ObjectiveTo evaluate the prognostic significance of serum levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and insulin-like growth factors-Ⅰ (IGF-Ⅰ) in advanced gastric cancer patients who were treated with oxaliplatin/5-fluorouracil (FOLFOX). MethodsNinety-six advanced gastric cancer patients who were treated with FOLFOX in our hospital between March 2007 to August 2010 were enrolled in this study. All of the patients were treated with oxaliplatin (85 mg/m2) as a 2-hour infusion on day 1, and leucovorin (20 mg/m2, about 10 min) on day 1 and day 2, followed by a 5-fluorouracil bolus (400 mg/m2) and 22 hours of continuous infusion of 600 mg/m2. Treatment was repeated in 2-week intervals, and patients received 4 chemotherapy cycle in total. The levels of serum VEGF and IGF-Ⅰ were measured using enzyme-linked immunoassays. The relationship between serum levels of VEGF/IGF-Ⅰ and the clinicopathological characteristics of patients, the relationship between serum levels of VEGF/IGF-Ⅰ and prognosis of patients, were analyzed. ResultsThe serum levels of VEGF and IGF-Ⅰ were (464.4±57.4) pg/mL and (33.5±7.3) ng/mL, respectively. The serum level of VEGF was related with surgical history, Lauren's classification, TNM staging before treatment, and pathological type (P < 0.05), and serum level of IGF-Ⅰ was related with TNM staging before treatment and number of transferred organs (P < 0.05). The serum levels of VEGF and IGF-Ⅰ in stable disease (SD) +progressive disease (PD) patiens were higher than those of complete response (CR) +partial response (PR) patients (P < 0.05). The results of Cox proportional hazard regression model showed that, effect of chemotherapy (HR=1.764, P=0.006), number of transferred organs (HR=1.662, P=0.015), serum level of VEGF (HR=1.834, P=0.012) and IGF-Ⅰ (HR=1.855, P=0.008), were all significantly related with time to progression (TTP); serum level of VEGF (HR=2.205, P=0.002) and IGF-Ⅰ (HR=1.931, P=0.004) were all significantly related with overall survival (OS). ConclusionLevels of serum VEGF and IGF-Ⅰ are independent prognostic factors in patients with advanced gastric cancer who were treated with FOLFOX chemotherapy.
ObjectiveTo investigate the predicting effect of PIK3CA mutations for the efficacy and prognosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients received surgical resection. MethodsPCR and DNA sequencing were used to detect the PIK3CA mutation status of 79 HCC tissues, its impact on the short and long term effects of the patients were analyzed. ResultsIn this group of patients, mutation rate of PIK3CA gene exon 9 was 39.24% (31/79), PIK3CA mutation rate correlated with lymph node status and tumor differentiation (P < 0.05). The therapeutic effect of patients with PIK3CA mutation was significantly poor than that of the non-mutated group (P < 0.05). The three-year cumulative survival of patients with PIK3CA mutation (33.33%) was significantly lower than non-mutated group's (60.00%) by Kaplan-Meier (P < 0.05). ConclusionPIK3CA gene mutation in exon 9 could impact the efficiency of surgical resection in patients with HCC and could predict a poor survival prognosis.