OBJECTIVE: Females with low-risk endometrial cancer typically have low lymph node metastasis risk and promising prognosis without lymphadenectomy. However, the impact of grade 3 endometrial cancer on nodal involvement, recurrence, and prognosis within this specific subgroup remains unclear. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to investigate the prognosis, patterns of metastasis, and recurrence in a subgroup of females with grade 3 early-stage low-risk endometrioid endometrial cancer.
METHODS: We identified patients from the endometrial cancer cohorts of seven institutional hospitals. The study included patients who underwent hysterectomy between January 2013 and December 2021 with preoperative endometrioid histological type, less than half myometrial invasion, no tumor spread outside the corpus on imaging, normal CA-125 level, and histological grade 3. The clinicopathological characteristics and survival outcomes of the patients were collected. Recurrence-free survival was estimated using the Kaplan-Meier method and compared using the log rank test.
RESULTS: Overall, 36 patients were included in this analysis. Of the 33 patients who underwent lymphadenectomy, 1 (1/33, 3.0 %) had lymph node metastasis and 27 (75.0 %) received adjuvant therapy. At a median follow-up of 58 months, three females (8 %) had recurrence and all cases involved lymph nodes. The 5-year recurrence-free survival was 88.7 %. No significant difference was observed in the recurrence-free survival between females who did and did not undergo lymphadenectomy (p = 0.554).
CONCLUSIONS: Females diagnosed with low-risk grade 3 endometrial cancer typically have favorable prognosis. However, lymph node metastasis and recurrence risks still exist, with all recorded instances of recurrence involving lymph nodes.

BACKGROUND: The incidence of oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (OPSCC) has increased in recent decades, driven by infection with human papillomavirus (HPV). Transoral robotic surgery (TORS) and neck dissection (ND) has been employed as an alternative to radiotherapy/chemoradiotherapy. The current literature is lacking studies providing an exhaustive overview of recurrence characteristics and long-term outcomes in TORS-treated OPSCC-patients.
METHODS: All patients treated for OPSCC with primary TORS + ND in Eastern Denmark between 2013 and 2020 were included in the study. The aim was to explore overall survival (OS), recurrence-free survival (RFS), recurrence patterns, and ultimate failure rate (UFR). OS and RFS were examined using the Kaplan-Meier method. Cox proportional regression analyses were employed to examine effect of different variables on risk of death and recurrence.
RESULTS: The study included 153 patients of which 88.9 % (n = 136) were treated with TORS alone while 11.1 % (n = 17) received adjuvant therapy. The 1-, 3-, and 5-year OS were 97.4 %, 94.1 %, and 87.6 % while 1-, 3-, and 5-year RFS were 96.6 %, 87.8 %, and 84.9 %. The UFR was 6.5 % in the cohort. Patients with HPV+/p16 + OPSCC had a significantly better 5-year OS of 92.3 % than patients with discordant or double-negative HPV/p16 status (OS = 73.3 %). No differences in outcomes between patients treated with or without adjuvant therapy were found in regression analysis.
CONCLUSIONS: Excellent survival and disease control was obtained with TORS + ND in this cohort, despite lesser application of adjuvant therapy than other TORS-centers, implying that TORS without adjuvant therapy can be successfully applied in treatment of early-stage OPSCC.

BACKGROUND: In melanoma treatment, complete lymph node dissection (CLND) has been considered the therapeutic gold standard in patients with positive sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB). This long-held approach was revised in 2017, with recent evidence questioning the therapeutic benefit of CLND in malignant melanoma (MM) therapy. In this study, we aimed to fill this knowledge gap by retrospectively analyzing the impact of CLND on MM patients\' survival.
METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed the multi-center population-based Clinical Cancer Registry at the Tumor Center Regensburg (TUDOK) database (2004-2020) to identify patients who had been diagnosed with SLN-positive MM and underwent (non)invasive management thereof. Patient cohorts were subdivided according to the treatment received (CLND and waiving CLND). Primary outcomes included overall survival (OS), recurrence-free survival (RFS), and cumulative recurrence rate.
RESULTS: We identified 1143 MM patients, of whom 126 (11.0%) had positive SLN status. CLND was waived in the majority of SLN-positive MM cases (n = 71; 56.3%), with 55 (43.7%) patients undergoing CLND. Univariable and multivariable Cox regression revealed no significant advantage for CLND patients compared to non-CLND patients in OS (HR=0.970, p = 0.915 and HR=1.295, p = 0.479, respectively), RFS (HR=1.050, p = 0.849 and HR=1.220, p = 0.544, respectively), and cumulative recurrence rate (HR=1.234, p = 0.441 and HR=1.220, p = 0.544), respectively).
CONCLUSIONS: We found that CLND had no significant impact on patient survival and MM recurrence rate, thus corroborating the validity of current clinical guidelines.

This study evaluates the efficacy of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) response as a surrogate marker for determining recurrence-free survival (RFS) in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (uHCC) who undergo salvage hepatectomy following conversion therapy with tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) and anti-PD-1 antibody-based regimen.
This multicenter retrospective study included 74 patients with uHCC and positive AFP (>20 ng/mL) at diagnosis, who underwent salvage hepatectomy after treatment with TKIs and anti-PD-1 antibody-based regimens. The association between AFP response-defined as a ≥ 80% decrease in final AFP levels before salvage hepatectomy from diagnosis-and RFS post-hepatectomy was investigated.
AFP responders demonstrated significantly better postoperative RFS compared to non-responders (P<0.001). The median RFS was not reached for AFP responders, with 1-year and 2-year RFS rates of 81.3% and 70.8%, respectively. In contrast, AFP non-responders had a median RFS of 7.43 months, with 1-year and 2-year RFS rates at 37.1% and 37.1%, respectively. Multivariate Cox regression analysis identified AFP response as an independent predictor of RFS. Integrating AFP response with radiologic tumor response facilitated further stratification of patients into distinct risk categories: those with radiologic remission experienced the most favorable RFS, followed by patients with partial response/stable disease and AFP response, and the least favorable RFS among patients with partial response/stable disease but without AFP response. Sensitivity analyses further confirmed the association between AFP response and improved RFS across various cutoff values and in patients with AFP ≥ 200 ng/mL at diagnosis (all P<0.05).
The \"20-80\" rule based on AFP response could be helpful for clinicians to preoperatively stratify the risk of patients undergoing salvage hepatectomy, enabling identification and management of those unlikely to benefit from this procedure.

Complete axillary lymph node dissection (cALND) was previously the standard of care for breast cancer (BC) patients with axillary node disease or macro-metastases found via sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB). However, due to significant morbidity, contemporary management now considers a more selective approach, influenced by studies like ACOSOG Z0011. This trial showed that cALND could be omitted without compromising local control or survival in patients with low axillary nodal disease burden undergoing breast-conserving therapy, radiotherapy, and systemic therapy. The relevance of this approach for women with low axillary nodal burden undergoing total mastectomy (TM) remained unclear. A PubMed search up to September 2023 identified 147 relevant studies, with 6 meeting the inclusion criteria, involving 4184 patients with BC and low-volume axillary disease (1-3 positive lymph nodes) undergoing TM. Postmastectomy radiotherapy receipt was similar in both groups. After a mean 7.2-year follow-up, both the pooled results and the meta-analysis revealed no significant differences in overall survival. The combined analysis of the published studies, including the subgroup analysis of the SINODAR-One trial, indicates no survival advantage for cALND over SLNB in T1-T2 breast cancer patients with 1-3 positive sentinel lymph nodes (pN1) undergoing mastectomy. This suggests that, following a multidisciplinary evaluation, cALND can be safely omitted. However, the impact of other patient, tumor, and treatment factors on survival requires consideration and therefore further prospective trials are needed for conclusive validation.

Laparoscopy-assisted gastrectomy (LG) is rapidly gaining popularity owing to its minimal invasiveness. Previous studies have found that compared with two-dimensional (2D)-LG, three-dimensional (3D)-LG showed better short-term outcomes. However, the long-term oncological outcomes in patients with locally resectable gastric cancer (GC) remain controversial.
In this noninferiority, open-label, randomized clinical trial, a total of 438 eligible GC participants were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to either 3D-LG or 2D-LG from January 2015 to April 2016. The primary endpoint was operating time, while the secondary endpoints included 5-year overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and recurrence pattern.
Data from 401 participants were included in the per-protocol analysis, with 204 patients in the 3D group and 197 patients in the 2D group. The 5-year OS and DFS rates were comparable between the 3D and 2D groups (5-year OS: 70.6% vs. 71.1%, Log-rank P = 0.743; 5-year DFS: 68.1% vs. 69.0%, log-rank P = 0.712). No significant differences were observed between the 3D and 2D groups in the 5-year recurrence rate (28.9% vs. 28.9%, P = 0.958) or recurrence time (mean time, 22.6 vs. 20.5 months, P = 0.412). Further stratified analysis based on the type of gastrectomy, postoperative pathological staging, and preoperative BMI showed that the 5-year OS, DFS, and recurrence rates of the 3D group in each subgroup were similar to those of the 2D group (all P > 0.05).
For patients with locally resectable GC, 3D-LG performed by experienced surgeons in high-volume professional institutions can achieve long-term oncological outcomes comparable to those of 2D-LG.
NCT02327481 ( http://clinicaltrials.gov ).

The need for adjuvant therapy (AT) following neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy (nICT) and surgery in esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) remains uncertain. This study aims to investigate whether AT offers additional benefits in terms of recurrence-free survival (RFS) for ESCC patients after nICT and surgery.
Retrospective analysis was conducted between January 2019 and December 2022 from three centers. Eligible patients were divided into two groups: the AT group and the non-AT group. Survival analyses comparing different modalities of AT (including adjuvant chemotherapy and adjuvant chemoimmunotherapy) with non-AT were performed. The primary endpoint was RFS. Propensity score matching(PSM) was used to mitigate inter-group patient heterogeneity. Kaplan-Meier survival curves and Cox regression analysis were employed for recurrence-free survival analysis.
A total of 155 nICT patients were included, with 26 patients experiencing recurrence. According to Cox analysis, receipt of adjuvant therapy emerged as an independent risk factor(HR:2.621, 95%CI:[1.089,6.310], P=0.032), and there was statistically significant difference in the Kaplan-Meier survival curves between non-AT and receipt of AT in matched pairs (p=0.026). Stratified analysis revealed AT bring no survival benefit to patients with pathological complete response(p= 0.149) and residual tumor cell(p=0.062). Subgroup analysis showed no significant difference in recurrence-free survival between non-AT and adjuvant chemoimmunotherapy patients(P=0.108). However, patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy exhibited poorer recurrence survival compared to non-AT patients (p= 0.016).
In terms of recurrence-free survival for ESCC patients after nICT and surgery, the necessity of adjuvant therapy especially the adjuvant chemotherapy, can be mitigated.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer death worldwide and its prognosis is highly heterogeneous, being related not only to tumour burden but also to the severity of underlying chronic liver disease. Moreover, advances in systemic therapies for HCC have increased the complexity of patient management. Randomised-controlled trials represent the gold standard for evidence generation across all areas of medicine and especially in the oncology field, as they allow for unbiased estimates of treatment effect without confounders. Observational studies have many problems that could reduce their internal and external validity. However, large prospective (well-conducted) observational real-world studies can detect rare adverse events or monitor the occurrence of long-term adverse events. How best to harness real world data, which refers to data generated from the routine care of patients, and real-world \'evidence\', which is the evidence generated from real-world data, represents an open challenge. In this review article, we aim to provide an overview of the benefits and limitations of different study designs, particularly focusing on randomised-controlled trials and observational studies, to address important and not fully resolved questions in HCC research.

BACKGROUND: Cellular schwannoma (CS) is a rare tumor that accounts for 2.8%-5.2% of all benign schwannomas. There is a dearth of up-to-date information on spinal CS in the literature.
OBJECTIVE: The aims of this study were to identify the proportion of CS cases amongst spinal benign schwannoma, describe the clinical features of spinal CS, and identify prognostic factors for local recurrence by analyzing data from 93 consecutive CS cases.
METHODS: Retrospective review.
METHODS: We analyzed 93 PSGCT screened from 1,706 patients with spine CS who were treated at our institute between 2008 and 2021.
METHODS: Demographic, radiographic, operative and postoperative data were recorded and analyzed.
METHODS: We compared the clinical features of spinal CS from the cervical, thoracic, lumbar and sacral segments. Prognostic factors for local recurrence-free survival (RFS) were identified by the Kaplan-Meier method. Factors with p≤.05 in univariate analysis were subjected to multivariate analysis by Cox regression analysis.
RESULTS: The proportion of spinal CS in all benign schwannomas was 6.7%. The mean and median follow-up times for the 93 patients in this study were 92.2 and 91.0 months respectively (range 36-182 months). Local recurrence was detected in 11 cases, giving an overall recurrence rate of 11.7%, with one patient death. Statistical analysis revealed that tumor size ≥5 cm, intralesional resection, and Ki-67 ≥5% were independent negative prognostic factors for RFS in spinal CS.
CONCLUSIONS: Whenever possible, en bloc resection is recommended for spinal CS. Long-term follow-up should be carried out for patients with tumor size ≥5 cm and postoperative pathological Ki-67 ≥5%.

UNASSIGNED: This study aimed to investigate the potential benefits of radical therapy in patients with stage B disease.
UNASSIGNED: A retrospective analysis was conducted on a cohort of 437 patients diagnosed with stage B hepatocellular carcinoma, who underwent either hepatic resection (HR) or radiofrequency ablation (RFA) at the Cancer Institute and Hospital of Tianjin Medical University from May 2011 to May 2022. Multivariate COX regression analysis was performed to identify the independent prognostic factors related to recurrence-free survival (RFS). The performance of the developed nomogram was evaluated using various statistical measures, including the concordance index (C-index), receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, calibration curve, and decision curve analysis (DCA).
UNASSIGNED: Multivariate analysis revealed that tumor diameter, number of tumors, number of involved liver segments, alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), and systemic immune inflammation index (SII) were independent prognostic factors influencing patients\' RFS, and these factors were incorporated into the nomogram. The C-index of the nomogram in the training cohort was 0.721, and the AUC at 2 and 3 years was 0.772 and 0.790, respectively. These values were appreciably higher than commonly used clinic staging systems and other predictive models. The calibration curve and DCA demonstrated good calibration and net benefit. Survival analysis comparing stage B patients who received radical treatment with stage A patients with multiple lesions did not reveal a significant difference in Kaplan-Meier survival curves (P=0.91).
UNASSIGNED: The nomogram provided a precise prediction of the recurrence for stage B hepatocellular carcinoma patients undergoing radical treatment. Furthermore, certain stage B patients may benefit from radical treatment.