Laparoscopic Proximal Gastrectomy Maintains Body Weight and Skeletal Muscle Better Than Total Gastrectomy.

Background: Laparoscopic proximal gastrectomy (LPG) is performed as a function-preserving surgery for patients with early proximal gastric malignant tumors; however, whether LPG has advantages postoperatively compared with laparoscopic total gastrectomy (LTG) is debatable, especially with regard to nutritional outcomes.

Methods: We evaluated 20 patients who underwent LTG and 10 patients who underwent LPG with double tract reconstruction (LPG-DT) who were diagnosed preoperatively with T1a or T1b N0 Stage IA gastric cancer in our department in the same time period. The statistical relevance of complications, surgical maneuvers, clinical factors and changes in weight, skeletal muscle index (SMI) and serum albumin levels after surgery was compared between the LPG-DT group and the LTG group.

The Clinical Usefulness of the LigaSure™ Small Jaw in Axillary Lymph Node Dissection in Patients with Breast Cancer.

Background: The LigaSure™ small jaw (LS-SJ) multifunctional tissue sealing system is mainly used in cervical operations. We aimed to evaluate the clinical efficacy of the LS-SJ in axillary lymph node dissection (ALND) in comparison to the conventional method.

Patients And Methods: Ninety-two patients with breast cancer who underwent total mastectomy and ALND were included in this study.

Gastric Cancer of "Crawling Type" Detected by Additional Gastrectomy After Endoscopic Submucosal Resection.

"Crawling type" gastric cancer (GC) is known as a rare variant of early GCs, which is difficult to diagnose at an early stage because of low-grade nuclear atypia and a morphology mimicking intestinal metaplasia. This is a case report of a 69-year-old woman who was diagnosed with early-stage gastric cancer. She had endoscopic submucosal resection (ESD) and histologically, both horizontal and vertical margins were negative.

Developing a Phosphospecific IHC Assay as a Predictive Biomarker for Topoisomerase I Inhibitors.

Phosphorylation is the most extensively studied posttranslational modification of proteins. There are approximately 500 kinases known in the human genome. The kinase-activated pathways regulate almost every aspect of cell function and a deregulated kinase cascade leads to impaired cellular function.

Epithelial Paradox: Clinical Significance of Coexpression of E-cadherin and Vimentin With Regard to Invasion and Metastasis of Breast Cancer.

Background: E-cadherin and vimentin are regarded as major conventional canonical markers of the epithelial-mesenchymal transition. It is commonly assumed that E-cadherin is uniformly lost during the process of epithelial-mesenchymal transition. Breast tumor cells typically invade as a cohesive multicellular unit in a process called collective invasion.

Prophylactic Effect of Dexamethasone on Regorafenib-Related Fatigue and/or Malaise: A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled, Double-Blind Clinical Study in Patients with Unresectable Metastatic Colorectal Cancer (KSCC1402/HGCSG1402).

Background: Regorafenib is an oral multikinase inhibitor with a proven survival benefit for metastatic colorectal cancer patients. The KSCC1402/HGCSG1402 study investigated the prophylactic effect of oral dexamethasone (DEX) on regorafenib-related fatigue and/or malaise.

Patients And Methods: Patients who progressed after standard chemotherapy were randomized 1: 1 to a DEX group (2 mg/day; days 1-28) with regorafenib or a placebo group with regorafenib.

Clinical and Genetic Implications of Mutation Burden in Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Lung.

Background: Lung squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) is a major histological subtype of lung cancer. In this study, we investigated genomic alterations in LSCC and evaluated the clinical implications of mutation burden (MB) in LSCC.

Methods: Genomic alterations were determined in Japanese patients with LSCC (N = 67) using next-generation sequencing of 415 known cancer genes.

Neoadjuvant Chemoradiotherapy for Patients with cT3/Nearly T4 Esophageal Cancer: Is Sarcopenia Correlated with Postoperative Complications and Prognosis?

Background: Since the clinical impact of sarcopenia on multimodal therapy for patients with esophageal cancer is not well understood, this study was conducted to determine the influence of sarcopenia on the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (NACRT) for locally advanced esophageal cancer.

Methods: The skeletal muscle index was quantified at the level of the third lumbar vertebra on computed tomography images, and sarcopenia was defined as a skeletal muscle index that was less than the average for each gender. We compared treatment outcomes in patients with cT3 and nearly T4 thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma between the sarcopenia group (n = 85) and the non-sarcopenia group (n = 72).

Correction to: Recurrence with pagetoid spread arising 17 years after surgery for intramucosal rectal cancer: a case report.

After publication of the original article [1] the authors noted that the following errors had occurred.

A phase II study of nab-paclitaxel in combination with ramucirumab in patients with previously treated advanced gastric cancer.

Background: Nanoparticle albumin-bound (nab)-paclitaxel was developed to improve paclitaxel solubility and does not need premedication to avoid infusion-related reactions associated with solvent-based (sb)-paclitaxel. We conducted a phase II trial to investigate the efficacy and safety of nab-paclitaxel plus ramucirumab combination therapy for previously treated advanced gastric cancer.

Patients And Methods: Patients with unresectable advanced gastric cancer refractory to first-line chemotherapy were administered nab-paclitaxel 100 mg/m intravenously on days 1, 8 and 15, plus ramucirumab 8 mg/kg intravenously on days 1 and 15 of a 28-day cycle.

Impact of Concurrent Genomic Alterations Detected by Comprehensive Genomic Sequencing on Clinical Outcomes in East-Asian Patients with EGFR-Mutated Lung Adenocarcinoma.

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) has enabled comprehensive detection of genomic alterations in lung cancer. Ethnic differences may play a critical role in the efficacy of targeted therapies. The aim of this study was to identify and compare genomic alterations of lung adenocarcinoma between Japanese patients and the Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), which majority of patients are from the US.

Study protocol of a phase II clinical trial (KSCC1501A) examining oxaliplatin + S-1 for treatment of HER2-negative advanced/recurrent gastric cancer previously untreated with chemotherapy.

Background: Oxaliplatin + S-1 is a recognized treatment regimen in Japan, but there are no Japanese clinical data on an oxaliplatin dose of 130 mg/m. The current research involves a single-arm, prospective, phase II clinical trial to examine the efficacy and safety of oxaliplatin + S-1 with an oxaliplatin dose of 130 mg/m to treat HER2-negative advanced/recurrent gastric cancer previously untreated with chemotherapy in Japan.

Methods/design: The primary endpoint of this trial will be the response rate, and the secondary endpoints will be the safety profile of oxaliplatin + S-1, progression-free survival, the response rate in subjects under the age of 75, overall survival, time to treatment failure, duration of treatment, time to failure of strategy, and dose intensity.

Antitumor effects of the antiparasitic agent ivermectin via inhibition of Yes-associated protein 1 expression in gastric cancer.

Yes-associated protein 1 (YAP1) acts as an oncogene through dephosphorylation and nuclear translocation, and nuclear accumulation of YAP1 is associated with poor prognosis in gastric cancer (GC). We previously identified ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug, as a YAP1 inhibitor. Here, we aimed to clarify whether ivermectin had antitumor effects on GC through inhibition of YAP1.

Low Visceral Fat Content Is a Negative Predictive Marker for Bevacizumab in Metastatic Colorectal Cancer.

Aim: This study aimed to clarify the predictive impact of visceral fat on response to bevacizumab in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC).

Patients And Methods: Pretreatment computed tomography was used to measure visceral fat area (VFA) and patients with mCRC receiving first-line chemotherapy with/without bevacizumab were divided by median VFA value into two groups: high VFA and low VFA.

Results: In the bevacizumab-treated group, patients with low VFA had significantly shorter overall survival (OS) than patients with high VFA in univariate (median=21.

Clinical Significance of the Wild Type p53-Induced Phosphatase 1 Expression in Invasive Breast Cancer.

Background: Wild type p53-induced phosphatase 1 (Wip1), encoded by the protein phosphatase magnesium dependent 1 delta (PPM1D), inhibits p53. PPM1D amplification has been reported in breast cancer. Breast cancer can sometimes develop without a tumor protein 53 (TP53) mutation.

Identification of ARL4C as a Peritoneal Dissemination-Associated Gene and Its Clinical Significance in Gastric Cancer.

Background: In gastric cancer (GC), peritoneal dissemination (PD) occurs frequently and is incurable. In this study, we aimed to identify PD-associated genes in GC.

Methods: We identified a PD-associated gene using three GC datasets: highly disseminated peritoneal GC cell lines, the Singapore dataset and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) dataset.

Comprehensive genomic sequencing detects important genetic differences between right-sided and left-sided colorectal cancer.

Objectives: Anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) therapy has been found to be more effective against left-sided colorectal cancer (LCRC) than right-sided colorectal cancer (RCRC). We hypothesized that RCRC is more likely to harbor genetic alterations associated with resistance to anti-EGFR therapy and tested this using comprehensive genomic sequencing.

Materials And Methods: A total of 201 patients with either primary RCRC or LCRC were analyzed.

Mitotic slippage and the subsequent cell fates after inhibition of Aurora B during tubulin-binding agent-induced mitotic arrest.

Tubulin-binding agents (TBAs) are designed to target microtubule (MT) dynamics, resulting in compromised mitotic spindles and an unsatisfied spindle assembly checkpoint. The activity of Aurora B kinase is indispensable for TBA-induced mitotic arrest, and its inhibition causes mitotic slippage and postmitotic endoreduplication. However, the precise phenomenon underlying mitotic slippage, which is caused by treatment with both Aurora B inhibitors and TBAs, and the cell fate after postmitotic slippage are not completely understood.

DNA replication stress and cancer chemotherapy.

DNA replication is one of the fundamental biological processes in which dysregulation can cause genome instability. This instability is one of the hallmarks of cancer and confers genetic diversity during tumorigenesis. Numerous experimental and clinical studies have indicated that most tumors have experienced and overcome the stresses caused by the perturbation of DNA replication, which is also referred to as DNA replication stress (DRS).

Histopathologic diversity of gastric cancers: Relationship between enhancement pattern on dynamic contrast-enhanced CT and histological type.

Purpose: To evaluate the diagnostic value of contrast-enhanced computed tomography gastrography (CE-CTG) to predict the histological type of gastric cancer.

Materials And Methods: We analyzed 47 consecutive patients with resectable advanced gastric cancer preoperatively evaluated by multiphasic dynamic contrast-enhanced CT. Two radiologists independently reviewed the CT images and they determined the peak enhancement phase, and then measured the CT attenuation value of the gastric lesion for each phase.

Correction to: S-1 and irinotecan plus bevacizumab as second-line chemotherapy for patients with oxaliplatin-refractory metastatic colorectal cancer: a multicenter phase II study in Japan (KSCC1102).

In the original publication, in Abstract, the sentence that reads as, "Oral S-1 at a dose of 80 mg/m was…………. drug-free interval" should read as, "Oral S-1 at a dose of 40 mg/m was administered twice daily for 2 weeks, followed by a 1-week drug-free interval.

"Energy-less technique" with mini-clips for recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node dissection in prone thoracoscopic esophagectomy for esophageal cancer.

Background: Meticulous recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) lymph node dissection in thoracoscopic esophagectomy for esophageal cancer often results in RLN paralysis.

Methods: We had attempted to simply cut the vessels around RLN sharply with scissors without using energy device in order to prevent RLN paralysis. However, these procedures often result in minor bleeding.

Actionable gene-based classification toward precision medicine in gastric cancer.

Background: Intertumoral heterogeneity represents a significant hurdle to identifying optimized targeted therapies in gastric cancer (GC). To realize precision medicine for GC patients, an actionable gene alteration-based molecular classification that directly associates GCs with targeted therapies is needed.

Methods: A total of 207 Japanese patients with GC were included in this study.