A Text Mining Approach in the Classification of Free-Text Cancer Pathology Reports from the South African National Health Laboratory Services

A cancer pathology report is a valuable medical document that provides information for clinical management of the patient and evaluation of health care. However, there are variations in the quality of reporting in free-text style formats, ranging from comprehensive to incomplete reporting. Moreover, the increasing incidence of cancer has generated a high throughput of pathology reports. Hence, manual extraction and classification of information from these reports can be intrinsically complex and resource-intensive. This study aimed to (i) evaluate the quality of over 80,000 breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer free-text pathology reports and (ii) assess the effectiveness of random forest (RF) and variants of support vector machine (SVM) in the classification of reports into benign and malignant classes. The study approach comprises data preprocessing, visualisation, feature selections, text classification, and evaluation of performance metrics. The performance of the classifiers was evaluated across various feature sizes, which were jointly selected by four filter feature selection methods. The feature selection methods identified established clinical terms, which are synonymous with each of the three cancers. Uni-gram tokenisation using the classifiers showed that the predictive power of RF model was consistent across various feature sizes, with overall F-scores of 95.2%, 94.0%, and 95.3% for breast, colorectal, and prostate cancer classification, respectively. The radial SVM achieved better classification performance compared with its linear variant for most of the feature sizes. The classifiers also achieved high precision, recall, and accuracy. This study supports a nationally agreed standard in pathology reporting and the use of text mining for encoding, classifying, and production of high-quality information abstractions for cancer prognosis and research.

Echocardiography in diagnosis of cardiovascular complications in patients who have undergone COVID-19, and echocardiographic study algorithm for this category of patients

The authors analyzed, classified and outlined the experience of working with patients who had suffered from COVID-19 disease to varying degrees of severity. Evaluated the possibilities of modern echocardiography in the diagnosis of complications of this infection from the heart, proposed the algorithm of ultrasound heart research in this category of patients. This year, the Recommendations of the European Association of Cardiology on the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases in patients with coronavirus infection were published. These recommendations clearly describe the risk groups of complications of this pathology because COVID affects not the lungs but also the heart. The most vulnerable were patients with chronic diseases such as diabetes, blood diseases, chronic renal failure, cancer pathology, COPD. It is in these categories of patients that complications of infection from the lungs and heart were most common.

Psychological intervention in breast cancer pathology

Breast cancer is an extremely important public health issue for doctors. Health professionals draw attention to the importance of early detection of the disease, so that treatment becomes effective. The experience of the disease can be extremely shocking and devastating for women. Studies show that women diagnosed with breast cancer experienced prolonged emotional difficulties during the year following diagnosis. This article proposes a review of some important methods and techniques used in the psychotherapy of breast cancer patients, such as: art therapy, cognitive-behavioral stress management, mindfulness-based stress reduction, acceptance and commitment therapy, compassion focused therapy and experiential psychotherapy. This paper is a review based on information from the literature. The analysis was limited to articles and guides in English published between January 1 and June 1 2021, on PubMed, ScienceDirect and Google Scholar, using the following keywords: breast cancer, women, depression, distress, anxiety, mental health, psychotherapy, interventions, treatment. In this review we discuss the characteristics of breast cancer pathology, the psycho-emotional effects and the interventions needed to optimize quality of life. The psychotherapeutic approaches presented draw attention to the fact that psychological interventions are part of the complementary procedures to the treatment in the pathology of breast cancer and can improve the quality of life of pacients.

The Involvement of the Oxidative Stress Status in Cancer Pathology: A Double View on the Role of the Antioxidants

Oxygen-free radicals, reactive oxygen species (ROS) or reactive nitrogen species (RNS), are known by their “double-sided” nature in biological systems. The beneficial effects of ROS involve physiological roles as weapons in the arsenal of the immune system (destroying bacteria within phagocytic cells) and role in programmed cell death (apoptosis). On the other hand, the redox imbalance in favor of the prooxidants results in an overproduction of the ROS/RNS leading to oxidative stress. This imbalance can, therefore, be related to oncogenic stimulation. High levels of ROS disrupt cellular processes by nonspecifically attacking proteins, lipids, and DNA. It appears that DNA damage is the key player in cancer initiation and the formation of 8-OH-G, a potential biomarker for carcinogenesis. The harmful effect of ROS is neutralized by an antioxidant protection treatment as they convert ROS into less reactive species. However, contradictory epidemiological results show that supplementation above physiological doses recommended for antioxidants and taken over a long period can lead to harmful effects and even increase the risk of cancer. Thus, we are describing here some of the latest updates on the involvement of oxidative stress in cancer pathology and a double view on the role of the antioxidants in this context and how this could be relevant in the management and pathology of cancer.

Markers of bladder cancer: their role and prognostic significance (literature review)

This review article is devoted to the main problems of early diagnostic and prognosis of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer, which accounts for 75 % of all newly detected cases of bladder cancer according to statistics. Chromosomal disorders that have been detected in urothelial cells can lead to the development of non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer. The review highlights the main problems of existing diagnostic systems for bladder cancer, their disadvantage and limitations of use in practice. Special attention is given to tumor stem cells, which are actively involved in the development of relapses of malignant neoplasms, and, also play an important role in the development of chemo - and radioresistance of tumor cells. Their significance in the diagnosis, detection of disease recurrence and the possibility of using the data obtained to adjustment therapeutic methods of treatment in oncology is one of the main tasks in cancer pathology.

Altered L-Arginine Metabolic Pathways in Gastric Cancer: Potential Therapeutic Targets and Biomarkers

There is a pressing need for molecular targets and biomarkers in gastric cancer (GC). We aimed at identifying aberrations in L-arginine metabolism with therapeutic and diagnostic potential. Systemic metabolites were quantified using mass spectrometry in 293 individuals and enzymes’ gene expression was quantified in 29 paired tumor-normal samples using qPCR and referred to cancer pathology and molecular landscape. Patients with cancer or benign disorders had reduced systemic arginine, citrulline, and ornithine and elevated symmetric dimethylarginine and dimethylamine. Citrulline and ornithine depletion was accentuated in metastasizing cancers. Metabolite diagnostic panel had 91% accuracy in detecting cancer and 70% accuracy in differentiating cancer from benign disorders. Gastric tumors had upregulated NOS2 and downregulated ASL, PRMT2, ORNT1, and DDAH1 expression. NOS2 upregulation was less and ASL downregulation was more pronounced in metastatic cancers. Tumor ASL and PRMT2 expression was inversely related to local advancement. Enzyme up- or downregulation was greater or significant solely in cardia subtype. Metabolic reprogramming in GC includes aberrant L-arginine metabolism, reflecting GC subtype and pathology, and is manifested by altered interplay of its intermediates and enzymes. Exploiting L-arginine metabolic pathways for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes is warranted. Functional studies on ASL, PRMT2, and ORNT1 in GC are needed.

Misdiagnosis of asymptomatic intrathyroidal pyriform sinus fistula: a case report

Pyriform sinus fistula is uncommon and easily misdiagnosed. Most reported cases occur in children and are associated with either acute suppurative thyroiditis or deep neck infection. Asymptomatic pyriform sinus fistula is difficult to diagnose because it can manifest as an incidental thyroid nodule with highly suspicious malignant features on ultrasonography. The patient was a 41-year-old man with asymptomatic thyroid nodules incidentally detected on ultrasonography. Surgery was performed under the suspicion of thyroid cancer. Pathology findings revealed multiple cystic walls lined by ciliated columnar cells with stratified squamous epithelial cysts in a background of inflammatory and lymphoid cells. Barium swallow examination performed 2 weeks later revealed a sinus tract measuring 1.8 cm that arose from the apex of the left pyriform sinus. The diagnosis and management of pyriform sinus anomalies are challenging. The majority of physicians, including some otolaryngologists, lack an understanding of the disease, which should be considered one of the important differential diagnoses of neck masses. Barium swallow examination, ultrasonography, computed tomography, and laryngoscopy are useful to diagnose this condition.