Background: Although various inflammation-based indexes in esophageal carcinoma have been documented, but the prognostic value of the albumin-to-globulin ratio(AGR) and its correlation with fibrinogen in resectable ESCC remain unknown.Methods: The levels of pre-treatment serum common acute phase proteins (including CRP, albumin and fribrinogen) were retrospectively analyzed in 447 patients with ESCC who underwent surgical resection at our department. The prognostic value was explored by univariate and multivariate cox hazard analysis. The correlation between AGR and acute phase proteins were also analyzed.Results: Patients with decreased levels of AGR and increased CRP had significantly lower 5-year survival rates than those with higher AGR, not only in the whole ESCC cohort but also in the subgroups stratified according to the disease T, N classifications, and metastasis, whereas the other acute phase proteins were not independent prognostic factors for ESCC. In addition, a lower AGR level was observed more often in patients with a high fibrinogen level than in those with a low fibrinogen level. Spearman's rank correlation analysis revealed that the AGR level presented a negative correlation with the fibrinogen level (r =-0.317, p<0.001).Conclusions: The 5-year survival was shorter in resectable ESCC patients exhibiting decreased pre-treatment AGR and increased CRP. Thus, the serum AGR and CRP may be a clinical prognostic factor for resectable ESCC patients. In addition, a negative correlation was present between the levels of AGR and fibrinogen, the common indexes of acute phase reactants.

BackgroundNoninvasive tools for the prognosis of ESCC are urgently needed. To this end, serum coagulation tests have been researched in some cancers, but the prognostic value of the TT in ESCC has not been described.MethodsThe levels of pre-treatment serum coagulation markers (including the PT, APTT, PTA, INR, fibrinogen level, TT and PLT) were retrospectively analyzed in 204 patients with ESCC who underwent surgical resection at our department and in 200 healthy controls, and the two groups were compared. The prognostic significance of the coagulation tests was then determined with univariate and multivariate cox hazard analyses in patients with ESCC.ResultsCompared with those in normal controls, the PT, APTT, and fibrinogen levels were significantly increased, whereas the TT values significantly decreased in the 204 ESCC patients. The TT directly correlated with the 5-year survival rate, not only in the entire ESCC cohort (p = 0.023) but also in the subgroups stratified according to the T and N classifications and metastasis. Conversely, the other tests were not independent prognostic factors for ESCC. Of the clotting markers, the TT inversely correlated with the fibrinogen level (p = 0.005).ConclusionsThe 5-year survival was shorter in ESCC patients exhibiting decreased pre-treatment TT values. Thus, the serum TT may be a clinical prognostic factor for ESCC patients.

Background: Body mass index (BMI) has been associated with a risk of esophageal cancer. However, the influence of BMI and BMI loss on people with esophageal cancer that were treated with different therapies has not been described in China. Methods: In total, 615 consecutive patients that underwent esophagectomy and/or chemotherapy/radiotherapy were classified according to the Asian-specific BMI (kg/m 2 ) cutoff values. The impact of BMI and BMI loss on long-term overall survival (OS) was estimated using the Kaplan–Meier method and Cox proportional hazard models. Results: Multivariate analysis showed that overweight and obese patients had a more favorable survival than normal weight and underweight patients ( p =0.017). Patients with a low BMI and high BMI loss before therapy had worse OS than others ( p =0.001). Subgroup analysis showed that patients with a high BMI were more likely to suffer hypertension ( p <0.001) and receive only surgery ( p <0.001), and they were less likely to be smokers ( p =0.007) and anemic ( p <0.001). Conversely, patients with high BMI loss were more likely to be anemic ( p =0.001), to have advanced pathological stage ( p =0.012), and to receive chemotherapy and radiotherapy ( p =0.001). Moreover, the mortality rate was higher when patients had a high BMI loss. There is no survival benefit of higher BMI in the non-esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) group. Conclusion: Pretreatment BMI was an independent prognostic factor for long-term survival in esophageal cancer patients treated with different treatments. The overall survival was increased in esophageal cancer patients with a high pretreatment BMI and no BMI loss. There is no survival benefit of higher BMI in the non-ESCC group.

In 2014, a large outbreak of dengue occurred in Guangzhou, China. This outbreak prompted us to evaluate NS1 and RNA for the early diagnosis of acute dengue infection, in addition to the combination with IgM antibody. We aimed to find the differences of three assays about dengue diagnosis. This study was an evaluation of diagnosis test. Based on WHO criteria 2009, dengue RNA, NS1, and IgM/IgG were detected from 294 patients (180 dengue patients, 114 non-dengue patients) by three diagnostic kits made in China. The χ(2) test, sensitivity, and specificity were used in statistical analysis. The ratios of dengue patients with low platelet counts (<100 × 10(9) /L 32.2%) or white blood cell counts (<4.0 × 10(9) /L 58.9%) were significantly higher compared to non-dengue patients (P < 0.05). Dengue NS1 was shown sensitive (93.9%) for diagnostic use. RNA had a better performance with 98.1% of sensitivity from day 1 to day 4 after illness onset. IgM performed better at day 5 or more with 74.0% of sensitivity. The diagnostic rate using a combination of RNA and IgM was 97.8% and 96.7% using NS1 and IgM. A patient with low platelet and white blood cell counts needs additional tests for dengue during an epidemic. RNA and NS1 were most valuable for early diagnosis of dengue, whereas IgM was best suited as a supplementary method for patients at day 5 or more after illness onset.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has had severe consequences for health and the global economy. To control the transmission, there is an urgent demand for early diagnosis and treatment in the general population. In the present study, an automatic system for SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis is designed and built to deliver high specification, high sensitivity, and high throughput with minimal workforce involvement. The system, set up with cross-priming amplification (CPA) rather than conventional reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), was evaluated using more than 1000 real-world samples for direct comparison. This fully automated robotic system performed SARS‐CoV‐2 nucleic acid-based diagnosis with 192 samples in under 180 min at 100 copies per reaction in a “specimen in data out” manner. This throughput translates to a daily screening capacity of 800–1000 in an assembly-line manner with limited workforce involvement. The sensitivity of this device could be further improved using a CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats)-based assay, which opens the door to mixed samples, potentially include SARS-CoV-2 variants screening in extensively scaled testing for fighting COVID-19. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00449-021-02674-9.