Retrospective comparative survival analysis of ablation plus systemic therapy versus systemic therapy alone for breast cancer liver metastases, stratified by extrahepatic metastases status.

Background: Current decision-making for the treatment of breast cancer liver metastases (BCLM) using ablation lacks strong evidence, especially for patients combined with extrahepatic metastases.

Purpose: To assess whether ablation plus systemic therapy (AS) improves survival outcomes in patients with BCLM compared to systemic therapy alone.

Materials And Methods: This retrospective study analyzed patients with BCLM who received either AS or systemic therapy alone.

Non-contrasted computed tomography (NCCT) based chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) automatic diagnosis using cascaded network with multiple instance learning.

The diagnosis of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH) is challenging due to nonspecific early symptoms, complex diagnostic processes, and small lesion sizes. This study aims to develop an automatic diagnosis method for CTEPH using non-contrasted computed tomography (NCCT) scans, enabling automated diagnosis without precise lesion annotation.A novel cascade network (CN) with multiple instance learning (CNMIL) framework was developed to improve the diagnosis of CTEPH.

A Prospective, Single-Arm, Phase 2 Study of Modified Transarterial Chemoembolization Using Low-Dose Chemotherapy with Blank Microspheres Plus Low-Dose Lenvatinib and Microwave Ablation in Patients with Large (≥7 cm) Unresectable Hepatocellular Carcinoma: The TALEM Trial.

Introduction: For patients with large unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the effectiveness of conventional transarterial chemoembolization (cTACE) remains suboptimal. This study investigated the efficacy and safety of modified TACE using low-dose chemotherapy with blank microspheres (BMS-TACE) plus low-dose lenvatinib (LD-LEN) and microwave ablation (MWA) in patients with large unresectable HCC.

Methods: In this prospective, single-arm, phase 2 study, patients with unresectable HCC exceeding the up-to-seven criteria, with maximum tumor diameter ≥7 cm, and without macrovascular invasion or extrahepatic metastases, received initial BMS-TACE (lipiodol, low-dose doxorubicin, and lobaplatin up to 30 mg each, and blank microspheres; subsequently modified and repeated in most patients) plus LD-LEN (4-8 mg/day) and MWA.

Overall Survival Rates Become Similar Between Percutaneous Ablation and Hepatic Resection With Increasing Age Among Elderly Patients With Early Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Background: This study aimed to investigate the efficacy and safety of percutaneous ablation versus hepatectomy in an elderly population with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

Methods: Retrospective data on patients aged ≥ 65 years with very-early/early stages of HCC (≤ 50 mm) were obtained from three centers in China. Inverse probability of treatment weighting analysis was performed after stratifying the patients by age (65 - 69, 70 - 74 and ≥ 75 years).

Investigating Mechanisms of Response or Resistance to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors by Analyzing Cell-Cell Communications in Tumors Before and After Programmed Cell Death-1 (PD-1) Targeted Therapy: An Integrative Analysis Using Single-cell RNA and Bulk-RNA Sequencing Data.

Currently, a significant proportion of cancer patients do not benefit from programmed cell death-1 (PD-1)-targeted therapy. Overcoming drug resistance remains a challenge. In this study, single-cell RNA sequencing and bulk RNA sequencing data from samples collected before and after anti-PD-1 therapy were analyzed.

Preoperative identification of microvascular invasion in hepatocellular carcinoma by XGBoost and deep learning.

Purpose: Microvascular invasion (MVI) is a valuable predictor of survival in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients. This study developed predictive models using eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) and deep learning based on CT images to predict MVI preoperatively.

Methods: In total, 405 patients were included.

Alcohol drinking as an unfavorable prognostic factor for male patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

The relationship between alcohol drinking and the prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is unknown. To investigate the prognostic value of alcohol drinking on NPC, this retrospective study was conducted on 1923 male NPC patients. Patients were classified as current, former and non-drinkers according to their drinking status.