The Sarandria Score—Discussion of a New Scoring System in Clinical Medical Oncology

Abstract

This paper focuses on discussing a novel scoring for stage III rectal cancer patients and all the challenges in creating and developing a clinical score. Background: It is fundamental in my opinion to give space to new generations of scientists, medical doctors and researchers to study and, backed with evidence-based information, improve the current knowledge of clinical medical science. It is fundamental for result obtained by medical researchers to bring their findings to the scientific community. Every scientific finding is of vital importance. In this essay a new Clinical Scoring system, the Sarandria Score, developed by myself is discussed, together with the methods and path in order for a young medical researcher with an idea to bring it to the scientific community. Main topics: Colorectal Cancer (CRC) is a major public health problem, representing the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in males and the second in females. Various studies have reported relevant differences related to CRC primary location site (right-sided colon, left-sided colon, rectum) including response to adjuvant chemotherapy and prognosis. In stage III CRC patients, previous findings showed that higher density of tumor-associated neutrophils (TANs) was associated with better response to 5-FU-based chemotherapy. Novel findings were discovered by Dr Nicola Sarandria on the role of neutrophils in rectal cancer, which include different factors which point to an anti-tumoral role of neutrophils in rectal cancer when in presence of chemotherapeutic agents (5-fluorouracil). The clinical significance of TANs was assessed and whether it can be different depended on the location of the primary CRC (right-sided colon, left-sided colon, rectum). Conclusions: This essay officially discusses a new clinical prognostic and predictive scoring (Sarandria Score) involving intratumoral neutrophilic infiltration in rectal cancer and the possibility of a new inclusion criteria based on this infiltrate for Stage III rectal cancer patients treated with 5-FU therapy. This paper includes data published on my medical degree thesis and in a previous review (on Journal of Cancer Therapy) showing that higher levels of TANs densities were associated with better disease-free survival (DFS) in 5-FU treated patients affected by rectal cancer (while it was inversely related in patients without 5-FU therapy). This was also as further evidence in support possible conceptual division of what is now known as Colorectal cancer into Colon and Rectal cancer.