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Objective: To compare the instructive value of the 6th and 7th editions of the UICC-AJCC staging system in prognosis of esophageal cancer (EC) patients., Methods: The staging and prognosis of 1397 esophageal carcinoma patients undergoing curative resection from Jan. 2003 to Dec. 2006 in our hospital were retrospectively reviewed and analyzed according to the 6th AJCC staging system and the 7th UICC-AJCC staging system., Results: The 5-year overall survival (OS) of EC patients with curative resection was 38.5% (481/1250 cases), with a follow-up rate of 89.5% (1250/1397 case). In overall terms, both the editions were statistically significant discriminators of OS (P < 0.05). The 5-year OS of stages I, II and III patients were 64.9%, 43.5%, 25.2% according to the 6th edition, and 63.5%, 44.5%, 23.5% according to the 7th edition, respectively. Distinct differences in survival were present among patients categorized as stage Ia and Ib according to the 7th edition (P < 0.05), with a 5-year OS of 80.0% and 58.3%, respectively. Similarly, according to the 7th edition, the 5-year overall survivals (OS) of the stages IIIa, IIIb and IIIc patients were 28.2%, 18.4% and 16.7%, respectively, showing that the prognoses were significantly different (P < 0.05). In addition, according to the 7th edition, the prognoses of patients in stages N0, N1, N2 and N3 were also significantly different (P < 0.01), and the 5-year OS were 50.0%, 31.5%, 18.7% and 16.7%, respectively., Conclusions: Both the 6th and 7th editions of UICC-AJCC staging system are significant discriminators for survival of esophageal cancer patients. The 7th edition is proved to be more accurate in prognosis. The number of lymph node metastases is an important predictor of prognosis.

Objective: As a rare benign lung tumor, pulmonary sclerosing hemangioma (PSH) occurs predominantly in Asian women in their fifth and sixth decades of life. PSH is considered to be evolved from primitive undifferentiated respiratory epithelium. In this study, we summarized our experience in 89 cases of PSH., Method: There were a total of 89 patients who received surgical resection and were histopathologically diagnosed as PSH during the period January 2001 to December 2010 in department of thoracic surgery, Cancer Institute and Hospital, Peking Union Medical College and Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. The clinical data of these patients including symptoms, disease courses, image characteristics and surgical procedures were collected and reviewed retrospectively., Results: The PSHs were most frequently (50.6%) found in the patients aged 41 to 60 years with a median age of 51 years (range: 24 - 71), and the sex ratio (male/female) was approximately 1:7 in this series. In the 89 patients, 53 (59.6%) were asymptomatic while the other 36 (40.4%) had some non-special symptoms such as cough (30.3%), hemoptysis (24.7%). There were only 3 cases (3.4%) with multiple PSHs, 4 cases (4.5%) combined with synchronous primary lung cancer, and 13 cases (14.6%) with lesions located in the hilar region. The median diameter of the 92 lesions was 2.3 cm (range: 0.3 - 6.0 cm), of which 38% located in the right lower lobe and 26.1% in the right middle lobe, and only about 1/3 were assumed as PSHs preoperatively based on CT imaging. One of the five patients who underwent PET-CT scan had been misdiagnosed as malignant. Of the 92 lesions, 47 were resected by enucleation, 29 by wedge resection, 14 by lobectomy, and 2 by pneumonectomy., Conclusion: PSH frequently occurs in the middle-aged women. Most individuals with PSH are asymptomatic or have some non-specific symptoms. Their lesions are usually found accidentally by chest imaging. Although PSH often shows typical imaging characteristics of benign neoplasm of the lung, it is difficult to establish a defined pathological diagnosis preoperatively. The significant error or deferred rate of intraoperative frozen-section evaluation for PSH may result in some unnecessarily extensive surgical procedures. The complete surgical resection is considered the only effective treatment for PSH, and the normal pulmonary tissue should be reserved as possible.

Objective: To investigate the expression of 14-3-3ε in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and relationship of 14-3-3ε and clinicopathological factors of ECSS patients., Methods: The 14-3-3ε expression in tumors and adjacent normal epithelia from 72 ESCC patients was detected by immunohistochemical staining. Correlations of 14-3-3ε expression or their subcellular localization and clinicopathological factors were analyzed using Chi-squared test. Survival curves were generated according to the Kaplan-Meier method, and the statistical analysis was performed by Log-rank test., Results: The expression of 14-3-3ε protein was significantly up-regulated in tumors with 77.8% positive and 27.8% strong positive staining, compared with paired adjacent normal epithelia with 43.1% positive and only 2.8% strong positive staining (P < 0.01). In a total of 56 positive staining tumors, 14-3-3ε was detected in cytoplasm of 37 (66.1%), in nucleus of 4 (7.1%), in both cytoplasm and nucleus of 15 (26.8%) cases. Whereas, in a total of 31 positive staining normal epithelia, 14-3-3ε was detected in cytoplasm of 0, in nucleus of 13 (41.9%), in both cytoplasm and nucleus of 18 (58.1%) cases (P < 0.01). Statistical analysis revealed that strong 14-3-3ε expression was correlated with lymph node metastasis (P = 0.028) and lower 5-year survival (P = 0.018). The survival curves calculated by Kaplan-Meier method further showed that the patients with strong 14-3-3ε expression had a shorter survival than patients with negative or weak 14-3-3ε expression (Log-rank, P = 0.031). No correlation was found between subcellular localization of 14-3-3ε in tumor cells and clinicopathologic factors and prognosis of ESCC patients., Conclusion: The 14-3-3ε expression is significantly up-regulated in ESCCs. It was usually located in cytoplasm of tumor cells, but nucleus of normal epithelia. Strong expression of 14-3-3ε in tumors is associated with lymph node metastasis and considered as an poor prognostic factor for ESCC.

Objective: To investigate the expression and relationship of Rho-associated protein kinase 2 (ROCK2) and clinical characteristics in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC)., Methods: Immunohistochemistry was performed to assay the expression of ROCK2 in tumor tissues and adjacent normal epithelium from 118 ESCC patients in tissue microarray. The relationship between ROCK2 level and clinicopathologic profiles such as age, gender, location, smoking, differentiation degree, T stage, lymph node metastasis and TNM stage were analyzed., Results: The ROCK2 expression was up-regulated in 54 of 118 (45.76%) ESCC tissues. The up-regulated expression of ROCK2 was observed in 55.74% (34/61) ESCC tissues of patients under 61 years old. And it was significantly higher than that in 35.09% (20/57) of patients over 61 years old (χ(2) = 5.062, P = 0.024). In addition, the rate of up-regulation of ROCK2 was significantly higher in high-grade differentiation group (58.70%, 27/46) than that in moderate-grade and low-grade differentiation group (37.50%, 27/72) (χ(2) = 5.080, P = 0.024)., Conclusion: The up-regulated expression of ROCK2 is correlated with patient age and differentiation grade of ESCC.