Objective To evaluate the curative effect of local immunotherapy with dexamethasone in healing Graves disease.Methods We divided the 76 patients diagnosed as Graves disease in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical College from Jan.2004 to Aug.2006 into two groups randomly.The therapy group(38 cases)were treated with oral drug and local immunotherapy,while the contrast group were treated with oral drug.Then we observed and analyzed the results of the two groups.Results There're 35 cases having exceptional curative effect such as rapid significance,short period of treatment and lasting effect in the therapy group,while only 28 cases having the less exceptional curative effect in the contrast groups.The difference was quite noticeable(P

Objective : To examine the association between dietary patterns during pregnancy and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), so as to provide the evidence for guiding the establishment of healthy and balanced dietary patterns and reducing the prevalence of GDM. Methods: Pregnant women who underwent oral glucose tolerance tests in Hangzhou Obstetrics and Gynecological Hospital from 2020 to 2021 were enrolled, and their demographic information were collected using questionnaires. Pregnant women's diets during the past three months were collected using Food Frequency Questionnaires (FFQs), and dietary patterns were extracted using principal component analysis. In addition, the association between dietary patterns and risk of GDM was examined using a multivariable logistic regression model. Results: A total of 1 689 pregnant women were included, with a median age of 28.53 (interquartile range, 2.47) years and a median gestational age of 26.00 (interquartile range, 2.00) weeks. Five dietary patterns were identified according to pregnant women's types of diets, including meat-based diets, dessert-fruit-refined grain diets, plant-based diets, eggs-milk-nut diets and whole-grain diets, with a cumulative contribution rate of 58.76%. The prevalence of GDM was 24.57% (415 cases) among the study subjects. Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that pregnant women with scores in the highest quartile (Q4) of the meat-based diets had an increased risk of GDM (OR=1.372, 95%CI: 1.043-2.055) relative to those with scores in the lowest quartile (Q1), and pregnant women with Q4 scores of the dessert-fruit-refined grain diets had an increased risk of GDM (OR=1.743, 95%CI: 1.397-2.432) relative to those with Q1 scores, while pregnant women with Q4 scores of the plant-based diets had a reduced risk of GDM (OR=0.382, 95%CI: 0.346-0.613) relative to those with Q1 scores. Conclusion A plant-based dietary pattern may reduce the risk of GDM, while meat-based and dessert-fruit-refined grain dietary patterns may increase the risk of GDM.

Objective:To investigate the type and severity of skin adverse reactions induced by afatinib in the treatment of lung cancer, and to analyze their correlation with anti-lung cancer efficacy.Methods:A case-case-control study was conducted on lung cancer patients treated with afatinib in ZhongDa Hospital, Southeast University from December 2016 to January 2018. The type and severity of skin adverse reactions were evaluated in 76 patients with lung cancer based on the National Cancer Institute-Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (NCI-CTCAE) Version 4.0, and these patients were divided into 3 groups according to the severity of skin lesions, including grade-0, -1, and -2/3 groups. The patients underwent chest computed tomography (CT) examination every 3 months, and the tumor response to afatinib was evaluated according to the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) . Anti-lung cancer efficacy of afatinib was compared among the patients with different grades of skin lesions by using the Kruskal-wallis H rank sum test. Results:After treatment with afatinib, 44 of the 76 patients with lung cancer achieved stable condition or partial remission, and 32 experienced disease progression. Skin adverse reactions occurred in 69 patients, and manifested as acneiform lesions in 42 (55.3%) patients, paronychia in 35 (46.1%) , mucosal erosions in 30 (39%) , hair changes in 8 (10.5%) , and hand-foot syndrome in 6 (7.9%) . Improvement was achieved in 3, 7 and 34 cases in the grade-0, -1, and -2/3 groups ( n = 7, 19 and 50 respectively) , respectively. There was a significant difference in the response rate among the 3 groups ( χ2 = 6.117, P = 0.047) , and the response rate was significantly higher in the grade-1 and -2/3 groups than in the grade-0 group (both P < 0.001) , and higher in the grade-2/3 group than in the grade-1 group ( P < 0.001) . Conclusion:The treatment of lung cancer with afatinib can cause various types of skin lesions, such as acneiform lesions, paronychia, mucosal erosions, hair changes and hand-foot syndrome, and the higher the severity of the skin lesions, the more marked the anti-lung cancer efficacy of afatinib.

Objective:To investigate the progression pattern of acquired resistance to osimertinib and the treatment method as well as the therapeutic effect of salvage therapy in advanced lung cancer patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) sensitive mutation or T790M mutation after the treatment of tyrosine-kinase inhibitor (TKI).Methods:The data of 145 patients with advanced lung cancer treated with osimertinib in Jiangsu Cancer Hospital between April 2017 (the approval time of osimertinib in China) and May 2019 were collected. At the last follow-up (December 2019), a total of 87 (60.0%) patients had acquired resistance to osimertinib, 61 (70.1%) of whom received salvage treatment; for patients with dramatic progression after resistance, chemotherapy was mainly given in the salvage therapy; for patients with gradual or local progression after resistance, the continuing targeted drug therapy and the local therapy were given. Imaging evaluation and Kaplan-Meier method were used to analyze the progression pattern of acquired resistance to osimertinib and the survival status, and to compare the salvage treatment results among subgroups.Results:The median follow-up time of 61 patients receiving salvage therapy was 11 months (4-32 months), among which 58 (95.1%) patients again had resistance to osimertinib, and 24 (39.3%) patients died of lung cancer. The median progression-free survival (PFS) time and overall survival (OS) time for the whole cohort was 2.5 months (95% CI 2.1-3.0 months) and 19.0 months (95% CI 13.7-26.3 months), respectively. The 1-year and 2-year OS rate was 72.1% and 41.7%, respectively. Among 61 patients receiving salvage therapy, 8 (13.1%) , 30 (49.2%) and 23 (37.7%) cases had dramatic progression, gradual progression and local progression, respectively; when given timely and proper salvage treatment, there were no statistically differences in PFS and OS of the patients in the above three subgroups (all P>0.05). There were no statistically differences in PFS and OS between patients receiving local therapy (24 cases) and patients not receiving local therapy (37 cases) after the progression occurred (all P>0.05). Among 58 patients with resistance to osimertinib again after the salvage therapy, 6 patients with gradual or local progression had more than 6-mouth PFS after the salvage therapy. Conclusions:Dramatic, gradual and local progression are the main patterns in patients with acquired resistance to osimertinib. The therapeutic efficacy of salvage therapy still shows some disappointing results.

Objective: Non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-activating mutations have higher response rate and more prolonged survival following treatment with single-agent EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor (EGFR-TKI) compared with patients with wild-type EGFR. However, all patients treated with reversible inhibitors develop acquired re-sistance over time. The mechanisms of resistance are complicated. The lack of established therapeutic options for patients after a failed EGFR-TKI treatment poses a great challenge to physicians in managing this group of lung cancer patients. This study evaluates the in-fluence of EGFR-TKI retreatment following chemotherapy after failure of initial EGFR-TKI within at least six months on NSCLC pa-tients. Methods:The data of 27 patients who experienced treatment failure from their initial use of EGFR-TKI within at least 6 months were analyzed. After chemotherapy, the patients were retreated with EGFR-TKI (gefitinib 250 mg qd or erlotinib 150 mg qd), and the tumor progression was observed. The patients were assessed for adverse events and response to therapy. Targeted tumor lesions were as-sessed with CT scan. Results:Of the 27 patients who received EGFR–TKI retreatment, 1 (3.7%) patient was observed in complete re-sponse (CR), 8 (29.6%) patients in partial response (PR), 14 (51.9%) patients in stable disease (SD), and 4 (14.8%) patients in progres-sive disease (PD). The disease control rate (DCR) was 85.2%(95%CI=62%-94%). The median progression-free survival (mPFS) was 6 months (95%CI=1-29). Of the 13 patients who received the same EGFR-TKI, 1 patient in CR, 3 patients in PR, 8 patients in SD, and 2 patients in PD were observed. The DCR was 84.6%, and the mPFS was 5 months. Of the 14 patients who received another EG-FR-TKI, 0 patient in CR, 6 patients in PR, 6 patients in SD, and 2 patients in PD were observed. The DCR was 85.7%, and the mPFS was 9.5 months. Significant difference was found between the 2 groups in progression-free survival but not in response rate or disease control rate. Conclusion:Retreatment of EGFR-TKIs can be considered an option after failure of chemotherapy for patients who were
previously controlled by EGFR-TKI treatment.

BACKGROUNDMethylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) plays an important role in metabolism of folate and DNA methylation. In vitro, many studies have demonstrated that abnormal methylation of some genes may affect the sensitivity of tumor cells to cytotoxic drugs and agents interfering with DNA synthesis. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between genetic polymorphisms of MTHFR C677T or A1298C and the response to platinum-based chemotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

METHODSA total of 97 patients with NSCLC were analyzed. MTHFR genotypes were detected in all the patients by PCR-RFLP method. All the patients were treated with platinum-based chemotherapy.

RESULTS(1) Out of all the cases, the frequencies of MTHFR C677T C/C, C/T and T/T genotypes were 34.0%, 50.5% and 15.5%, respectively, while the frequencies of MTHFR A1298C A/A, A/C and C/C genotypes were 64.6%, 29.2% and 6.3%, respectively. The overall response rate (complete and partial response) to platinum-based chemotherapy was 39.2%. (2) No significant difference in response rate to chemotherapy was observed according to the MTHFR C677T or A1298C genotypes. However, MTHFR C677T and A1298C polymorphisms showed a synergic effect on chemotherapeutic efficacy, the response rate of patients with MTHFR C677T T allele and A1298C A/A genotype (51.1%) was significantly higher than those with MTHFR C677T C/T and A1298C C allele (12.5%)(P=0.007, OR=7.30, 95% CI: 1.34-52.47).

CONCLUSIONSThe results suggest that the synergic effect between MTHFR C677T and A1298C polymorphisms is associated with clinical response to platinum-based chemotherapy. Detection of MTHFR genotypes may indicate the sensitivity of NSCLC patients to platinum-based chemotherapy.

Cadmium is one of the heavy metals with severe reproductive toxicity,whose half-life lasts 20 to 40 years.Cadmium could induce dysfunction of testis and epididymis for its significant accumulation in human testis,and the amount,motility parameters and morphology of sperm change abnormally.The adverse change could also extend to male offspring and cause the impairment of their reproductive system.There has been no clear mecha-nism of how cadmium induces dysfunction of male reproductive system,and treatment for the adverse influence on male reproductive system by cadmium has not yet been found.Therefore,this problem has been discussed in repro-ductive and environmental field for a long time.A number of previous investigations showed that cadmium could damage male fertility by followed pathways,including interfering with hormone secretion,inducing oxidative stress,activating inflammation and apoptosis,and causing energy metabolism disorder,etc.In order to enlighten new ideas for therapeutic targets of male reproductive function damage induced by cadmium,we systematically reviewed and summarized the findings of previous publications in this paper.

BACKGROUNDGensing Rg3 is an active component from ginseng. The aim of this study is to observe the clinical anticancer effect of Rg3 in combination with chemotherapy regimen NP (vinorelbine+cisplatin) in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

METHODSStage III-IV NSCLC patients confirmed by pathology or cytology all received vinorelbine plus cisplatin for at least two cycles, and were randomized into two groups: patients in arm A also received placebo twice a day, while patients in arm B received two tablets of Rg3 twice a day for at least two months. The endpoints of the study were the efficacy, survival and tolerance of patients.

RESULTSFrom July 2000 to May 2002, 115 patients were enrolled into the trial. The patients' characteristics were well balanced in the two groups. Sex of patients: male, 79; female 36. Types of pathology: adenocarcinoma, 71; squamous cell carcinoma, 29; adenosquamous carcinoma, 8; others, 7. TNM stage: stage III, 45; stage IV, 70. Prior chemotherapy: with, 17; without, 98. Prior radiotherapy: with, 15; without, 100. Prior surgical treatment: with, 23; without, 92. Nine patients discontinued from the trial due to severe adverse effects (5) and other reasons (4), so there were 106 patients evaluable for clinical efficacy. The response rate was 14.5% (8/55) in arm A, and 33.3% (17/51) in arm B (P=0.011). The survival time in arm A was 9.7 months (mean) and 8.0 months (median), and 15.3 months (mean) and 10.0 months (median) in arm B (P=0.0088).

CONCLUSIONSPreliminary results show improvements in response rate and survival time (median and mean) in Rg3 arm compared with placebo arm. It is worthy to confirm the results in further clinical trials.

Objective:To compare the differences in clinicopathological characteristics between papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC) and papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) with a diameter≥2 cm.Methods:Clinicopathological and follow-up information of 1 404 PTC cases with diameter≤9 cm who received surgery and were confirmed pathologically from January 2010 to May 2017 in the First Hospital of China Medical University were analyzed retrospectively. All cases were divided into PTMC group and diameter ≥2 cm PTC group according to tumor diameter. The diameter of ≥2 cm PTC group was further categorized into two subgroups with 4 cm as the boundary. Clinical and pathological characteristics were analyzed. Meanwhile, risk factors that affected lymph node metastasis and postoperative recurrence of tumor were analyzed as well.Results:(1) A total of 1 404 eligible patients were included, consisting of 1 001 cases (71.3%) of PTMC and 403 cases (28.7%) of PTC of diameter≥2 cm with a median follow-up time of 43.00 (8.00-94.00) months. There were statistical differences in gender, age, serum thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) level, bilobe, multifocality, cervical lymph node metastasis, extrathyroidal extension, body mass index, postoperative death, postoperative recurrence, and 131I treatment rate between two groups. Age, serum TSH level, bilobe, multifocality, cervical lymph node metastasis, extrathyroidal extension, postoperative recurrence, and 131I treatment rate were found statistically different among the PTMC group, 2 cm≤diameter≤4 cm PTC group, and 4 cm

Objective:To investigate the radiation dosimetry and biodistribution of 68Ga-FAPI-04 PET/CT in patients with hepatobiliary tumor. Methods:A total of six patients with hepatic lesions who underwent PET/CT examination in Peking Union Medical College Hospital were enrolled. After intravenous injection of radiotracer 68Ga-FAPI-04 at (170.57 ± 14.43) MBq, whole-body imaging were performed at the time points of 3, 10, 15, 20, 30 and 60 min, respectively. Biodistribution pattern was observed. Regions of interest were manually delineated. Radiation dosimetry of all target organs were calculated by Olinda/EXM software. Results:The radioactive uptake dissipated gradually in liver whereas it was relatively stable in tumor lesions. The average SUV max of tumor lesions reached the maximum value (13.87± 2.55) at 20 min after injection. The target-to-background ratio increased with time, reaching the maximum value (10.09 ± 8.17) at 30 min after injection. The average effective dose in total body was (0.020 ± 0.002) mSv/MBq and organ with the highest effective dose was bladder wall at (0.146 ± 0.035) mSv/MBq. Conclusions:The effective dose in total body of 68Ga-FAPI-04 was similar to that of 18F-FDG. 68Ga-FAPI-04 is expected to be a PET/CT radiotracer for hepatobiliary tumors in consideration of rapid tumor uptake, low accumulation of liver background, and no influence of blood sugar levels.