• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.95-102
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• 2018

Purpose: To evaluate the prognostic value of $^{18}F$-fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission tomography (FDG PET) with computed tomography (CT) before and during radiotherapy (RT) in patients with head and neck cancer. Methods: Twenty patients with primary head and neck squamous cell carcinoma were enrolled in this study, of whom 6 had oropharyngeal cancer, 10 had hypopharyngeal cancer, and 4 had laryngeal cancer. Fifteen patients received concurrent cisplatin and 2 received concurrent cetuximab chemotherapy. FDG PET/CT was performed before RT and in the 4th week of RT. The parameters of maximum standardized uptake value, metabolic tumor volume, and total lesion glycolysis (TLG) of the primary tumor were measured, and the prognostic significance of each was analyzed with the Cox proportional hazards model. Results: Higher TLG (>19.0) on FDG PET/CT during RT was a poor prognostic factor for overall survival (OS) (p = 0.001) and progression-free survival (PFS) (p = 0.007). In the multivariate analysis, TLG during RT as a continuous variable was significantly associated with OS and PFS rate (p = 0.023 and p = 0.016, respectively). Tumor response worse than partial remission at 1 month after RT was another independent prognostic factor for PFS (p = 0.024). Conclusions: Higher TLG of the primary tumor on FDG PET/CT during RT was a poor prognostic factor for OS and PFS in patients with head and neck cancer.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.19-28
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• 2015

Purpose: To compare the clinicopathological data and long-term survival of gastric cancer patients in China and Korea. Materials and Methods: Patients who had undergone gastrectomy for gastric cancer between 1998 and 2009 in 2 high-volume institutions in both China (n=1,637) and Korea (n=2,231) were retrospectively evaluated. Clinicopathological variables, overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and surgery-related complications were assessed for all patients and compared between the 2 institutions. Results: Chinese patients included in the study were significantly older and had a significantly lower body mass index (BMI) than the Korean patients. Esophagogastric junction tumors were more frequent in Chinese patients. However, the number of patients with stage I gastric cancer, the number of harvested lymph nodes, and the number of total gastrectomies were significantly higher in the Korean population. Korean patients also presented with fewer undifferentiated tumors than Chinese patients. Furthermore, Korean patients had prolonged OS and PFS for stage III cancers only. BMI, tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage, tumor invasion, number of positive lymph nodes, and distant metastases were all independent factors affecting OS and PFS. Conclusions: Although China and Korea are neighboring Asian countries, the clinicopathological characteristics of Chinese patients are significantly different from those of Korean patients. Korean gastric cancer patients had longer OS and PFS than Chinese patients. Influencing factors included TNM stage, tumor invasion, and lymph node metastasis.

• Journal of Pathology and Translational Medicine
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.357-362
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• 2018

Background: The up-regulation of the lipogenic pathway has been reported in many types of malignant tumors. However, its pathogenic role or clinical significance is not fully understood. The objective of this study was to examine the expression levels of adipophilin and related hypoxic signaling proteins and to determine their prognostic impacts and associations with the pathologic characteristics of lung adenocarcinoma. Methods: Expression levels of adipophilin, heat shock protein 27 (HSP27), carbonic anhydrase IX, and hypoxia-inducible factor $1{\alpha}$ were examined by immunohistochemical staining using tissue microarray blocks. Correlations between protein expression levels and various clinicopathologic features were analyzed. Results: A total of 230 cases of primary adenocarcinoma of the lung were enrolled in this study. Adipophilin expression was more frequent in males and with the solid histologic type. It was correlated with HSP27 expression. Patients with adipophilin-positive adenocarcinoma showed a shorter progression-free survival (PFS) (median PFS, 17.2 months vs 18.4 months) in a univariable survival analysis, whereas HSP27 positivity correlated with favorable overall survival (OS) and PFS. In a multivariable analysis, adipophilin and HSP27 were independent prognostic markers of both OS and PFS. Conclusions: Activated lipid metabolism and the hypoxic signaling pathway might play a major role in the progression of lung adenocarcinoma, especially in the solid histologic type.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.289-302
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• 2023

Purpose: Liver metastasis (LM) is reported in approximately 40% of patients with advanced/metastatic gastric/gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma (metastatic esophagogastric adenocarcinoma; mGEA) and is associated with a worse prognosis. This post-hoc analysis from the RAINBOW trial reported the efficacy, safety, and biomarker outcomes of ramucirumab and paclitaxel combination treatment (RAM+PAC) in patients with (LM+) and without (LM-) LM at baseline. Materials and Methods: Patients (n=665) were randomly assigned on a 1:1 basis to receive either RAM+PAC (LM+: 150, LM-: 180) or placebo and paclitaxel (PL+PAC) (LM+: 138, LM-: 197). The overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were evaluated using stratified Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression models. The correlation of dichotomized biomarkers (VEGF-C, D; VEGFR-1,2) with efficacy in the LM+ versus LM- subgroups was analyzed using the Cox regression model with reported interaction P-values. Results: The presence of LM was associated with earlier progression than those without LM, particularly in patients receiving PL+PAC (hazard ratio [HR], 1.68). RAM+PAC treatment improved OS and PFS irrespective of LM status but showed greater improvement in LM+ than that in LM- (OS HR, 0.71 [LM+] vs. 0.88 [LM-]; PFS HR, 0.47 [LM+] vs. 0.76 [LM-]). Treatment-emergent adverse events were similar between patients with and without LM. No predictive relationship was observed between biomarker levels (VEGF-C, D; VEGFR-1,2) and efficacy outcome (OS, PFS) (all interaction P-values >0.05). Conclusions: RAM provided a significant benefit, irrespective of LM status; however, its effect was numerically stronger in patients with LM. Therefore, RAM+PAC is a clinically meaningful therapeutic option for patients with mGEA and LM.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.35 no.4A
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• pp.332-340
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• 2010

In this paper, we deal with multi-user diversity scheduling methods that transmit simultaneously signals from multiple users using superposition coding multiplexing. These methods can make various scheduling methods be obtained, according to strategies for user selection priority from the first user to the first-following users, strategies for per-user power allocation, and resulting combining strategies. For the first user selection, we consider three strategies such as 1) higher priority for a user with a better channel state, 2) following the proportional fair scheduling (PFS) priority, 3) higher priority for a user with a lower average serving rate. For selection of the first-following users, we consider the identical strategies for the first user selection. However, in the second strategy, we can decide user priorities according to the original PFS ordering, or only once an additional user for power allocation according to the PFS criterion by considering a residual power and inter-user interference. In the strategies for power allocation, we consider two strategies as follows. In the first strategy, it allocates a power to provide a permissible per-user maximum rate. In the second strategy, it allocates a power to provide a required per-user minimum rate, and then it reallocates the residual power to respective users with a rate greater than the required minimum and less than the permissible maximum. We consider three directions for scheduling such as maximizing the sum rate, maximizing the fairness, and maximizing the sum rate while maintaining the PFS fairness. We select the max CIR, max-min fair, and PF scheduling methods as their corresponding reference methods [1 and references therein], and then we choose candidate scheduling methods which performances are similar to or better than those of the corresponding reference methods in terms of the sum rate or the fairness while being better than their corresponding performances in terms of the alternative metric (fairness or sum rate). Through computer simulations, we evaluate the sum rate and Jain’s fairness index (JFI) performances of various scheduling methods according to the number of users.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.525-535
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• 2020

The study aims to investigate the roles of financial education (FE) as a moderator to financial attitude (FA), parental financial socialisation (PFS), and financial literacy (FL) to ensure the success of prudent financial management practices (PFMP) among Malaysian youth. The study was designed quantitatively and employed self-administered questionnaires, which were adopted from previous studies and distributed to 480 youths in Malaysia. The data were analyzed using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) to test hypotheses of the study. The results showed FA, PFS and FL have significant and positive relationship with PFMP. However, as regards moderating interaction of FE, results showed that FE does not significantly moderate the relationship between FA, PFS and FL with PFMP. The results further highlighted serious concerns on the effectiveness of FE towards improving youth capability in managing their financial affairs prudently. This proved that mandated FE prior to graduation has less effect and does not lead to behavior changes among Malaysian youth. It shows the challenges faced by the country stakeholders to strengthen FE, enhance the effectiveness and encompass the right FE elements to ensure today's young Malaysians are able to apply what they learned in the classroom to their real life.

• Asian Oncology Nursing
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.114-121
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• 2009

Purpose: This study was to explore the hope structures of the newly diagnosed cancer patients by examining the relationships between hope and the three concepts of 'Personal Spirit', 'Risk' and 'Authentic Caring' which composed the multidimensions of the Nekolaichuk and Bruera's hope model. Methods: Data was collected via survey from 32 newly diagnosed cancer patients. The perceived meaning of life (PML) for 'personal spirit', perceived confidence in cure (PCC) for 'risk', and perceived family support (PFS) and perceived support from medical team (PSM) for 'authentic caring' were adapted from the definitions of the concepts in the model. Hope, PML, and PCC were measured with VAS. PFS and PSM were measured with Korean version of 'Cobb's family support scale', which was modified by Kang. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to identify the relationships among the concepts. Results: The significant relationships were revealed between hope and PCC (p<.001), hope and PML (p<.001), PML and PCC (p<.001), PFS and PML (p=.030), and PSM and PML (p=.047). Conclusion: The newly diagnosed cancer patients experience hope in different ways. The cancer patients' hope immediate after diagnosis, however, is most likely to be experienced as seeking balance between uncertainty about cancer treatment and the meaning of life.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.12
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• pp.7645-7649
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• 2013

Background: Immune functions and their relation to prognosis in breast cancer patients have become areas of great interest in recent years. Correlations between survival outcomes and peripheral blood flow cytometry parameters are therefore of interest. Here we focused on patients with non-metastatic breast cancer (BC). Materials and Methods: A total of 29 patients with pathological confirmed breast carcinoma and flow cytometry data were assessed for overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS). Results: The median age of the patients was 54 years (range, 29-83). Multivariate analysis revealed that OS was significantly associated with absolute cytotoxic T cell count (95%CI, coef 2.26, p=0.035), tumor size (95%CI, coef -14.5, p 0.004), chemotherapy (95%CI, coef 12.9, p 0.0001), MFI of CD4 (95%CI, coef -5.1, P 0.04), MFI of HLA DR (95%CI, coef -5.9, p 0.008) and tumor grade (95%CI, coef -13, P 0.049) with R-Sq(adj)=67%. Similar findings were obtained for PFS. Conclusions: OS and PFS were significantly associated with tumor grade, tumor size, chemotherapy, MFI of CD4, HLA DR and absolute cytotoxic T cell count. The study revealed that MFI of basic CD markers and absolute cytotoxic T cell number may be a prognostic factors in women with non-metastatic BC.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.1841-1846
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• 2013

Anti-angiogenic agents have played crucial roles in the treatment of ovarian cancer in recent years, but potential benefits of endostatin have been largely unexplored. The present retrospective study evaluated its efficacy and toxicity with two cohorts of patients with platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer. One cohort received gemcitabine plus endostar (rh-endostatin), and the second cohort received gemcitabine regimen alone, with totals of 31 and 27 patients, respectively. The main endpoints were disease control rate (DCR), PFS, overall survival (OS) and safety. There were statistically significant differences in DCR (70.9% vs. 40.7%; P = 0.02) and PFS (6.3 months vs. 3.2 months, P = 0.001) between the two cohorts. Though the endostar cohort also improved median OS by 2.1 months, there was no statistically significant difference compared with gemcitabine alone cohort in this case (12.5 months vs. 10.4 months, P = 0.201). Treatment was well tolerated for most patients, and toxicity of endostar was negligible. Gemcitabine plus endostar significantly improved the prognosis in patients with platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer, especially in those with malignant effusion. The endostar-containing regimen is recommended in this setting.

• International Journal of CAD/CAM
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.199-211
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• 2006

Practical automated flat pattern generation with inbuilt production features for doubly curved sheet metal components (SMCs) is addressed here utilizing a new and unique Point Transformation Algorithm (PTA). This is the third in the series of papers on practical Flat Pattern Development (FPD) [8] and Production Loft Generation Systems (PLGS) [9] complementing the pioneering work [6,7]. In the first two publications, automated loft generation programs have addressed sheet metal components having a Principal Flat Surface (PFS) only. The flat pattern development of 3-D components that do not have the flat surface(termed as Non-PFS components) having complex features of double curvature in addition to cutouts and nibbled holes typical of aircraft components were so far not addressed due to lack of relevant published algorithms. This paper traces the evolution of developments and provides the record of fully illustrated, automated loft generation scheme for aircraft SMCs including the Non-PFS components which underwent validation through production tests by sponsors. Details of some of the unique features of the system like simplified surface model generation, termed as topological model and powerful algorithms deployed with potential for CAD/CAM applications are included.