Articles

<b>Background: </b>Dysphagia is a common functional impairment in elderly populations, often leading to severe complications such as malnutrition and aspiration pneumonia, significantly increasing healthcare burdens. Currently, effective prognostic assessment tools are lacking. The absolute lymphocyte count (ALC), a biomarker reflecting immune-nutritional status, has potential predictive value in this context, though its role in dysphagia prognosis remains unclear. <b>Methods: </b>This retrospective cohort study included 253 dysphagic patients who received percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) or total parenteral nutrition (TPN) between 2014 and 2017. Five patients with missing ALC were excluded. Cox regression models assessed the association between ALC and mortality. ALC was analyzed as both continuous variable (using restriocted cubic splines) and categorical tertiles, with additional threshold analyses to assess non-linearity. Kaplan–Meier survival curves and subgroup analyses were also performed. <b>Results: </b>Lower ALC was associated with poorer nutritional status, higher inflammatory markers, and greater comorbidity burden. Higher ALC was independently associated with reduced mortality (adjusted HR: 0.60; 95% CI: 0.44–0.83; <i>p</i> = 0.002). Patients in the highest tertile had significantly better survival than those in the lowest (HR: 0.37; 95% CI: 0.23–0.59; <i>P</i> < 0.001). A non-linear threshold effect was identified at ALC = 1.899×10<SUP>9</SUP>/L (<i>p</i> for non-linearity = 0.009). Kaplan–Meier analysis confirmed improved survival with higher ALC (<i>p</i> < 0.0001). Subgroup analyses showed the protective effect of higher ALC was consistent across age, sex, BMI, PEG use, and comorbidity strata, with no significant interactions. <b>Conclusions: </b>ALC is an independent, non-linear predictor of mortality in older dysphagic patients and may aid clinical risk stratification across diverse patient subgroups.

<i><b>Background. </b></i>Guanylate cyclase 1 soluble subunit alpha 2 (<i>sGC</i><i>α2</i>), also known as <i>GUCY1A2</i>, was reported to be upregulated and promoted tumorigenesis in cervical cancer. But whether <i>GUCY1A2</i> was abnormally expressed and its prognostic value in gastric cancer was unknown. The current study aimed to find out the prognostic value of <i>GUCY1A2</i> in gastric cancer by analyzing data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. <i><b>Methods.</b></i> Wilcoxon signed-rank test, cox regression analysis and multivariant analysis were used to analyze the relationship between clinical characteristic and <i>GUCY1A2</i> expression level. Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the association of <i>GUCY1A2</i> and overall survival. Gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) was used to identify <i>GUCY1A2</i>-related signaling pathway. <i><b>Results.</b></i> Compared to normal tissue, expression of <i>GUCY1A2</i> was significantly increased in gastric cancer (p<0.001). Increased <i>GUCY1A2</i> was associated with advanced T stage (p=0.012) and poor survival (p=0.022). Univariate analysis showed that high <i>GUCY1A2 </i>expression was associated with a poor overall survival (HR:1.44, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.03-2.02, p=0.03). Multivariate analysis indicated that <i>GUCY1A3</i> remained an independent prognostic predictor of overall survival (HR:1.75, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.20-2.56, p=0.00). GSEA revealed that calcium signaling pathway, <i>MAPK </i>signaling pathway, <i>TGF-β</i> signaling pathway and <i>Wnt</i> signaling pathway were enriched in <i>GUCY1A2 </i>high expression phenotype. <i><b>Conclusions.</b></i> <i>GUCY1A2</i> maybe a potential prognostic predictor of poor survival in gastric cancer. But it need to be further validated clinically.