Objective: To investigate the effect of anastomotic reinforcing sutures on the incidence of anastomotic leakage after laparoscopic radical resection of rectal cancer. Methods: In this study, 300 patients diagnosed with rectal cancer, scheduled to undergo laparoscopic anterior resection at the Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery of Anhui Provincial Hospital, between September 2014 and December 2016, were prospectively enrolled. Patients were randomly assigned to undergo laparoscopic rectal resection with (reinforcing group, n = 150) or without (control group, n = 150) anastomotic reinforcing sutures. The laparoscopic total mesorectal excision was followed for all patients. In the reinforcing group, 4-0 absorbable sutures were used to reinforce the 2-4 needles used for the 2 cross-cutting lines that formed the stapler. Concurrent obstructions; the need for hemorrhagic emergency surgery, preventive ileostomy, Hartmann operation, abdominoperineal resection, or open surgery; and the presence of unresectable cancer were all reasons for excluding patients from the study. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed on the clinical data collected for the two groups. According to the multivariate analysis results, patients were further divided into high-risk (≥ 2 high risk factors) and low-risk (≤1 high risk factor) groups, and were stratified to analyze the relationship between reinforcing suture use and the incidence of anastomotic leakage. This trial, approved by the Ethics Committee of Anhui Provincial Hospital, was registered as NCT02830633. Results: A total of 291 patients were included in the study, namely 145 in the reinforcing group and 146 in the control group. There were no significant differences between the two groups with respect to their general data or intra-operative conditions (all P > 0.05) . The overall incidence of anastomotic leakage was 7.6% (22/291) ; 3.4% (5/145) in the reinforcing group and 11.6% (17/146) in the control group (χ² = 6.992, P = 0.008) . Multivariate analyses showed that the lack of reinforcing sutures was an independent risk factor for anastomotic leakage (OR = 2.75; 95%CI, 1.72-5.48; P = 0.014) . Other independent risk factors included NRS2002 score ≥ 3 points, tumor diameter ≥ 4 cm, and tumor to anal margin distance < 5 cm. There were 80 patients in the high-risk group and 211 in the low-risk group, based on the aforementioned 3 risk factors. The incidence of anastomotic leakage was 27.1% (13/48) among the control patients in the high-risk group, but only 6.2% (2/32) among high-risk patients receiving reinforcing anastomotic sutures (χ² = 5.470, P = 0.019) . In the low-risk group, the incidence of anastomotic leakage was 2.7% (3/113) among patients receiving reinforcing anastomotic sutures, and 4.1% (4/98) among those not receiving reinforcing sutures. No significant difference was observed (χ² = 0.333, P = 0.564) . Conclusion Anastomotic reinforcing sutures for the prevention of anastomotic leakage after laparoscopic radical resection of rectal cancer is convenient and effective, particularly for patients with multiple risk factors.

As an important new Chinese medicine international culture promotion platform,Overseas Chinese Medicine Center (OCMC) should seize the opportunity of the "Belt and Road" Initiatives to be the main force and national team of transmitting Chinese medicine overseas.Through the research and practice of OCMC expanding Chinese medicine territory,the author adopted "Chinese medicine + " mind in four directions (i.e.,breaking a passage by characteristic traditional Chinese medicine treatment,developing characteristic Chinese medicine education,enhancing Chinese medicine talent localization,seeking high-level international cooperation of scientific research,and etc.) to impel OCMC spreading Chinese medicine culture to the world.

Based on the empirical study in Britain,this paper revealed several problems in the cross-cultural communication of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM):the obstacles are still immense,the system is not complete,the tools are simple,the communication capacity is limited,and the "de-Sinofication" is obvious.The proposals are made as that,applying the concepts of communication and multi-disciplines,accomplishing the system to run as a huge systematic project,creating more means and increasing the capability of communication,conducting the cross-cultural communication training,cultivating talented people,developing domestic TCM to support the abroad TCM,operating as government-leaded projects to enhance national cultural soft power,contesting for supremacy and intellectual property rights in the worldwide TCM areas.

Objective To explore the impact of knocking down Sec31A on the malignant phenotype of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma(HNSCC)and its possible mechanisms.Methods Transcriptome sequencing data of HNSCC tissues and adjacent tissues were obtained from the TCGA database,and the expression levels of Sec31A were compared.Immunohistochemical staining was used to analyze the expression of Sec31A in HNSCC tissues.Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to compare the relationship between Sec31A and the prognosis of HNSCC patients.Small interfering plasmids si-Sec31A and si-NC were transfected into HNSCC cell lines HN6 and HN4,and the impact of knocking down Sec31A on the biological behavior of HNSCC cells was detected through CCK-8 exper-iments,plate cloning experiments,scratch healing experiments,and Transwell experiments.Changes in the expression levels of PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway related proteins in cells were detected after knocking down Sec31A with HN6 and HN4 through Western Blot(WB)experiments.Stable transfected cell lines of HN6 siSec31A and HN6 siNC were constructed and inoculated subcutaneously in nude mice to further verify the tumorigenic effect of Sec31A in vivo.Results TCGA data showed that Sec31A was higher in HNSCC tissues than in adjacent normal tissues(P＜0.01),and high expression of Sec31A was significantly correlated with poor prognosis in pa-tients(P＜0.05).Immunohistochemical staining showed that Sec31A was expressed stronger in HNSCC tissues than in normal tissues.In HN6 and HN4 cells,knocking down Sec31A resulted in significantly weaker proliferation,migration,and invasion abilities compared to the control group.Through WB experiments,it was found that transfection of si-Sec31A with HN6 and HN4 significantly reduced the expression levels of p-PI3K,p-AKT,and p-mTOR proteins.After knocking down Sec31A with HN6,the transplanted tumor volume in nude mice was significantly smaller than that in the control group.Conclusion Knocking down Sec31A can inhibit the proliferation,migration and invasion of HNSCC cells,possibly through the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway.