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Aim: To discover the value of contrast-enhanced CT parameters in predicting the prognosis of gastric adenocarcinoma (GAC) patients after radical gastrectomy., Methods: The patients with a clinical diagnosis of GAC were retrospectively enrolled. Two radiologists drew the regions of interest (ROIs) in CT images and measured the CT attenuate value (CAV) in each phase and the corrected CAV (cCAV) in each contrast-enhanced phase. Patients were divided into two groups (high/low-enhancement) according to receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Kaplan-Meier curve and Cox proportional hazards regression analysis were performed to evaluate correlation between prognosis and variables. Subgroup analysis was used to further analyze the prognostic value of variables., Results: In total 435 patients were included. According to ROC curve, the cCAV in delayed phase (DP-cCAV) with maximum AUC and Youden index was chosen. A total of 312 patients (71.7%) entered DP-cCAV low group and remaining 123 (28.3%) patients were in DP-cCAV high group. According to univariate (high vs low, HR=2.120, p <0.001) and multivariate (high vs low, HR=1.623, p <0.001) Cox regression analysis, the low-enhancement state was considered as an independent protective factor. Subgroup analysis was based on age, maximum diameter of tumor, differentiation, vascular invasion status, and TNM staging. In most subgroups, the overall survival (OS) of DP-cCAV low group was overwhelmingly satisfactory (all HR >1, expect TNM stage I, IV and differentiated type subgroups)., Conclusion: The prognostic effectiveness of CT parameters as biomarkers for OS in GAC patients treated with radical gastrectomy has potential value., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2020 Wang et al.)

Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the role of contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CE-CT) parameters in predicting the expression status of HER2 in gastric adenocarcinoma (GAC) patients before radical gastrectomy., Materials and Methods: A total of 460 GAC patients who underwent non-contrast CT (NC-CT) and CE-CT examinations before radical resection were enrolled in this retrospective study. The radiologists reviewed their CT scans and recorded parameters, including CT attenuate value (CAV) and corrected CAV (cCAV). The pathologist identified the postoperative HER2 expression status, and HER2 expression status was evaluated by immunohistochemical staining (IHC). The association between CE-CT parameters and HER2 expression status was analyzed., Results: Among the 460 patients, 84 patients had HER2 over-expression status, at a prevalence of 18.3%. The CAVs were significantly different between the 2 different HER2 expression groups in the non-contrast and arterial phases (non-contrast phase: p = 0.005; arterial phase: p < 0.001). Besides, there was a significant difference in the cCAVs between the 2 groups in the arterial phase (arterial phase: p = 0.003). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses identified that the maximum diameter of tumor, differentiation degree, CAV in non-contrast, arterial, and portal phases, and cCAV in the arterial phase were predictive factors of HER2 expression status., Conclusion: Our analyses showed that the CE-CT parameters were significantly different between different HER2 expression groups. CE-CT parameters could serve as simple, objective predictive factors of HER2 expression status of GAC patients., Competing Interests: The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work., (© 2020 Wang et al.)

We sought to systematically evaluate the diagnostic and prognostic value of miR-203 in patients with colorectal cancer. To explore the diagnostic performance of miR-203, eligible studies were identified from biomedical databases. Based on these results, 11 studies were pooled and included in this meta-analysis. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odds ratios of miR-203 were 0.83 (95% confidence interval, CI: 0.78-0.86), 0.80 (95% CI: 0.77-0.83), and 19.27 (95% CI: 7.23-51.36) for the diagnosis of colorectal cancer. The area under the curve for miR-203 for diagnosing colorectal cancer was 0.89. Patients with higher expression of tissue miR-203 had poor overall survival (pooled hazard ratio: 1.63; 95% CI: 1.03-2.57, P =0.04), but serum miR-203 was not predictive (pooled hazard ratio: 1.59; 95% CI: 0.31-8.12, P =0.58). The miR-203 values of tissue and serum merged together may perhaps predict superior overall survival (pooled hazard ratio: 1.62; 95% CI: 0.93-2.82), but the effect was not significant ( P =0.09)., Competing Interests: Disclosure The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.