Search

miRNAs biomarkers are emerging as an essential part of clinical oncology. Their oncogenic and tumour suppressor properties playing a role in malignancy has generated interest in their potential for use in disease prognosis. While several studies on miRNA have been carried out across the globe, evaluating the clinical implications of miRNAs in cancer diagnosis and prognosis research has currently not been attempted. A study delineating the area of miRNA research, including the topics presently being focused on, the seminal papers in this field, and the direction of research interest, does not exist. This study aims to conduct a large-scale, global data analysis and bibliometric profiling analysis of studies to evaluate the research output of clinical implications of miRNAs in cancer diagnosis and prognosis listed in the SCOPUS database. A systematic search strategy was followed to identify and extract all relevant studies, subsequently analysed to generate a bibliometric map. SPSS software (version 27) was used to calculate bibliometric indicators or parameters for analysis, such as year and country of affiliation with leading authors, journals, and institutions. It is also used to analyse annual research outputs, including total citations and the number of times it has been cited with productive nations and H-index. The number of global research articles retrieved for miRNA-Cancer research over the study period 2003 to 2019 was 18,636. Between 2012 and 2019, the growth rate of global publications is six times (n = 15,959; 90.71 percent articles) that of 2003 to 2011. (2704; 9.29 per cent articles). China published the most publications in the field of miRNA in cancer (n = 7782; 41%), while the United States had the most citations (n = 327,538; 48%) during the time span. Of these journals, Oncotarget has the highest percentage of article publications. The journal Cancer Research had the most citations (n = 41,876), with 6.20 per cent (n = 41,876). This study revealed a wide variety of journals in which miRNA-Cancer research are published; these bibliometric parameters exhibit crucial clinical information on performance assessment of research productivity and quality of research output. Therefore, this study provides a helpful reference for clinical oncologists, cancer scientists, policy decision-makers and clinical data researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction Comprehensive oncology services have recently been introduced in the Northern Territory ( NT) enabling delivery of concurrent chemo-radiotherapy ( CCRT) in locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinoma ( LAHNSC). The purpose of this study is to assess feasibility, compliance and toxicity of CCRT in remote Australia. Methods Chart review was conducted for all patients >18 years, with biopsy-proven LAHNSC, receiving curative intent CCRT between January 2010 and September 2012. Results The study population comprised of 26 patients, 20 Caucasian and 6 Indigenous, having a median age of 58 years, with most common sites of involvement being the oropharynx ( n = 16) and the oral cavity ( n = 6). Major risk factors were smoking and alcoholism. Cardiovascular disease, viral hepatitis, latent tuberculosis and strongyloidosis were the major comorbidities. Fifty-eight per cent ( n = 15) required assisted feeding. All patients received intensity modulated radiotherapy. Systemic therapy comprised of cisplatin or carboplatin/cetuximab. Most common acute (grade 3/4) toxicities were mucositis, dysphagia and dermatological in 54%, 31% and 23% respectively. Complications were infection and gastrostomy insertion related. Hospitalisation occurred in 23%, treatment break >2 days in 38%, with no difference in toxicities between indigenous and nonindigenous patients. Platinum use was associated with greater nausea ( P = 0.003), renal dysfunction ( P = 0.03) and ototoxicity ( P = 0.04) and cetuximab with dermatological reactions ( P = 0.05). At median follow-up of 16 months, overall survival was 58% with progression-free survival of 50%. Conclusions We have demonstrated good compliance rates, tolerance and feasibility outcomes. The seeming preponderance of LAHNSC in the NT is cause for concern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Molecular markers can be used to identify residual cancer at the surgical margins of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) and assist in evaluating the complete resection of the tumour. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the expression levels of prognostic molecular markers at the histological tumour free surgical margins. In the present clinical retrospective study, 24/48 patients were selected with negative surgical margins for further analysis with immunohistochemical staining. Contingency tables and Fisher's exact tests were used to investigate the association between the expression levels of p53 and eukaryotic translation imitation factor 4E (eIF4E) with the clinical outcomes for patients with HNSCC. The expression levels of p53 and eIF4E were 54.2 and 87.5%, respectively, in the surgical margins of patients with HNSCC. A total of 3/7 patients with recurrent cancer (42.8%) were identified with p53-positive margins, and 6 (85.7%) patients exhibited recurrence with eIF4e-positive margins. No statistically significant differences were identified for the recurrence risk between the overexpression of p53 and eIF4E in the surgical margins (P=0.88 and P=0.99, respectively). The eIF4E marker appears to be a more marked prognosticator compared with p53, as overexpression of eIF4E was identified in the margins of 6/7 patients with local recurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Head and Neck Cancer (HNC) is the sixth most common type of cancer across the globe, with more than 300,000 deaths each year, globally. However, there are currently no standardised molecular markers that assist in determining HNC prognosis. The literature for this systematic review and meta-analysis were sourced from multiple bibliographic databases. This review followed PRISMA guidelines. The Hazard Ratio (HR) was selected as the effect size metric to independently assess overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and prognosis. Subgroup analysis was performed for individual highly represented miRNA. A total of 6843 patients across 50 studies were included in the systematic review and 34 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Studies across 12 countries were assessed, with China representing 36.7% of all included studies. The analysis of the survival endpoints of OS and DFS were conducted separately, with the overall pooled effect size (HR) for each being 1.825 (95% CI 1.527–2.181; p < 0.05) and 2.596 (95% CI 1.917–3.515; p < 0.05), respectively. Subgroup analysis was conducted for impact of miR-21, 200b, 155, 18a, 34c-5p, 125b, 20a and 375 on OS, and miR-21 and 34a on DFS. The pooled results were found to be statistically significant for both OS and DFS. The meta-analysis indicated that miRNA alterations can account for an 82.5% decrease in OS probability and a 159.6% decrease in DFS probability. These results indicate that miRNAs have potential clinical value as prognostic biomarkers in HNC, with miR-21, 125b, 34c-5p and 18a, in particular, showing great potential as prognostic molecular markers. Further large scale cohort studies focusing on these miRNAs are recommended to verify the clinical utility of these markers individually and/or in combination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]