Causes of death and nomogram for patients with oncologic hepato-biliary-pancreatic disorders: A large-cohort study.

The improvement of digestive cancer survival results in increased morbidity of noncancerous comorbidities. This study aimed at clarifying causes of death (COD) and predicting overall survival (OS) in patients diagnosed with liver cancer, gallbladder cancer, cholangiocarcinoma, and pancreatic cancer. We used the Surveillance, Epidemic, and End Results database to extract information. Nomograms of multivariate Cox regression was used to predict OS of cancer patients. The models were evaluated using the concordance indexes (C-indexes), the receiver operating characteristic curves and calibration curves. Respectively 58,895, 15,324, 30,708, and 109,995 cases with cancer of liver, gallbladder, bile duct or pancreas were retrieved between 2000 and 2020. Approximately 80% deaths occurred within 1 years after cancer diagnosis. Sequence in noncancerous COD proportion was diverse, while diseases of heart always accounted for a great part. Risks of death from most noncancerous COD were significantly higher than that of the cancer-free population. Nomograms were developed by predictors of interest such as age, therapy and TNM stage. The concordance indexes of nomograms were 0.756, 0.729, 0.763, and 0.760 respectively, well-calibrating to the reality. The 0.5-, 1-, and 2-year areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve were about 0.800, indicating good reliability and accuracy. Noncancerous COD accounted for larger part in gallbladder cancer and cholangiocarcinoma. Noncancerous COD showed an upward trend as follow-up time extended and the majorities were diseases of heart, cerebrovascular disease, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis. The novel OS-nomograms can provide personalized prognosis information with satisfactory accuracy.

Cause of death among gastric cancer survivors in the United States from 2000 to 2020.

A number of studies have been conducted to explore the survival of gastric cancer (GC) patients, while studies about non-cancer causes of death in patients with GC are not well-conducted. The aim of this study was to deeply investigate the causes of death (COD) in GC patients, especially non-cancer ones. The Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database was used to extract information including demographics, tumor characteristics and causes of death of GC patients meeting the inclusion criteria. The patients were stratified by demographic and clinical parameters. Standardized mortality ratios (SMRs) were calculated for all causes of death at different follow-up periods. A total of 116,437 patients with GC diagnosed between 2000 and 2020 were retrieved from the SEER database. Of these, 85,827 deaths occurred during the follow-up period, most of which occurred within 1 year after GC diagnosis. GC (n = 49,746; 58%) was the leading COD, followed by other cancer (n = 21,135; 25%) and non-cancer causes (n = 14,946; 17%). Diseases of heart were the most common non-cancer cause of death, accounting for 30%, followed by cerebrovascular diseases (n = 917; 6%) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (n = 900; 6%). Although gastric cancer remains the most common cause of death in gastric cancer patients, it should not be ignored that the risk of non-cancer causes tends to increase with the length of the latency period. These findings may provide important insights into the healthcare management of gastric cancer patients at various follow-up intervals.

Stachydrine, a major constituent of the Chinese herb leonurus heterophyllus sweet, ameliorates human umbilical vein endothelial cells injury induced by anoxia-reoxygenation.

Stachydrine is a major constituent of Chinese herb leonurus heterophyllus sweet, which is used in clinics to promote blood circulation and dispel blood stasis. Our study aimed to investigate the role of stachydrine in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) injury induced by anoxia-reoxygenation. Cultured HUVECs were divided randomly into control group, anoxia-reoxygenation (A/R) group and 4 A/R+stachydrine groups. HUVECs in the control group were exposed to normoxia for 5 hours, while in all A/R groups, HUVECs underwent 3 hours anoxia followed by 2 hours reoxygenation, and HUVECs in the 4 A/R+stachydrine groups were treated with 10(-8) M, 10(-7) M, 10(-6) M and 10(-5) M (final concentration) of stachydrine respectively. After anoxia-reoxygenation, tissue factor (TF) was over-expressed, cell viability and the concentrations of SOD, GSH-PX and NO were declined, while LDH, MDA and ET-1 were over-produced (p < 0.05 to 0.001 vs. the control group). However, in stachydrine treated groups, TF expression was inhibited at both mRNA and protein levels, while the declined cell viability and SOD, GSH-PX, NO as well as the enhanced LDH, MDA and ET-1 levels occurred during anoxia-reoxygenation were ameliorated and reversed effectively (p < 0.05 to 0.01 versus A/R group). Consequently, our findings indicate that TF plays an important role in the development of anoxia-reoxygenation injury of HUVECs, stachydrine ameliorates HUVECs injury induced by anoxia-reoxygenation and its putative mechanisms are related to inhibition of TF expression.