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Background: We aimed to examine whether patients with de novo and relapsed/progressed stage IIIB–IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) without epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) or anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) mutations have different prognoses. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed the Health Insurance Review and Assessment claims data in South Korea from 2013 to 2020. Patients with stage IIIB–IV NSCLC without EGFR or ALK mutations who received first-line palliative therapy between 2015 and 2019 were identified. Overall survival (OS), time to first subsequent therapy (TFST), and time to second subsequent therapy (TSST) were estimated using the Kaplan–Meier method. Multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to reveal the impact of de novo versus relapsed/progressed disease on OS. Treatment patterns, including treatment sequence, top five most frequent regimens, and time to treatment discontinuation, were described in both groups. Results: Of 14,505 patients, 12,811 (88.3%) were de novo, and 1,694 (11.7%) were relapsed/progressed. The median OS in the de novo group was 11.0 versus 11.5 months in the relapsed/progressed group (P = 0.002). The ongoing treatment probability was higher in relapsed/progressed patients than in de novo patients from 6.4 months since the initiation of first-line treatment (P < 0.001). Median TSST was shorter in the de novo group than in the relapsed/progressed group (9.5 vs. 9.9 months, P < 0.001). In multivariate analysis, de novo disease was associated with shorter OS (hazard ratio 1.07; 95% confidence interval 1.01–1.14). The overall treatment patterns for de novo and relapsed/progressed patients were similar. Conclusions: De novo patients had poorer OS and TSST after the initiation of palliative therapy than relapsed/progressed patients. These findings suggest that the stage of the disease at the time of initial diagnosis should be considered in observational studies and clinical trials as a prognostic factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chemotherapeutic drugs are traditionally used for the treatment of cancer. However, chemodrugs generally induce side effects and decrease anticancer effects due to indiscriminate diffusion and poor drug delivery. To overcome these limitations of chemotherapy, in this study, ultrasound-responsive liposomes were fabricated and used as drug carriers for delivering the anticancer drug doxorubicin, which was able to induce cancer cell death. The ultrasound-sensitive liposome demonstrated a size distribution of 81.94 nm, and the entrapment efficiency of doxorubicin was 97.1 ± 1.44%. The release of doxorubicin under the ultrasound irradiation was 60% on continuous wave and 50% by optimizing the focused ultrasound conditions. In vivo fluorescence live imaging was used to visualize the doxorubicin release in the MDA-MB-231 xenografted mouse, and it was demonstrated that liposomal drugs were released in response to ultrasound irradiation of the tissue. The combination of ultrasound and liposomes suppressed tumor growth over 56% more than liposomes without ultrasound exposure and 98% more than the control group. In conclusion, this study provides a potential alternative for overcoming the previous limitations of chemotherapeutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This community-based case-control study was carried out in four cities in South Korea to examine whether vasectomy is associated with a long-term increased risk of cardiovascular death in Korean men. Our results coincide with those from epidemiological studies conducted in Western countries as well as the one study conducted in China and do not support the vasectomy—atherosclerosis hypothesis originating from animal research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]