• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제14권4호
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• pp.2277-2282
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• 2013

Purpose: Mammography has been confirmed as the only effective mode to improve the prognosis of patients with breast cancer in Western developed countries, but might not be a good choice in other areas of the world. One of the major challenges in China is to determine an optimal imaging modality for breast cancer screening. This study was designed to clarify the sensitivity of ultrasonography compared with that of mammography in rural China. Methods: We retrospectively studied the sensitivity of mammography and ultrasonography based on 306 breast cancer patients detected by the program of "screening for cervical cancer and breast cancer" performed in Chinese rural areas between January 2009 and December 2011, and analyzed the effects of age, breast density and volume on the sensitivity. Results: Stratified analysis showed that the sensitivity of breast ultrasonography was significantly higher than that of mammography in premenopausal patients (81.4% vs. 61.1%, p=0.02), in women ${\leq}$ 55 years of age (82.2% vs. 63.4%, p<0.01), in the high breast density group (American College of Radiology [ACR] levels 3-4) (85.9% vs. 60.6%, p<0.01) and in the small breast volume group (${\leq}$ 400 ml) (87.1% vs. 66.7%, p<0.01). Age had a significant effect on sensitivity of mammography (breast density and volume-adjusted odds ratio, 6.39; 95% confidence interval, 2.8-14.4 in age group > 55 compared to age group ${\leq}$ 45), but not that of ultrasonography. Neither breast density nor volume had significant effect on sensitivity of mammography or ultrasonography. Conclusions: Ultrasonography is more sensitive than mammography in detecting breast cancer in women under 55 year-old Chinese, especially in those with high-density and relatively small breasts.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제31권7호
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• pp.1043-1061
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• 2018

Intramuscular fat (IMF) content in skeletal muscle including the longissimus dorsi muscle (LM), also known as marbling fat, is one of the most important factors determining beef quality in several countries including Korea, Japan, Australia, and the United States. Genetics and breed, management, and nutrition affect IMF deposition. Japanese Black cattle breed has the highest IMF content in the world, and Korean cattle (also called Hanwoo) the second highest. Here, we review results of research on genetic factors (breed and sex differences and heritability) that affect IMF deposition. Cattle management factors are also important for IMF deposition. Castration of bulls increases IMF deposition in most cattle breeds. The effects of several management factors, including weaning age, castration, slaughter weight and age, and environmental conditions on IMF deposition are also reviewed. Nutritional factors, including fat metabolism, digestion and absorption of feed, glucose/starch availability, and vitamin A, D, and C levels are important for IMF deposition. Manipulating IMF deposition through developmental programming via metabolic imprinting is a recently proposed nutritional method to change potential IMF deposition during the fetal and neonatal periods in rodents and domestic animals. Application of fetal nutritional programming to increase IMF deposition of progeny in later life is reviewed. The coordination of several factors affects IMF deposition. Thus, a combination of several strategies may be needed to manipulate IMF deposition, depending on the consumer's beef preference. In particular, stage-specific feeding programs with concentrate-based diets developed by Japan and Korea are described in this article.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권22호
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• pp.9823-9829
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• 2014

Background: High-dose methotrexate (HD-MTX) is recognized as an efficient component of therapy against pediatric osteosarcoma in combination with other drugs such as cisplatin (CDP), carboplatin (CBDCA), doxorubicin (ADM), etoposide (VP-16) and ifosfamide (IFO). Objectives: To demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the HD-MTX/CDP/DOX/VP-16/IFO [MTX(+)] protocol comparable to CDP/ADM/CBDCA/IFO [MTX(-)] for treating childhood osteosarcoma at Ramathibodi Hospital (1999-2014). Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted of osteosarcoma patients aged less than 18 years treated with two chemotherapeutic regimens between 1999 and 2014. A total of 45 patients received the MTX(-) and 21 the MTX(+) protocol. Results: Overall limb-salvage and amputation rate were 12.9% and 77.7%, respectively. Kaplan-Meier analysis results for 3-year disease free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) regardless of treatment regimens were $43.4{\pm}6.0%$ and $53.2{\pm}6.1%$ respectively. The 3-year DFS and OS were improved significantly with the MTX(+) protocol compared to MTX(-) protocol (p=0.010 and p=0.009, log rank test) [$69.8{\pm}10.5%$, $79.8{\pm}9.1%$ for MTX(+) and $31.1{\pm}6.9%$, $42.2{\pm}7.4%$ for MTX(-) protocol, respectively]. Patients with metastatic osteosarcoma treated with the MTX(+) protocol had statistically significant higher 3-year DFS and OS than those treated with the MTX(-) protocol ($66.7{\pm}13.6%$ and $15.0{\pm}8.0%$ for 3-year DFS, p=0.010, $73.3{\pm}13.2%$ and $20{\pm}8.9%$ for 3-year OS, p=0.006, respectively). The independent risk factors for having inferior 3-year DFS and OS were poor histological response (tumor necrosis <90%) and treatment with the MTX(-) protocol. The multivariate analysis identified only the treatment with the MTX(-) protocol as an independent predictor of inferior OS with a hazard ratio (HR) of 3.53 (95% confidence interval of 1.2-10.41, p=0.022). Conclusions: Our study demonstrated the tolerability, feasibility and efficacy of the HDMTX-based regimen improving the survival rate in pediatric osteosarcoma cases, in line with reports from developed countries.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권1호
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• pp.117-122
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• 2014

Background: Breast cancer is the most common malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer-related death among women in the developed countries. Despite advances in screening, improved local therapies and adjuvant systemic treatments, median survival of metastatic breast cancer patients (MBC) is in the range of 2-3 years at most. We aimed to investigate whether the prognostic factors and therapeutic responses of our Turkish patients are similar to those in the literature. Materials and Methods: We reviewed the medical records of MBC patients who had been treated in our institution between 1999-2009 and analyzed their clinicopathological features and survival outcomes retrospectively Results: A hundred and sixty patients were included. Median age was 47 (23-82), median follow up was 24 (2-186) months. At the time of diagnosis 59% of patients were under the age of 50 and 46% were postmenopausal. The majority (37%) had multiple sites of metastases. Forty percent received endocrine therapy and 40% chemotherapy as first line metastatic treatment. Thirty (20%) patients were treated with molecular targeting agents like trastuzumab, lapatinib and sunitinib, frequently combined with a chemotherapy agent. Five-year overall survival (OS) was 32% and median OS was 38 months for the whole group. Five year progression free survival (PFS) was 10% and median PFS was 10 months. Menopausal status, hormone receptor expression and disease free status had a significant impact on overall survival in the multivariate analysis (p 0.018, p 0.018 and p:0.003, respectively). Conclusions: All our patients were treated with the modern oncologic therapies recommended by the international guidelines. From our data, MBC patients live up to 3-4 years, indicating that further improvement beyond that requires development of new treatment modalities. The survival outcomes of our patients were consistent with the data reported in the literature.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제16권7호
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• pp.3015-3021
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• 2015

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a major cause of mortality in developed countries, and it is the third most frequent malignancy in Turkey. There are many biological, genetic, molecular, and tissue-derived prognostic factors for CRCs. In this study, we evaluated prognostic factors in patients who were metastatic at diagnosis or progressed to metastatic disease during follow-up. Patients and Methods: This study included 116 patients with malignancies either in the colon or rectum. Of these, 65 had metastatic disease at diagnosis, and 51 progressed to metastatic disease during the course of the disease. The parameters evaluated were age, gender, comorbidity, performance status and stage of the disease at the beginning, localization, history of surgery, chemotherapy regimen, response to first-line treatment, K-RAS status, site and number of metastases, expression of tumor predictors (CEA, CA19-9), and survival times. A multivariate analysis conducted with factors that considered statistically significant in the univariate analysis. Findings: Median age was 56 (32-82) years and the male/female ratio was 80/36. Eleven patients were at stage II, 40 at stage III, and 65 at stage IV at diagnosis. Twenty three patients had tumor in the right colon, 48 in the left colon, and 45 in the rectum. Ninety seven patients were operated, and 27 had surgical metastasectomy. Ninety three patients received targeted therapy. At the end of follow-up, 61 patients had died, and 55 survived. Metastatic period survival times were longer in the adjuvant group, but the difference did not reach the level of statistical significance (adjuvant group: median 29 months, metastatic group: median 22 months; p=0.285). In the adjuvant group before the metastatic first-line therapy, CEA and CA 19-9 levels were significiantly lower compared to the metastatic group (p<0.005). We also found that patients with elevated tumor predictor (CEA, CA 19-9) levels before the first-line therapy had significiantly poorer prognosis and shorter survival time. Survival was significiantly better with the patients who were younger than 65 years of age, had better initial performance status, a history of primary surgery and metastatectomy, and single site of metastasis. Those who benefitted from the first-line therapy were K-RAS wild type and whose tumor markers (CEA, CA 19-9) were not elevated before the first line therapy. Conclusions: Among the patients with metastatic CRC, those who benefited from first-line therapy, had history of metastasectomy, were K-RAS wild type and had low CA 19-9 levels before the first-line therapy, showed better prognosis independent of other factors.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제17권8호
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• pp.3763-3767
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• 2016

Background: Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among females across the world. It is a preventable cancer and early detection is very feasible. This study aimed to identify which women characteristics are potentially associated with and may have an important in uence on the uptake of cervical cancer screening in Kurdish women living in the west of Iran.. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted in late 2014. A random sample of women aged 40 years and above without history of cervical cancer and identi ed as Kurdish background were selected and interviewed by two trained interviewers. Information about sociodemographic and reproductive factors, history of diseases, and cervical screening was collected using a questionnaire and women who had undergone a hysterectomy were excluded. Univariate analyses were used to describe the general characteristics of the study population. Multivariable logistic regression models with self-reported screening history were used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) with 95% con dence intervals (CI). Signi cance was considered at the 5% level. Results: A total of 561 women were included in this study (mean age $43.6{\pm}5.17$ years) participation in cervical screening at least once was about 32%. Cervical screening uptake percentage was signi cantly lower among people over 60 years of age (adjusted OR= 0.26, 95% CI: 0.11-0.64), and those who were illiterate (OR= 0.41 95% CI: 0.23-0.73) and post-menopausal (OR= 0.56, 95% CI: 0.35-0.91). Women with ${\leq}1$ child were less likely to report a Pap test (adjusted OR=0.43 95%CI: 0.13-1.37) Cervical screening uptake was higher among women with health insurance (OR= 2.31, 95% CI: 1.50-3.56). Conclusions: Cervical screening participation in this study was low compared to other studies in developed countries. The screening uptake was different based on age, education, parity, insurance coverage and menopausal status. It is recommended to target these groups of women in cervical screening program.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• 제28권2호
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• pp.280-289
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• 2015

Anaerobic digestion is an efficient and renewable energy technology that can produce biogas from a variety of biomasses such as animal manure, food waste and plant residues. In developing countries this technology is widely used for the production of biogas using local biomasses, but there is little information about the value of these biomasses for energy production. This study was therefore carried out with the objective of estimating the biogas production potential of typical Vietnamese biomasses such as animal manure, slaughterhouse waste and plant residues, and developing a model that relates methane ($CH_4$) production to the chemical characteristics of the biomass. The biochemical methane potential (BMP) and biomass characteristics were measured. Results showed that piglet manure produced the highest $CH_4$ yield of 443 normal litter (NL) $CH_4kg^{-1}$ volatile solids (VS) compared to 222 from cows, 177 from sows, 172 from rabbits, 169 from goats and 153 from buffaloes. Methane production from duckweed (Spirodela polyrrhiza) was higher than from lawn grass and water spinach at 340, 220, and 110.6 NL $CH_4kg^{-1}$ VS, respectively. The BMP experiment also demonstrated that the $CH_4$ production was inhibited with chicken manure, slaughterhouse waste, cassava residue and shoe-making waste. Statistical analysis showed that lipid and lignin are the most significant predictors of BMP. The model was developed from knowledge that the BMP was related to biomass content of lipid, lignin and protein from manure and plant residues as a percentage of VS with coefficient of determination (R-square) at 0.95.This model was applied to calculate the $CH_4$ yield for a household with 17 fattening pigs in the highlands and lowlands of northern Vietnam.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제17권1호
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• pp.101-104
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• 2016

Background: With advances in diagnostics and treatment approaches, patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) in developed countries can nowadays expect to have excellent outcomes. However, information about the characteristics and outcomes in the developing world is very scarce, and this is important given the fact that there are several reports about differences of disease characteristics depending on geographic location and the development level of the country. Materials and Methods: In this retrospective study we assessed the features of 36 adult (${\geq}18$ years old) patients with HL and their diagnosis and treatment and outcomes in the Clinic of Chemotherapy of Muratsan University Hospital of Yerevan State Medical University, Armenia, between 2008-2014. Results: All patients had classic HL and among them 19 (53%) had nodular sclerosis subtype, 8 (22%) mixed cellularity and 9 (25%) lymphocyte-rich. 16 (44.5%) patients were at stage II, 13 (36%) stage III and 7 (19.5%) stage IV. Median follow-up time was 24.5 months (range 1-71 months) and during the whole follow-up period only two relapses (early) were documented and there were no deaths. Twenty-three (64%) patients received a BEACOPP (bleomycin, etoposide, doxorubicin, cyclophosphamide, vincristine, procarbazine, and prednisone) regimen, and 13 (36%) ABVD (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine and dacarbazine) regimen. A total of 25 (69.5%) patients received radiation in addition to chemotherapy. Conclusions: Although the number of patients involved in the study is small and the median follow-up time was just two years, this retrospective study shows that treatment of HL can be successfully organized in a resource-limited setting.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제16권1호
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• pp.133-137
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• 2015

Background: Cancer is a major public health problem and the leading cause of mortality in both males and females in developed and developing countries. The incidence of cancer is gender dependent. Among Iranians, it is the third cause of death. Materials and Methods: The information recorded in the files of all patients (7,695 individuals) pathologically diagnosed with cancer in Imam Reza referral hospital of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences during the four year period of 2006-2009 were reviewed and analyzed using SPSS statistical software package version 16.0. Results: Around 61.6% of reported cancer cases were males and 38.4% were females. The most prevalent reported malignant tumors occurred at the age group of 70-79 years in males and in females these tumors were presented in the ages of 60-69 years. The most prevalent cancers among studied patients were gastrointestinal (GI) cancers with a frequency of 22.9% [gastric 10.7%, colorectal 6.9%, and esophageal 6%]. The second, third and forth prevalent cancers were blood at 16.4%, lung 13.5% and bladder 12.8%, respectively. In males the cancers of GI (25.6%) were the most prevalent followed in order of frequency by bladder (18%), blood (17.6%), lung (17.4%) and prostate (6.8%). In females the most frequent recorded cancer was breast (24.1%) followed in order of frequency by GI (20.5%), blood (14.4%), lung (7.3%), uterus (6.2%) and ovary (5.1%). Breast cancer was the most prevalent cancer (27%) in the age group of 40-49 years. Conclusions: The present study provides frequency data for various types of cancers in both males and females from a referral hospital of Kermanshah that are comparable with some reports from other areas of the country.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• 제15권7호
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• pp.3093-3097
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• 2014

Background: Cancer is a major threat to the public health whether in developed or in developing countries. As the most common primary malignant tumor, the morbidity and mortality rate of lung cancer continues to rise in recent ten years worldwide. Chemotherapy is one of the main methods in the treatment of lung cancer, but this is hampered by chemotherapy drug resistance, especially MDR. As a component of the 60S large ribosomal subunit, ribosomal protein L39-L gene was reported to be expressed specifically in the human testis and human cancer samples of various tissue origins. Materials and Methods: Total RNA of cultured drug-resistant and susceptible A549 cells was isolated, and real time quantitative RT-PCR were used to indicate the transcribe difference between amycin resistant and susceptible strain of A549 cells. Viability assay were used to show the amycin resistance difference in RPL39-L transfected A549 cell line than control vector and null-transfected A549 cell line. Results: The ribosomal protein L39-L transcription level was 8.2 times higher in drug-resistant human lung cancer A549 cell line than in susceptible A549 cell line by quantitative RT-PCR analysis. The ribosomal protein L39-L transfected cells showed enhanced drug resistance compared to plasmid vector-transfected or null-transfected cells as determined by methyl tritiated thymidine (3H-TdR) incorporation. Conclusions and Implications for Practice: The ribosomal protein L39-L gene may have effects on the drug resistance mechanism of lung cancer A549 cells.