Background: Malnutrition and systemic inflammatory response are frequently associated with prognosis in patients with several types of cancer, including renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The study is aimed to investigate the ability of preoperative serum albumin to globulin ratio (AGR) to predict the long-term mortality of RCC patients. Methods: The study is a retrospective study of an unselected cohort of 895 RCC patients who underwent a curative radical or partial nephrectomy at the Department of Urology in the Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center between January 2000 and December 2012 and had documented preoperative serum total protein and albumin (ALB) levels. The preoperative AGR was calculated as the ratio of ALB to (total protein-ALB) and its association with other clinical indices was assessed using survival analysis. Results: Low preoperative AGR was associated with older population, lower hemoglobin, higher total protein, lower ALB, lower body mass index and advanced stage. The univariate and multivariate Cox analyses demonstrated that preoperative AGR was an independent prognostic indicator of overall survival (OS) (hazard ratio (HR): 0.63, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.43 to 0.93, P=0.022). In addition, patients with low preoperative AGR at pT1-2, pT3-4, pN0, pN1, pM0 and pM1 stages had significantly shorter OS than patients with high preoperative AGR. Conclusion: Preoperative AGR is a proven objective, reproducible, inexpensive survival predictor of RCC patients following surgical resection and should be considered for routine clinical use.

We report electric-field control of magnetism of (Co/Pt)₃ multilayers involving perpendicular magnetic anisotropy with different Co-layer thicknesses grown on Pb(Mg,Nb)O₃-PbTiO₃ (PMN-PT) FE substrates. For the first time, electric-field control of the interface magnetic anisotropy, which results in the spin reorientation transition, was demonstrated. The electric-field-induced changes of the bulk and interface magnetic anisotropies can be understood by considering the strain-induced change of magnetoelastic energy and weakening of Pt 5d-Co 3d hybridization, respectively. We also demonstrate the role of competition between the applied magnetic field and the electric field in determining the magnetization of the sample with the coexistence phase. Our results demonstrate electric-field control of magnetism by harnessing the strain-mediated coupling in multiferroic heterostructures with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy and are helpful for electric-field modulations of Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interaction and Rashba effect at interfaces to engineer new functionalities.