ObjectiveThe objective of this retrospective study was to investigate the prognostic factors associated with survival among patients with extensive stage-small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC).MethodsClinical data from 66 patients with ES-SCLC diagnosed via histopathology or cytology between July 2005 and July 2009 at Anyang Tumor Hospital (China) were analyzed. Univariate and multivariate Kaplan-Meier, log-rank, and Cox proportional hazard regression analyses were conducted.ResultsThe 12-, 24-, and 36-month survival rates among patients with ES-SCLC were 40.9%, 13.6%, and 6.1%, respectively. The median survival time (MST) was 10 months. Univariate analyses indicated that weight loss, efficacy of first-line chemotherapy, total number of chemotherapy cycles, treatment method, and serum sodium levels significantly influenced survival among patients with ES-SCLC. Multivariate analyses suggested that the efficacy of first-line chemotherapy, total number of chemotherapy cycles, and serum sodium levels were independent prognostic factors associated with survival.ConclusionThe efficacy of first-line chemotherapy, total number of chemotherapy cycles, and serum sodium levels are important prognostic factors for patients with ES-SCLC.

Background. Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most common histological subtype of lung cancer, which is one of the most commonly diagnosed tumors and the leading causes of death from cancer around the world. Since RNA methylation is a posttranscriptional modification and affects so much biological progress, it is urged to explore the role of N6-methyladenosine (m6A) methylation in LUAD. Methods. We explored the expression of 24 m6A methylation genes, as well as their correlations with LAG3 in 561 LUAD samples from TCGA. Consensus clustering was applied to m6A methylation genes, and two LUAD subgroups were identified. The expression of m6A genes was analyzed by the Wilcoxon test. KEGG and GO enrichment analyses were performed to indicate the pathway affected by differentially expressed genes in the two groups. A prognostic model based on LASSO regression using an eleven-m6A gene signature was constructed according to the expression of these genes. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to confirm the accuracy of the model in the TCGA cohort, as well as in the test cohort from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database. Results. Compared to cluster 1, cluster 2 showed poorer overall survival (OS) and higher LAG3 expression. In addition, KEGG and GO enrichment analyses indicated that differentially expressed genes are enriched in the immune response. We also observed that the expression of LAG3 is positively correlated with IGF2BP2, CBLL1, and HNRNPA2B1 and negatively correlated with YTHDF2, YTHDF3, and FTO. For patients in the TCGA cohort, the AUC score is 0.7, and the AUC score for the GSE50081 cohort is 0.675. Patients with lower risk scores exhibited better overall survival and lower expression of LAG3 than patients with higher risk scores. Conclusions. In brief, our results indicated the important role of m6 methylation in affecting the tumor immune microenvironment and the survival of patients with LUAD. The m6A methylation gene signatures might serve as promising therapeutic targets and help the immunotherapy of LUAD in the future.