Pancreatic cancer with liver metastases (PCLM) is a refractory malignant tumor characterized by insidious onset, rap-id progress, and poor prognosis. Only a few patients had the opportunity of receiving surgical treatment. PCLM is primarily treated by systemic chemotherapy. The chemotherapeutic regimen of 5-fluorouracil, oxaliplatin, irinotecan, and leucovorin has become the first-line therapy for PCLM patients with good performance status. Gemcitabine-based chemotherapy is still very important in treating PCLM. Nab-paclitaxel plus gemcitabine, which has been found to increase survival, is recommended as a new standard for treating PCLM patients. However, still no breakthrough has been established in the study of gemcitabine plus molecular-targeted therapy. Sys-temic chemotherapy combined with trans-catheter arterial chemoembolization is valuable and may be effectual in prolonging survival. Further investigation of prospective and randomized controlled clinical trials is necessary. Radio frequency ablation and brachy-thera-peutic embolization with yttrium-90 microspheres are still in the exploratory stage. Multimodality treatment of PCLM using chemother-apy, radiation therapy, and Chinese herbal medicine is gaining wide acceptance. This article reviews the recent progress in the treatment of PCLM.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is one of the most common malignant tumor in China, Southeast Asia and North Africa region. The main treatment of NPC is radiation therapy, and concurrent chemoradiotherapy has become the standard treatment for locally advanced NPC Up to date, the targeted therapy in NPC has been gradually appreciated recently, in this paper, NPC biological targeted therapy in recent years as a progress of treatment were reviewed.
Biological Therapy ; Carcinoma ; Chemoradiotherapy ; China ; Humans ; Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma ; Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms ; therapy ; Radiotherapy

Objective To explore the therapeutic effect of lung cancer Ⅳ recipe combined with chemotherapy on treating middle and advanced stages of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in the elderly.Methods A total of 77 NSCLC patients in middle and advanced stages aged 70 years and over who had heat-toxin syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) were selected from Apr.2013 to Oct.2014 in our hospital.Patients were randomly divided into chemotherapy group (n=39) and chemotherapy + herbs group (n=38).Karnofsky assessment scale (KPS),effective rate,symptom and sign in traditional Chinese medicine,changes in the levels of high-sensitivity c-reactive protein (hs-CRP),carcino embryonic antigen (CEA),neuron specific enolase (NSE),tumor special growth factor (TSGF) were observed before and 1 and 56 days after treatment.Results There was no significant difference in effective rate between the two groups (P＞0.05).The KPS and symptom and sign in TCM were improved significantly in chemotherapy + herbs group as compared with chemotherapy group (36.7 ％ vs.26.5 ％,80.0 ％ vs.58.8 ％,respectively (x2 =2.721,6.731,both P＜0.05).There were no significant differences in hs-CRP,NSE,CEA,TSGF levels between two groups before and after treatment (P＞0.05),but hs-CRP level in both groups was decreased after treatment as compared to pre-treatment and the decvease was more obvious in chemotherapy + herbs group (51.47％ vs.23.77％,x2 =19.713,P＜0.05).Conclusions Lung cancer Ⅳ recipe can improve the main clinical symptoms,quality of life and tolerance to chemotherapy in NSCLC patients with heat-toxin manifestation in TCM.There is a correlation between heat-toxin syndrome and hsCRP level in NSCLC patients,which shows that hs-CRP probably is the material basis of the heattoxin syndrome in TCM.

Objective:This study aimed to determine the function of herbs in preventing diarrhea after irinotecan chemotherapy and analyze the efficacy of the herbs based on UGT1A1*28 gene polymorphism. Methods:A total of 200 patients admitted to the De-partment of Synergistic Chinese and Western Medicine, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital between October 2011 and May 2013 were randomly divided into the control (chemotherapy alone) and herb (chemotherapy combined with herbs) groups. All patients consented to UGT1A1*28 gene polymorphism detection prior to chemotherapy. Herbs were administered from 2 d prior to chemotherapy to 5 d post chemotherapy, with or without the regimen of fluorouracil, folinic acid, and irinotecan. Adverse reac-tions were recorded, and short-term effect was evaluated regularly. Results:A total of 144 patients had TA6/6 wild genotype, and anoth-er 56 patients had non-wild genotype (12 of the 56 cases were TA7/7 homozygous, and the other 44 cases were TA6/7 hybrid). A total of 58 patients experienced grades 2 to 4 diarrhea. A 14%decrease in the incidence of diarrhea was observed in the herb group compared with that of the control group (22%vs. 36%, P=0.029). In addition to diarrhea, grades 2 to 4 vomiting was significantly lower in the herb group than in the control group (15% vs. 27%, P=0.037). The overall response rate was 37.5%. No significant difference was found between the two groups (40% vs. 35%, P=0.465). The incidences of grades 2 to 4 diarrhea (22.9% vs. 44.6%, P=0.002) and grades 2 to 4 vomiting (23.2%vs. 16.7%, P=0.016) were lower in patients with the UGT1A1*28 wild genotype than in those with the non-wild genotype. However, in the herb group, the incidences of grades 2 to 4 diarrhea (22.2% vs. 21.9%, P=0.974) and vomiting (18.5% vs. 13.7%, P=0.777) were not significant between the non-wild-and wild-type groups. Conclusion:Herbs can effectively pre-vent the late diarrhea caused by irinotecan, which is also applicable in UGT1A1*28 non-wild genotype patients. Incidence of diarrhea was obviously higher in the cases with UGT1A1*28 non-wild type than in those with wild genotype. Hence, the UGT1A1*28 gene type should be detected prior to chemotherapy with irinotecan.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of NF-κB activation on the proliferation and apoptosis throughTLR4/MyD88 signaling pathway in human nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) 5-8F cell lines. METHOD: TLR4 induced by LPS is inhibited by PE anti-human. Real-Time Quantitative PCR and Western blot were employed to evaluate the efficacy of mRNA level and protein expression. The growth inhibition rate of 5-8F by Celecoxib was evaluated with MTT method. The cell cycle and apoptosis were measured with flow cytometric method (FCM). RESULT: By using the specific inhibitor, the protein and gene expression of NF-κB and MyD88 were both significantly lower than the control group (P<. 05). Meanwhile, the down-rugulation of NF-κB could inhibit proliferation of NPC 5-8F cells and promote their apoptosis (P<0. 05). CONCLUSION By inhibiting TLR4 / MyD88 signaling pathway, the expression of NF-κB in NPC 5-8F cells could decrease, then the cell proliferation was inhibited and cell apoptosis was induced. The results showed that TLR4 / MyD88 / NF-κB induced by LPS is an important pathway in the genesis and development of NPC. This study provides evidence for targeting research of NPC.
Apoptosis ; Carcinoma ; Cell Cycle ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Cell Proliferation ; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic ; Humans ; Myeloid Differentiation Factor 88 ; metabolism ; NF-kappa B p50 Subunit ; metabolism ; Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma ; Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms ; pathology ; Signal Transduction ; Toll-Like Receptor 4 ; metabolism

Malignant pheochromocytomas are rare tumors that arise from chromaffin tissue, and the diagnostic criterion of malig-nancy is based on the development of metastases. In the case a patient suffers the tumor with liver, lung and bone metastases. However, the test results of tumor markers, gastroscopy, chest and abdominal CT, and PET-CT examination are hard to make a definite diagnosis. The patient was finally diagnosed with malignant pheochromocytoma with liver, lung and bone metastases following the needle biopsy of liver and underwent the excision of a right adrenal pheochromocytoma. Therapeutic standard for the malignant pheochromocytomas is not available so far. It is reported that chemotherapeutic CVD regimen (cyclophosphamide, vincristine, and daecarbazine) and suni-tinib may be effectual in the alike cases. The patient received two cycles of CVD and one cycle of sunitinib, nevertheless, slow progres-sion of the disease remained after the treatment. The results of multi-disciplinary treatment have suggested that 131I-MIBG may just be a choice for this patient.