Effects of diode low-level laser therapy on healing of tooth extraction sockets: a histopathological study in diabetic rats

Lasers in Medical Science - Diabetes mellitus is mostly interrelated to deficiency in wound healing. Low-level laser therapy has been shown to exert reliable effects on the acceleration of wound...     

Prognostic role of decreased E-cadherin expression in patients with upper tract urothelial carcinoma: a multi-institutional study

Purpose

To assess the role of E-cadherin as prognostic biomarker in upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) in a large multi-institutional cohort of patients.

Methods

Immunohistochemistry technique was used to evaluate E-cadherin expression in 678 patients with unilateral, sporadic UTUC treated with RNU. E-cadherin expression was considered decreased if 10 % or more cells had decreased expression (<90 %).

Results

Decreased E-cadherin expression was observed in 353 patients (52.1 %) and was associated with advanced pathological stage (P < 0.001), higher grade (P < 0.001), lymph node metastasis (P = 0.006), lymphovascular invasion (P < 0.001), concomitant carcinoma in situ (P < 0.001), multifocality (P = 0.004), tumor necrosis (P = 0.020) and sessile architecture (P < 0.001). Within a median follow-up of 30 months (interquartile range 15–57), 171 patients (25.4 %) experienced disease recurrence and 150 (21.9 %) died from UTUC. In univariable analyses, decreased E-cadherin expression was significantly associated with worse recurrence-free survival (P < 0.001) and cancer-specific survival CSS (P = 0.006); however, in multivariable analyses, it was not (P = 0.74 and 0.84, respectively). The lack of independent prognostic value of E-cadherin remained true in all subgroup analyses.

Conclusion

In UTUC patients treated with RNU, decreased E-cadherin expression is associated with features of biologically and clinically aggressive disease and worse outcome in univariable, but not multivariable, analyses. If E-cadherin’s association with factors of advanced disease is confirmed on UTUC biopsy specimens, it could be used to help in the clinical decision-making regarding kidney-sparing approaches and/or neo-adjuvant chemotherapy.

     

Impact of gender on bladder cancer incidence, staging, and prognosis

Introduction  

While patient gender is an important factor in the clinical decision-making for the management of bladder cancer, there are minimal evidence-based recommendations to guide health care professionals. Recent epidemiologic and translational research has shed some light on the complex relationship between gender and bladder cancer. Our aim was to review the literature on the effect of gender on bladder cancer incidence, biology, mortality, and treatment.