Objective To explore the effectiveness of transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) approach in treating patients with cancer- related fatigue during periods of chemotherapy in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients in China. Methods A total of 162 participants who treated with GP chemotherapy were randomly assigned to three groups: 66 cases in control group, 61 cases in TEAS group, 67 cases in Sham TEAS group. The following acupoints were used in this study: Qihai (CV 6), Keshu (UB 17), and Zusanli (ST 36). Participants in TEAS group and Sham TEAS group received eight 30-min sessions of TEAS over 28 days. The Revised Piper Fatigue Scale (RPFS) and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire-Core 30 (EORTC-QLQ-C30) were used to measure cancer related fatigue (CRF) on the day before chemotherapy days 8 and 28 separately. The differences among three groups were analyzed. Results Finally, 167 patients were included in this study, 56 cases in control group, 57 cases in TEAS group, 49 cases in Sham TEAS group. At the 28th day, the outcomes of the RPFS for TEAS group, Sham TEAS group and control groupscored 2.06 ± 0.90, 2.80 ± 1.34, 3.00 ± 1.29 respectively. There were significantly different among three groups (F=9.784,P<0.01). At the 28th day, the outcomes of the EORTC-QLQ-C30 for TEAS group, Sham TEAS group and control groupscored 64.56 ± 5.00, 54.90 ± 6.25, 54.48 ± 9.68 respectively. There were significantly different among three groups (F=34.119, P<0.01). Conclusions TEAS could help to relived cancer-related fatigue.

To investigate the clinicopathological features as well as prognosis of early esophageal squamous cell neoplasm (ESCN) treated with endoscopic resection (ER).Methods 368 patients were collected from 2007 to 2013.Clinicopathological features including invasion depth and margin were evaluated.Survival curves were constructed by using the Kaplan-Meier method.Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression models were performed to identify associations with outcome variables.Results There were 252 males and 116 females with a median age of 61 (16-84) years.Patient numbers of hyperplasia,low grade intraepithelial neoplasia,high grade intraepithelial neoplasia,m1,m2,m3,sm1 and sm2 were 47(12.8％),61 (16.6％),61 (16.6％),54(14.7％),38(10.3％),63(17.1％),12(3.3％) and 32(8.7％),respectively.The cumulative overall 1-year,3-year,and 5-year rates of survival in the metachronous esophageal lesions were 4.1％,12.9％ and 32.6％,respectively.The incidence of lymph node/distant metastasis was 1.54％ in m3,6.25％ in sm2,and 0 in other subgroups.The overall 1-year,3-year,and 5-year survival rates were 99.5％,97.3％,and 87.5％,respectively.Significant difference was identified between sm2 and non-sm2 patients in metastatic rate (P =0.021),however,no significant difference existed between m3 patients and sm2 patients (P =0.252).Metachronous esophageal lesion and survival between sm2 and non-sm2 patients demonstrated no statistical difference (P =0.401 and P =0.634).Conclusion ER is an effective and relatively safe treatment for superficial ESCN.The procedure is still appropriate in selecting sin2 patients.It is necessary to monitor the second primary cancer in sm2 patients during follow-up.

BACKGROUND:Changes of both stem cell markers and endothelial cell phenotype help understand characteristics of endothelial progenitor cells during adherent differentiation.However,there is still no specific cell marker to distinguish from mature endothelial cells.OBJECTIVE:To study the changes of stem cell markers and endothelial cell phenotype during the differentiation of rat peripheral blood rnononuclear cells into endothelial cells.DESIGN.TIME AND SETTING:Cell observation study was performed in the Laboratory of Cardiac Surgery,Qingdao Municipal Hospital between June 2004 and December 2008. MATERIALS:Peripheral blood was drawn from male SD rats to obtain mononuclear cells by Ficell density gradient centrifugation. METHODS:Mononuclear cells were in vitro cultured in fibronectin culture medium and induced by vascular endothelial growth factors(VEGF)and basic fibroblast growth factors(bFGF)in order to stimulate a differentiation into endothelial cells. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:Adherent cells in the culture system were identified for CD31,CD34,Rk-1 and vWF with immunochemistry within 1-7 days.RESULTS:The expressions of CD31.CD34,FIk-1.vWF on adherent cells were different in different time durations.The expressions of CD31 and CD34 started on the 2nd day of culture.reached the peak on the 4th day,gradually decreased and even disappeared on the 6thday.While.FIk-1 expressed on the 3rd day of culture,gradually increased,and reached at the peak on the 7th day.vWF expressed gradually until 100%on the 7th day. CONCLUSION:The differentiation of peripheral blood stern cells into endothelial progenitor cells is characterized by the appearance of endothelial cell phenotypes and the disappearance of stern cell markers.both in the manner of gradual progression.

BACKGROUND: Heart valve tissue engineering is aimed to construct heart valve grafts with the physiological function and biological activity by using engineering and life science principles and methods, but still in the animal experiment stage.OBJECTIVE: To summarize the commonly used tissue engineered heart valve, and to evaluate the reliability of different types of heart valve biomaterials.METHODS: Using "biological materials, heart valve, scaffolds, reviews, tissue engineering" in Chinese as the key words, a computer retrieval was performed for articles published from January 2000 to December 2010. Articles regarding the biomaterials in tissue engineered heart valve were included; the duplicated research or meta-analysis were excluded.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: A total of 20 papers about the biomaterials and tissue engineering heart valve were screened out. Due to the superior biocompatibility and three-dimensional conformation, natural scaffold materials exhibit unparalleled bionic property compared with other materials. Synthetic biodegradable polymer materials with good mechanical properties and controllability has thus been highly favored by researchers, while the composite scaffold materials of natural materials and polymer materials provides a new strategy and direction for the investigations of tissue engineered heart valve, and has broad application prospects.

Objective To investigate the synthesis of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) induced by norepinephrine preconditioning on donor heart and its effects on myocardial cell apoptosis and apoptosis related proteins. Methods 18 Wistar rats were random divided into 2 groups, with 9 in each group. The rats in the control group were intraperitoneally injected with 0.5 ml saline. After 24 hours, hearts were isolated and stored with histidine-tryptophan-ketoglutarate (HTK) solution at 4 ℃ for 3 hours to establish Langendorff isolated heart models, and then isolated hearts were perfused by Langendorff model with Krebs-Hense leit (K-H) solution for 2 hours. The rats in the experimental group received intraperitoneally 3. 1 μmol/kg (0. 53 mg/kg) noradrenaline bitartrate that was dissolved in saline and hearts were isolated and stored after 24 hours. Followed process was the same as that in the control group. Myocardial HSP70, Bcl-2, Bax content, apoptosis index were measured, cell structures were observed under light and electron microscope.Results HSP70 in the experimental group were higher [(17.78 ± 1.82)%] than those in control group [(5.22 ± 1.05)%], and biochemical indicators in texperimental group[(41.88 ± 5.09)%, (22.61 ±3. 49 ) %] were better than those in control group [(31.36 ± 3. 27 ) %, ( 40. 52 ± 4. 1 7) %]. There were alleviated ultrastructure injures in experimental group compared with those in control group. Conclusions This study demonstrated that norepinephrine preconditioning could induce high expression of HSP70 and it could play a very important role during ischemia-reperfusion. It could protect the structure and function of myocytes in isolated rat hearts and inhibited myocardial apoptosis.

BACKGROUND: How to successfully obtain compact endothelium layers on smooth muscle cells is the most crucial part for the tissue-engineered vessels. OBJECTIVE: To explore the effects of different cell implantation concentrations on the construction of the complete biological tissue-engineered blood vessels.METHODS: Different concentrations of porcine vascular smooth muscle cells (5×105, 5×107 cells/L) were implanted on the porcine acellular vascular matrix to culture for 3 days. Then different concentrations of endothelial progenitor cells (5×105, 5×107 cells/L) were implanted on the smooth muscle cell-vascular matrix composite to construct lamellar complete biological tissue-engineered blood vessels.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The growth curves of high concentrations of smooth muscle cells on the acellular vascular matrix were similar to that of low concentrations. Moreover, the growth curves of cells implanted in the culture plates were similar to that implanted on the acellular matrix. However, cells in the low concentration groups have relatively low proliferation activity and low coverage rate. The cell coverage rate decreased as follows: high concentrations of endothelial progenitor cells+acellular matrix containing high concentrations of smooth muscle cells > high concentrations of endothelial progenitor cells+acellular matrix containing low concentrations of smooth muscle cells > low concentrations of endothelial progenitor cells+acellular matrix containing high concentrations of smooth muscle cells > low concentrations of endothelial progenitor cells+acellular matrix containing low concentrations of smooth muscle cells. Moreover, high concentrations of endothelial progenitor cells form relatively compact layers on the acellular matrix and show cobble-like growth. These findings indicate that an increase in the cell implantation concentrations is beneficial to the rapid formation of compact cell layers on the material surface.

Purpose To analyze the correlations between PD-L1 expression and clinicopathological factors and their prognostic values in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) patients.Methods PD-L1 expression in the primary tumors from 253 patients with ESCC was evaluated using tissue microarray and immunohistochemistry (IHC).PD-L1 positivity was defined as positive staining of 1％ and 5％ tumor cells.Survival curves were constructed by using the Kaplan-Meier method.Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard regression models were performed to identify associations with outcome variables.Results Overall,tumoral PD-L1 expression was potentially associated with favorable DFS and OS.When the patients were stratified into stage Ⅰ + Ⅱ (60.9％,154/253) and stage Ⅲ + Ⅳa (39.1％,99/253),the prognostic role was not consistent.In patients with stage Ⅰ + Ⅱ disease,tumoral PD-L1 expression was associated with better DFS and OS upon multivariate analysis (1％ as the cutoff:P =0.046 and 0.021,5％ as the cutoff:P=0.011 and0.004).However,PD-L1 expression was not correlated with prognosis in patients with stage Ⅲ + Ⅳa disease (1％ as the cutoff:P =0.586 and 0.682,5％ as the cutoff:P =0.807 and 0.620).Conclusion The prognostic role of tumoral PDL expression is variable in different stages of ESCC,and tumoral PDL expression is an independent favorable predictor in ESCC patients with Stage Ⅰ-Ⅱ disease,but not in stage Ⅲ-Ⅳa or lymph node metastasis.

Objective To study the curative effect of continuous veno-venous hemodiafiltration(CVVH)in patients with acute renal failure(ARF)after aortic dissection surgery. Methods Fifteen patients with renal dysfunction following aortic dissection surgery underwent CVVH from Feb. 2002 to Dec. 2009 in this study.The clinical data of these patients were collected,such as heart rate(HR),central vein pressure(CVP),mean artery blood pressure(MAP),PaO2,renal function,perioperative manifestations and outcomes. Results Eleven patients survived but 4 died during the course of treatment. There were significant decreases of BUN,Creatinin after CVVH (P ＜ 0. 05)treatment,and the urine volume returned to nomal after CVVH in 6 -40 days. Conclusions CVVH is an effective,convenient and safe treatment for patients with severely ARF following aortic dissection surgery.

Radiation-induced bystander effect (RIBE) refers to that irradiated cells release signaling factors and induce responses in nonirradiated cells.In other words, it is the communication between irradiated and nonirradiated cells by intracellular signals. RIBE could influence the efficacy of tumor radiotherapy, but also has potential risk to the normal tissues outside of radiation field. Studies have found that ionizing radiation can induce the alteration of miRNA expression not only in the irradiated cells but also in adjacent nonirradiated tissues, and miRNAs may play an important role in the regulation of signaling pathways between irradiated and nonirradiated bystander cells. This article reviewed the roles of miRNAs in RIBE.

Purpose: We aimed to investigate whether obtaining a higher level of education was causally associated with lower breast cancer risk and to identify the causal mechanism linking them. Methods: The main data analysis used publicly available summary-level data from 2 large genome-wide association study consortia. Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis used 65 genetic variants derived from the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium as instrumental variables for years of schooling. The outcomes from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium (BCAC) were the overall breast cancer risk (122,977 cases/105,974 controls in women) and the two subtypes: estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer and ER-negative breast cancer. Fixed and random effects inverse variance weighted methods were used to estimate the causal effects, along with other additional MR methods for sensitivity analyses. Results: Results showed that each additional standard deviation of 4.2 years of education was causally associated with a 27% lower risk of ER-negative breast cancer (odds ratio, 0.73; 95% confidence interval, 0.64–0.84; p-value < 0.001). This finding was consistent with the results of the sensitivity analyses. Physical activities can help improve the protective effect of education against breast cancer, with relatively large mediation proportions. Education increases the risk of ER-positive breast cancer due to alterations in high-density lipoprotein level, triglyceride level, height, waist-to-hip ratio, body mass index, and smoking status, with relative medium mediation proportions. Other mediators including low-density lipoprotein, hip circumference, number of cigarettes smoked per day, time spent performing light physical activity, and performing vigorous physical activity for > 10 minutes explain a small part of the causal effect of education on the risk of developing breast cancer, and their mediation proportion is approximately 1%. Conclusion A low level of education is a causal risk factor in the development of breast cancer as it is associated with poor lipid profile, obesity, smoking, and types of physical activity.