OBJECTIVE:To explore the standardized package of Metformin tablets to meet clinical needs. METHODS:Statis-tics was conducted for the utilization data of Metformin tablets in medical and health institutions from 6 cities of China;question-naires were designed to investigate and analyze the evaluation for the suitability of physicians,pharmacists and patients in the pre-scription,deployment and use links to Metformin tablets with different packaging loaded amount in Beijing and Haikou. RE-SULTS:For 0.5 g/tablet,the daily dose of 1.5 g accounted for the largest proportion (32.23%-69.91%) in 5 cities except for Chengdu. Totally 490 questionnaires about package suitability of Metformin tablets in outpatient department were sent out,includ-ing 478 valid questionnaires with effective rate of 97.5%. Results showed that packaging quantity with 4 weeks was considered as appropriate by physicians,pharmacists and patients in Beijing;however,packaging quantity with 1-2 week(s) was considered as appropriate by physicians,pharmacists and patients in Haikou;300-500 tablets of packaging quantity were preferred to be appropri-ate with the matching degree of automatic dispensing machines in both places. CONCLUSIONS:Considering the results in 2 plac-es,for 0.5 g/tablet,2 weeks is appropriate for the packaging loaded amount in outpatient department,that is 0.5 g×45 tablets/box;and 300-500 tablets/box is appropriate for inpatient pharmacies.

Objective To investigate the clinical significance of Wilm tumor gene (WT1) expression in breast cancer. Methods Real-time quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RQ-RT-PCR) method was established for detecting WT1 and GAPDH mRNA expression levels in 110 cases of various breast tumor and the corresponding adjacent normal breast tissue. Normalized WT1 expression level (WT1_N)was determined as a ratio between WT1 and GAPDH for each case. The tumor tissue WT1_N over the normaltissue WT1_N of the same case was calculated as T/N_(WT1) ratio, and T/N_(WT1) value was analyzed with the clinicalpathological parameters. Results The WT1_N expression levels of the 102 breast cancer tissues were significantly higher than those of the adjacent normal breast tissues, with the median WT1_N of 2.38 (ranged from 0.12 to 112.3) and 0.81 (ranged from 0.03 to 11.65) for each (P <0.01), but there were no statistical differences between the WT1_N of 8 benign breast tumors and the nearing normal tissues, with the median WT1_N of 0.46 (ranged from 0.16 to 5.04) and 0.53 (ranged from 0.14 to 4.94) for each. Furthermore the WT1_Nas well as the T/N_(WT1) ratio of the malignant breast cancer tissues were significantly higher than those of the benign tumor tissues, with the median T/N_(WT1) value of 2.54 (ranged from 0.28 to 172.88) and 1.17 (ranged from 0.09 to 2.63) for each. Non-parameter correlation analysis showed that the T/N_(WT1) in breast cancers were of no relevance to lymph node metastasis, clinical-pathological types, estrogen receptor and progestone receptor status, but positively correlated with the expression level of IL-8 gene which calculated with T/N IL-8(r =0.723, P <0.01). Conclusion The WT1 gene is highly expressed in breast cancer which suggests that WT1 level assessed by RQ-RT-PCR could be a novel marker of disease progression and poor prognosis.

Objective To investigate the relationship of ELK-3 and epithelial-mesenchymal transition ( EMT) for ex-ploring its possible mechanism .Methods The human hepatocellular carcinoma cells ( HCC) were divided into small interference RNA transfection group and Ras-ELK-3 pathway inhibitor group .The protein level of ELK-3 target gene EGR-1 E-cadherin ,vimentin and p38 in HCC were determined by Western blot analysis .Results The protein level of ELK-3 and its target gene EGR-1 in treated human hepatocellular carcinoma cells significantly decreased as compared with the negative control group (P<0.01).The protein level of E-cadherin was significantly increased (P<0.01), while vimentin and p38 were decreased in HCC cells with ELK-3 interference (P<0.01).Conclusions ELK-3 in-terference can inhibit the epithelial-mesenchymal transition of HCC cells by down-regulating p38.

To explore the significance of Erbin expression in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and its relation-ship with patient prognosis. Methods: Erbin expression in a tissue chip containing samples from 299 cases were examined using immu-nohistochemistry; in addition, the relationship between Erbin expression and clinical-pathological parameters and patient survival time were also analyzed. Cox regression was used to predict the risk of clinical-pathological parameters. The mRNA and protein expres-sion of Erbin was also determined in 25 cases with paired ESCC and normal tissues through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and West-ern blot. Results: The expression of Erbin protein and mRNA in ESCC were significantly higher than those of normal esophageal epithe-lium adjacent to cancer (55.2% vs. 0, P<0.05). The high expression of Erbin in ESCC was closely related to TNM stage (64.9% vs. 47.3%, P=0.002) and lymph node metastasis (65.5% vs. 45.0%, P<0.001). Moreover, the high expression of Erbin in ESCC was closely related to poor prognosis (P<0.05). Conclusions: Erbin expression was increased in ESCC and was closely related to poor patient prognosis, which suggested that Erbin may be an important biomarker for the prognosis of cancer patients.