Patients treated with radiotherapy (RT) might experience a large variation in normal tissues. Severe radiation damage in a minority of patients limits the doses that might be safe given to the majority. The possibility of predicting such radiation-induced damage would provide a better treatment schedule for the patients. Several predictive tests in peripheral blood lymphocytes such as initial DNA damage, radiation-induced apoptosis and genetic variation have been proposed to know the individual sensitivity of patients to the radiotherapy schedules. This study aimed to summarize the main studies regarding to this ifeld.

Developing new therapeutic agents for cancer immunotherapy is highly demanding due to the low response ratio of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade in cancer patients. Here, we discovered that the novel immune checkpoint VISTA is highly expressed on a variety of tumor-infiltrating immune cells, especially myeloid derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) and CD8⁺ T cells. Then, peptide C1 with binding affinity to VISTA was developed by phage displayed bio-panning technique, and its mutant peptide VS3 was obtained by molecular docking based mutation. Peptide VS3 could bind VISTA with high affinity and block its interaction with ligand PSGL-1 under acidic condition, and elicit anti-tumor activity in vivo. The peptide DVS3-Pal was further designed by d-amino acid substitution and fatty acid modification, which exhibited strong proteolytic stability and significant anti-tumor activity through enhancing CD8⁺ T cell function and decreasing MDSCs infiltration. This is the first study to develop peptides to block VISTA/PSGL-1 interaction, which could act as promising candidates for cancer immunotherapy.

Objective: To systematically review the quality and reporting quality of colorectal cancer screening guidelines, and to provide reference for the update of colorectal cancer screening guidelines and colorectal cancer screening in China. Methods: "Colorectal cancer", "colorectal tumor", "screening", "screening", "guide", "consensus", "Colorectal cancer", "Colorectal neoplasms", "Screening", "Early Detection of Cancer", "Guideline" and "recommendation" were used as search keywords. The literature retrieval for all the Chinese and English guidelines published before April 2018 was conducted by using PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data, China Biology Medicine disc (CBMdisc), Cochrane Library, Guideline International Network, China Guidelines Clearinghouse (CGC) and the official website of the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), the American Cancer Society (ACS), International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), Australia Cancer Council (ACC) and Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain & Ireland (ACPGBI). The inclusion criteria were independent guidance documents for colorectal cancer screening. The language is limited to Chinese and English. The exclusion criteria were literature on interpretation, evaluation, introduction, etc., as well as the translated version of the guide and old guides. The quality and reporting norms of colorectal cancer screening guidelines were compared and evaluated using the European Guideline Research and Assessment Tool (AGREE Ⅱ) and the Practice Guideline Reporting Standard (RIGHT). Results: A total of 15 guides were included. The results of the AGREE Ⅱ quality evaluation showed that the overall quality of 15 guides was high. Among them, there were 9 guides with an overall score of 50 or more, 10 with a recommendation level of "A", and 2 with a rating of "B". There were 3 guides for "C"; each guide scores higher in scope and purpose, and clarity, and scores vary greatly in the areas of participants, rigor, applicability, and independence. The results of the RIGHT evaluation showed that 15 guides were insufficient in six areas except for background information, evidence, recommendations, reviews and quality assurance, funding and conflict of interest statements and management, and other aspects. Conclusion The overall quality of included guidelines for colorectal cancer screening is high, but the normative nature needs to be strengthened.