• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1563-1566
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• 2014

Background: Esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) accounts for most esophageal cancer in Asia, and is the sixth common cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Previous studies indicated HOXB7 is overexpressed in ESCC tissues, but data on prognostic value are limited. Methods: A total of 76 advanced ESCC cases were investigated. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was used to detect the expression levels of HOXB7 and Kaplan-Meier curves and Cox regression models to determine prognostic significance. Stratified analysis was also performed according to lymph node (LN) status. Results: Kaplan-Meier curve analysis indicated that HOXB7 positive patients had significantly shorter overall survival (OS) than HOXB7 negative patients. Multivariate analysis using the Cox proportional hazards model indicated only TNM stage and HOXB7 expression to be independent predictors of overall survival of advanced ESCC patients. HOXB7 indicated poor OS in both lymph node negative (LN-) and lymph node positive (LN+) patients. Conclusion: HOXB7 predicts poor prognosis of advanced ESCC patients and can be applied as an independent prognostic predictor.

• Journal of Applied Reliability
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.130-142
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• 2018

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to introduce regression method in the presence of competing risks and to show how you can use the method with hypothetical data. Methods: Survival analysis has been widely used in biostatistics division. But the same method has not been utilized in reliability division. Especially competing risks, where more than a couple of causes of failure occur and the occurrence of one event precludes the occurrence of the other events, are scattered in reliability field. But they are not utilized in the area of reliability or they are analysed in the wrong way. Specifically Kaplan-Meier method is used to calculate the probability of failure in the presence of competing risks, thereby overestimating the real probability of failure. Hence, cumulative incidence function is introduced. In addition, sample competing risks data are analysed using cumulative incidence function along with some graphs. Lastly we compare cumulative incidence functions with regression type analysis briefly. Results: We used cumulative incidence function to calculate the survival probability or failure probability in the presence of competing risks. We also drew some useful graphs depicting the failure trend over the lifetime. Conclusion: This research shows that Kaplan-Meier method is not appropriate for the evaluation of survival or failure over the course of lifetime in the presence of competing risks. Cumulative incidence function is shown to be useful in stead. Some graphs using the cumulative incidence functions are also shown to be informative.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.21
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• pp.9453-9458
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• 2014

Background: Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death for women in the United States. Differences in survival of breast cancer have been noted among racial and ethnic groups, but the reasons for these disparities remain unclear. This study presents the characteristics and the survival curve of two racial and ethnic groups and evaluates the effects of race on survival times by measuring the lifetime data-based half-normal model. Materials and Methods: The distributions among racial and ethnic groups are compared using female breast cancer patients from nine states in the country all taken from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cancer registry. The main end points observed are: age at diagnosis, survival time in months, and marital status. The right skewed half-normal statistical probability model is used to show the differences in the survival times between black Hispanic (BH) and black non-Hispanic (BNH) female breast cancer patients. The Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazard ratio are used to estimate and compare the relative risk of death in two minority groups, BH and BNH. Results: A probability random sample method was used to select representative samples from BNH and BH female breast cancer patients, who were diagnosed during the years of 1973-2009 in the United States. The sample contained 1,000 BNH and 298 BH female breast cancer patients. The median age at diagnosis was 57.75 years among BNH and 54.11 years among BH. The results of the half-normal model showed that the survival times formed positive skewed models with higher variability in BNH compared with BH. The Kaplan-Meir estimate was used to plot the survival curves for cancer patients; this test was positively skewed. The Kaplan-Meier and Cox proportional hazard ratio for survival analysis showed that BNH had a significantly longer survival time as compared to BH which is consistent with the results of the half-normal model. Conclusions: The findings with the proposed model strategy will assist in the healthcare field to measure future outcomes for BH and BNH, given their past history and conditions. These findings may provide an enhanced and improved outlook for the diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer patients in the United States.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.16
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• pp.6973-6976
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• 2014

This study was conducted to evaluate the one-year survival rate of patients with primary malignant central nervous system (CNS) tumors after surgical treatment in Kazakhstan. Retrospective data of patients undergoing operations in the Department of Central Nervous System Pathology in the JSC National Centre for Neurosurgery in the period from 2009 to 2011 were used as the research material. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed with the following information: gender, date of birth, place of residence, diagnosis according to ICD-10, the date of the operation, the morphological type of tumor, clinical stage, state at the end of the first year of observation, and the date of death. The study was approved by the ethical committee of the JSC National Centre for Neurosurgery. The overall one-year overall survival rate (n=152) was 56.5% (95% confidence interval (CI): 50.2-62.7), and 79.5% (95% CI 72.2-86.8) and 33.1% (95% CI: 21.0-42.3) for Grades I-II (n=76) and Grades III-IV (n=76), respectively. Significant prognostic factors which affected the survival rate were age and higher tumor grade (Grades III-IV), corresponding with results described elsewhere in the world.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.431-443
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• 2019

Goodness-of-fit techniques are an important topic in statistical analysis. Censored data occur frequently in survival experiments; therefore, many studies are conducted when data are censored. In this paper we mainly consider test statistics based on the empirical distribution function (EDF) to test normal distributions with unknown location and scale parameters when data are randomly censored. The most famous EDF test statistic is the Kolmogorov-Smirnov; in addition, the quadratic statistics such as the $Cram{\acute{e}}r-von$ Mises and the Anderson-Darling statistic are well known. The $Cram{\acute{e}}r-von$ Mises statistic is generalized to randomly censored cases by Koziol and Green (Biometrika, 63, 465-474, 1976). In this paper, we generalize the Anderson-Darling statistic to randomly censored data using the Kaplan-Meier estimator as it was done by Koziol and Green. A simulation study is conducted under a particular censorship model proposed by Koziol and Green. Through a simulation study, the generalized Anderson-Darling statistic shows the best power against almost all alternatives considered among the three EDF statistics we take into account.

• Journal of Industrial Convergence
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.111-122
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• 2023

The purpose of this study is to verify the factors affecting survival time by estimating survival rate and survival time using non-financial information of social enterprises using credit guarantee in credit guarantee institutions, and provide information to stakeholders to improve survival rate and employ to contribute to maintaining and expanding the As a research method, survival analysis was performed using a non-parametric analysis method, Kaplan-Meier Analysis. As a sample, 621 companies (577 normal companies, 44 insolvent companies) established between 2009 and 2018 were selected as the target companies. As a result of examining the factors affecting survival time by classifying social enterprise representative information and corporate information, representative credit rating, representative home ownership, credit transaction period, and corporate credit rating were derived as significant variables affecting survival time. In the future, financial institutions will be able to induce corporate soundness by reflecting factors that affect survival when examining loans for social enterprises, contributing to job retention and reduction of social costs. Supporting organizations such as the government and private organizations will be able to use it in various ways, such as policy establishment and education and training for the growth and sustainability of social enterprises. With this study as an opportunity, I hope that research will continue with more interest in the factors influencing social enterprise performance as well as corporate insolvency.

• Korean Journal of Clinical Laboratory Science
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.105-112
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• 2023

Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) is known to play a crucial role in the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease. LRRK2 is predominantly expressed in the lung as well as the brain. However, it is unclear whether LRRK2 expression correlates with the pathogenesis of lung squamous cell carcinoma (LUSC). This study analyzes the prognostic significance of LRRK2 in LUSC using the Kaplan-Meier plotter tool. High expression of LRRK2 is known to be associated with a bad prognosis in patients with LUSC. Patients with high LRRK2 expression, tumor mutational burden, high neoantigen load, and even gender correlation reportedly have the worse survival rates. In the gene expression profiling interactive analysis (GEPIA) database, the severity of pathogenesis in LUSC with high LRRK2 expression positively corresponds to a high expression of anti-inflammatory cytokines but not inflammatory cytokines. Similarly, the increased expression of interleukin (IL)10-related genes was shown to be significantly linked in LRRK2-high LUSC patients having a poor prognosis. Moreover, the tumor immune estimation resource (TIMER) database suggests that macrophages are one of the cellular sources of IL10 in LRRK2-high LUSC patients. Collectively, our results demonstrate that the postulated LRRK2-IL10 axis is a potential therapeutic target and prognostic biomarker for LUSC.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.4045-4050
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• 2012

Objective: The impact of ablative oral cancer surgery was studied, with particular reference to recurrence and nodal metastasis, to assess survival probability and prognostic indicators and to elucidate if ethnicity influences the survival of patients. Methods: Patients who underwent major ablative surgery of the head and neck region with neck dissection were identified and clinical records were assessed. Inclusion criteria were stage I-IV oral and oropharyngeal malignancies necessitating resection with or without radiotherapy from 2004 to 2009. All individuals had a pre-operative assessment prior to the surgery. The post operative assessment period ranged from 1 year to 5 years. Survival distributions were analyzed using Kaplan-Meier curves. Results: 87 patients (males:38%; females:62%) were included in this study, with an age range of 21-85 years. Some 78% underwent neck dissections while 63% had surgery and radiotherapy. Nodal recurrence was detected in 5.7% while 20.5% had primary site recurrence within the study period. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that the median survival time was 57 months. One year overall survival (OS) rate was 72.7% and three year overall survival rate dropped to 61.5%. On OS analysis, the log-rank test showed a significant difference of survival between Malay and Chinese patients (Bonferroni correction p=0.033). Recurrence-free survival (RFS) analysis revealed that 25% of the patients have reached the event of recurrence at 46 months. One year RFS rate was 85.2% and the three year survival rate was 76.1%. In the RFS analysis, the log-rank test showed a significant difference in the event of recurrence and nodal metastasis (p<0.001). Conclusion: Conservative neck is effective, in conjunction with postoperative radiotherapy, for control of neck metastases. Ethnicity appears to influence the survival of the patients, but a prospective trial is required to validate this.

• Journal of Gastric Cancer
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.335-351
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• 2021

Purpose: An underlying factor for the failure of several clinical trials of anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) therapies is the lack of an effective method to identify patients who overexpress EGFR protein. The quantitative dot blot method (QDB) was used to measure EGFR protein levels objectively, absolutely, and quantitatively. Its feasibility was evaluated for the prognosis of overall survival (OS) of patients with gastric cancer. Materials and Methods: Slices of 2×5 ㎛ from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded gastric cancer specimens were used to extract total tissue lysates for QDB measurement. Absolutely quantitated EGFR protein levels were used for the Kaplan-Meier OS analysis. Results: EGFR protein levels ranged from 0 to 772.6 pmol/g (n=246) for all gastric cancer patients. A poor correlation was observed between quantitated EGFR levels and immunohistochemistry scores with ρ=0.024 and P=0.717 in Spearman's correlation analysis. EGFR was identified as an independent negative prognostic biomarker for gastric cancer patients only through absolute quantitation, with a hazard ratio of 1.92 (95% confidence interval, 1.05-3.53; P=0.034) in multivariate Cox regression OS analysis. A cutoff of 208 pmol/g was proposed to stratify patients with a 3-year survival probability of 44% for patients with EGFR levels above the cutoff versus 68% for those below the cutoff based on Kaplan-Meier OS analysis (log rank test, P=0.002). Conclusions: A QDB-based assay was developed for gastric cancer specimens to measure EGFR protein levels absolutely, quantitatively, and objectively. This assay should facilitate clinical trials aimed at evaluation of anti-EGFR therapies retrospectively and prospectively for gastric cancer.

• Industry Promotion Research
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.1-8
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• 2022

There are many one-shot devices that are used once and thrown away. One-shot devices such as firecrackers and ammunition are typical, and they are stored for a while after manufacture and then disposed of after use when necessary. However, unlike general operating systems, these one-shot devices have not been properly evaluated. This study first examines what the government does to secure reliability in the case of ammunition through ammunition stockpile reliability program. Next, in terms of statistical analysis, we show what the reliability analysis methods are for one-shot devices such as ammunition. Specifically, we show that it is possible to know the level of reliability if sampling inspection plan such as KS Q 0001 which is acceptance sampling plan by attributes is used. Next, non-parametric and parametric methods are introduced as ways to determine the storage reliability of ammunition. Among non-parametric methods, Kaplan-Meier method can be used since it can also handle censored data. Among parametric methods, Weibull distribution can be used to determine the storage reliability of ammunition.