In the middle of the 20th century, the United States first proposed the medical humanities theory to campus and offered a variety of medical humanities curriculum, hoping that medical students would have a better understanding of diseases, pain, show themselves more compassion, and foster their communication skills. In recent years, the medical humanities education played a positive role in developing and improving medical students’ comprehensive ability as well as their diagnosis and treatment technology. Currently, American pays more attention to establish a unified and objective standard to evaluate the effect of medical humanities curriculum. Meanwhile, many experts give some suggestions to the medical humanities education.

Objective To explore 18F-FDG PET-CT in the detection of malignant tumors of the gastrointestinal tract.Methods 39 patients with gastrointestinal tumors who was diagnosed with operation,pathological examination,clinical and imaging follow-up undertake the whole-body 18F-FDG PET-CT.Results The sensitivity and specificity were both 100.0 ％ for primary malignant tumors.Gastric metastases sensitivity,specificity and accuracy were 80.0 ％ (4/5),90.9 ％ (10/11),87.5 ％ (14/16),and the colorectal metastases sensitivity,specificity,accuracy of diagnostic results were 88.9 ％ (8/9),92.9 ％ (13/14),91.3 ％ (21/23).The gastric cancer lymph node metastasis sensitivity,specificity and accuracy were 50.0 ％ (3/6),90.0 ％ (9/10),75.0 ％ (12/16),in the diagnosis of colorectal local lymph node metastasis the sensitivity,specificity and accuracy were 71.4 ％ (5/7),93.8 ％ (15/16),87.0 ％ (20/23).Conclusion The 18F-FDG PET-CT imaging for gastrointestinal malignant tumor diagnosis and residual lesions recurrence or lesions metastases of detection is of important value and better than traditional examination methods.

Objective To observe the changes of serum myostatin (MSTN) level in patients with gastric carcinoma-associated cachexia and to investigate the relationship between MSTN and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) preliminarily.Methods Eighty patients with gastric cancer were divided into two groups based on their Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessement (PG-SGA) scores:gastric carcinoma-associated cachexia group (GCC group,32 cases; PG-SGA stage C) and gastric carcinoma non-cachexia group (GCNC,48 cases; PG-SGA stage A + B).The serum MSTN and TNF-α levels were measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay,and relevant parameters including height,weight,albumin,hemoglobin,and C-reactive protein were also recorded before operation.Eighty healthy adults were chosen as the control group.Results The serum MSTN level in the GCC group [(1.36 ±0.50) μg/L] was significantly higher than that in the GCNC group [(0.91 ±0.49) μg/L; x2 =14.67,P =0.00],whereas the serum MSTN level in the GCNC group was significantly higher than that in the control group [(0.70 ± 0.37) μg/L; x2 =36.45,P =0.00].Serum MSTN level was not correlated with TNF-α in the GCC group (r=0.18,P=0.31),GCNC group (r=0.08,P=0.58),or control group (r=-0.16,P＝0.16).Conclusions Serum MSTN level is elevated in patients with gastric carcinoma-associated cachexia.However,it is not correlated with serum TNF-α.

Objective To review the experience on the surgical management for advanced gastric carcinoma with portal hypertension. Methods In this study, 14 advanced gastric carcinoma with portal hypertension patients were analyzed retrospectively, liver cirrhosis was found in 13 cases. In 10 esophageal variceal patients, 5 had upper gastrointestinal bleeding history. All of those cases were associated with different degree of hypersplenism. The tumours situated at the upper third of the stomach in 2 patients, middle and upper third in 2 and lower third in 10. Five patients underwent curative distal subtotal gastrectomy and splenectomy, 2 cases did radical distal subtotal gatrectomy and pericardial devascularizaion, 2 curative distal subtotal gastrectomy combined with splenic artery ligation,2 did total gastrectomy and pericardial devascularizaion,2 cases did radical proximal gastrectomy and pericardial devascularization and 1 patient did distal subtotal gastrectomy only. Results Three died from extensive wound bleeding, jejunal fistula and liver failure respectively. 3 patients were complicated by left subdiaphragmatic abscess, hepatic dysfunction and massive ascites individually. The morbidity and mortality rate were 42.86% and 21.43% respectively. Conclusion The surgical procedures for patients of advanced gastric carcinoma with portal hypertension caused a considerably high postoperative mortality and morbidity rate.