Surgery is considered the standard curative treatment option for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, the rate of long-term disease-free survival after liver resection remains unsatisfactory due to persistent high incidences of HCC recurrence.¹ Many factors affect HCC recurrence risk after liver resection, including tumor size and stage, serum α-fetoprotein level, cirrhosis, hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) status, and hepatitis B virus (HBV) viral load.^2-4 Among these factors, HBV viral load is the most clinically controllable.

Introduction: The association of idiopathic inflammatory myositis (IIM) and malignancies has been reported, but rarely in Asian countries. Our aim was to investigate the risk of cancer among IIM patients without a prior history of malignancies, in Taiwan. Methods: We conducted a nationwide cohort study of 1,012 patients with dermatomyositis (DM) and 643 patients with polymyositis (PM), but without prior history of malignancies, utilizing the National Health Insurance Database from 1997 to 2007. Standardized incidence ratios (SIRs) of cancers were analyzed. Results: A total of 95 cancers (9.4%) in DM and 33 cancers (4.4%) in PM were identified. Overall cancer risk was significantly elevated in DM patients (SIR = 5.11, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 5.01 to 5.22) and PM patients (SIR = 2.15, 95% CI = 2.08 to 2.22). Most cancers were detected in the first year of observation. The risk of cancer decreased with observation time, yet remained elevated compared with the general population in both study groups after 5 years of follow-up. DM was associated with sustained elevated risk of cancers in every age group, whereas the risk of cancer in PM was highest in younger patients and decreased with age. DM patients were at the greatest risk of cancers of the nasopharynx, lungs and hematopoietic malignancies. Conclusions: Patients with IIM are at increased risk for cancer and should receive age-appropriate and gender-appropriate malignancy evaluations, with additional assessment for nasopharyngeal, lung and hematologic malignancy following diagnosis, and with continued vigilance for development of cancers in follow-up.

Diet and exercise are conventional methods for controlling body weight and are linked to alterations in gut microbiota. However, the associations of diet, exercise, and gut microbiota in the control of obesity remain largely unknown. In the present study, using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), normal fat diet (NFD), exercise and their combination resulted in improved metabolic profiles in comparison to sedentary lifestyle with high fat diet (HFD). Moreover, diet exerted more influence than exercise in shaping the gut microbiota. HFD-fed mice receiving FMT from NFD-exercised donors not only showed remarkably reduced food efficacy, but also mitigated metabolic profiles (p < 0.05). The transmissible beneficial effects of FMT were associated with bacterial genera Helicobacter, Odoribacter and AF12 and overrepresentation of oxidative phosphorylation and glycolysis genes. Our findings demonstrate that the beneficial effects of diet and exercise are transmissible via FMT, suggesting a potential therapeutic treatment for obesity.