Chemokines are a family of small cytokines, which are signalling proteins secreted by cells. The principal role of chemokines is to serve as chemoattractants to guide the migration of their target cells. Chemokine C‑X3‑C motif ligand 1 (CX3CL1) is a protein‑coding gene of fractalkine, which serves as a ligand for chemokine C‑X3‑C motif receptor 1 (CX3CR1) and integrins. However, the roles of CX3CL1 in different pathological types of lung cancer remain poorly understood. The present study aimed to investigate the potential clinical and biological function of CX3CL1 mRNA expression in patients with lung cancer. In the present study, lung cancer data obtained from the Gene Expression Omnibus database and The Cancer Genome Atlas were downloaded and analysed, and the results demonstrated that an increased CX3CL1 mRNA expression in tumour tissues from lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) was associated with improved overall survival. However, no significant association was identified between CX3CL1 expression and the prognosis of lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC). Furthermore, the genes whose expression levels were correlated with CX3CL1 expression were subjected to enrichment analysis, and the results for the LUAD data demonstrated that the most significant biological processes included ‘positive regulation of cell adhesion’, ‘leukocyte cell‑cell adhesion’, ‘leukocyte migration’ and ‘T cell activation’, whereas, the important highly ranked pathways included ‘cell adhesion molecules (CAMs)’, ‘leukocyte transendothelial migration’ and ‘natural killer cell‑mediated cytotoxicity’. However, in the patients with LUSC, the genes that were highly correlated with CX3CL1 were not enriched for any biological processes or signalling pathways. Based on the data of the present study, it was hypothesised that CX3CL1 may serve as a prognostic marker for LUAD.

The aims of this study were to analyze the metastasis pattern and prognosis of male breast cancer (MBC) and compare it with female breast cancer (FBC), and to determine the independent factors affecting the prognosis of MBC patients. Metastatic MBC diagnosed in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End results (SEER) database from 2010 to 2015 were selected. Chi-squared test was used to compare clinicopathological characteristics. Survival differences were compared by Kaplan–Meier analysis. Cox proportional hazard model was used to determine the prognostic factors affecting overall survival. A total of 2754 MBC patients were identified, of which 196 had distant metastasis. Compared with nonmetastatic MBC, metastatic MBC patients had a higher proportion of <60 years old and grade III–IV, and were more likely to receive chemotherapy and radiotherapy, while the proportion of surgery, central portion of the breast, and Her2–/HR+ was lower. Compared with metastatic FBC, metastatic MBC patients had a higher proportion of ⩾60 years old, central portion of the breast, surgery, simultaneous bone and lung metastasis, while the proportion of Her2+/HR–, triple negative, liver metastasis only, and simultaneous bone and liver metastasis was lower. MBC patients with lung alone, bone alone, and simultaneous lung and bone metastasis had a higher hazard ratio (2.41; 3.06; 2.52; p < 0.0001) compared with nonmetastatic patients. Compared with nonmetastatic MBC patients, metastatic MBC patients had unique clinicopathological features, and were also different from metastatic FBC patients. However, there was no difference in prognosis between metastatic MBC and FBC patients. Distant metastasis was an independent risk factor for the prognosis of MBC patients.

The association between red blood cell distribution width (RDW) to albumin ratio (RAR) and prognosis in patients with acute respiratory failure (ARF) admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) remains unclear. This retrospective cohort study aims to investigate this association. Clinical information of ARF patients was collected from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV (MIMIC-IV) version 2.0 database. The primary outcome was, in-hospital mortality and secondary outcomes included 28-day mortality, 60-day mortality, length of hospital stay, and length of ICU stay. Cox regression models and subgroup analyses were conducted to explore the relationship between RAR and mortality. A total of 4547 patients with acute respiratory failure were enrolled, with 2277 in the low ratio group (RAR < 4.83) and 2270 in the high ratio group (RAR > = 4.83). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis demonstrated a significant difference in survival probability between the two groups. After adjusting for confounding factors, the Cox regression analysis showed that the high RAR ratio had a higher hazard ratio (HR) for in-hospital mortality (HR 1.22, 95% CI 1.07–1.40; P = 0.003), as well as for 28-day mortality and 60-day mortality. Propensity score-matched (PSM) analysis further supported the finding that high RAR was an independent risk factor for ARF. This study reveals that RAR is an independent risk factor for poor clinical prognosis in patients with ARF admitted to the ICU. Higher RAR levels were associated with increased in-hospital, 28-day and 60-day mortality rates.

The effect of the blood urea nitrogen-to-albumin ratio (BAR) on 28-day mortality in intensive care unit (ICU) patients with acute respiratory failure (ARF) is unknown. Patients diagnosed with ARF were screened and randomly divided into training and validation sets (7:3) on the basis of the ICD-9 and ICD-10 diagnosis codes in the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV (v.2.2) database. The primary outcome was the 28-day mortality after ICU admission. The training set was categorized into the low- and high-BAR groups on the basis of the optimal BAR cutoff values for 28-day mortality determined via receiver operating characteristic analysis. The clinical significance of the BAR was evaluated by the areas under the curve (AUCs), decision curve analysis (DCA), Kaplan-Meier (K-M) survival curve, logistic regression analyses and subgroup analysis. In total, 2,766 patients were included. The 28-day mortality rate was 30.2%. The AUCs and 95% confidence interval (CI) for the BAR were AUC 0.644 (95%CI, 0.618 to 0.671) in training set. Multivariate logistic regression revealed that the BAR was an independent factor affecting the prognosis of ARF in both training and validation sets. K-M curves revealed a significant difference in 28-day mortality between the low- and high-BAR groups (p < 0.001). DCA showed moderate performance. No obvious interaction was found by subgroup analysis in most subgroups. The present work revealed that elevated BAR was significantly associated with worse 28-day mortality in patients with any cause of ARF. It remains to be shown whether retrospective analysis of an independent cohort can confirm the high predictive value of BAR.