This study evaluated spatial-temporal recurrence patterns after curative resection for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to clarify and recommend appropriate post-operative surveillance.
A total of ...2,486 consecutive patients between January 2005 and December 2012 with NSCLC (stage I-IIIA) who underwent definitive surgical resection were retrospectively analyzed. We used a hazard rate curve to evaluate event dynamics. Disease-free survival (DFS) was evaluated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Univariate and multivariate analyses with Cox proportional hazards regression identified risk factors that predicted DFS.
The median follow-up was 50.1 months. Recurrences were diagnosed in 852 (34.3%) patients. Four hundred eighty-nine events first occurred in the chest, 177 in the brain, 117 in the bone, and 71 in the abdomen. Of all recurrences, 78.5% occurred in the first 3 years. Univariate and multivariate analyses identified the age at diagnosis (P<0.001), histology (P=0.023), tumor size (P<0.001), pathologic N stage (P<0.001), and grade (P=0.043) as independent risk factors for intra-thoracic recurrences. Histology (P<0.001), tumor size (P<0.001), surgical method (P=0.021), pathologic N stage (P<0.001), and grade (P=0.005) were independent to predict extra-thoracic recurrences. The hazard rate curve displayed an initial surge of time to any treatment failure during 12 months after surgery. Based on sub-group analysis, both intra- and extra-recurrences increased with stage and brain recurrences in stage IIIA occurred earlier than stage II. Hazard rate curve of brain recurrences in squamous cell carcinoma showed a moderate peak during 9-15 months. Hazard rate curves of brain and bone recurrences in adenocarcinoma displayed clear peaks at 9-27 and 15-30 months, respectively.
Intra- and extra-thoracic recurrences correlate with different clinicopathological factors. Brain MRI and bone ECT were recommended for selected patients in particular time to early detect extra-thoracic recurrences.
The objective of the present study was to assess the effects of replacing corn silage with
shoot remainder (PSR) silage on intake, growth performance, serum biochemical parameters, and rumen ...microbial diversity of growing-finishing beef. Fifteen Angus beef cattle with an average body weight of 253 ± 2.94 kg were randomly divided into three groups (five replicas vs. each group vs. Angus beef cattle). The three treatments were group A fed 60% PSR silage + 40% concentrate, group B fed 30% PSR silage + 30% corn silage + 40% concentrate, and group C fed 60% corn silage + 40% concentrate. The adaptation period was 15 days, and the trial period lasted for 45 days. Results showed that the ADG was significantly higher, and FCR was significantly lower both in groups A and B compared with group C. The results of serum biochemical parameters showed that the concentration of GLU was significantly lower in group B than both groups A and C. Microbial diversity results showed that the OTUs, Shannon, Chao1, and ACE indices were significantly lower in group A compared with groups B and C. At the phyla level, the relative abundances of
and
had significant differences among the three groups, and the relative abundances of
, and
had significant differences among the three groups at the genus level. Additionally,
was the unique biomarker among the three groups. Furthermore, the results of function prediction showed that the gene families associated with metabolism of cofactors and vitamins, cellular processes and signaling, metabolism, biosynthesis of other secondary metabolites, infectious diseases, signaling molecules and interaction, nervous system, and digestive system were significantly decreased, while lipid metabolism was dramatically increased from groups A to C at KEGG level 2. At KEGG level 3, 11 metabolic pathways were significantly influenced among the three groups. In summary, these findings indicated that PSR silage substituted the corn silage totally or partially improved the growth performance, and altered the rumen microbial composition and diversity and the corresponding change in prediction function of rumen bacteria in Angus beef cattle.
There has been an ongoing debate as to whether hemophilia A (HA) is
more severe than hemophilia B (HB), and there are studies
supporting each side of the argument. The study aimed to investigate ...whether any
differences in major bleeding events exist between patients with severe HA and
HB. A nationwide, population-based retrospective cohort study using the National
Health Insurance Research Database was conducted. We compared 658 patients with
severe HA and 137 patients with severe HB without inhibitors from 1997 to 2013,
during the period when adult patients older than 18 years old were treated with
the on-demand therapy since birth. There was no significant difference between
patients with severe HA and HB in the rate of major bleeding events, with an
adjusted relative ratio of 0.79 (95% confidence interval CI:
0.36-1.71, P = .548). There was also no
significant difference in the incidence rate of major bleeding events between
adult patients with HA and HB with the on-demand therapy, and an adjusted hazard
ratio (HR) of 0.82 (95% CI: 0.65-1.02).
However, patients with HA had a lower incidence rate of intracranial hemorrhage,
with an adjusted HR of 0.44 (95% CI: 0.25-0.79). In
addition, no significant difference in the frequency of major bleeding events
requiring hospitalization between patients with HA and HB was found,
P > .05. In conclusion, the study demonstrated that
patients with severe HB encountered a similar rate of major bleeding events to
those with severe HA.
Magnolol (Mag), a biologically active compound isolated from the root and stem bark of
, has been reported to induce apoptosis in several cancer cell lines in vitro. In the present study, we aimed to ...determine the anticancer effects of Mag on hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells.
The HepG2 cells were treated with varying concentrations of Mag (10, 20, and 30 μM) for 48 hours. The effects of Mag on the proliferation, migration, invasion, apoptosis and cell cycle progression of HepG2 cells were respectively detected by MTT assay, transwell assays, and flow cytometric analysis. A HepG2 cell-based tumor-bearing model was established to evaluate the effect of Mag on HCC tumor growth in vivo. The protein expression levels were determined by Western blot analysis.
Our results showed that Mag inhibited the proliferation, migration, and invasion of HepG2 cells in vitro in a dose-dependent manner. In addition, Mag reduced the HCC tumor volume and weight in the mouse xenograft model. Subsequent studies showed that Mag induced apoptosis in HepG2 cells, accompanied by a loss in mitochondrial membrane potential, cytochrome c release, and induction of endoplasmic reticulum stress. Furthermore, inhibition of the endoplasmic reticulum stress by CHOP knockdown restored the effects of Mag in HepG2 cells.
The present study highlighted the possibility of using Mag as a novel therapeutic drug for HCC treatment.
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During the past decades, functionalized nano-systems were believed in holding the bright future of the nanomaterials in biomedical applications. Due to their excellent biocompatibility, ...biodegradation capability, and biological activity, functional peptides have been vastly used solitary or employed as functional components in nano-systems for disease treatments. This review focuses on the recent advances on the use of functional peptides as a toolbox to construct various delivery nano-systems for tumor treatments. Arising from the special function contributed to the nano-systems, the functional peptides are mainly divided into three groups, cell-targeting peptides (CTPs), cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs), and environment-sensitive peptides. Within each group, their usage in both organic and inorganic systems is discussed. In particular, strategies used to generate promising therapeutic nano-systems for efficient tumor treatment are also highlighted.
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•This work reviews various functional peptides.•Functional peptides have been employed to construct different nano-systems.•The biomedical applications of these functional nano-systems are included.
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Superconducting materials exhibiting topological properties are emerging as an exciting platform to realize fundamentally new excitations from topological quantum states of matter. In this letter, we ...explore the possibility of a field-free platform for generating Majorana zero energy excitations by depositing magnetic Fe impurities on the surface of candidate topological superconductors, LiFeAs and PbTaSe2. We use scanning tunneling microscopy to probe localized states induced at the Fe adatoms on the atomic scale and at sub-Kelvin temperatures. We find that each Fe adatom generates a striking zero-energy bound state inside the superconducting gap, which do not split in magnetic fields up to 8 T, underlining a nontrivial topological origin. Our findings point to magnetic Fe adatoms evaporated on bulk superconductors with topological surface states for exploring Majorana zero modes and quantum information science under field-free conditions.
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Solitary large hepatocellular carcinomas (SLHCC) form a heterogeneous group of patients with different survival probabilities. The aim of our study was to develop a simple prognostic index for ...identifying prognostic subgroups of SLHCC patients.A retrospective analysis of clinical data from 268 patients with operable SLHCC was conducted to investigate prognostic factors and to construct a score system based on risk factors. A Cox proportional hazard regression analysis was used to evaluate the variables associated with prognosis. Survival analyses were performed using Kaplan-Meier survival curves.Three variables remained in the final multivariate model: platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), microvascular invasion (MVI), and tumor size with hazard ratios equal to 1.004 (95% confidence interval: 1.001-1.006), 1.092 (1.044-1.142), and 2.233 (1.125-2.233), respectively. A score of 1 was assigned to each risk factor. Patient scores were determined based on these risk factors; thus, the scores ranged between 0 and 3. Ultimately, three categories (0, 1-2, 3) were defined. Patients with scores of 3 had a 5-year survival rate of 25.4%, whereas patients with a score of 0 had a 5-year survival rate of 52.1%. The prognosis significantly worsened as the score increased. Similar results were found among cirrhotic and noncirrhotic patients.Our simple prognostic index successfully predicts SLHCC survival.
Miniature gas detection system is desirable for many applications. In this brief, we propose a fully integrated nose-on-a-chip for mobile phones and wearable devices. The chip has 36 on-chip sensors, ...a 36-channel adaptive interface with an integrated programmable amplifier, a four-channel frequency readout interface, one on-chip temperature sensor, a successive approximation analog-to-digital converter, a scalable learning kernel cluster, and a reduced instruction set computing core with low-voltage static random-access memory. This chip is fabricated using the TSMC 180-nm CMOS process and consumes 2.6 mW at 1 V. on-chip temperature and humidity sensors are included in this system for acquiring environmental information. An environmental compensation algorithm based on common principal components analysis is also implemented for high-accuracy odor classification. This fully integrated nose-on-a-chip provides promising results for odor detection and classification for use in mobile and wearable device applications.
We present a systematic study of the structures and electronic properties of vanadium-doped silicon cluster anions, VSin− (n = 14–20), by combining photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) measurements and ...density functional theory (DFT) based theoretical calculations. High resolution PES of low temperature (10 K) clusters are acquired at a photon wavelength of 248 nm. Low-lying structures of VSi14–20− are obtained by a genetic algorithm based global minimum search code combined with DFT calculations. Excellent agreement is found between the measured PES and the simulated electron density of states of the putative ground-state structures. We conclude that clusters with sizes n = 14 and n = 15 prefer cage-like structures, with the encapsulated vanadium atom bonding with all silicon atoms, while a fullerene-like motif is more favorable for n ≥ 16. For the sizes n = 16 to 19, the structures consist of a V@Si14 with two, three, four, and five Si atoms on the surface of the cage. For n = 20 the structure consists of a V@Si15 with five Si atoms on the surface of the cage. VSi14− has the highest stability and stands out as a simultaneous closing of electronic and geometrical shells.
Background. Heart failure (HF) is the terminal stage of all cardiovascular events. Although implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) therapies have reduced mortality among the high-risk HF ...population, it is necessary to determine whether certain factors can predict mortality even after cardiac device implantation. Growth stimulation expressed gene 2 (ST2) is an emerging biomarker for HF patient stratification in different clinical settings. Aims. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between baseline soluble ST2 (sST2) levels in serum and the clinical outcomes of high-risk HF patients with device implantation. Methods. Between January 2017 and August 2018, we prospectively recruited consecutive patients implanted with an ICD for heart failure, with LVEF ≤35% as recommended, and analyzed the basic characteristics, baseline serum sST2, and NT-proBNP levels, with at least 1-year follow-up. All-cause mortality was the primary endpoint. Results. During a 643-day follow-up, all-cause mortality occurred in 16 of 150 patients (10.67%). Incidence of all-cause mortality increased significantly in patients with sST2 levels above 34.98846 ng/ml (16.00% vs. 5.33%, P=0.034). After adjusting the model (age, gender, device implantation, prevention of sudden death, LVEDD, LVEF, WBC and CLBBB, hsTNT, etiology, and eGFR) and the model combined with NT-proBNP, the risk of all-cause death was increased by 2.5% and 1.9%, respectively, per ng/ml of sST2. The best sST2 cutoff for predicting all-cause death was 43.42671 ng/ml (area under the curve: 0.72, sensitive: 0.69, and specificity: 0.69). Compared to patients with sST2 levels below 43.42671 ng/ml, the risk of all-cause mortality was higher in those with values above the threshold (5.1% vs. 21.2%, P=0.002). ST2 level ≥43.42671 ng/ml was an independent predictor of all-cause mortality (HR: 3.30 95% CI 1.02–10.67). Age (HR: 1.06 95% CI: 1.01–1.12) and increased NT-proBNP per 100 (HR: 1.02 95% CI: 1.01–1.03) were also associated with all-cause mortality in ICD patients. Conclusions. sST2 level was associated with risk of all-cause mortality, and a threshold of 43.43 ng/ml showed good distinguishing performance to predict all-cause mortality in patients with severe heart failure, recommended for ICD implantation. Patients with sST2 levels more than 43.42671 ng/ml even after ICD implantation should therefore be monitored carefully.
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