Growing evidence indicates that the tumor biomarker cytokeratin 19 fragment (CYFRA21-1) is significant for a variety of cancers. However, its role in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) has rarely been reported. In this study, a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was utilized to estimate the diagnostic efficiency of CYFRA21-1. The correlation between the CYFRA21-1 level and prognosis was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and univariable and multivariable analyses. The relationship between serum CYFRA21-1 levels and different clinicopathological variables was also analyzed. At the same time, the standard serum marker cancer antigen 125 (CA125) was measured. The results demonstrated that CYFRA21-1 expression was significantly increased in EOC compared with expression in benign ovarian diseases and healthy controls, which was similar to CA125 (P < 0.001). CYFRA21-1 expression was positively correlated with CA125 (r = 0.201; P = 0.0032). CYFRA21-1 expression was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis and ascites (P < 0.001). Furthermore, the median survival time of EOC patients with high CYFRA21-1 expression was 42 months, compared with 54 months in the low CYFRA21-1 expression patients by Kaplan-Meier analysis (P < 0.05), while the high and low CA125 expression groups had no difference in median survival time. Univariate and multivariate analyses indicated that CYFRA21-1 was a poor prognostic factor associated with overall survival (OS), while CA125 was not. Our study indicates that CYFRA21-1 acts as a good complementary diagnostic biomarker and may be superior to CA125 as a prognostic indicator in EOC.

the aim of the overall research presented here was to investigate the motion of a wheeled mobile robot in an indoor (structured) setting while following a pre-set trajectory. An example of an application for this research would be automated maneuvering of a smart power wheelchair in a health care setting, such as a hospital, which would benefit the aging Canadian population. For the specific research reported here, the aim was to investigate the mobility of an assistive device for Sit-to-Stand (STS) operation and walking. A rehab robot was developed and was attached to a wheeled mobile robot to accomplish STS operation and to help walk a patient for rehabilitation. Four major phases of this research are: (i) design of the rehab robot, (ii) development of the control algorithm, (iii) experimentation, and (iv) navigation of the mobile robot and the rehab walker (robot). This research project can be extended to lower limb rehabilitation and design of a smart walker. It intensively studied current research and projects, designed a rehab robot and four control algorithms to help people in both STS and walking processes. Experiments were implemented, and the results indicated the effectiveness of the control algorithms and the prescribed navigation algorithm. According to the results, this project achieved the original goals to assist people in standing up and walking, and to navigate to a pre-set location.