METHODS: Using Singapore Malaysia Hospital-Based Breast Cancer Registry, clinical information was retrieved from 7064 stage I to III breast cancer patients who were diagnosed between 1990 and 2011 and underwent surgery. Predicted and observed probabilities of positive nodes and survival were compared for each subgroup. Calibration was assessed by plotting observed value against predicted value for each decile of the predicted value. Discrimination was evaluated by area under a receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) with 95 % confidence interval (CI).

RESULTS: The median predicted probability of positive lymph nodes is 40.6 % which was lower than the observed 43.6 % (95 % CI, 42.5 %-44.8 %). The calibration plot showed underestimation for most of the groups. The AUC was 0.71 (95 % CI, 0.70-0.72). Cancermath predicted and observed overall survival probabilities were 87.3 % vs 83.4 % at 5 years after diagnosis and 75.3 % vs 70.4 % at 10 years after diagnosis. The difference was smaller for patients from Singapore, patients diagnosed more recently and patients with favorable tumor characteristics. Calibration plot also illustrated overprediction of survival for patients with poor prognosis. The AUC for 5-year and 10-year overall survival was 0.77 (95 % CI: 0.75-0.79) and 0.74 (95 % CI: 0.71-0.76).

METHODS: We randomly sampled 351 people with localised melanoma [American Joint Cancer Committee (AJCC) substages 0 - II] who had not had recurrent or new primary melanoma diagnosed from a total of 902 people diagnosed and treated for localised melanoma at a specialist centre in 2014. We interviewed participants by telephone about their experience of follow-up in the past year, and documented the proportion of patients who were undertaking shared care follow-up with a GP. We also recorded the frequency and type of investigations during follow-up. We calculated weighted estimates that are representative of the full inception cohort.

METHODS: The medical records of all patients who underwent laparoscopic feeding jejunostomy following staging laparoscopy for UGI malignancies between January 2010 and July 2015 were retrospectively reviewed. The data included patient demographics, operative technique and clinical outcomes.

RESULTS: Fifteen patients (11 males) had feeding jejunostomy done when staging laparoscopy showed unresectable UGI maligancy. Eight (53.3%) had gastric carcinoma, four (26.7%) had oesophageal carcinoma and three (20%) had cardio-oesophageal junction carcinoma. The mean age was 63.3 ± 7.3 years. Mean operative time was 66.0 ± 7.4 min. Mean postoperative stay was 5.6 ± 2.2 days. Laparoscopic feeding jejunostomy was performed without intra-operative complications. There were no major complications requiring reoperation but four patients had excoriation at the T-tube site and three patients had tube dislodgement which required bedside replacement of the feeding tube. The mean duration of feeding tube was 127.3 ± 99.6 days.

DESIGN: A qualitative interview study with thematic analysis of transcripts.

PARTICIPANTS: 67 patients with self-discovered breast symptoms were included in the analysis. Of these, 36% were of Malay ethnicity, 39% were Chinese and 25% Indian, with an average age of 58 years (range 24-82 years). The number of women diagnosed at early stages of cancer almost equalled those at advanced stages. Approximately three-quarters presented with a painless lump, one-quarter experienced a painful lump and 10% had atypical symptoms.

SETTING: University hospital setting in Singapore and Malaysia.

RESULTS: Patients revealed barriers to early presentation not previously reported: the poor quality of online website information about breast symptoms, financial issues and the negative influence of relatives in both countries, while perceived poor quality of care and services in state-run hospitals and misdiagnosis by healthcare professionals were reported in Malaysia. The pattern of presentation by ethnicity remained unchanged where more Malay delayed help-seeking and had more advanced cancer compared to Chinese and Indian patients.

SETTING: Kelantan, Malaysia.

PARTICIPANTS: All breast cancer cases diagnosed in 2007 and 2011 identified from Kelantan Cancer Registry.

DESIGN: This retrospective cohort study used a relative survival approach to estimate the net survival of patients with breast cancer. Thus, two data were needed; breast cancer data from Kelantan Cancer Registry and general population mortality data for Kelantan population.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Net survival according to stage and age group at diagnosis at 1, 3 and 5 years following diagnosis.

RESULTS: The highest net survival was observed among stage I and II breast cancer cases, while the lowest net survival was observed among stage IV breast cancer cases. In term of age at diagnosis, breast cancer cases aged 65 and older had the best net survival compared with the other age groups.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: We identified women diagnosed with ILC or IDLC. We selected the patients who had preoperative breast MRI. For each patient we identified the areas of multifocal, multicentric, or contralateral disease not visible to standard exams and detected by preoperative MRI. We analyzed the potential correlation between additional cancer areas and histological cancer markers.

RESULTS: Of the 155 women who met our inclusion criteria, 93 (60%) had additional cancer areas detected by MRI. In 61 women, 39,4% of the overall population, the additional cancer areas were confirmed by US/tomosynthesis second look and biopsy. Presurgical MRI staging changed surgical management in the 37,4% of the patients. Only six patients of the overall population needed a reoperation after the initial surgery. No statistically significant correlation was found between MRI overestimation and the presence of histological peritumoral vascular/linfatic invasion. No statistically significant correlation was found between additional cancer areas and histological cancer markers.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio on prognosis in non-metastatic primary nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients and to further refine the cut off between high and low neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio values.

METHODS: The medical charts of patients with histologically confirmed nasopharyngeal carcinoma from 1st January 2005 until 31st December 2009 were reviewed retrospectively and theneutrophil-lymphocyte ratio was calculated to see if there was any association between their higher values with higher failure rates.

RESULTS: Records of 98 patients (n=98) were retrieved and reviewed. Only neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (p=0.004) and tumor node metastasis staging (p=0.002) were significantly different between recurrent and non-recurrent groups, with the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio being independent of tumor node metastasis staging (p=0.007). Treatment failure was significantly higher in the high neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio group (p=0.001). Disease free survival was also significantly higher in this group (p=0.000077).

METHODOLOGY: This is a multi-centre, cross-sectional study involving the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC), Queen Elizabeth II Hospital (QEH), and Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital (TARH). Patients diagnosed with invasive breast cancer from January 2014 to December 2015 were included, excluding stromal cancers and lymphomas. Univariate and multivariate analyses identified factors influencing BCS.

RESULTS: A total of 1005 patients were diagnosed with breast cancer in the allocated time frame. Excluding incomplete records and those who did not have surgery, 730 patients were analysed. Overall BCS rate was 32.9%. The BCS rate was highest at QEH (54.1%), followed by UMMC (29.5%), and TARH (17.4%). 16.9% had BCS after neoadjuvant therapy. Factors influencing BCS uptake included age, ethnic group, breast-surgeon led services, AJCC Stage, tumour size, HER-2 expression, and tumour grade.

METHODS: This study used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to extract data regarding primary breast salivary gland-type carcinoma. Using a propensity score-matching approach, the prognosis was compared with invasive carcinoma, NST.

METHODS: We characterised the pathologic features of 419 BRCA1/2 MBCs and, using logistic regression analysis, contrasted those with data from 9675 BRCA1/2 FBCs and with population-based data from 6351 MBCs in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database.

RESULTS: Among BRCA2 MBCs, grade significantly decreased with increasing age at diagnosis (P = 0.005). Compared with BRCA2 FBCs, BRCA2 MBCs were of significantly higher stage (P for trend = 2 × 10(-5)) and higher grade (P for trend = 0.005) and were more likely to be oestrogen receptor-positive [odds ratio (OR) 10.59; 95 % confidence interval (CI) 5.15-21.80] and progesterone receptor-positive (OR 5.04; 95 % CI 3.17-8.04). With the exception of grade, similar patterns of associations emerged when we compared BRCA1 MBCs and FBCs. BRCA2 MBCs also presented with higher grade than MBCs from the SEER database (P for trend = 4 × 10(-12)).

METHODS: We retrieved the records of 25,323 women diagnosed with primary stage IV breast cancer in the surveillance, epidemiology, and end results 18 registries database from 1990 to 2012. For each case, we extracted information on age at diagnosis, tumour size, nodal status, oestrogen receptor status, progesterone receptor status, ethnicity, cause of death and date of death. The Cox proportional hazards model was used to estimate the unadjusted and adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of death due to stage IV breast cancer, according to age group.