Osteosarcoma(OS)is a common primary malignant bone tumor with high mortality,disability,metastasis,and recurrence rates and a complex pathogenesis,Resulting in serious effects on patient quality of life and huge economic burdens on families and society.Traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)has"multi-target,multi-component and multi-pathway"characteristics.Recent studies using animal and cell models demonstrated that the mechanism of OS progression was related to Notch,mitogen-activated protein kinase,Wnt/β-catenin,phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/AKT,Hedgehog and nuclear factor-κB,transforming growth factor-β/Smad and signal transducer and activator of transcription pathways.TCM can exert anti-tumor effects by influencing biological processes such as cell proliferation,migration,invasion,apoptosis,and autophagy via interfering with the above signaling pathways.This review considers the roles of these signaling pathways in OS and summarizes the current research status of TCM interventions in the prevention and treatment of OS,with the aim of providing a reference for future studies of TCM treatments of OS and to provide new ideas for its clinical treatment.

Osteosarcoma(OS)is a common primary malignant bone tumor with high mortality,disability,metastasis,and recurrence rates and a complex pathogenesis,Resulting in serious effects on patient quality of life and huge economic burdens on families and society.Traditional Chinese medicine(TCM)has"multi-target,multi-component and multi-pathway"characteristics.Recent studies using animal and cell models demonstrated that the mechanism of OS progression was related to Notch,mitogen-activated protein kinase,Wnt/β-catenin,phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/AKT,Hedgehog and nuclear factor-κB,transforming growth factor-β/Smad and signal transducer and activator of transcription pathways.TCM can exert anti-tumor effects by influencing biological processes such as cell proliferation,migration,invasion,apoptosis,and autophagy via interfering with the above signaling pathways.This review considers the roles of these signaling pathways in OS and summarizes the current research status of TCM interventions in the prevention and treatment of OS,with the aim of providing a reference for future studies of TCM treatments of OS and to provide new ideas for its clinical treatment.

Ankylosing spondylitis is a chronic immunoinflammatory disease that mainly affects the spine and the sacroiliac joint,the mechanism of which is closely related to signaling pathways,such as osteoprotegerin(OPG)/receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB(RANK)/RANK ligand,mitogen-activated protein kinase(MAPK),Wnt/β-catenin(β-catenin),phosphoinositide 3-kinase/protein kinase B/mammalian target of rapamycin(PI3K/Akt/mTOR).Traditional Chinese medicine has the characteristics of multiple components and targets,and is widely used for the treatment of autoimmune diseases due to its low toxicity,strong specificity,and high efficacy.This review found that monomers and compounds of traditional Chinese medicine can exert anti ankylosing spondylitis effects by intervening in the aforementioned signaling pathways,regulating immune inflammatory responses,and inhibiting biological processes such as bone destruction,ectopic osteogenic differentiation,cell apoptosis,and autophagy.

Objective:To explore the surgical intervention strategy for metastatic cervical lymph nodes surrounding the carotid artery in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.Methods:A total of 62 patients with advanced head and neck tumors and carotid wrap by disease treated in Department of Otorhinolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery, the Affiliated BenQ Hospital of Nanjing Medical University between June 2019 and December 2023 were reviewed, of whom 9 patients presented with metastatic squamous cell carcinoma in cervical lymph nodes of unknown primary or with no recurrence of primary lesion and all the 9 patients were males, aged from 48 to 79 years old, with≤level 2 of Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group-Performance Status (ECOG-PS). Radiographically common carotid artery (CCA) and/or internal carotid artery (ICA) were surrounded by≥270° with tumor. All the 9 patients received implantation of covered stent in carotid artery and radical resection of metastatic cervical lymph nodes. The success rate, complications, surgery-related complications, local recurrence rate, quality of life (QOL) and overall survival (OS) were analyzed. The QOL of patients was compared by paired rank sum test, and P<0.05 indicated statistically significant difference. The OS was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier. Results:The success rate of stent implantation was 100%, with no implantation-related complications. R0 resection was performed in 8 cases and R1 resection in 1 case. The QOL of patients after surgery was improved, and the improvements in "pain", "mood" and "anxiety" were statistically significant( Z values were -2.236, -2.460 and -2.200, respectively, and all P values were<0.05). Follow-up was 1-18 months, with a median of 7 months, and 1 case was lost to follow-up. Local recurrence occurred in 3 patients with an incidence of 37.5% (3/8). OS was 59.9% at 12 months after surgery. Conclusion:Implantation of covered stent in carotid artery combined with radical resection is an effective method for the treatment of cervical lymph node metastasis.

Both natural ginsenoside F2 and unnatural ginsenoside 3β,20S-Di-O-Glc-DM were reported to exhibit anti-tumor activity. Traditional approaches for producing them rely on direct extraction from Panax ginseng, enzymatic catalysis or chemical synthesis, all of which result in low yield and high cost. Metabolic engineering of microbes has been recognized as a green and sustainable biotechnology to produce natural and unnatural products. Hence we engineered the complete biosynthetic pathways of F2 and 3β,20S-Di-O-Glc-DM in Saccharomyces cerevisiae via the CRISPR/Cas9 system. The titers of F2 and 3β,20S-Di-O-Glc-DM were increased from 1.2 to 21.0 mg/L and from 82.0 to 346.1 mg/L at shake flask level, respectively, by multistep metabolic engineering strategies. Additionally, pharmacological evaluation showed that both F2 and 3β,20S-Di-O-Glc-DM exhibited anti-pancreatic cancer activity and the activity of 3β,20S-Di-O-Glc-DM was even better. Furthermore, the titer of 3β,20S-Di-O-Glc-DM reached 2.6 g/L by fed-batch fermentation in a 3 L bioreactor. To our knowledge, this is the first report on demonstrating the anti-pancreatic cancer activity of F2 and 3β,20S-Di-O-Glc-DM, and achieving their de novo biosynthesis by the engineered yeasts. Our work presents an alternative approach to produce F2 and 3β,20S-Di-O-Glc-DM from renewable biomass, which lays a foundation for drug research and development.

Objective: To investigate the significance of circulating tumor cells (CTC) in squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck (HNSCC). Methods: Twenty-four patients with HNSCC treated between October 2016 and July 2017 in our department were selected (experimental group), including 23 males and 1 females, aged 47-81 years. There were 14 cases of squamous cell carcinoma of larynx and 10 cases of hypopharynx, including I-Ⅱ stage (5 cases) and Ⅲ- Ⅳ stage (19 cases). All patients were primary and/or relapsed after treatment. Nine healthy volunteers were selected as control group. A novel in vivo capture technique (CellCellector system) was used to detect CTC. SPSS23.0 was used for statistical analysis. Results: The total capture rate of CTC in patients with HNSCC before treatment was 70.8% (17/24), with 40% (2/5) for patients at I-Ⅱ stage, and 78.9% (15/19) for patients at Ⅲ- Ⅳ stage, and was 0 in patients of control group. The total capture rate of CTC in patients with HNSCC after treatment was 50% (8/16). There was no significant correlation between CTC and age, sex, location of tumor or lymph node metastasis (P>0.05). CTC was related to tumor staging and tumor differentiation (P<0.05). The positive rate of EGFRVⅢ in CTC was 26.3% (5/19). Conclusions The CellCollector system is a very efficient way of detecting CTC, and CTC plays an important role in the occurrence, progression and metastasis of HNSCC.

Objective: To investigate the principles of diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer during pregnancy. Methods: Clinical data of patients with breast cancer during pregnancy admitted to Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University between January 2012 to July 2017 were analyzed retrospectively. A total of 17 patients were diagnosed with breast cancer in pregnancy, the median age was 32 years (range from 25 to 45 years old), pathological staging revealed 2 patient with stage 0, 1 with stage Ⅱa, 7 with stage Ⅱb, 1 with stage Ⅲa, 2 with stage Ⅲc, 4 with stage Ⅳ. Results: Thirteen patients received surgical treatment in pregnancy, the gestational age at surgery was (27.7±4.6) weeks; 2 patients with ductal carcinoma in situ received mastectomy, 11 patients with breast cancer underwent modified radical mastectomy. In patients undergoing surgery during pregnancy, no prophylactic contractions were used in 4 patients who had been treated earlier, there were 2 patients with frequent contractions within 24 hours after operation in these patients. Follow-up 9 patients were given oral nifedipine to prevent contractions, no obvious contractions occurred after the operation. Seven patients received chemotherapy during pregnancy; the chemotherapy of 4 cases of triple negative breast cancer was weekly paclitaxel sequential epirubicin and cyclophosphamide, the chemotherapy of the other three patients was docetaxel sequential epirubicin and cyclophosphamide. Fifteen patients underwent cesarean section to terminate pregnancy, 2 patients underwent spontaneous labor. The gestational age of birth was (36.9 ±1.3) weeks. Less than 35 weeks of termination of pregnancy occurred in one patient, the fetus was delivered to the neonatal intensive care unit due to neonatal respiratory distress syndrome, and suffered from congenital dysaudia. The prognosis of the other 16 survived infants was good. The median follow-up time was 10 months (range from 4 to 27) months, in 13 patients of stage 0 to Ⅲc, one patient were diagnosed with bone metastasis at 12 months after surgery, the remaining 12 patients had no disease progression, the progression free survival rate was 12/13, the overall survival rate was 13/13. Among the 4 patients with stage Ⅳ, one died in 7 months after delivery, one had new liver metastasis in 8 months after delivery. The remaining 2 patients were in stable condition. Conclusions Breast cancer in pregnancy can be treated effectively, multidisciplinary cooperation and detailed assessment of maternal-fetal risks and benefits are necessary. Chemotherapy during pregnancy is safe for maternal-fetal, but it needed a large sample of clinical studies and long-term follow-up. The neonatal outcome was associated with gestational age, and therefore premature delivery was avoided as much as possible during treatment.

Objective To systematically evaluate the clinical effect of surgery combined with adjuvant therapy (postoperative chemoradiotherapy or chemotherapy) and single surgery for resectable pancreatic cancers.Methods Literatures were researched using PubMed,Embase,Science Citation Index Expanded,Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and China Biology Medicine disc with the key words including "pancreatic cancer,adjuvant therapy,chemoradiotherapy,radiochemotherapy,chemotherapy,radiotherapy,胰腺癌,辅助治疗,化学治疗and放射治疗”from the time of database building to October 2016.Two reviewers independently screened literatures,extracted data and assessed the risk of bias.All the patients undergoing surgery combined with adjuvant chemoradiotherapy,surgery combined with adjuvant chemotherapy and single surgery were respectively allocated into the first treatment group,second treatment group and control group.The inverse variance was used for mergering hazard ratio (HR) and related statistic data.HR and 95％ confidence interval (CI) were used for assessing the overall survival time and disease-free survival time.The median survival time and 1-,2-,5-year survival rates were evaluated by the relative risk (RR) and 95％CI.The heterogeneity of the studies was analyzed using the I2 test.Results Eleven randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of 9 literatures were retrieved,and the total sample size was 1 482 patients,including 238 patients in the first treatment group,545 in the second treatment group and 699 in the control group.Results of Meta analysis:① overall survival time:there was no significant difference in overall survival time between the first treatment group and control group (HR =0.87,95％ CI:0.56-1.17,P＞ 0.05).There was a significant difference in overall survival time between the second treatment group and control group (HR =0.68,95 ％ CI:0.55-0.80,P＜ 0.05).② Disease-free survival time:there was no significant difference in disease-free survival time between the first treatment group and control group (HR=0.78,95％CI:0.53-1.03,P＞0.05).There was a significant difference in disease-free survival time between the second treatment group and control group (HR=0.56,95％CI:0.45-0.67,P＜0.05).③ Median survival time:there were significant differences in median survival time between the first treatment group and control group (RR=1.82,95％CI:1.35-2.45,P＜0.05) between the second group and control group (RR=1.32,95％CI:1.07-1.62,P＜0.05).④ One-,2-,5-year survival rates:there was no significant difference in 1-,2-,5-year survival rates between the first treatment group and control group (RR=1.24,2.47,1.15,95％ CI:0.72-2.12,0.82-7.41,0.71-1.84,P＞0.05).One-year survival rate in the second treatment group was compared with that in the control group,with no significant difference (RR=1.15,95％CI:0.99-1.34,P＞0.05).There were significant differences in 2-and 5-year survival rates between the second treatment group and control group (RR=1.24,1.73,95％CI:1.01-1.50,1.32-2.27,P＜0.05).Conclusions Compared with single surgery,surgery combined with postoperative chemoradiotherapy cannot significantly improve the overall survival time and disease-free survival time of patients.However,surgery combined with adjuvant chemotherapy can prolong the overall survival time and disease-free survival time of patients.