PREDICT is a tool designed to estimate the benefits of adjuvant therapy and the overall survival of women with early breast cancer. The model uses clinical, histological, and immunohistochemical variables. This study aimed to evaluate the model's performance in a Brazilian population. We assessed the discrimination and calibration of the PREDICT model to estimate overall survival (OS) in five and ten years of follow-up in a cohort of 873 women with early breast cancer diagnosed from January 2001 to December 2016. A total of 743 patients had estrogen receptor (ER)-positive and 130 had ER-negative tumors. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) for discrimination was 0.72 (95%CI: 0.66–0.78) at five years and 0.67 (95%CI: 0.61–0.72) at ten years for women with ER-positive tumors. The AUC was 0.72 (95%CI: 0.62–0.81) at five years and 0.67 (95%CI: 0.54–0.77) at ten years for women with ER-negative tumors. The predicted survival in ER-positive tumors was 91.0% (95%CI: 90.2–91.6%) at five years and 79.3% (95%CI: 77.7–81.0%) at ten years, and the observed survival 90.7% (95%CI: 88.6–92.9%) and 77.2% (95%CI: 73.4–81.4%), respectively. The predicted survival in ER-negative tumors was 84.5% (95%CI: 82.5–86.6%) at five years and 75.0% (95%CI: 71.6–78.5%) at ten years, and the observed survival 76.3% (95%CI: 69.1–84.3%) and 67.9% (95%CI: 58.6–78.6%), respectively. In conclusion, PREDICT was accurate to estimate OS in women with ER-positive tumors and overestimated the OS in women with ER-negative tumors.

Obesity has been associated with an increased risk of breast cancer recurrence and death. Some readily available biomarkers associated with systemic inflammation have been receiving attention as potential prognostic indicators in cancer, including neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) and platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR). This study aimed to explore the correlation between body mass index (BMI) and invasive breast cancer and the association of NLR, PLR, and BMI with breast cancer outcomes. We undertook a retrospective study to evaluate patients treated for breast cancer over 14 years. Clinicopathological data was obtained before receiving any treatment. Of the 1664 patients included with stage I-III, 567 (34%) were obese (BMI≥30 kg/m2). Obese patients had larger tumors compared to non-obese patients. Higher BMI was associated with recurrence and worse survival only in patients with stage I disease. NLR and PLR were classified into high and low level groups. The NLRhigh (NLR>4) was found to be an independent prognostic factor for recurrence and mortality, while the PLRhigh (PLR>150) group had no impact on survival. A subgroup of patients with NLRhigh and BMIhigh had the worst disease-free survival (P=0.046), breast cancer-specific survival (P<0.001), and overall survival (P=0.006), compared to the other groups. Patients with early-stage breast cancer bearing NLRhigh and BMIhigh had worse outcomes, and this might be explained by the dysfunctional milieu of obesity in adipose tissue and its effects on the immune system. This study highlights the importance of lifestyle measures and the immune system interference with clinical outcomes in the early breast cancer setting.

The purpose of this study was to retrospectively review the pathologic complete response (pCR) rate from patients (n=86) with stage II and III HER2-positive breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy at our institution from 2008 to 2013 and to determine possible predictive and prognostic factors. Immunohistochemistry for hormone receptors and Ki-67 was carried out. Clinical and pathological features were analyzed as predictive factors of response to therapy. For survival analysis, we used Kaplan-Meier curves to estimate 5-year survival rates and the log-rank test to compare the curves. The addition of trastuzumab to neoadjuvant chemotherapy significantly improved pCR rate from 4.8 to 46.8%, regardless of the number of preoperative trastuzumab cycles (P=0.0012). Stage II patients achieved a higher response rate compared to stage III (P=0.03). The disease-free and overall survivals were not significantly different between the group of patients that received trastuzumab in the neoadjuvant setting (56.3 and 70% at 5 years, respectively) and the group that initiated it post-operatively (75.8 and 88.7% at 5 years, respectively). Axillary pCR post neoadjuvant chemotherapy with trastuzumab was associated with reduced risk of recurrence (HR=0.34; P=0.03) and death (HR=0.21; P=0.02). In conclusion, we confirmed that trastuzumab improves pCR rates and verified that this improvement occurs even with less than four cycles of the drug. Hormone receptors and Ki-67 expressions were not predictive of response in this subset of patients. Axillary pCR clearly denotes prognosis after neoadjuvant target therapy and should be considered to be a marker of resistance, providing an opportunity to investigate new strategies for HER2-positive treatment.

The present study aimed to compare the morphometric measurements of Mangalarga Marchador horses of batida and picada marcha. Twenty-two linear and eight angular measurements of 222 males (130 of batida marcha and 92 of picada marcha) and 266 females (168 of batida marcha and 98 picada marcha) were compared in a completely randomized design, consisting of two treatments: horses of batida and picada marcha. The results were submitted to analysis of variance and means were compared by Fisher test (P<0.05). It was concluded that most of the measures of Mangalarga Marchador horses of batida and picada marcha have similar values, however, there are differences between some angles of members.

In this work, the surfactant properties of cholesterol in organic solvents are studied. Hexane, iso-octane, iso-dodecane and toluene were used as the hydrophobic phase, and bidistilled water was used as the water phase. The captive bubbles were supported on a quartz surface and the axisymmetric drop shape analysis (ADSA) routine was performed to obtain contact angles (θ) and surface tension values (γ). Cholesterol was effective in reducing the interfacial tension of the oil/water system in all organic solvents. The appearance of turbidity associated with cholesterol crystallization is observed to be below concentration limits in all samples, because the liquid-liquid interface reduces the energy barrier required for nucleation. Experimental values of γ were adjusted with theoretical values obtained by applying Szyszkowski-Langmuir isotherm, showing good correlation between data. Finally, Szyszkowski-Langmuir constant (K L) and Gibbs energy of absorption were calculated for the binary systems.

En este trabajo se estudian las propiedades del colesterol como surfactante en soluciones orgánicas. Se utilizaron hexano, iso-octano, iso-dodecano y tolueno como fase hidrofóbica y agua bi-destilada como fase acuosa. Las burbujas cautivas se apoyan sobre una superficie de cuarzo y la rutina ADSA (Axisymmetric Drop Shape Analysis) se realizó para obtenea los angulos de contacto (θ) y los valores de tensión superficial (γ). El colesterol fue eficaz en la reducción de la tensión interfacial del sistema de aceite/agua en todos los disolventes orgánicos. En todas las muestras se observó una turbidez asociada a la cristalización del colesterol, por abajo de los límites de concentración, debido a la interfaz líquido-líquido que reduce la barrera de energía necesaria para la nucleación. Los valores experimentales de γ se ajustaron con los teóricos obtenidos aplicando la isoterma de Szyszkowski-Langmuir, mostrando una buena correlación. Por último, para los diferentes sistemas binarios se calcularon la constante de Szyszkowski-Langmuir (K L) y la energía de adsorción de Gibbs.