• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.10
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• pp.4251-4254
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• 2014

Background: Treatment of anemia is an important issue in the palliative care setting. Blood transfusion is generally used for this purpose in supportive care. However the place of blood transfusion in terminally ill cancer cases is less far established. Objective: We aimed to outline the use of transfusions and to find the impact of blood transfusion on survival in patients with advanced cancer and very near to death. Design: Patients dying in 2010-2011 with advanced cancer were included in the study. We retrospectively collected the data including age, type of cancer, the duration of last hospitalisation, ECOG performance status, Hb levels, transfusion history of erythrocytes and platelets, cause and the amount of transfusion. The anaemic patients who had transfusion at admission were compared with the group who were not transfused. Survival was defined as the time between the admission of last hospitalisation period and death. Results: Three hundred and ninety eight people with solid tumours died in 2010-2011 in our clinic. Ninety percent of the patients had anemia at the time of last hospitalisation. One hundred fifty three patients had erythrocyte transfusion at admission during the last hospitalisation period (38.4%). In the anaemic population the duration of last hospitalisation was longer in patients who had erythrocyte transfusion (15 days vs 8 days, p<0.001). Conclusions: Patients who had blood transfusion at the end of life lived significantly longer than the anaemic patients who were not transfused. This study remarks that blood transfusions should not be withheld from terminal cancer patients in palliative care.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1775-1781
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• 2014

Background: To assess the long term clinical outcome of preoperative radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy followed by limb sparing surgery in patients with non-metastatic soft tissue sarcomas (STS) of the extremities. Materials and Methods: Sixty patients with locally advanced STS were retrospectively analyzed. The median tumor diameter was 12 cm. All patients were treated with preoperative radiotherapy delivered with two different fractionation schedules (35Gy/10fr or 46-50Gy/23-25fr). Neoadjuvant chemotherapy was added to 44 patients with large and/or high grade tumors. Surgery was performed 2-6 weeks after radiotherapy. Chemotherapy was completed up to 6 courses after surgery in patients who had good responses. Results: Median follow-up time was 67 months (8-268 months). All of the patients had limb sparing surgery. The 5-year local control (LC), disease free (DFS) and overall survival (OSS) rates for all of the patients were 81%, 48.1% and 68.3% respectively. 5-year LC, DFS and cause specific survival (CSS) were 81.7%, 47%, 69.8%, and 80%, 60%, 60% in the chemoradiotherapy and radiotherapy groups, respectively. On univariate analysis, patients who were treated with hypofractionation experienced significantly superior LC, DFS and CSS rates with similar rates of late toxicity when compared with patients who were treated with conventional fractionation and statistical significance was retained on multivariate analysis. Conclusions: Treatment results are consistent with the literature. As neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy provides effective LC and CSS with acceptable morbidity, it should be preferred for patients with large and borderline resectable STS.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.1841-1851
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• 2019

Garcinol, a well-known medicinal phytochemical, was extracted and isolated from the dried fruit rinds of Garcinia quaesita Pierre. In this study, garcinol has successfully used to reduce silver ions to silver in order to synthesize garcinol-capped silver nanoparticles (G-AgNPs). The formation and the structure of G-AgNPs were confirmed by UV-visible spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The antimicrobial activity of garcinol and G-AgNPs were investigated by well diffusion assays, broth micro-dilution assays and time-kill kinetics studies against five microbial species, including Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853), Escherichia coli (ATCC 25922), Candida albicans (ATCC 10231) and clinically isolated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The formation of G-AgNPs is a promising novel approach to enhancing the biological activeness of silver nanoparticles, and to increase the water solubility of garcinol which creates a broad range of therapeutic applications.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.20
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• pp.8969-8974
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• 2014

Background: The aim of this study was to determine the predictors of health promoting lifestyle behaviour among medical students attending seven of the medical schools in Turkey. Materials and Methods: This crosssectional descriptive study was performed during the second semester of the first and last (sixth) years of study from March to May 2011. A questionnaire with two sections was specifically designed. The first section contained questions on demographic characteristics; the second consisted of the Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP) Scale. From a total of 2,309 medical students, 2,118 (response rate 91.7%) completed the questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t, Anova, Tukey test and binary logistic regression analysis. The research was approved by the Ethics Committee of Erciyes University. Results: The mean age was $20.7{\pm}2.9$ years and it was found that 55.1% were men, 62.3% were in the first year. The overall prevalence of smoking was 19.1%, and for drinking alcohol was 19.4%. HPLP point averages of the first year students were $129.2{\pm}17.7$, and for last year $125.5{\pm}19.0$. The overall mean score for the HPLP II was $2.5{\pm}0.4$. They scored highest on the spiritual growth subscale ($2.9{\pm}0.5$), interpersonal relations ($2.8{\pm}0.5$), health responsibility subscale ($2.3{\pm}0.5$), nutrition subscale ($2.3{\pm}0.5$), stress management subscale ($2.3{\pm}0.4$), and the lowest subscale physical activity ($2.0{\pm}0.5$). It is established that student's grade, educational level of parents, economic status of family, marital status, smoking and general health perception of the students resulted in a significant difference in HPLP Scale total score average and the mean score of majority of subscales. There was no statistically significant difference between the total HPLP when evaluated for gender, chronic disease, alcohol drinking status and BMI. Conclusions: Based on these results, particularly in the curriculum of medical students in order to increase positive health behaviours including physical activity, health promotion issues, and giving more space to aim at behaviour change in these matters is recommended.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.15
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• pp.6449-6453
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• 2014

Background: Prior studies showed a relationship between serum albumin and the albumin to globulin ratio with different types of cancer. We aimed to evaluate the predictive value of the albumin-globulin ratio (AGR) for survival of patients with lung adenocarcinoma. Materials and Methods: This retrospective study included 240 lung adenocarcinoma patients. Biochemical parameters before chemotherapy were collected and survival status was obtained from the hospital registry. The AGR was calculated using the equation AGR=albumin/(total protein-albumin) and ranked from lowest to highest, the total number of patients being divided into three equal tertiles according to the AGR values. Furthermore, AGR was divided into two groups (low and high tertiles) for ROC curve analysis. Cox model analysis was used to evaluate the prognostic value of AGR and AGR tertiles. Results: The mean survival time for each tertile was: for the $1^{st}$ 9.8 months (95%CI:7.765-11.848), $2^{nd}$ 15.4 months (95%CI:12.685-18.186), and $3^{rd}$ 19.9 months (95%CI:16.495-23.455) (p<0.001). Kaplan-Meier curves showed significantly higher survival rates with the third and high tertiles of AGR in comparison with the first and low tertiles, respectively. At multivariate analysis low levels of albumin and AGR, low tertile of AGR and high performance status remained an independent predictors of mortality. Conclusions: Low AGR was a significant predictor of long-term mortality in patients with lung adenocarcinoma. Serum albumin measurement and calculation of AGR are easily accessible and cheap to use for predicting mortality in patients with lung adenocarcinoma.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.24 no.10
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• pp.1006-1016
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• 2023

Objective: Computed tomography (CT) is an established method for the diagnosis, staging, and treatment of multiple myeloma. Here, we investigated the potential of photon-counting detector computed tomography (PCD-CT) in terms of image quality, diagnostic confidence, and radiation dose compared with energy-integrating detector CT (EID-CT). Materials and Methods: In this prospective study, patients with known multiple myeloma underwent clinically indicated whole-body PCD-CT. The image quality of PCD-CT was assessed qualitatively by three independent radiologists for overall image quality, edge sharpness, image noise, lesion conspicuity, and diagnostic confidence using a 5-point Likert scale (5 = excellent), and quantitatively for signal homogeneity using the coefficient of variation (CV) of Hounsfield Units (HU) values and modulation transfer function (MTF) via the full width at half maximum (FWHM) in the frequency space. The results were compared with those of the current clinical standard EID-CT protocols as controls. Additionally, the radiation dose (CTDIvol) was determined. Results: We enrolled 35 patients with multiple myeloma (mean age 69.8 ± 9.1 years; 18 [51%] males). Qualitative image analysis revealed superior scores (median [interquartile range]) for PCD-CT regarding overall image quality (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), edge sharpness (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), image noise (4.0 [4.0-4.0] vs. 3.0 [3.0-4.0]), lesion conspicuity (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]), and diagnostic confidence (4.0 [4.0-5.0] vs. 4.0 [3.0-4.0]) compared with EID-CT (P ≤ 0.004). In quantitative image analyses, PCD-CT compared with EID-CT revealed a substantially lower FWHM (2.89 vs. 25.68 cy/pixel) and a significantly more homogeneous signal (mean CV ± standard deviation [SD], 0.99 ± 0.65 vs. 1.66 ± 0.5; P < 0.001) at a significantly lower radiation dose (mean CTDIvol ± SD, 3.33 ± 0.82 vs. 7.19 ± 3.57 mGy; P < 0.001). Conclusion: Whole-body PCD-CT provides significantly higher subjective and objective image quality at significantly reduced radiation doses than the current clinical standard EID-CT protocols, along with readily available multi-spectral data, facilitating the potential for further advanced post-processing.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.11
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• pp.5729-5733
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• 2012

Background and Objectives: This study aimed to present the clinicopathological characteristics and treatment of patients with bladder carcinoma with sarcomatoid differentiation at our institution. Methods: Between 1995-2009, 950 patients were followed-up for bladder carcinoma. Among them, 14 patients with sarcomatoid carcinoma were retrospectively reviewed, and their clinical, pathological features and treatment were recorded. Results: Median age of the patients was 65 years (range: 41-86 years), 12 (86%) being male and 2 (14%) female. All the patients presented with hematuria and 11 (88%) had a history of smoking. The tumor growth pattern was solid in 10 patients, papillary in 2, and mixed in 2. In all, 5 of the patients had urothelial carcinoma with sarcomatoid differentiation and 9 were diagnosed with sarcomatoid carcinoma. Five patients underwent radical cystectomy with ileal conduit surgery, 2 patients refused cystectomy, and 8 patients underwent re-TUR. Following diagnosis, 12 of the patients died in mean 10.7 months (range: 1-48 months). Conclusion: Urothelial carcinomas with sarcomatoid features are aggressive and are usually at advanced stage at the time of diagnosis. The outcomes of multimodal treatment are not satisfactory. Significant findings of the present study are that early diagnosis positively affect survival and that gemcitabine and cisplatin in combination can positively affect survival.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7367-7369
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• 2013

Background: Inoperable and metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is associated with a poor prognosis and low chemotherapeutic efficiency. Sorafenib is an oral multi-kinase inhibitor exerting its effects via the RAF/MEK/ERK pathway, vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) and platelet derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFR-${\beta}$) tyrosine kinases. Randomized studies have shown a significant contribution of sorafenib to life expectancy and quality of life of cancer patients. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the efficacy and side effects of sorafenib therapy in Turkey. Materials and Methods: Data for 103 patients (82 males, 21 females) receiving sorafenib therapy in 13 centers from February 2008 to December 2012 were evaluated. Median age was 61 years and median ECOG performance status was 1 (range: 0-2). 60 patients (58%) had hepatitis B, 15 patients (15%) had hepatitis C infection and 12 patients (12%) had a history of alcohol consumption. All of the patients had Child scores meeting the utilization permit of the drug in our country (Child A). Results: A total of 571 cycles of sorafenib therapy were administered with a median of four per patient. Among the evaluable cases, there was partial response in 15 (15%), stable disease in 52 (50%), and progressive disease in 36 (35%). Median progression-free survival was 18 weeks and median overall survival was 48 weeks. The dose was reduced only in 6 patients and discontinued in 2 patients due to grade 3-4 toxicity, 18 patients (17%) suffering hand-foot syndrome, 7 (7%) diarrhea, and 2 (2%) vomiting. Conclusions: This retrospective study demonstrated better efficacy of sorafenib therapy in patients with advanced HCC compared to the literature while progression-free survival and overall survival findings were comparable. The side effect rates indicate that the drug was tolerated well. In conclusion, among the available treatment options, sorafenib is an efficient and tolerable agent in patients with inoperable or metastatic HCC.

• 한국전자현미경학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.103-103
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• 2004

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.80 no.4
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• pp.401-402
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• 2017