Incisional hernia is a serious postoperative complication of laparotomy. Selecting an appropriate suture material may lessen such morbidity. This study undertook a prospective, randomized comparison of early-absorbable polyglactin 910 suture versus late-absorbable polydioxanone loop suture for fascial closure after abdominal surgery. A series of 340 consecutive patients undergoing elective laparotomy were randomized to have fascial closure with either polyglactin 910 suture or polydioxanone loop suture between October 1993 and August 1996. A 2-year follow-up revealed that 23 patients had died, and the overall mortality rate was 6.8% (23/340). Ten (10/340, 2.9%) patients, including seven with polyglactin 910 suture and three with polydioxanone loop suture, developed incisional hernias. The early postoperative evaluation revealed an incidence of wound infection of 4.1% (14/340). The development of incisional hernia was not secondary to postoperative wound infection in this study. Among these 340 patients, 192 had malignant diseases and 148 had nonmalignant ones. Fascial closure with polyglactin 910 suture was associated with more incisional hernias than that with polydioxanone loop suture, with marginal significance for patients in the malignant group (4.7% versus 0%, p = 0.07) but not in the nonmalignant group (2.6% versus 4.2%, p = 0.67). In conclusion, abdominal closure with a late-absorbable polydioxanone loop suture may be beneficial to patients with a malignant disease for preventing incisional hernia.

IntroductionWorldwide, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women after skin cancer, and is the second leading cause of cancer death (after lung cancer) in women. Available evidence suggests that breast cancer might result from interactions between genetic elements and a variety of possible environmental factors. Ethnicity also plays a role in risk for breast cancer, with the incidence varying from lowest in certain groups of Asian women to highest in Caucasian women [1]. AsianAmericans have traditionally had the lowest risk for breast cancer in the USA, although the difference diminishes over a couple of generations [1]. Comparison of incidence-age curves for breast cancer in Asian and Western genomic populations in their native countries reveals an additional interesting difference. Age distributions for East Asian groups exhibit an inverted 'V' shaped curve, with the peak in the age range 40-50 years, contrasting CI = confidence interval; ER = estrogen receptor; LN = lymph node; OR = odds ratio; PCR = polymerase chain reaction; SNP = single nucleotide polymorphism; SSCP = single-strand conformation polymorphism; Tm, melting temperature. Breast Cancer ResearchVol 6 No 3 Hsiao et al. Research articleEstrogen receptor-α α polymorphism in a Taiwanese clinical breast cancer population: a case-control study Wei Abstract Introduction:Receptor-mediated estrogen activation participates in the development and progression of breast cancer. Estrogen receptor (ER)-α polymorphism has been found to be associated with breast cancer and clinical features of the disease in Caucasians. Epidemiologic studies have revealed that age-incidence patterns of breast cancer in Asians differ from those in Caucasians. Genomic data for ER-α in either population is therefore of value in the clinical setting for that ethnic group.

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Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is etiologically associated with the development of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) worldwide. HCV has been reported to exist and replicate in both HCC and adjacent non-cancerous liver tissue, but limited information was available on HCV viral load and quasispecies composition in HCC relative to adjacent non-cancerous hepatocytes. Previous study has also suggested CD81, a surface hepatocyte protein, as a receptor for HCV. To clarify the above, HCV-RNA and CD81-RNA titers in 20 paired hepatectomized liver and serum were quantitatively measured by chemiluminescent RT-cPCR. Hypervariable region 1 (HVR-1) variations of parallel specimens were analyzed after subcloning in 6 patients. HCV-RNA levels in serum and non-cancerous liver were markedly higher for HCV genotype 1 than genotype non-1. HCV levels were markedly higher in non-cancerous liver than in HCC (P = 0.001) in a genotype-independent manner, with a mean ratio of 56:1 for non-cancerous tissue to HCC. Both non-cancerous and HCC tissues had the same level of CD81-RNA expression, which was not linked to HCV load. HCV-RNA quantity in both HCC and non-cancerous liver correlated with the number of HVR-1 quasispecies in the tissue, and distinct HVR-1 subclones existed.