Hydronephrosis may be caused by uncommon reasons, such as ureteral endometriosis, which can even cause silent loss of renal function. Routine ultrasound scanning of the upper urinary tract for severe stages of endometriosis is very important in order to detect any potential ureteral lesions. Ureterolysis should be considered as the first surgical step, not only to avoid iatrogenic ureteral injuries but also to better evaluate ureter involvement for further procedures. To warrant tension-free and lesion-free anastomosis, it is wise to perform ureteroneocystostomy for long-term sound results.

Background/AimCesarean scar pregnancy is a long term complication of cesarean section. There is a lot of controversy about the best treatment methods. We retrospectively summarized the clinical characteristics of patients with cesarean scar pregnancy and explored the advantages and disadvantages of fertility-preservation treatment method.MethodsFrom January 2008 to September 2017, a total of 204 cases of cesarean scar pregnancy were retrospectively reviewed. 145 patients underwent transvaginal clearance, 33 patients underwent endoscopic surgery, and 26 patients underwent uterine artery embolism. The clinical characteristics, diagnosis, various treatment methods, and clinical outcomes were analyzed.ResultsThere were no significant differences among the three groups in terms of patient age, number of previous cesarean sections, serum human chorionic gonadotropin, and clinical symptoms. The difference in mean gestational sac diameter (23.5±2.1mm vs 31.3±2.4mm vs 30.8± 1.9mm), surgical time (31.4±2.5min vs. 45.8±2.2min vs. 51.4±1.9min), blood loss (53.3± 5.5mL vs. 105.2±3.2mL vs. 75.6 ±3.5mL), blood transfusion (1/145 case vs.3/33 case vs. 0/26 case), discomfort (1/145 case vs.9/33 case vs. 16/26 case), hospital stay (6.1±1.1 day vs. 7.4±0.9 day vs.18.6±1.5 day), fever duration (1.0±0.5 day vs. 2.1±2.8 day vs. 5.7±3.5 day), and hospital expense (¥ 7825.9±234.9 vs. ¥ 10248.3± 312.9 vs. ¥ 18774.9±243.6) in transvaginal pregnancy tissue clearance, endoscopic surgery, and uterine artery embolism groups were significantly different.ConclusionTransvaginal clearance is an effective and relatively safe treatment option for patients with cesarean scar pregnancy.

Cervical cancer (CC) patients have a poor prognosis due to the high recurrence rate. However, there are still no effective molecular signatures to predict the recurrence and survival rates for CC patients. Here, we aimed to identify a novel signature based on three types of RNAs [messenger RNA (mRNAs), microRNA (miRNAs), and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs)]. A total of 763 differentially expressed mRNAs (DEMs), 46 lncRNAs (DELs), and 22 miRNAs (DEMis) were identified between recurrent and non-recurrent CC patients using the datasets collected from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GSE44001; training) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (RNA- and miRNA-sequencing; testing) databases. A competing endogenous RNA network was constructed based on 23 DELs, 15 DEMis, and 426 DEMs, in which 15 DELs, 13 DEMis, and 390 DEMs were significantly associated with disease-free survival (DFS). A prognostic signature, containing two DELs (CD27-AS1, LINC00683), three DEMis (hsa-miR-146b, hsa-miR-1238, hsa-miR-4648), and seven DEMs (ARMC7, ATRX, FBLN5, GHR, MYLIP, OXCT1, RAB39A), was developed after LASSO analysis. The built risk score could effectively separate the recurrence rate and DFS of patients in the high- and low-risk groups. The accuracy of this risk score model for DFS prediction was better than that of the FIGO (International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics) staging (the area under receiver operating characteristic curve: training, 0.954 vs 0.501; testing, 0.882 vs 0.656; and C-index: training, 0.855 vs 0.539; testing, 0.711 vs 0.508). In conclusion, the high predictive accuracy of our signature for DFS indicated its potential clinical application value for CC patients.

Background: The number of published randomized clinical trials (RCTs) using targeted maintenance therapy for newly diagnosed epithelial ovarian cancer is increasing. Our objective was to evaluate the comparative effectiveness of each maintenance therapy using a network meta-analysis. Materials and methods: A systematic search for RCTs was conducted using Medline, Embase, and CENTRAL databases followed by a Bayesian network meta-analysis. The primary outcome was progression-free survival (PFS) and the secondary outcome was overall survival (OS). Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% credible intervals (95% CrIs) were used to estimate outcomes. Results: A total of 11 RCTs involving 6631 patients were included. Network meta-analysis showed that pure maintenance therapy with pazopanib resulted in a significantly better PFS compared with placebo (HR, 0.77; 95% CrI, 0.65–0.92). Bevacizumab-throughout treatment was also associated with a better PFS (HR, 0.76, 95% CrI, 0.69–0.84). However, anti-CA-125 monoclonal antibodies (abagovomab and oregovomab) showed no significant survival benefit. Moreover, combined analysis showed that targeted-throughout was not significantly superior to pure targeted maintenance therapy for PFS and OS. Stratified analysis showed paralleled results with no significant difference between pazopanib pure maintenance and bevacizumab-throughout treatments. Conclusion: Our study showed a survival advantage conferred by pazopanib and bevacizumab as maintenance therapy in newly diagnosed epithelial ovarian cancer. Further clinical trials are essential to both determine the effect of bevacizumab in the maintenance stage and identify the specific subgroup(s) that benefit.

Background: High grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) is conventionally treated with surgery and platinum chemotherapy. The initial response rate is 60-80%, but eventually the majority of patients develop resistance to platinum with subsequent recurrence. Currently, some biomarkers of immune changes, epigenetics, genomic and DNA repair, which are associated with platinum-resistant HGSOC, have been reported, but there is no relatively accurate algorithm to predict whether patients will be resistant to platinum-based therapy.Methods: We performed whole exome sequencing of a total of 111 tissue samples from 40 HGSOC patients as training cohort and 71 HGSOC patients as validation cohort. In the training cohort, the DNA Repair Deficiency score (DRDscore) algorithm was established using LASSO regression with Homologous Recombination Deficiency (HRD) Score, Tumor mutational burden (TMB) and Microhomology insertion deletion (MHID) as the basic parameters, and the accuracy of the DRD model was tested in the validation cohort. According to the consensus statement of Gynecologic Cancer Intergroup (GCOG), we classified Platinum response:(1) Platinum-resistant: progression-free interval since last line of platinum of less than 6 months; (2) Platinum sensitive: progression-free interval since last line of platinum of more than 6 months.Analysis of the accuracy of BRCA1/2 mutation, HRD score and DRD score in estimating platinum-sensitivity chemotherapy.Results: The platinum-sensitivity rate was 68.57% (24/35) in patients with positive BRCA1/2 mutations, and the platinum-resistance rate was 36.11% (13/36) in patients with negative BRCA1/2 mutations. The platinum-sensitivity rate was 77.5% (31/40) in patients with positive HRDscore, and the platinum-resistance rate was 58.06% (18/31) in patients with negative HRDscore. The platinum-sensitivity rate was 86.53% (45/52) in patients with positive DRDscore, and the platinum-resistance rate was 84.21% (16/ 19) in patients with negative DRDscore.Conclusions: DRDscore is a robust prognostic indicator of the risk of platinum-resistance in advanced HGSOC patients. This assessment algorithm for platinum-sensitivity can be used to predict whether HGSOC patients are suitable for platinum-based therapy.