Purpose: To compare the efficacy and toxicity of hypofractionated radiotherapy versus conventional fractionated radiotherapy in postmastectomy breast cancer using meta-analysis. Methods: The PubMed, EMbase, Cochrane Library, Google Scholar, Wan Fang and CNKI databases were searched to identify controlled clinical trials comparing hypofractionated radiotherapy versus conventional fractionated radiotherapy in postmastectomy breast cancer. Overall survival (OS) was the primary endpoint, and disease-free survival (DFS), locoregional recurrence (LRR), distant metastasis (DM), acute skin toxicity, acute lung toxicity, late skin toxicity, lymphedema,, shoulder restriction, and late cardiac related toxicity were the secondary endpoints. Results: Twenty-five controlled clinical trials involving 3871 postmastectomy breast cancer patients were included in this meta-analysis according to the selection criteria. The meta-analysis revealed that there were no significant differences in OS (OR = 1.08, 95% CI = 0.87~1.33, P = 0.49), DFS (OR = 1.13, 95% CI = 0.91~1.40, P = 0.28), LRR (OR = 1.01, 95% CI = 0.76~1.33, P = 0.96), DM (OR = 1.16, 95% CI = 0.85~1.58, P = 0.34), acute skin toxicity (OR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.67~1.32, P = 0.72), acute lung toxicity (OR = 0.94, 95% CI = 0.74~1.20, P = 0.62), late skin toxicity (OR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.75~1.27, P = 0.88), lymphedema (OR = 0.99, 95% CI = 0.77~1.28, P = 0.94), shoulder restriction (OR = 0.75, 95% CI = 0.43~1.31, P = 0.31), or late cardiac related toxicity (OR = 1.17, 95% CI = 0.82~1.65, P = 0.39) between the two groups. Conclusions: The results of this study show that compared to conventional fractionated radiotherapy, hypofractionated radiotherapy is not significantly different with respect to efficacy or toxicity in postmastectomy breast cancer. Additional large randomized clinical trials are needed to further confirm this conclusion.

This systematic analysis aimed to investigate the value of microRNA-21 (miR-21) in colorectal cancer for multiple purposes, including diagnosis and prognosis, as well as its predictive power in combination biomarkers. Fifty-seven eligible studies were included in our meta-analysis, including 25 studies for diagnostic meta-analysis and 32 for prognostic meta-analysis. For the diagnostic meta-analysis of miR-21 alone, the overall pooled results for sensitivity, specificity, and area under the curve (AUC) were 0.64 (95% CI: 0.53-0.74), 0.85 (0.79-0.90), and 0.85 (0.81-0.87), respectively. Circulating samples presented corresponding values of 0.72 (0.63-0.79), 0.84 (0.78-0.89), and 0.86 (0.83-0.89), respectively. For the diagnostic meta-analysis of miR-21-related combination biomarkers, the above three parameters were 0.79 (0.69-0.86), 0.79 (0.68-0.87), and 0.86 (0.83-0.89), respectively. Notably, subgroup analysis suggested that miRNA combination markers in circulation exhibited high predictive power, with sensitivity of 0.85 (0.70-0.93), specificity of 0.86 (0.77-0.92), and AUC of 0.92 (0.89-0.94). For the prognostic meta-analysis, patients with higher expression of miR-21 had significant shorter disease-free survival [DFS; pooled hazard ratio (HR): 1.60; 95% CI: 1.20-2.15] and overall survival (OS; 1.54; 1.27-1.86). The combined HR in tissues for DFS and OS were 1.76 (1.31-2.36) and 1.58 (1.30-1.93), respectively. Our comprehensive systematic review revealed that circulating miR-21 may be suitable as a diagnostic biomarker, while tissue miR-21 could be a prognostic marker for colorectal cancer. In addition, miRNA combination biomarkers may provide a new approach for clinical application.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) biomarker database (CBD) was established based on 870 identified CRC biomarkers and their relevant information from 1115 original articles in PubMed published from 1986 to 2017. In this version of the CBD, CRC biomarker data were collected, sorted, displayed and analysed. The CBD with the credible contents as a powerful and time-saving tool provide more comprehensive and accurate information for further CRC biomarker research. The CBD was constructed under MySQL server. HTML, PHP and JavaScript languages have been used to implement the web interface. The Apache was selected as HTTP server. All of these web operations were implemented under the Windows system. The CBD could provide to users the multiple individual biomarker information and categorized into the biological category, source and application of biomarkers; the experiment methods, results, authors and publication resources; the research region, the average age of cohort, gender, race, the number of tumours, tumour location and stage. We only collect data from the articles with clear and credible results to prove the biomarkers are useful in the diagnosis, treatment or prognosis of CRC. The CBD can also provide a professional platform to researchers who are interested in CRC research to communicate, exchange their research ideas and further design high-quality research in CRC. They can submit their new findings to our database via the submission page and communicate with us in the CBD.Database URL: http://sysbio.suda.edu.cn/CBD/

Preoperative radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy has become a standard procedure for treatment of patients with locally advanced colorectal cancer (CRC). However, patients’ responses to treatment are different and personalized. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are promising biomarkers for predicting personalized responses. In this study, we collected 30 publicly reported miRNAs associated with chemoradiotherapy of CRC. We extracted 46 differentially expressed miRNAs from samples of responders and non-responders to preoperative radiotherapy from the Gene Expression Omnibus dataset (Student's t test, p-value < 0.05 and |fold-change| > 2). We performed a systematic and integrative bioinformatics analysis to identify biomarker miRNAs for prediction of CRC responses to chemoradiotherapy. Using the bioinformatics model, miR-198, miR-765, miR-671-5p, miR-630, miR-371-5p, miR-575, miR-202, miR-483-5p and miR-513a-5p were screened as putative biomarkers for treatment response. Literature validation and functional enrichment analysis were exploited to confirm the reliability of the predicted miRNAs. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction showed that seven of the candidates were significantly differentially expressed between radiosensitive and insensitive CRC cell lines. The unique target genes of miR-198 and miR-765 were altered significantly upon transfection of specific miRNA mimics in the radiosensitive cell line. These results demonstrated the predictive power of our model and suggested that miR-198, miR-765, miR-630, miR-371-5p, miR-575, miR-202 and miR-513a-5p could be used for predicting the response of CRC to preoperative chemoradiotherapy.