Yucel C, et al. World J Mens Health. 2019 Jan;37:e5. https://doi.org/10.5534/wjmh.180105

Prognostic nutritional index (PNI), which is calculated using the albumin level reflecting nutritional status and lymphocyte count reflecting immune status, is useful in showing nutritional and immunological status related to survival and prognosis in many cancers. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the biomarker potential and effect of PNI in determining the prognosis of metastatic castration-sensitive prostate cancer (mCSPC). This retrospective observational study included the complete data of 108 patients with mCPSC who were treated for at least three months between 1 January 2010, and 1 June 2021. The relationships between cancer-specific survival (CSS), overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and PNI were evaluated. The Kaplan–Meier method for OS, PFS, and CSS, as well as univariate and multivariate Cox regression models, were used for the statistical analyses. The median age of 108 patients included in the study was 68.54 (61.05–74.19) years. A value of 49.75 was determined to be the best cut-off point for the PNI. OS (months) was found to be significantly lower in patients with low PNI (median: 34.93, 95% CI: 21.52–48.34) than in patients with high PNI (median: 65.60, 95% CI: 39.36–91.83) (p = 0.016). Patients with high PNI (median: 48.20, 95% CI: 34.66–61.73) had significantly better CSS (months) than patients with low PNI (median: 27.86, 95% CI: 24.16–31.57) (p = 0.001). There was no statistically significant difference in PFS between patients with high PNI values (median: 24.60, 95% CI: 10.15–39.05) and patients with low PNI values (median: 20.03, 95% CI: 11.06–29.03) (p = 0.092). The PNI is a good predictor of OS and CSS in patients with mCSPC. The prediction of PFS, albeit showing a trend towards significance, was not statistically significant, probably due to the small number of cases.

Objective: To observe the clinical practice of salvage microdissection testicular sperm extraction (mTESE) in patients with non-obstructive azoospermia (NOA) and to determine the factors that may predict the presence of spermatozoa in preoperative salvage mTESE. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 445 patients with the diagnosis of NOA, who had undergone the mTESE operation consecutively in our institution between the dates of March 2008 and June 2017. The study included a total of 49 patients with failure to detect spermatozoa in the first mTESE and who had then undergone salvage mTESE. In order to investigate the factors that predict the result of salvage mTESE, the patients were classified into two groups according to the outcome of salvage mTESE, as those with and without spermatozoa retrieval. Patients in these two groups were compared with regard to age, body mass index, history of varicocele, history of cryptorchidism, duration of infertility, outcomes of genetic analysis, results of hormone profiles and the testicular histopathology results of the first mTESE. Results: The sperm retrieval rate following salvage mTESE was observed to be 42.8%. Statistically a significant difference was determined between the mean follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) values of the groups (p = 0.013). No significant difference was observed between the groups with regard to the remaining parameters.Conclusion: It was observed that among the factors that predict the success of sperm retrieval in salvage mTESE in patients with NOA and previous unsuccessful sperm retrieval in mTESE operation, only the pre-operative FSH level was observed to significantly correlate with the success in salvage mTESE.

Keywords: Fosfomycin; Prostate; Biopsy

Background and objective: We investigated the ability of preoperative serum values of red blood cell distribution width (RDW), neutrophil lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and plateletcrit (PCT) to predict Fuhrman grades (FG) and tumor stages of renal cell carcinoma in patients who underwent radical nephrectomy. Materials and methods: Records of 283 patients that underwent radical or partial nephrectomy of renal masses at our clinic between January 2010 and April 2018, whose pathology results indicated renal cell carcinoma (RCC), and who had their FG and T1–4 N0M0 identified were retrospectively evaluated. The patients were divided into two groups based on their FG as low (I–II) and high (III–IV) and their T stages were similarly grouped as limited to kidney (pT1–pT2) and not limited to kidney (pT3–pT4). Results: Mean RDW, NLR, PCT cut-off values of the patients for FG and T stage were 15.65%, 3.54, 0.28% and 14.35%, 2.69, 0.28%, respectively. The RDW and NLR were determined to be statistically significant predictors of a pathologically high FG, whereas the PCT value was not a statistically significant predictor of high FG (p = 0.003, p = 0.006, p = 0.075, respectively). The relationship of RDW, NLR and PCT values with a limited to the kidney pathological T stage revealed statistically significant correlations for all three values. Conclusions: We determined that only RDW and NLR were markers predicting FG, while PCT had no prognostic value. On the other hand, all three of these values were associated with a limited to the kidney pathological T stage in patients who underwent nephrectomy due to renal masses and whose pathologies suggested RCC.