ABSTRACT. We investigated the clinical efficacy of adoptive cytokineinduced killer (CIK) cell and dendritic cell (DC) therapy plus intensitymodulated radiation therapy (IMRT) for treating elderly patients with esophageal carcinoma (EC). In total, 68 elderly patients with EC were randomized to receive IMRT plus DC-CIK immunotherapy (study group, N = 34) or IMRT only (control group, N = 34). Clinical efficacy, immune function, toxicity and side effects, and life quality were evaluated after treatment. The efficacy rate was significantly higher in the study group than in the control group. Remarkable increases were noted for quality of life and immune function in the study group relative to the control group. Regarding toxicity and side effects, compared with the control group, the study group displayed a higher fever rate, a lower incidence rate of bone marrow suppression, and a similar rate of digestive tract reactions. DC-CIK immunotherapy plus IMRT exhibited DC-CIK immunotherapy plus IMRT for elderly EC patients better short-term efficacy than IMRT alone in elderly patients with EC. The therapy could improve patients'quality of life and immune function, decrease bone marrow suppression, and lengthen survival time.

Based on our initial genome-wide association study (GWAS) on esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) in Han Chinese, we conducted a follow-up study to examine the single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with family history (FH) of upper gastrointestinal cancer (UGI) cancer in cases with ESCC. We evaluated the association between SNPs and FH of UGI cancer among ESCC cases in a stage-1 case-only analysis of the National Cancer Institute (NCI, 541 cases with FH and 1399 without FH) and Henan GWAS (493 cases with FH and 869 without FH) data (discovery phase). The top SNPs (or their surrogates) from discovery were advanced to a stage-2 evaluation in additional Henan subjects (2801 cases with FH and 3136 without FH, replication phase). A total of 19 SNPs were associated with FH of UGI cancer in ESCC cases with P < 10−5 in the stage-1 meta-analysis of NCI and Henan GWAS data. In stage-2, the association for rs79747906 (located at 18p11.31, P = 5.79 × 10−6 in discovery) was replicated (P = 0.006), with a pooled-OR of 1.59 (95%CI: 1.11-2.28). We identified potential genetic variants associated with FH of UGI cancer. Our findings may provide important insights into new low-penetrance susceptibility regions involved in the susceptibility of families with multiple UGI cancer cases.

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IntroductionEarly reports highlighted racial/ethnic disparities in the severity of COVID-19 seen across the USA; the extent to which these disparities have persisted over time remains unclear. Our research objective was to understand temporal trends in racial/ethnic variation in severity of COVID-19 illness presenting over time.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective cohort analysis using longitudinal data from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a high-volume health system in Southern California. We studied patients admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 illness from 4 March 2020 through 5 December 2020. Our primary outcome was COVID-19 severity of illness among hospitalised patients, assessed by racial/ethnic group status. We defined overall illness severity as an ordinal outcome: hospitalisation but no intensive care unit (ICU) admission; admission to the ICU but no intubation; and intubation or death.ResultsA total of 1584 patients with COVID-19 with available demographic and clinical data were included. Hispanic/Latinx compared with non-Hispanic white patients had higher odds of experiencing more severe illness among hospitalised patients (OR 2.28, 95% CI 1.62 to 3.22) and this disparity persisted over time. During the initial 2 months of the pandemic, non-Hispanic blacks were more likely to suffer severe illness than non-Hispanic whites (OR 2.02, 95% CI 1.07 to 3.78); this disparity improved by May, only to return later in the pandemic.ConclusionIn our patient sample, the severity of observed COVID-19 illness declined steadily over time, but these clinical improvements were not seen evenly across racial/ethnic groups; greater illness severity continues to be experienced among Hispanic/Latinx patients.