Zheng-Yin Liao

Locally advanced rectal cancer (RC) is treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) followed by radical surgery. Currently, organ-sparing approaches and/or “watch-and-wait” strategies other than unnecessary surgery have been suggested as the best option for patients who achieve complete regression after neoadjuvant treatment. However, patients respond differently to nCRT, hence the urgent need for effective methods to predict whether individual rectal cancer patients could benefit from this treatment. In this review, we summarize the biomarkers reported to be potential predictors of the therapeutic response of RC to nCRT. Biomarkers that are associated with genes, ribonucleic acid (RNA) and proteins are summarized and described first, followed by other types including immune and tumour microenvironment-related biomarkers, imaging biomarkers, microbiome-associated biomarkers, and blood-based biomarkers.

Background and Objectives: This study aimed to compare the efficacy of transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) plus sorafenib (TACE-S) to TACE plus lenvatinib (TACE-L) for the treatment of HCC with portal vein tumor thrombus (PVTT).Methods: This cohort study recruited patients from September 2017 to September 2020. A total of 59 and 57 consecutive patients were treated with TACE-L and TACE-S, respectively.Results: Before propensity score matching (PSM), comparing TACE-L to TACE-S, the median overall survival (OS) time was 16.4 months and 12.7 months, respectively [hazard ratio (HR) 1.34; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.81–2.20; p = 0.25]. The median progression-free survival (PFS) time was 8.4 months and 7.43 months, respectively (HR 1.54; 95% CI: 0.98–2.41; p = 0.081). After PSM, the median OS time was 18.97 months and 10.77 months, respectively (HR 2.21; 95% CI: 1.12–4.38; p = 0.022); the median PFS time was 10.6 months (95% CI: 6.6–18.0 months) and 5.4 months (95% CI: 4.2–8.1 months), respectively (HR 2.62; 95% CI: 1.43–4.80; p = 0.002). After PSM, the overall response rate (ORR) was 66.8% vs. 33.3% [odds ratio (OR) 0.85; 1.05–6.90; p = 0.037].Conclusion: Both TACE-L and TACE-S are safe, well-tolerated treatments for HCC with PVTT. In HCC with PVTT, TACE-L was significantly superior to TACE-S with respect to OS, PFS, and ORR. A larger-scale randomized clinical trial is needed.

Immunotherapy, represented by immune checkpoint inhibitors (mainly referring to programmed death-1 (PD-1)/programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) blockades), derives durable remission and survival benefits for multiple tumor types including digestive system tumors [gastric cancer (GC), colorectal cancer (CRC), and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)], particularly those with metastatic or recurrent lesions. Even so, not all patients would respond well to anti-programmed death-1/programmed death-ligand 1 agents (anti-PD-1/PD-L1) in gastrointestinal malignancies, suggesting the need for biomarkers to identify the responders and non-responders, as well as to predict the clinical outcomes. PD-L1expression has increasingly emerged as a potential biomarker when predicting the immunotherapy-based efficacy; but regrettably, PD-L1 alone is not sufficient to differentiate patients. Other molecules, such as tumor mutational burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI), and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) as well, are involved in further explorations. Overall, there are not still no perfect or well-established biomarkers in immunotherapy for digestive system tumors at present as a result of the inherent limitations, especially for HCC. Standardizing and harmonizing the assessments of existing biomarkers, and meanwhile, switching to other novel biomarkers are presumably wise and feasible.

Gastric cancer, a digestive malignancy, is the sixth most frequent cancer and the second leading cause of tumor-related deaths worldwide. The emergence and advancement of immunotherapeutic agents h... Lay abstract The emergence of immunotherapy, a type of treatment that boosts the body’s natural immune system to fight cancer, has caused oncologists to entirely rethink how they treat gastric/gast...

In recent years, the incidence of liver cancer has increased and is currently the sixth most common tumor and the second leading cause of cancer‑associated mortality worldwide. Most cases of liver cancer are hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Surgery, including liver transplantation or resection, and radiofrequency ablation therapies are all considered to be the curative treatment options for early‑stage HCC. However, most patients have advanced HCC at the time of diagnosis, contributing to a poor prognosis. Therefore, improved treatment for late‑stage HCC is needed. Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), among which programmed death receptor 1 (PD‑1)/PD‑ligand 1 and cytotoxic T lymphocyte‑associated protein 4 are the representative immunological checkpoints, have shown great promise and progress for HCC treatment. The present review summarizes recent studies that have focused on ICIs and discusses the present limitations affecting the development of new therapeutic strategies.

· Eleven consecutive patients with auricular AVMs were treated with percutaneous ethanol sclerotherapy. · Percutaneous ethanol sclerotherapy was effective in all patients and, significantly, no clinical recurrence of the nidus was observed during follow‐up. · Our results suggest that ethanol sclerotherapy has the potential to cure auricular AVM.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227475.].

Conventional transarterial chemoembolization (cTACE), drug-eluting beads (DEB-TACE) and transarterial radioembolization (TARE) are alternative strategies for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, which of these strategies is the best is still controversial. This meta-analysis was performed to evaluate the effects of DEB-TACE, TARE and cTACE in terms of overall survival (OS), tumor response and complications. A literature search was conducted using the EMBASE, PubMed, Google Scholar, and Cochrane databases from inception until July 2019 with no language restrictions. The primary outcome was overall survival, and the secondary outcomes included complete response and local recurrence. The comparison of DEB-TACE with cTACE indicated that DEB-TACE has a better OS at 1 year (RR 0.79, 95% CI 0.67–0.93, p = 0.006), 2 years (RR 0.89; 95% CI 0.81–0.99, p = 0.046), and 3 years (RR 0.89; 95% CI 0.81–0.99, p = 0.035). The comparison of TARE with cTACE indicated that TARE has a better OS than cTACE at 2 years (RR 0.87; 95% CI 0.80–0.95, p = 0.003) and 3 years (RR 0.90; 95% CI 0.85–0.96, p = 0.001). The comparison of DEB-TACE with TARE indicated that DEB-TACE has a better OS than TARE at 2 years (RR 0.40; 95% CI 0.19–0.84, p = 0.016). The current meta-analysis suggests that DEB-TACE is superior to both TARE and cTACE in terms of OS. TARE has significantly lower complications than both DEB-TACE and cTACE for patients with HCC. Further multicenter, well-designed randomized controlled trials are needed, especially for evaluating DEB-TACE versus TARE.

Current evidence supporting the efficacy of transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) in Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer (BCLC)-B hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is controversial. The aim of this systematic review was to compare the benefits of liver resection (LR) versus TACE in BCLC-B HCC.