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COVID-19, the illness caused by infection with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, is a rapidly spreading global pandemic in urgent need of effective treatments. Here we present a comprehensive examination of the host- and virus-targeted functions of the flavonolignan silibinin, a potential drug candidate against COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2. As a direct inhibitor of STAT3-a master checkpoint regulator of inflammatory cytokine signaling and immune response-silibinin might be expected to phenotypically integrate the mechanisms of action of IL-6-targeted monoclonal antibodies and pan-JAK1/2 inhibitors to limit the cytokine storm and T-cell lymphopenia in the clinical setting of severe COVID-19. As a computationally predicted, remdesivir-like inhibitor of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp)-the central component of the replication/transcription machinery of SARS-CoV-2-silibinin is expected to reduce viral load and impede delayed interferon responses. The dual ability of silibinin to target both the host cytokine storm and the virus replication machinery provides a strong rationale for the clinical testing of silibinin against the COVID-19 global public health emergency. A randomized, open-label, phase II multicentric clinical trial (SIL-COVID19) will evaluate the therapeutic efficacy of silibinin in the prevention of acute respiratory distress syndrome in moderate-to-severe COVID-19-positive onco-hematological patients at the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Catalonia, Spain.

Introduction: the goal of this study was to compare the oncological results (local recurrence, metastasis and overall survival) obtained by the Proyecto Docente del Cancer de Recto of the Spanish Association of Surgeons (AEC) (Proyecto Vikingo, PV) in Catalonia versus the rest of Spanish autonomous communities. Methods: the PV database includes 4,508 patients who underwent a curative resection between March 2006 and December 2010, from the first 59 hospitals included in PV; 1,163 were from Catalonia and 3,345 were from the rest of Spain. There was a minimum follow-up of five years. Results: in Catalonia, the five-year cumulative incidence was 8% (95% CI: 6.4-9.9) for local recurrence, 17.7% (95% CI: 15.420.2) for metastasis and 75% (95% CI: 72.4-77.7) for overall survival. In the rest of autonomous communities, these figures were 7% (95% CI: 6.2-8.2) for local recurrence, 22.3% (95% CI: 20.7-23.9) for metastasis, and 71% (95% CI: 69.4-72.9) for overall survival. Variables associated with tumor recurrence in PV included Hartmann's procedure, intraoperative perforation and circumferential margin involvement. Conclusion: the results obtained by the Proyecto Docente del Cancer de Recto were homogeneous between Catalonia and the rest of the autonomous communities.

Introduction: The objective of this observational, prospective, multicenter and multilevel study was to evaluate the oncological outcomes (local recurrence, metastasis and overall survival) of the Rectal Cancer Project of the Spanish Association of Surgeons (AEC) 10 years after its initiation, comparing the results with Scandinavian registries. Methods: The AEC teaching project database includes 17,620 patients to date, of which 4,508 were operated on with a potentially curative resection between March 2006 and December 2010. All of them come from the first 59 hospitals included in the project, and therefore followed for at least 5 years, and are the subject of the present study. Results: The cumulative incidence of local recurrence was 7.3 (95% CI: 8.2-6.5), metastasis 21.0 (CI 95%: 22.4-19.7) and overall survival 72.3 (CI 95%: 80.3-77.6). The multilevel regression analysis with the hospital variable as a random effect, showed a significant variation among the hospitals for the cancer outcome variables: general survival, local recurrence and metastasis (delta 2 = 0.053). Conclusions: This study indicates that the results observed in the AEC' Rectal Cancer Project are inferior than those observed in the Scandinavian registries that we tried to emulate and that this is attributable to the variability of practice in some centers. (C) 2017 AEC. Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. All rights reserved.