Background: Osteosarcoma is a rare but aggressive bone malignancy. Despite advances in multimodal therapy, survival remains suboptimal, highlighting the need for prognostic markers to guide treatment. Methods: This study included 162 osteosarcoma patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery between January 2009 and March 2024. Patients received either double (cisplatin + doxorubicin) or triple (MAP or PEI) chemotherapy. Survival analyses were conducted using Kaplan–Meier curves, log-rank tests, and Cox proportional hazards models. Results: The median age was 20 years (IQR: 18–29), and 53.1% were male. Patients who received triple chemotherapy regimens demonstrated significantly longer overall survival (OS) compared to those on doublet regimens. High tumor necrosis rates (>90%) and negative surgical margins were strongly associated with improved OS, while metastatic disease at diagnosis, elevated alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and male gender were linked to poorer survival. Multivariate analysis identified adjuvant therapy, age under 18, high necrosis rate, negative margins, and normal ALP as significant OS predictors. Conclusions: Triple-agent chemotherapy, necrosis rate ≥90 and negative surgical margins are strongly associated with prolonged survival in osteosarcoma. The key prognostic indicators such as ALP levels, surgical margins and age at diagnosis should guide personalized treatment strategies to improve outcomes in curable patients.

Paratesticular Well-differentiated Liposarcoma: A Case Report - Journal of Oncological Sciences

AIM: Although curative resection remains a cornerstone treatment for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), recurrence continues to limit durable disease control in a considerable proportion of patients. Improved postoperative risk assessment may facilitate more individualized surveillance and management strategies. Accordingly, we examined the prognostic performance of a dynamic alpha-fetoprotein–lactate dehydrogenase (AFP–LDH) Index in predicting recurrence after curative resection.METHODS: Patients who underwent curative resection for HCC between January 2020 and January 2025 were retrospectively analyzed. The AFP–LDH Index was calculated as log10 (postoperative AFP × LDH / preoperative AFP). Survival probabilities were estimated using the Kaplan–Meier method, and the relationship between clinical variables and outcomes was examined with Cox proportional hazards models. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to identify the optimal cutoff value. Internal validation of the discriminative performance of the AFP–LDH Index was performed using bootstrap resampling (2000 repetitions), and optimism-corrected area under the curve (AUC) estimates with bootstrap-derived 95% confidence intervals were reported.RESULTS: A total of 50 patients were included, with a median follow-up duration of 27.9 months. Recurrence occurred in 26 patients (52.0%). The median RFS was 23 months (95% confidence interval [CI]: 14.5–31.5). ROC analysis identified an optimal AFP–LDH Index cutoff value of >1.67, demonstrating promising discriminative performance (AUC = 0.960). In multivariable analysis, the AFP–LDH Index remained an independent predictor of recurrence (hazard ratio [HR]: 27.24, 95% CI: 5.41–137.14, p < 0.001). ROC analysis demonstrated good discriminative performance for recurrence prediction (AUC = 0.960; 95% CI: 0.863–0.995; p < 0.001).CONCLUSIONS: The dynamic AFP–LDH Index was independently associated with recurrence risk after curative resection for HCC. This exploratory composite biomarker demonstrated promising prognostic performance; however, further multicenter validation is required before routine clinical application.

Objective: The use of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) in breast cancer is increasing. The management of locally advanced breast cancer differs due to the approach of the center to which the patient applied and the approach of the following physician. From this point of view, we aimed to evaluate the real life data of our region. Methods: The study included 106 patients treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the medical oncology clinic of two different university hospitals. Association between clinicopathological features and pathological complete response (pCR) were analyzed. Results: The pCR rate was higher in patients with negative hormone receptors and this difference was statistically significant (p:0.000). The rate of obtaining pCR increased as the NACT duration increased, and this increase was statistically significant. The mean NACT duration applied to the patients with pCR was 5.48 ± 0.22 months, and the mean NACT duration for those who could not obtain pCR was 5.01 ± 0.1 months (p:0.041). The recurrence rate of patients with pCR was 11.1%, while the recurrence rate of patients who could not obtain pCR was 31.6% (p:0.04). Conclusions: Pathological response to chemotherapy is an important factor in determining prognosis. There appears to be a need for new biomarkers that allow the prediction of pCR and long-term outcomes.

Ejmi Eurasian Journal of Medical Investigation