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Background: With advent of direct-acting antiviral agents (DAA), hepatitis C virus (HCV) treatment is dramatically increasing. Although few studies reported rates of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) recurrence following DAA treatment, there have been no studies that followed sufficient number of DAA-treated patients after successful HCC treatment to examine HCC recurrence.Methods: We conducted a cohort study of HCV+ patients who had successfully treated HCC before initiating DAAs. We conducted medical record reviews to confirm HCC diagnosis, treatment, and remission prior to DAA initiation, and subsequent HCC recurrence. We calculated HCC recurrence rate and examined the recurrent tumor characteristics. We used Cox proportional hazard model to identify factors associated with HCC recurrence.Results: We identified 264 HCV+ patients who received DAAs after an average of 30.9 (20.6) months following HCC treatment. HCC recurred in 26.1% patients during 23.3 (9.8) months follow-up, at a rate of 0.38 [0.30, 0.48] per 1000 person-month. Most (82.3%) recurrent HCC were early stage. Receiving non-curative treatment for HCC was associated with a higher risk of recurrence than curative treatment (HRadj = 2.06, [1.24, 3.40]). The risk of HCC recurrence decreased with longer duration between HCC treatment completion and DAA initiation (HRadj = 0.97, [0.95, 0.99] per additional month). Compared with patients who achieved sustained virological response (SVR), those without SVR had significantly increased risk of HCC recurrence (HRadj = 4.17, [1.48, 11.75]).Conclusions: We conclude that most HCV+ patients with HCC benefit from DAA treatment; however, timing of DAA initiation after HCC treatment should be carefully considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: HOX transcript antisense intergenic RNA (HOTAIR) is a relatively well-understood RNA, which plays a central role in the pathogenesis of various tumors. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect by which HOTAIR acts to influence the biological processes of colorectal cancer (CRC) through p21.Methods: Reverse transcription quantitative polymerase chain reaction and Western blot methods were employed to provide verification regarding the changes in HOTAIR, PCNA, Ki67, p21, cyclin E, and CDK2 among the CRC tissues and cells. The correlation between the clinicopathological characteristics of patients and expression of HOTAIR and p21 was subsequently evaluated, followed by an analysis into the effects of HOTAIR on the biological processes of M5 cells.Results: HOTAIR was found to be expressed at high levels, while p21 was determined to be at a low level among both the CRC tissues and the CRC cell lines. The expressions of HOTAIR and p21 were determined to be related to lymph node metastasis, tumor node metastasis, Dukes staging, distant metastases, histological types, and the degree of differentiation. Cells transfected with HOTAIR siRNA displayed inhibited rates of proliferation, invasion, and migration, as well as decreased cyclin E and CDK2, while apoptosis and p21 were increased.Conclusion: The principal findings demonstrated that down-regulation of HOTAIR elicits an inhibitory effect on proliferation, invasion, and migration, while promoting the apoptosis of CRC cells through the up-regulation of p21. We believe that HOTAIR could represent a novel target for the treatment of CRC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with bile duct tumor thrombi (BDTT) is a rare type of primary liver cancer, and its clinical and pathological characteristics remain to be defined.Aims: To investigate the clinical and pathological characteristics of HCC with BDTT.Methods: Among 676 HCC patients who underwent surgical treatment from Dec. 2002 to Dec. 2008 at the author's hospital, HCC with BDTT was identified in 20 patients. The clinical and pathological characteristics of the 20 patients were measured or analyzed retrospectively. The integrity of the involved bile duct was examined macroscopically and microscopically, the expression of liver stem cell markers was investigated by immunohistochemistry, and the Kaplan-Meier method was adopted for evaluating survival.Results: Among the 20 patients, the diameter of the primary tumor was less than 5 cm in 13 patients (range: 0.5-10 cm, mean 4.47±0.68 cm). Most of the primary tumors lacked an intact tumor capsule (15/20, 75%), had simultaneous blood vessel invasion (12/20, 60%), and were poorly differentiated (13/20, 65%). There was no evidence of bile duct wall infiltration by the tumor cells macroscopically or microscopically. The positive rate of the liver stem cell markers c-kit, CD90, CD133, and EpCAM was 90, 90, 85 and 85%, respectively. Postoperative overall survival rates at 1, 2, and 3 years were 73.1, 41.1, and 20.6%, respectively. The log-rank test showed that the overall survival rates were significantly worse for HCC patients with BDTT than for HCC patients without BDTT (P=0.016).Conclusions: HCC with BDTT has aggressive characteristics and the long-term prognosis is extremely dismal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]