Background. The pretreatment albumin and globulin ratio (AGR) was an inflammation-associated factor which was related to the overall survival in various malignancies. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of AGR in patients with gastric cancer. Method. This retrospective study included 862 cases pathologically diagnosed with gastric cancer. All patients were randomly divided into the testing group (431 cases) and validation group (431 cases). The relationships of AGR with clinicopathologic characteristics and prognosis were analyzed by Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression methods. Results. In the testing group, the median overall survival was 26.90 months and the cutoff value of AGR was 1.50 based on R language. Kaplan-Meier analysis showed that lower AGR was correlated with poorer overall survival. Multivariate analysis demonstrated that AGR was an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (HR: 0.584, 95% CI = 0.351–0.973, and p = 0.039). In the validation group, the median overall survival was 24.10 months. Lower AGR (≤1.50) also had a significantly poorer overall survival by Kaplan-Meier analysis. According to multivariate analysis, the AGR was also confirmed to be an independent prognostic factor for overall survival (HR: 0.578, 95% CI = 0.373–0.897, and p = 0.015). Conclusions. Our study suggested that the pretreatment AGR could be a prognostic biomarker for overall survival in patients with gastric cancer.

Aims: The levels of coagulation system tests have been studied in various cancers. In this study, our aim is to evaluate the prognostic value of pretreatment plasma coagulation tests in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients.

Elevated serum YKL-40 levels have been observed in various cancers. We evaluated the diagnostic performance of serum YKL-40 alone or in combination with the CEA, CYFRA21-1 and SCCA tumor markers for patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).

Tumor metastasis is one of the major causes of high mortality in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Sustained activation of STAT3 signaling plays a critical role in HCC metastasis. RNA binding protein (RBP)–mediated posttranscriptional regulation is involved in the precise control of signal transduction, including STAT3 signaling. In this study, we investigated whether RBPs are important regulators of HCC metastasis. The RBP MEX3C was found to be significantly upregulated in highly metastatic HCC and correlated with poor prognosis in HCC. Mechanistically, MEX3C increased JAK2/STAT3 pathway activity by downregulating SOCS3, a major negative regulator of JAK2/STAT3 signaling. MEX3C interacted with the 3′UTR of SOCS3 and recruited CNOT7 to ubiquitinate and accelerate decay of SOCS3 mRNA. Treatment with MEX3C-specific antisense oligonucleotide significantly inhibited JAK2/STAT3 pathway activation, suppressing HCC migration in vitro and metastasis in vivo. These findings highlight a novel mRNA decay-mediated mechanism for the disruption of SOCS3-driven negative regulation of JAK2/STAT3 signaling, suggesting MEX3C may be a potential prognostic biomarker and promising therapeutic target in HCC. Significance: This study reveals that RNA-binding protein MEX3C induces SOCS3 mRNA decay to promote JAK2/STAT3 activation and tumor metastasis in hepatocellular carcinoma, identifying MEX3C targeting as a potential approach for treating metastatic disease.

Increase of Serum amyloid A (SAA) level has been observed in patients with a variety of cancers. The objective of this study was to determined whether SAA level could be used as a prognostic parameter in patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC).

Background and Objective: Tools for the non-invasive assessment of colorectal cancer (CRC) prognosis have profound significance. Although plasma coagulation tests have been investigated in a variety of tumours, the prognostic value of the prothrombin time (PT) and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) in CRC has not been discussed. Our study objective was to explore the prognostic significance of preoperative PT and APTT in CRC patients. Patients and Methods: A retrospective analysis of preoperative coagulation indexes including PT, PTA, INR, APTT, FIB, TT, PLT, NLR and PLR in 250 patients with CRC was performed. Kaplan–Meier and multivariate Cox regression analysis were used to demonstrate the prognostic value of these preoperative coagulation indexes. Results: The overall survival (OS, p< 0.05) and disease-free survival (DFS, p< 0.05) of CRC patients with lower PT and APTT levels were significantly prolonged. Based on univariate analysis, PT levels (p< 0.001, p< 0.001), PTA levels (p=0.001, p=0.001), APTT levels (p=0.001, p< 0.001), INR levels (p< 0.001, p< 0.001), fibrinogen levels (p=0.032, p=0.036), tumour status (p=0.005, p=0.003), nodal status (p< 0.001, p< 0.001), metastasis status (p< 0.001, p< 0.001) and TNM stages (p< 0.001, p< 0.001) were remarkably associated with DFS and OS. Multivariate Cox regression analysis suggested that the levels of PT (HR: 2.699, p=0.006) and APTT (HR: 1.942, p=0.015), metastasis status (HR: 2.091, p= 0.015) and TNM stage (HR: 7.086, p=0.006) were independent predictors of survival in CRC. In the whole cohort, the enrolled patients were then divided into three groups according to their PT and APTT levels. The OS and DFS differed notably among the low-risk (PT< 11.85 sec and APTT< 25.85 sec), medium-risk (PT≥ 11.85 sec or APTT≥ 25.85 sec), and high-risk (PT≥ 11.85 sec and APTT≥ 25.85 sec) groups. Conclusion: Elevated levels of preoperative PT and APTT were predictors of poor outcomes in CRC patients. Moreover, the combination of preoperative PT and APTT can be a new prognostic stratification approach for more precise clinical staging of CRC.