Background: Although inflammation is a known predictor for poor prognosis in patients with diabetics, few data report the synergistic association between inflammation, malnutrition, and mortality in patients with diabetics. We aim to explore whether malnutrition modifies the predictor of inflammation on prognosis.Methods: Nutritional status and inflammation were measured in 6,682 patients with diabetics undergoing coronary angiography or percutaneous coronary intervention between January 2007 to December 2018 from Cardiorenal Improvement Registry. Malnutrition was defined as Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT) score, which was more than 1. High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) exceeding the median was assessed as a high-risk inflammation. Cox regression models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) for mortality across combined hs-CRP and CONUT score categories.Results: During a median follow-up of 5.0 years (interquartile range: 3.0–7.6 years), 759 (11.36%) patients died. The mortality of the four groups (normal nutrition and low hs-CRP level; normal nutrition and high hs-CRP level; malnutrition and low hs-CRP level; and malnutrition and high hs-CRP level) were 7.29, 7.12, 10.71, and 17.31%, respectively. Compared with normal nutrition and low hs-CRP level, an isolated condition of either malnutrition or high hs-CRP level was not associated with any significant risk for all-cause mortality. However, concomitant presence of both high hs-CRP level and malnutrition condition was associated with a significantly increased risk of all-cause mortality (HR: 1.51; 95% CI: 1.20–1.89; p < 0.001). The p-value for interaction between nutritional status and hs-CRP level on all-cause mortality was 0.03.Conclusion: The interplay of inflammation and malnutrition in patients with diabetics significantly amplifies the deleterious effects of each as distinct disease entities. A prospective randomized clinical trial is needed in the future to verify the results.
10 September 2020 in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment
Background The prognostic effect of molecular subtypes on male breast cancer (MBC) remains unclear. The aim of this study was to evaluate the clinicopathological and prognostic factors of MBC patients. Methods From 1 January 1990 to 31 December 2014, the data of 152 MBC and 304 female breast cancer (FBC) patients were identified and extensively compared. Results Compared with the FBC group, MBC patients were found to have a higher rate of cancer family history (30.9% vs. 18.4%, P = 0.001), mass around the areola area (37.5% vs. 5.6%, P = 0.000), lymph node invasion (44.1% vs. 34.2%, P = 0.006) and hormonal receptor positivity (66.4% vs. 49.3%, P = 0.027). Luminal A was the most common subtype accounting for 69.8%, whereas HER2‐positive (12.7%) and TNBC (1.6%) subtypes were rare in the MBC group. However, it was significantly lower for MBC than for FBC who received endocrine therapy (38.8% vs. 49.3%, P = 0.041). MBC showed the worse overall survival (OS) and disease‐free survival (DFS) than those of FBC patients. However, 10‐year OS and DFS were similar between MBC and FBC patients in the subgroups of nonluminal subtype (P < 0.001), but worse in MBC patients than those in FBC patients in the subgroups of luminal A (P = 0.004 for OS; P = 0.002 for DFS) and luminal B (P = 0.006 for OS; P = 0.003 for DFS). Multivariate analysis indicated tumor size, radical mastectomy and endocrine therapy as independent risk factors for OS and DFS of MBC patients. Conclusions Our study determined that MBC patients possessed a worse prognosis, usually with lymph node invasion, and were estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR)‐positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER2)‐negative. Molecular subtypes based on FBC did not provide the same prognostic information in MBC, even in the luminal groups.