Objective This study used The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database to investigate the methylation levels of PCDHGB7 in lung adenocarcinoma tissues and analyze its association with clinical pathological features of lung adenocarcinoma, and its prognostic predictive value. Methods Methylation data of PCDHGB7 from 473 lung adenocarcinoma tissues and 32 normal tissues in the TCGA database were derived and analyzed to assess between-group variance and determine the correlation of methylation levels with clinical pathological features and overall survival. Results PCDHGB7 exhibited significantly higher methylation levels in lung adenocarcinoma tissues than in normal tissues (P<0.001), demonstrating a strong discriminative ability for lung adenocarcinoma (AUC=0.926, P<0.001). The methylation level was strongly associated with gender (P=0.047) and T stage (P=0.013). The critical prognostic sites of PCDHGB7 were identified through univariate Cox regression analysis. We found significant differences in overall survival between patient groups with low or high methylation levels (P=0.0099). Conclusion PCDHGB7 shows significantly elevated methylation in lung adenocarcinoma, which correlates with tumor malignancy and possesses certain prognostic predictive potential.

Objective To analyze the effect of releasing the lower pulmonary ligament on right residual lung expansion after right upper lobe resection under different body mass index (BMI) levels. Methods The clinical data of patients who underwent thoracoscopic right upper lobe resection in the First Affiliated Hospital with Nanjing Medical University from 2021 to 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. Patients were divided into a group A (17 kg/m2＜BMI≤23 kg/m2), a group B (23 kg/m2＜BMI≤29 kg/m2) and a group C (BMI＞29 kg/m2) according to BMI. The presence of residual cavity was judged by chest X-ray at 7-10 days after operation, the degree of compensation change of the right main bronchus angle was measured, and the changes in lung volume were determined by CT three-dimensional reconstruction. Results A total of 157 patients who underwent thoracoscopic right upper lobe resection were included, including 71 males and 86 females, with an average age of (59.7±11.2) years. There were 50 patients in the group A, 75 patients in the group B, and 32 patients in the group C. In the group A, compared with those without releasing the lower pulmonary ligament, patients with releasing had a lower incidence of postoperative residual cavity (P=0.016), greater changes in bronchus angle (P<0.001), and smaller changes in lung volume (P<0.001). In the group B and C, there was no significant effect of releasing the lower pulmonary ligament on postoperative residual cavity, bronchus angle, and lung volume changes (P>0.05). Conclusion For patients with thin and long body shape and low BMI, releasing the lower pulmonary ligament is helpful to promote the expansion of the residual lung after right upper lobe resection and reduce the occurrence of postoperative residual cavity in patients.

Objective To predict the lymph node metastasis status of patients with invasive pulmonary adenocarcinoma by constructing machine learning models based on primary tumor radiomics, peritumoral radiomics, and habitat radiomics, and to evaluate the predictive performance and generalization ability of different imaging features. Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on the clinical data of 1 263 patients with invasive pulmonary adenocarcinoma who underwent surgery at the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Jiangsu Province Hospital, from 2016 to 2019. Habitat regions were delineated by applying K-means clustering (average cluster number of 2) to the grayscale values of CT images. The peritumoral region was defined as a uniformly expanded area of 3 mm around the primary tumor. The primary tumor region was automatically segmented using V-net combined with manual correction and annotation. Subsequently, radiomics features were extracted based on these regions, and stacked machine learning models were constructed. Model performance was evaluated on the training, testing, and internal validation sets using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), F1 score, recall, and precision. Results After excluding patients who did not meet the screening criteria, a total of 651 patients were included. The training set consisted of 468 patients (181 males, 287 females) with an average age of (58.39±11.23) years, ranging from 29 to 78 years, the testing set included 140 patients (56 males, 84 females) with an average age of (58.81±10.70) years, ranging from 34 to 82 years, and the internal validation set comprised 43 patients (14 males, 29 females) with an average age of (60.16±10.68) years, ranging from 29 to 78 years. Although the habitat radiomics model did not show the optimal performance in the training set, it exhibited superior performance in the internal validation set, with an AUC of 0.952 [95%CI (0.87, 1.00)], an F1 score of 84.62%, and a precision-recall AUC of 0.892, outperforming the models based on the primary tumor and peritumoral regions. Conclusion The model constructed based on habitat radiomics demonstrated superior performance in the internal validation set, suggesting its potential for better generalization ability and clinical application in predicting lymph node metastasis status in pulmonary adenocarcinoma.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the regulatory role of Ral guanine nucleotide dissociation stimulator-like 1 (RGL1) in metastasis of colorectal cancer (CRC). METHODS: We analyzed the differential expression of RGL1 between metastatic and non-metastatic CRC in GEO database, and examined its expression in 25 patients with metastatic CRC and 25 patients with non-metastatic CRC treated in Zhujiang Hospital between January, 2020 and December, 2022 using quantitative PCR (qPCR) and immunohistochemistry. HCT116 cell lines with stable RGL1 overexpression and SW480 cells with RGL1 knockdown were established using lentiviral vecors, and the changes in invasion and migration abilities of the cells were assessed using Transwell invasion and migration assays. The transduced cells were injected into the serosa of the cecum of nude mice, and tumor growth and liver metastasis were observed 8 weeks later. Fibronectin adhesion assays and immunofluorescence experiments were employed to assess the relationship between RGL1 and focal adhesion formation, and co-immuno-precipitation assays were performed to explore the interaction between RGL1 and GTPase activation. RESULTS: Compared with non-metastatic CRC, metastatic CRC showed significantly upregulated expression of RGL1. HCT116 cells overexpressing RGL1 exhibited obviously enhanced migration and invasion in vitro with increased capacity for liver metastasis in nude mice. RGL1 overexpression strongly accelerated focal adhesion assembly, facilitated the formation of motile focal adhesions, and enhanced the binding of activated CDC42/RAC1 complex to RGL1. CONCLUSIONS RGL1 is highly expressed in metastatic CRC and promotes distant metastasis of CRC by activating the CDC42/RAC1 complex to facilitate the formation of motile focal adhesions. These findings suggest that RGL1 can potentially serve as a therapeutic target for CRC metastasis.
Humans ; Colorectal Neoplasms/metabolism* ; cdc42 GTP-Binding Protein/metabolism* ; Animals ; Mice, Nude ; rac1 GTP-Binding Protein/metabolism* ; Cell Movement ; Mice ; Focal Adhesions/metabolism* ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Cell Line, Tumor ; HCT116 Cells ; Up-Regulation ; Neoplasm Invasiveness ; Adaptor Proteins, Signal Transducing ; Female ; Rho Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factors

The announcement of the 9th edition of TNM staging system for thymic tumors was one of the highlights at the World Conference on Lung Cancer 2023. The revision, based on a larger and more detailed database, provides changes and confirmation from the last system. The 9th edition of TNM staging system aims to balance statistical significance and clinical feasibility. The birth of an improved TNM staging system heralds the changes that will follow in clinical practice and scientific research.

Thymectomy is the main treatment for thymoma and other thymic diseases. But the incidence of non-therapeutic thymectomy is high due to the difficulty in the differential diagnosis of anterior mediastinum lesions. Formerly, it was believed that the thymus gradually degraded and lost function with aging, and the preservation of the thymus was not valued. Recent studies have found that the removal of the thymus at all ages has adverse effects on overall health and leads to a significant increase in the risk of autoimmune diseases, malignancy, and all-cause mortality. Therefore, unnecessary thymectomy should be avoided. This article reviews the influence of thymectomy, including the changes of immunological indexes and clinical prognosis, and further discusses the current situation and avoidance methods of non-therapeutic thymectomy.

Objective:To explore whether the application of combined multimodal ultrasound parameters of heart, lung and diaphragm can predict the weaning outcome in critically ill patients.Methods:A total of 53 patients mechanically ventilated > 48 hours and prepared for spontaneous breathing trial (SBT), were prospectively selected from the Department of Critical Care Unit, Drum Tower Hospital, the Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School from December 2022 to December 2023. The patients were eligible for weaning extubation and prepared to undergo a 30-minute SBT, during which the doctors examined the patient′s heart, lungs and diaphragm with ultrasound probes.According to the weaning outcomes, the patients were divided into successful group and failed group. The ultrasound parameters with statistical significance in the univariate analysis were incorporated into the binary logistic regression model to explore the independent influencing factors of weaning outcomes, and the ROC curve was plotted and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated for statistical analysis.Results:Thirteen of the 53 patients failed weaning.There were significant differences in diaphragm excursion (DE), diaphragm thickening fraction (DTF), bilateral lung ultrasound score (LUS), total LUS and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) between successful and failed groups (all P<0.05). The AUC for LVEF was 0.709 (95% CI=0.534-0.883, P=0.025) with the cutoff value 57.95%, the sensitivity 85.0%, and the specificity 61.5%. The AUC for the total LUS score was 0.878 (95% CI=0.772-0.984, P<0.001), with the cutoff value 17.50, the sensitivity 77.5%, and the specificity 92.3%. The AUC for the DE was 0.876 (95% CI=0.777-0.975, P<0.001) with the cutoff value 1.205 cm, the sensitivity 80.0%, and the specificity 92.3%. The AUC for DTF was 0.902 (95% CI=0.818-0.986, P<0.001) with the cutoff value 18.1%, the sensitivity 82.5%, and the specificity 92.3%. The AUC for the combination plotting of statistically significant ultrasound parameters, consisting of LVEF, LUS, DE and DTF, was 0.948 (95% CI=0.889-1.000, P<0.001) with the sensitivity 85.0% and the specificity 92.3%. Conclusions:Ultrasound parameters of the heart, lungs, and diaphragm provide critical information on cardiopulmonary and diaphragmatic function during SBT. Weaning failure is more common in patients with increased LUS and decreased LVEF, DE and DTF. The combination of four aspects can improve the accuracy of the prediction of weaning outcome.

Objective To understand the relationship between air pollutants and digestive system cancers, and to provide a reference for future research and prevention and control of digestive system cancer. Methods All relevant literature published in English between 1970-2022 was searched through the databases of PubMed, web of science and Embase, and meta-analysis was used to explore the effects of specific air pollutants on digestive system cancers. Results PM_2.5 was able to increase the risk of incidence or mortality of total digestive cancers by 11% (1.05 to 1.17). For specific cancers, PM_2.5 was only associated with an increased risk of liver cancer in this study, with a combined RR (95% CI) of 1.31 (1.19 to 1.46), while there was no statistically significant association with other specific digestive cancers ( P>0.05）. NO2 increased the risk of incidence or mortality of total digestive cancers by 3% (1.00 to 1.07). Conclusion For specific digestive system cancers, PM_2.5 has the most pronounced effect on liver cancer. More evidence is needed to support the relationship between NO₂ and cancer. Currently, it has been observed that NO2 has a negative effect on overall digestive cancers. This study provides insights for the prevention and control of digestive system cancer in countries and regions with high PM_2.5 and NO₂ concentrations.

Patients with thymoma without preoperative myasthenia gravis may develop symptoms of myasthenia gravis after tumor resection. A comprehensive understanding toward this rare clinical phenomenon is lacking. Recent studies indicate that post-operatively new onset myasthenia gravis (ponoMG) is the result of multiple mechanisms and their interactions, which may be related to the thymoma-mediated production, release and long-term presence of abnormal T cells and autoimmune antibodies in the periphery, as well as the presence of ectopic thymus and late recurrence of thymoma. Preoperative antibody titer is the main predictor. The treatment strategy is based on anticholinesterase drugs and hormonal therapy. In this study, we review the incidence, pathogenesis, predictors, and prevention and treatment strategies of ponoMG.

【Objective:】 The co-word analysis method was used to analyze narrative medical literature studied in China in the past 10 years to explore the research status in this field and lay a foundation for further research. 【Methods:】 Using "narrative medicine" as the theme term, with the limited time interval of 2013—2022 to retrieve for relevant literature in CNKI, Wanfang, and VIP databases, and include literature that meets the research standards. Bicomb2 was used to perform keyword statistics and analysis on the downloaded literature. Ucinet6.0 and Netdraw were used to draw co-occurrence analysis graphs to visualize the co-occurrence relationship between high-frequency keywords. 【Results:】 A total of 565 papers were included and 31 high-frequency keywords were extracted. The co-occurrence relationship diagrams showed that the current research hotspots of narrative medicine in China include traditional Chinese medicine, nursing, general practice, evidence-based medicine, medical ethics, hospice care, chronic diseases, cancer and other popular disciplines and diseases. Most of them were about enhancing the empathy and humanistic caring ability of medical personnel and improving doctor-patient communication to improve the doctor-patient relationship, as well as doing well in medical humanities education and cultivating narrative ability through parallel medical records and reflective writing. The research on gerontology, improving the professional identity of medical staff, integrating literature and medicine, and the impact on patients were relatively few. 【Conclusion:】 At present, narrative medicine in China has achieved many achievements in fields such as nursing, traditional Chinese medicine, general practice medicine, chronic diseases, cancer, medical humanities education, and improving doctor-patient relationships. In the future, in-depth exploration can be conducted from the use of narrative medicine in multi-disciplinary and disease fields, trying different training methods, and synchronous cultivation of teachers and students, so as to build a more comprehensive narrative medicine system.