Background/objectives The assessment of nutritional status and the quality of life in patients with gastric cancer has become one of the important goals of current clinical treatment. The purpose of this study was to assess the nutritional status in hospitalized gastric cancer patients by using patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) and to analyze the influence of nutritional status on the patients’ quality of life (QOL). Methods We reviewed the pathological diagnosis of gastric cancer for 2322 hospitalized patients using PG-SGA to assess their nutritional status and collected data on clinical symptoms, the anthropometric parameters (height, weight, body mass index (BMI), mid-arm circumference (MAC), triceps skin-fold thickness (TSF), and hand-grip strength (HGS). We also collected laboratory data (prealbumin, albumin, hemoglobin) within 48 h after the patient was admitted to the hospital. The 30-item European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Core Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30) was used for QOL assessment in all patients. Results By using PG-SGA, we found 80.4% of the patients were malnourished (score ≥ 4) and 45.1% of the patients required urgent nutritional support (score ≥ 9). In univariate analysis, old age (> 65 years, p < 0.001), female (p = 0.007), residence in a village (p = 0.004), a lower level of education (p < 0.001), and self-paying (p < 0.001) were indicated as risk factors of patients with gastric cancer to be suffering from severe malnutrition. There was a negative correlation between PG-SGA and various nutritional parameters (p < 0.05). The quality of life was significantly different in gastric cancer patients with different nutritional status (p < 0.01). Conclusion Malnutrition of hospitalized patients with gastric cancer in China is common and seriously affects the patients’ quality of life. The nutritional status should be evaluated in a timely manner and reasonable nutritional intervention should be provided as soon as possible. The PG-SGA was fit for using as a clinical nutrition assessment method, being worthy of clinical application.

Jie Zhang, Ping-Ping Jia, Qing-Le Liu, Ming-Hua Cong, Yun Gao, Han-Ping Shi, Wei-Nan Yu, Ming-Yong Miao

Malnutrition is a problem affecting tumor patients greatly. This study aims to investigate whether demographic characteristics are related to the malnutrition of cancer patients. Twenty-three thousand nine hundred and four (23,904) patients with 16 common malignant tumors were enrolled in the study. Patient Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) was used as a screening tool to assess the nutritional risk of patients and analysis of variance was used to compare PG-SGA scores of patients. Correlations between PG-SGA scores and demographic characteristics were evaluated by correlation analysis. We observed that 57.88% tumor patients had some degree of malnutrition (score ≥4) and only 20.61% were well-nourished (score 0–1). Screening scores were higher among older patients for most of the tumors. PG-SGA scores showed the significant difference between females and males in some tumors. In addition, the PG-SGA scores of some tumors were significantly different in various types of medical insurances, education levels, occupations, regions, and nationalities. Correlation analysis indicated the existence of associations between PG-SGA scores and demographic characteristics. Understanding the distribution of nutritional risk of tumor patients and the correlations between the PG-SGA scores and demographic characteristics could help identify subgroups who may benefit from targeted interventions to improve the effect of clinical treatment and the quality of life for oncology patients.

This meta-analysis aimed to summarize the association between anthocyanin consumption and the risk of colorectal cancer. All relative articles were located on online databases, including PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library as of June 11, 2018. Risk ratios (RRs) or odds ratio and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated through the STATA 12.0 software package. A total of seven studies were included in the meta-analysis. A significant inverse association was found between total anthocyanin consumption and colorectal cancer risk (RR = 0.78; 95% CI, 0.64–0.95). Likewise, there was significant evidence of a relationship between anthocyanin intake and colorectal cancer in the colon site (RR = 0.81; 95% CI, 0.71–0.92); men (RR = 0.88; 95% CI, 0.81–0.95), and case-control studies (RR = 0.69; 95% CI, 0.60–0.78). A dose–response relationship was not found in this meta-analysis. The Grades of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation quality in our study was very low. This meta-analysis indicates that anthocyanin consumption is inversely associated with the risk of colorectal cancer. Anthocyanins may play an active role in the prevention of colorectal cancer. Key teaching points:

Background Cancer cachexia is a complex metabolic syndrome characterised by a loss of muscle with or without loss of fat mass, and is associated with high morbidity and mortality. Despite its clinical importance, there is a lack of simple tools to screen patients for cancer cachexia. The aim of this study was to evaluate and validate the patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) as a screening tool for cancer cachexia. Methods This is a secondary analysis of a multicentre, cross-sectional, observational study. Cancer cachexia was diagnosed when there was weight loss ≥5% during the past 12 months and at least three of the five following conditions were present: decreased muscle strength, fatigue, anorexia, low Fat-Free Mass Index (FFMI) and abnormal laboratory findings. A quadratic discriminant analysis was conducted for the ability of PG-SGA to predict cachexia. Results A total of 4231 patients with cancer were included in this analysis, and 351 patients (8.3%) were diagnosed as having cachexia. The highest incidence of cachexia was found among patients with pancreatic cancer (32.5%), oesophageal cancer (21.5%) and gastric cancer (17.9%). Compared with patients without cachexia, patients with cachexia had a lower body mass index, FFMI, hand grip strength, total protein, prealbumin, albumin, haemoglobin and Karnofsky performance status (p<0.05), while they had a higher C reactive protein level and PG-SGA Score (4.71±3.71 vs 10.87±4.84, p<0.05). The best cut-off value for PG-SGA was 6.5, with 79.8% of sensitivity and 72.3% specificity for cachexia, and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.846 (95% CI 0.826 to 0.866, p<0.001). Conclusions PG-SGA is a highly specific tool that can be used to screen patients for cancer cachexia.

Background/Aims: Hepatocellular carcinoma is one of the most common cancers worldwide. It has been suggested that microRNAs, a class of small regulatory RNAs, are associated with tumorigenesis by targeting the mRNAs of hundreds of genes that modulate a variety of biological processes, including cellular differentiation, apoptosis, metabolism, and proliferation. Methods/Results: we analyzed the expression levels of mir-127 in 33 HCC and non-cancerous tissues using qRT-PCR. MiR-127 is downregulated in 69.7% of HCC tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues, but its expression level is not correlated with the TNM stage, AFP level, or age. In vitro, miR-127 can arrest Huh7 at the G2/M phase and inhibit Huh7 cell proliferation. In an in vivo xenograft model, the overexpression of miR-127 can inhibit Huh7 cell tumorigenicity. The luciferase reporter and western blot results confirm that miR-127 downregulates Sept7 expression by targeting its 3'UTR. Furthermore, the knockdown of Sept7 has the same effect on cell proliferation as the overexpression of miR-127 in Huh7 cells. Conclusion: miR-127 plays a tumor-suppressor role and can serve as a potential diagnostic biomarker for HCC.