Objctive To explore the effect of positive lymph nodes ratio (LNR) on prognosis of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods Clinical data of 432 NSCLC patients undergoing radical surgery for lung cancer and systemic lymph node dissection in our hospital from January 2010-2013 were retrospectively analyzed. There were 316 males and 116 females with age of 39-84 (57.59±9.16) years. Among 432 patients, 229 (53.0%) were classified as N0 based on pathological staging of lymph nodes, 104 (24.1%) as N1 and 99 (22.9%) as N2. Kaplan-Meier curve and COX multi-factor regression model were used to evaluate the correlation between the clinical data and patients' survival. Results Five lymph nodes on average (range, 1-52) were removed in each patient. Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that the higher the staging of positive lymph nodes was, the shorter the patients' overall survival and disease-free survival were (P<0.001). Survival analysis showed that the LNR was closely associated with disease-free survival and overall survival (P<0.001). COX multivariate analysis revealed that the LNR staging was an independent risk factor of prognosis of NSCLC. Conclusion LNR is an independent prognostic factor of NSCLC, and can be used to improve lymph node staging in standards for NSCLC staging in the future.
Objective To show the changes of coagulation function in patients with esophageal carcinoma, and to explore the clinical significance of the changes. Methods We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 202 patients(as a trial group, 114 males, 88 females, aged from 36 to 69 years, median age at 49 years) with esophageal carcinoma confirmed by pathological examination in Gansu Provincial Hospital from January 2010 through May 2014. The prothrombin time (PT), prothrombin time activity (PTA), international activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), fibrinogen (Fib), D-Dimer, and platelet count, pathological type, TNM stage, gender were recorded. Eighty patients (38 males, 42 females, with aged of 39 to 71 years, median age of 51 years) without cancer were selected as a control group. Results Compared with the control group, coagulation parameters including PT, APTT, PLT, Fib, TT, D-Dimer were statistically higher in the trial group (P<0.05). Higher Fib level was found in the squamous cell esophageal carcinoma patients than adenocarcinoma cell esophageal carcinoma patients (P<0.05). Fib increased significantly (P<0.05) and APTT shorten (P<0.05) in the patients at stage Ⅲ and stage Ⅳ compared with those of patients at stage Ⅰ and stage Ⅱ. Fib and D-Dimer levels increased (P<0.05) in N1-3 patients compared with those of N0 patients. There was no statistical difference in gender or age (P>0.05) between the two groups. Conclusion Most of the patients with esophageal carcinoma have abnormal changes of coagulation and fibrinolysis system. Patients with squamous subtype and/or lymph node metastasis at advanced stages of esophageal carcinoma are prone to thrombophilia. So monitoring the coagulation parameters of cancer patients can be used as an effective measure to prevent blood clot.