BACKGROUND:Colagen hydrogel provides good matrix support for hepatocyte growth and tissue reconstruction, and the colagen-based engineered tissue is easy to merge the growth and form integrated tissue. OBJECTIVE:To improve the thickness of engineered hepatic tissue by dissociating hepatocytes/colagen hydrogel composite into smal hepatic units that accumulate in the subcutaneous cavity. METHODS:Freshly isolated hepatocytes from rats were mixed with colagen hydrogel to establish hepatocytes/colagen hydrogel composite. The hepatocytes/colagen hydrogel composite was dissociated into smal hepatic units after being cured. The undissociated hepatocytes/colagen hydrogel composite was taken as a control. Six Spraque-Dawley rats were enroled. Three of them were subjected to a two-thirds partial hepatectomy to induce liver regeneration. Dissociated and undissociated hepatocytes/colagen hydrogel composites were implanted into the bilateral inguinal subcutaneous cavity. Dissociated and undissociated hepatocytes/colagen hydrogel composites were implanted into the bilateral inguinal subcutaneous cavity of the other three rats. At the 7th day after transplantation, engineered hepatic tissue formation was evaluated using hematoxylin-eosin staining, immunohistochemical staining and India ink perfusion methods. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:The grafts in these two groups al formed vascular engineered hepatic tissue in the subcutaneous cavity, but after the smal hepatic units merged, a large piece of vascular engineered hepatic tissue formed. The hepatic tissue thickness was up to 4 mm. The whole piece of implanted liver grafts only formed smal pieces of hepatic tissues, with only several layers of cels. Immunohistochemistry staining confirmed that the hepatocytes in vascular engineered hepatic tissue had the characteristics and functions of natural hepatocytes. Partial hepatectomy experiment showed that engineered hepatic tissue had the ability to respond to regenerative stimulus of partial hepatectomy. These results show that dissociating the hepatocytes/colagen hydrogel grafts into smal units that accumlate in the subcutaneous cavity can increase the thickness of the engineered hepatic tissue.

Objective To construct a prediction model for post-neoadjuvant therapy recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node(RLN LN)status via clinical and CT image data in esophageal cancer patients pre-neoadjuvant therapy.Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on 403 patients with locally advanced esophageal cancer who received neoadjuvant therapy and radical resection for esophageal cancer.All patients were divided into a training cohort(n=270)and a validation cohort(n=133)randomly according to a 2:1 ratio.Clinical and imaging features associated with positive RLN LN pathology were selected by univariate analysis.Multivariate logistic stepwise regression model was used to construct the prediction model.The prediction ability of the model was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve.Results The basic model included neoadjuvant therapy and RLN LN short diameter,with an area under the curve(AUC)of 0.7(training cohort)and 0.65(validation cohort).The final prediction model included neoadjuvant therapy,human albumin,platelet count,largest lymph node enhancement characteristics,whether the largest lymph node was in the recurrent laryngeal region,and RLN LN short diameter,with AUC of 0.83[95％confidence interval(CI)0.768-0.899]and 0.76(95％CI 0.645-0.887)for the training and validation cohorts,respectively.Conclusion The model based on clinical data and imaging features pre-neoadjuvant therapy for esophageal cancer can assist in clinically predicting the post-neoadjuvant therapy RLN LN status.