Cytotoxic T-lymphocyte antigen 4 (CTLA-4) plays an important role in downregulating T cell activation and proliferation. The CTLA-4 +49G > A polymorphism is one of the most commonly studied polymorphisms in this gene due to its association with many cancer types, but the association between CTLA-4 +49G > A polymorphism and digestive system cancer risks remain inconclusive. An updated meta-analy...

The standard therapy for thyroid cancer is total or near total thyroidectomy, followed by the administration of radioactive iodine for remnant ablation or residual disease. Patients with radioiodine therapy are predisposed to second malignant neoplasms in organs such as central nervous system (CNS), breast, prostate, kidney, bone marrow, salivary gland, and digestive tract. Exposure to carcinog...

OBJECTIVES To describe the pattern of malignancies among all patients with cancer recorded in Hadramout (East of Yemen) in 2006, and to explore the association with age, sex, and site of cancer. METHODS A retrospective descriptive study of all registered cancers (334) was carried out. Efforts were made to avoid case duplication. The neoplasms had been classified according to international cla...

NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH Cigarette smoking causes a variety of lifethreatening diseases, including lung cancer, emphysema, and heart disease. An estimated 400,000 deaths each year are caused directly by cigarette smoking. Smoking is responsible for changes in all parts of the body, including the digestive system. This fact can have serious consequences because it is the digestive system th...

Gallstones and cholecystectomy may be related to digestive system cancer through inflammation, altered bile flux, and changes in metabolic hormone levels. Although gallstones are recognized causes of gallbladder cancer, associations with other cancers of the digestive system are poorly established. We used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare linked database (1992-200...

Bile acids (BAs) are not only digestive surfactants but also important cell signaling molecules, which stimulate several signaling pathways to regulate some important biological processes. The bile-acid-activated nuclear receptor, farnesoid X receptor (FXR), plays a pivotal role in regulating bile acid, lipid and glucose homeostasis as well as in regulating the inflammatory responses, barrier f...

OBJECTIVE The definite prognostic role of p-STAT3 has not been well defined. We performed a meta-analysis evaluating the prognostic role of p-STAT3 expression in patients with digestive system cancers. METHODS We searched the available articles reporting the prognostic value of p-STAT3 in patients with cancers of the digestive system, mainly including colorectal cancer, gastric cancer, hepato...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) negatively regulate gene expression and act as tumor suppressors or oncogenes in oncogenesis. The association between a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in miR-146a rs2910164 and susceptibility to digestive system cancers was inconsistent in previous studies. In this study, we conducted a literature search of PubMed to identify all relevant studies published before August...