Objective:To study the radiotherapy sensitization of recombinant human endostatin in patients with cervical cancer.Methods:Sixty patients with advanced cervical cancer (stage ⅡB to ⅣA) from July 2017 to November 2018 in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University were selected. The patients were divided into experimental group and control group according to random number table with 30 cases each. The patients in experimental group were treated with recombinant human endostatin combined with concurrent chemoradiotherapy, while the patients in control group only received chemoradiotherapy. The serum levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) were measured 1 week before treatment and 1 week after treatment, and short-term efficacy was evaluated 3 months after treatment.Results:The objective remission rate (ORR) and disease control rate (DCR) in experimental group were higher than those in control group: 93% (28/30) vs. 87% (26/30) and 97% (29/30) vs. 93% (28/30), but there were no statistical differences between 2 groups ( P>0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in the occurrence of adverse reactions between 2 groups ( P>0.05). Compared with that before treatment, the serum VEGF and bFGF after treatment were significantly lower, experimental group: (88.07 ± 37.53) ng/L vs. (227.27 ± 142.61) ng/L and (21.03 ± 5.75) ng/L vs. (38.34 ± 18.17) ng/L, control: (120.04 ± 81.22) ng/L vs. (197.34 ± 142.41) ng/L and (24.04 ± 7.29) ng/L vs. (39.78 ± 13.35) ng/L, and there were statistical differences ( P<0.01); after treatment, the serum VEGF and bFGF in experimental group were lower than those in control group, but there were no statistical difference between 2 groups ( P>0.05). Conclusions:For patients with advanced cervical cancer, recombinant human endostatin combined with concurrent chemoradiotherapy can further decrease the serum levels of VEGF and bFGF, improve the sensitivity of chemoradiotherapy, and enhance the short-term efficacy.

Alveolar echinococcosis is a kind of parasitic disease caused by Echinococcus multilocularis infecting the human body. It is characterized by tumor-like, invasive growth, serious disease and high fatality rate. Even though the number of patients is limited, they require life-long treatment because of the serious condition, many complications, and treatment difficulties. At present, there are three clinical treatment options for alveolar echinococcosis, including surgical treatment(radical hepatectomy, palliative resection, liver transplantation), intervention treatment(ultrasound or CT-guided intervention, endoscopic intervention), and anti-infective drug treatment. This article analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the above-mentioned schemes, and provides a basis for correct selection of treatment methods for alveolar echinococcosis.

Objective To explore the effect of irbesartan on cardiac endothelial-mesenchymal transition (EndMT) in diabetic rats.Methods The model of diabetic rat was induced by intraperitoneal injection with streptozotocin (STZ,35 mg/kg) in spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHR).Diabetic rats were divided into diabetic group and the Irbesartan treated group.The pathological changes were investigated by fluorescence microscope and electron microscope.The EndMT was studied in human aortic endothelial cells (HAEC) exposure to high glucose.The concentration of angiotensin Ⅱ in the supernatant was detected by radioimmunoassay.Immunofluorescence staining was performed to detect the co-localization of CD31 and FSP1.Results The significant myocardial fibrosis was presented in the diabetic group.Endothelial protrusions were prominent feature in myocardial microvascular of diabetic rat compared with the control group rats.Double staining of HAEC showed co-localization of CD31 and FSP1,which was decreased by the treatment of Irbesartan (P ＜ 0.05).When HAEC was exposed to high glucose,it showed some cells acquired spindle-shaped morphology and lost CD31 staining,and FSP1 and α-SMA protein expression levels were markedly upregulated,which attenuated by the treatment of Irbesartan.Conclusion Irbesartan might prevent diabetes from myocardial fibrosis via inhibition of EndMT in diabetic rats.

Objective To examine the gene expression profile of SRY-type high-mobility-group box-9(SOX9) during entochondrostosis of mice and investigate the effects of transfection of the pDC316-SOX-9 on mice mesenchymal stem cells(MSCs) in vitro. Methods cDNA microarray technique with 34 000 genes was used to analyze the gene expression profiles during entochondrostosis in the limbs of mice embryo from E10 to E14. Pathway analysis of SOX9 was performed with GCOS1.2 software. The recombined expression vector pDC316-SOX-9 was constructed and transfected into mice MSCs by lipofectamine. The phenotype changes of cells were observed with cell energometry, HE stain, immunohistochemical method, RT-PCR and ELISA.Results The gene expression of SOX9 during the critical phase of chondrogenesis in mice embryo limbs at E12 was increased evidently. SOX9 might promot chondrogenesis. As compared with vector and blank group,the chondrocytes of the SOX9 transfected group had the tendency of enhanced differentiation. Conclusion SOX9 may promote chondrogenesis. The transfection of SOX9 gene into mice MSCs can promot MSCs differentiate into chondrocyte, which may provide some experimental data for cartilage histoengineering.

To explore the relationship between sleep duration and brachial-ankle pulse wave velocity(baPWV) in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus(T2DM). A total of 1 755 patients with T2DM received standardized management of metabolic disease from March 1, 2018 to February 29, 2020 were included. All patients were classified into three groups according to the sleep duration: short(≤6 h), medium(>6 h to 8 h) and long(>8 h). Increased arterial stiffness was defined as baPWV≥1 600 cm/s. The prevalence of baPWV≥1 600 cm/s was 39.7%, 30.8% and 38.6% in short, medium and long sleep duration group, respectively( P<0.01). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that patients with long sleep duration( OR=1.317, P<0.05) but not short sleep duration( OR=1.169, P>0.05) had a higher risk for baPWV≥1 600 cm/s compared with the reference group with medium sleep duration. Stratified analyses by sex showed that the OR were 1.735( P<0.05) among female and 1.131( P>0.05) among male respectively for baPWV≥1 600 cm/s in long sleep duration group when compared with medium sleep duration group. Sleep duration>8 h was found to be associated with elevated baPWV in patients with T2DM. There were gender differences in the correlation between long sleep duration and baPWV.

Objective To explore the features of connected speech produced by Chinese mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients.Methods Thirty Chinese mild AD patients (eight males and 22 females,and the age was (72.73 ± 7.78) years) and 30 age and education matched normal controls from three communities were recruited in Xuanwu Hospital from January 2018 to May 2018.All subjects completed tasks of picture naming,semantic fluency (animal),and Cookie Theft picture description.Picture description was analyzed for speech production (total word output,speech rate,sound errors),lexical content (number of nouns and verbs,proportion of pronouns and verbs,semantic errors),information content (information unit,idea density,efficiency),syntactic structure and complexity (mean length of utterance,words in sentences,syntactic errors).Differences between groups were calculated.Association between picture naming,semantic fluency,and measures in picture descriptions was analyzed.Results Compared with the controls,mild AD patients achieved lower scores on the picture naming task (74.45±8.04 vs 79.60± 1.73,t=-2.800,P=0.010) as well as on the semantic fluency task (10.35±3.08 vs 18.50±4.66,t=-6.520,P＜0.01) and produced lower speech rate (131.80±36.40 vs 149.64±26.69,t=-2.095,P=0.041),less number of nouns (7.52±2.55 vs 9.67±3.58,t=-2.509,P=-0.015) and verbs (4.40±2.24 vs 5.73±1.92,t=-2.375,P=0.021),increased proportion of pronouns (0.286 (0.319) vs 0.039 (0.122),Z=3.602,P＜0.01) and semantic errors (0.629 (1.396) vs 0 (0.779),Z=2.386,P=0.017),less information units (11.00±3.63 vs 13.70±3.53,t=-2.787,P=0.007),decreased idea density (0.11±0.04 vs 0.16±0.05,t=-3.946,P＜0.01),decreased efficiency (14.23±7.56 vs 22.95±7.14,t=-4.738,P＜0.01),shorter mean length of utterance (6.64± 1.27 vs 8.25± 1.70,t=-3.928,P＜0.01),and less words in sentence (0.84±0.10 vs 0.95±0.06,t=-4.625,P＜0.01).Group differences in total word output,sound errors,proportion of verbs,and syntactic errors did not reach statistical significance.Scores on picture naming task were negatively associated with the proportion of pronouns (r=-0.737,P=0.003),and positively associated with the idea density (r=0.540,P=0.046) and efficiency (r=0.592,P=0.026) in the AD group.Scores on semantic fluency task were negatively associated with the proportion of pronouns (r=-0.554,P=0.011).Conclusions Connected speech in mild AD patients was characterized by decreased naming accuracy,decreased sematic fluency,decreased content words,information units,conciseness,efficiency,and syntactic complexity,but motoric aspects of speech and sentence structure remained relatively preserved.Decreased content words and increased pronouns in mild AD may relate to semantic impairment.

Objective: To evaluate the accuracy of the clinical staging by comparing preoperative clinical stage and pathological stage in gastric cancer patients, and to explore the potential beneficial population of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for gastric cancer. Methods: We retrospectively collected the clinical data of consecutive patients with gastric cancer who met the inclusion criteria (gastric adenocarcinoma, undergoing laparoscopic or open D2 radical operation, definite cTNM and pTNM) for admission of the Gastrointestinal Center of Peking University Cancer Hospital from July 2013 to April 2019. Patients with the number of harvested lymph nodes less than 16, history of gastric operation or preoperative radiochemotherapy were excluded. Preoperative clinical stage was obtained from abdominal and pelvic enhanced CT by radiologists, and postoperative pathological stage was derived from postoperative pathology reports. The concordance rate between preoperative clinical stage and postoperative pathological stage, and the proportion of pathological stage I in patients with specific preoperative clinical TNM stage were analyzed and compared. The potential beneficial population of neoadjuvant chemotherapy were considered as pI < 5%. Relationship between clinical features and concordance rate of stage was further analysed. Results: A total of 459 patients were included in the analysis, including 321 males and 138 females with mean age of 60 (23 to 85) years old. The concordance rate from T1 to T4 between preoperative clinical T staging and postoperative pathological T staging was 82.5% (33/40), 31.1% (28/90), 34.4% (62/180), and 55.0% (96/149), respectively. The concordance rate from N0 to N3 between preoperative clinical N staging and postoperative pathological N staging was 58.8% (134/228), 22.1% (19/86), 23.6% (26/110), and 54.3% (19/35), respectively. The sensitivity and specificity of abdominal enhanced CT in the diagnosis of lymph node metastasis were 64.5% (171/265) and 69.1% (134/194) respectively. The clinical stage of cT3/T4 patients with pathological stage I was 9.1% (30/329), and the sensitivity of corresponding pathological stage III was 94.8% (164/173), while the cT3/4+cN1-3 patients with pathological stage I stage was 1.4% (3/218), and the sensitivity of corresponding pathological phase III was 76.9% (133/173). Tumor location was associated with the concordance of cT/pT staging [gastroesophageal junction: 64 (56.6%), upper stomach: 9 (9/17), middle stomach: 31 (40.3%), lower stomach: 97 (39.9%), whole stomach: 4(4/9), χ²=9.845, P=0.043]; the degree of tumor differentiation was associated with the concordance of cN/pN staging [poorly differentiated: 94 (42.3%), moderated differentiated: 92 (41.1%), well differentiated: 12 (12/13), χ²=13.261, P=0.001], whose differences were statistically significant (all P<0.05). Conclusion Based on a single-center retrospective data from Peking University Cancer Hospital, we think that the potential beneficial population of neoadjuvant chemotherapy for gastric cancer are those clinically staged as cT3/4+N1-3.

Mass spectrometry imaging (MSI), a label-free molecular imaging technique, has been applied widely in the spatial localization of small molecule metabolites, lipids, peptides, and proteins, with its unique advantage of high spatial resolving power compared to traditional liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS).With the nonstop advancement of its achievable sensitivity and spatial resolution, MSI technique has been providing novel perspectives into the preclinical studies of drugs, such as in vivo localization of drugs and their metabolites, visualization of drug metabolism, and drug delivery tracking.This review introduces the basics of MSI techniques, including basic principles, key features, technical advantages, and limitations, with particular highlight of the recent applications of MSI in drug efficacy and safety evaluation, drug distribution research, drug delivery research, and analysis of Chinese medicine from recent publications, aiming to promote the utilization and further expansion of MSI in the research and development of drugs.

Objective To discuss the effect of main organ-preserving pancreatectomy operations on the postoperative complications and the long-term quality of life.Methods The clinical data of 320 patients undergoing pancreatic surgery from January 2013 to December 2016 in the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University were retrospectively analyzed and all the patients were divided into traditional pancreatectomy surgery group and organ-preserving pancreatectomy surgery group.The traditional pancreatectomy surgery group included pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD),distal pancreatectomy (DP),and laparoscopic distal pancreatectomy (LDP);and the organ-preserving pancreatectomy surgery group included pylorus-preserving pancreaticoduodenectomy (PPPD),spleen-preserving distal pancreatectomy (SPDP),enucleation pancreatectomy (EP),and middle-preserving pancreatectomy (MSP).Face to face clinic visit or telephone follow-up was scheduled every three months until May 31,2017.The operation time,intraoperative hemorrhage,intraoperative blood transfusion,postoperative complications (hemorrhage,pancreatic fistula,biliary fistula,abdominal infection,delayed gastric emptying),postoperative hospitalization stay,secondary surgery and the survival status within 30 days after surgery,the pancreatic endocrine function,exocrine function and the long-term quality of life were recorded.Results The operation time,intraoperative hemorrhage and intraoperative blood transfusion were not statistically different between PD and PPPD groups,DP and SPDP groups,LDP and LSPDP groups,DP and MSP groups,and DP and EP groups,respectively (all P values ＞0.05).Compared with MSP group,the hospitalization time in DP group was shorter [(18.61 ±12.46)d vs (26.88 ± 15.22)d],the occurrence rate of postoperative pancreatic fistula (24.07％ vs 56.25％),bleeding (3.70％ vs 25.00％),abdominal infection (1.85％ vs 18.75％),delayed gastric emptying (5.56％ vs 31.25％),secondary surgery (0 vs 25.00％),and glycemic control rate were decreased (27.78％ vs 0),and all the differences were statistically significant (all P values ＜ 0.05).After discharge,the incidence of chronic diarrhea in the PD group was higher than that in the PPPD group (17.31％ vs 2.08％).The fatigue in the DP group was higher than that in the SPDP,MSP and EP groups,and fatigue,social function,overall health score of the LDP group were lower than those in LSPDP group;emotional function in the DP group was better than that in MSP group,and all the differences were statistically significant (all P values ＜ 0.05).Conclusions The organ-preserving pancreatectomy can reduce the trauma of the operation,postoperative complications and postoperative pancreatic endocrine and exocrine dysfunction,and improve the long-term quality of life.

Objective:To analyze the risk factors of fatal outcome in patients with severe COVID-19.Methods:The clinical characteristics of 107 patients with severe COVID-19 admitted in Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University from February 12 to March 12, 2020 were retrospectively analyzed. During the hospitalization 49 patients died (fatal group) and 58 patients survived (survival group). The clinical characteristics, baseline laboratory findings were analyzed using R and Python statistical software. The risk factors of fatal outcome in patients with severe COVID-19 were analyzed with multivariate logistic regression.Results:Univariate analysis showed that the two groups had statistically significant differences in age, clinical classification, dry cough, dyspnea and laboratory test indicators ( P<0.05 or <0.01). The random forest model was used to rank the significance of the statistically significant variables in the univariate analysis, and the selected variables were included in the binary logistic regression model. After stepwise regression analysis, the patient’s clinical type, age, neutrophil count, and the proportion of CD3 cells are independent risk factors for death in severe COVID-19 patients. Dry cough is an independent protective factor for the death of severe COVID-19 patients. Conclusion:COVID-19 patients with fatal outcome are more likely to have suppressed immune function, secondary infection and inflammatory factor storm. These factors may work together in severe patients, leading to intractable hypoxemia and multiple organ dysfunction and resulting in fatal outcome of patients. The study indicates that timely intervention and treatment measures against above factors may be effective to save the lives of patients with severe COVID-19.