological response rate in the CROSS group was significantly higher compared to the FLOT group. CROSS and FLOT protocols contributed to survival similarly in patients with GEJ ADC, hematological side effects were more pronounced in patients receiving CRT.

Objective: To investigate the effect of hemogram parameters on predicting pathological complete response (pCR) in locally advanced rectal cancer. Methodology: A total of 227 patients with rectal cancer treated with neoadjuvant concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CRT) were retrospectively analyzed. All patients were divided into two subgroups as high or low hemogram parameters according to the cut-off value obtained using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Results: In patients with low neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) levels, pCR rate was statistically significantly higher than the group with high NLR and PLR levels (for NLR: 39.77% vs. 5.34%; p<0.001, for PLR: 32.38% vs 7.01%; p<0.001 respectively). In addition, the pCR rate was significantly better in patients with high lymphocyte levels compared to the group with low lymphocyte levels (33.33% vs. 7.5%; p<0.001, respectively). According to the multivariate logistic regression analysis result, NLR and PLR levels were considered as independent predictors to predict pathological complete response [p<0.001, HR: 0.128 (95% CI=0.051 - 0.322) for NLR; p=0.017, HR: 0.332 (95% CI=0.134 - 0.821) for PLR, respectively]. Conclusion: Our study showed that high NLR, PLR, and low lymphocyte levels were correlated with worse pCR rates. In addition to that, NLR and PLR emerged as independent predictive markers.

Background: We aimed to investigate the prognostic significance of insulin resistance (IR) markers fasting triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index and triglyceride high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (TG/HDL-C) ratio in HER2-positive breast cancer (BC) patients with brain metastasis (BM). Methods: In this single-center study, 120 patients who met the criteria were included. TyG and TG/HDL-C at the time of diagnosis were computed retrospectively. For TyG and TG/HDL-C, the median values of 9.32 and 2.95 were taken as the cut-off, respectively. TyG values < 9.32 and < 2.95 were considered low, and TG/HDL-C values ≥ 9.32 and ≥ 2.95 were considered high. Results: The median overall survival (OS) was 47 months (95% CI: 40.54– 53.45). Time to BM was 22 months (95% CI: 17.22– 26.73). The median time to BM was 35 months (95% CI: 20.90– 49.09) in the low TyG group and 15 months (95% CI: 8.92– 21.07) in the high TyG group (p < 0.001). The time to BM was 27 months (95% CI: 20.49– 33.50) in the low TG/HDL-C group and 20 months (95% CI: 16.76– 23.23) in the high TG/HDL-C group (p=0.084). In the multivariate Cox regression analysis, the TyG index (HR: 20.98, 95% CI: 7.14– 61.59, p < 0.001) was an independent risk factor for time to BM. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the TyG index could be used as a predictive biomarker at the time of diagnosis for risk of time BM in patients with HER2-positive BC. The TyG index can be used as a standard potential marker with prospective studies confirming these data.