OBJECTIVETo evaluate the efficacy of antioxidants in the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver.

METHODSThe Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE or PUBMED (1978-2011), EMBASE (1978-2011), ISI, OVID Database (1978-2011), CNKI Net and WANFANG database (1978-2011) were searched for relevant randomized controlled trials, with also manual search of the bibliographies of the retrieved articles. The data were synthesized to assess the histological response of the patients (hepatic steatosis, inflammation and fibrosis) and hepatic biochemical changes after the treatments (alanine aminotransferase responses).

RESULTSFourteen trials involving 1284 patients were included in the Meta-analysis. The quality of the trials was inconsistent. The data were extracted for meta-analysis or descriptive analysis, which did not yield sufficient evidence that antioxidants could improve hepatic steatosis, inflammation, fibrosis or alanine aminotransferase responses.

CONCLUSIONSThe current data do not support a positive therapeutic effect of antioxidants on nonalcoholic fatty liver, and antioxidants are therefore not recommended in the clinical treatment of the condition.

Antioxidants ; therapeutic use ; Fatty Liver ; drug therapy ; Humans ; Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic ; Treatment Outcome

Objective To investigate the clinical features of pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP) in patients with chronic kidney disease. Methods Clinial data of 21 cases of the primary and secondary kidney diseases complicated with PCP,excluding renal transplantation,were analyzed retrospectively. Results Twenty-one cases consisted of 6 cases of primary renal diseases and 15 eases of secondary renal diseases.Twenty patients (95.2%) were receiving immunesuppressive therapy at the PCP onset.Main manifestations were fever,progressive dyspnea,cough with no or seldom sputum.Twenty patients presented obvious hypoxemia and 12 of them were type I respiratory failure.X-ray and CT imaging of 20 patients revealed diffuse pulmonary interstitial shadows or ground glass opacities in both lungs.All the patients were treaed with trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole.Eleven patients died accounting for 52.3%.Compared with the survivors,elder age (60.91±15.08 vs 44.50±14.83,P＜0.05),lower blood oxygen pressure at onset [(48.11±19.05)mm Hg vs (65.91±13.13)mm Hg,P＜0.01],higher percentage of respirator application and other secondary lung infection were found in dead patients.No PCP relapsed after average 16-month follow-up in the survival patients. Conclusions PCP is a severe complication with high mortality during immunosuppressive therapy in patients with chronic renal disease.Early diagnosis and proper treatment are important to improve prognosis.

Endocrine therapy is the most important adjuvant treatment for early estrogen receptor(ER)-positive breast cancer.ER-low-positive(immunohistochemistry staining 1%-10%)breast cancer has drawn widespread attention in recent years.This group accounts for 3%-9%of overall breast cancer patients.The efficacy of endocrine adjuvant therapy is relatively limited in patients with ER-low-positive breast cancer.Although the proportion of patients with low ER expression in breast cancer population is relatively low,the clinical needs of this population can not be ignored because of the large number of breast cancer patients.A number of studies have suggested that ER-low-positive breast cancer is different from ER-positive breast cancer,and is similar to ER-negative breast cancer in terms of molecular and biological characteristics,clinical features and prognosis.There are still controversies on the benefit and duration of endocrine therapy for early ER-low-positive breast cancer,and there is a lack of evidence from large-scale prospective studies.Multiple retrospective studies and meta-analyses have suggested that ER-low-positive breast cancer may have limited benefit from adjuvant endocrine therapy,and therefore endocrine therapy should be considered with caution in this population.The benefit of adjuvant therapy combined with cyclin-dependent kinase(CDK)4/6 inhibitors is yet to be supported by future data.Some patients with ER-low-positive breast cancer may try adjuvant chemotherapy in consideration of other risk factors.Additionally,clinical trials that test antibody-drug conjugates(such as sacituzumab govitecan and Dato-DXd),poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase(PARP)inhibitors,and immunotherapies for the treatment of early ER-low-positive breast cancer are still ongoing,including the phase Ⅲ ASCENT-05 study evaluating the adjuvant therapy of sacituzumab govitecan combined with pembrolizumab in high-risk human epidermal growth factor receptor 2(HER2)-negative,ER and progesterone receptor(PR)＜10%patients after surgery,the phase Ⅲ SASCIA study evaluating the adjuvant therapy of sacituzumab govitecan in high-risk HER2-negative patients after surgery,and the phase Ⅲ TROPION-Breast 04 study evaluating the neoadjuvant therapy of Dato-DXd combined with durvalumab.In addition,a neoadjuvant treatment for triple-negative breast cancer(TNBC)and ER-low expression breast cancer with olaparib and durvalumab(NCT03594396)is being explored,and the results are worth expecting.This article aimed to introduce the definition,clinical and pathological characteristics,and prognosis of ER-low breast cancer,and expound on the current treatment status and potential therapeutic strategies for HER2-negative,ER-low-positive early breast cancer in the future.