With the rising incidence of breast cancer among women, neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) is becoming increasingly crucial as a preoperative treatment modality, enabling tumor downstaging and volume reduction. However, its efficacy varies significantly among patients, underscoring the importance of predicting pathological complete response (pCR) following NAC. Early research relied on statistical methods to integrate clinical data for predicting treatment outcomes. With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), traditional machine learning approaches were subsequently employed for efficacy prediction. Deep learning emerged to dominate this field, and demonstrated the capability to automatically extract imaging features and integrate multimodal data for pCR prediction. This review comprehensively examined the applications and limitations of these three methodologies in predicting breast cancer pCR. Future efforts must prioritize the development of superior predictive models to achieve precise predictions, integrate them into clinical workflows, enhance patient care, and ultimately improve therapeutic outcomes and quality of life.
Humans ; Breast Neoplasms/pathology* ; Neoadjuvant Therapy ; Artificial Intelligence ; Female ; Machine Learning ; Deep Learning ; Chemotherapy, Adjuvant ; Treatment Outcome

Objective:To explore the effect of small-incision liposuction combined with subcutaneous adipose glandular tissue excision at the areolar margin for the treatment of fatty gynecomastia.Methods:From January 2018 to October 2022, 179 patients with gynecomastia were admitted to the Breast, Thyroid, and Plastic Surgery Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Henan University and the Breast Surgery Department of Xinhua Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, who underwent small incision liposuction combined with subcutaneous fat and gland tissue resection at the areolar edge, with ages ranging from 18 to 56 (35.0±8.1) years. The patients were followed up at 3 weeks, 3 months and 6 months after surgery to evaluate the treatment effect, patient satisfaction and complications.Results:The surgical time of 179 patients ranged from 26 minutes to 130 minutes, and intraoperative bleeding ranged from 10 ml to 50 ml. All patients underwent successful surgery and were discharged within 2-5 days. Postoperative subcutaneous haematoma was found in 3 patients (1.68%), nipple areola numbness in 32 patients (17.88%), subcutaneous effusion in 5 patients (2.79%) and epidermal blisters in 7 patients (3.91%). After 6 months of follow-up, 149 patients (91.41%) were satisfied.Conclusions:The treatment of gynecomastia by liposuction combined with subcutaneous adipose and glandular tissue excision through a small incision at the edge of the areola is aesthetically pleasing and less traumatic, with fewer complications; it is safe and worthy of clinical application.

Breast clustered microcalcification (BCM) is one of the most critical X-ray signs of early breast cancer. However, due to the fact that BCM is very tiny and hidden, and manual interpretation is susceptible to subjective factors such as visual fatigue, manual diagnosis of dense BCM based on X-images suffers from a low detection rate, high false-negative rate, and high recall rate. In recent years, with the continuous optimization innovation of deep learning algorithms, and advancements of computer hardware technology, new hope has been brought to accurate diagnosis of BCM, which is expected to realize the accurate assessment of individual breast cancer risk. In this review, the research progress of deep learning for accurate diagnosis of BCM was summarized, such as full-field digital mammography (FFDM), digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT) and contrast-enhanced mammography (CEM), as well as the future developments in this field were discussed.

Sal-like 4 (SALL4) plays an important role in promoting the cellular proliferation and maintaining the pluripotency of embryonic stem cells and tumor cells.In fully differentiated cells,the expression of SALL4 is silenced or down-regulated.However,the expression of SALL4 is found to be restored or up-regulated in a variety of non-germ cell tumors.Besides,the expression of SALL4 is often associated with disease progression,treatment effect and prognosis.Therefore,examining the expression level of SALL4 will be of great importance in the diagnosis of disease and monitoring the disease progression for non-germ cell tumors.

BACKGROUND:Studies have testified that nano-ultrasound contrast agents have a strong permeability, making it possible to image the targeted tissues outside blood vessels and overcome the limitation that micron contrast agents are only available for the blood pool imaging. OBJECTIVE:To construct the folate-modified nanoparticles targeting breast cancer as ultrasound contrast agents, as wel as to observe their ability to specifical y bind to cel s and imaging effect in vitro. METHODS:Both contrast agents, pegylated lactic acid-glycolic acid copolymer wrapping liquid fluorocarbon formed nanoparticles (mPP/PFOB) and folate modified pegylated lactic acid-glycolic acid wrapping liquid fluorocarbon formed nanoparticles (mPPF/PFOB), were constructed by phacoemulsification-evaporation method. (1)Biocompatibility detection:HFF-1 and MCF-7 cel s in the logarithmic phase were cultivated with various concentrations (0, 0.005, 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2 and 1 g/L) of mPP/PFOB or mPPF/PFOB for 24 hours respectively, and then the cel viability was measured. (2)Targeting ability detection in vitro:HFF-1 and MCF-7 cel s in the logarithmic phase were divided into three groups. Cy5-labled mPP/PFOB and mPPF/PFOB were added into groups A and B, respectively;the cel s in group C were pretreated with folate for 2 hours, and sequential y Cy5-labled mPPF/PFOB was added into group C. Fluorescence intensity was detected by flow cytometry after 0.5 hours of culture. The distribution of contrast agents in cel s was observed using confocal microscopy after 20 minutes of culture. (3)Ultrasound imaging in vitro:there were three groups:saline was as group A;the suspension of saline and mPPF/PFOB nanoparticles was prepared as group B;MCF-7 cel s were resuspended with the mixture of saline and mPPF/PFOB nanoparticles to prepare the suspension of nanoparticles and cel s as group C. In each group, the suspension was added into latex gloves, that were then tightened and immersed in water. Final y, the ultrasound was use to detect the ultrasound imaging effect in vitro. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Neither nanoparticles were with significant cytotoxicity. The flow cytometry showed that the mean fluorescence intensity in MCF-7 cel s of group B was significantly higher than that of groups A and C. But there were no significant differences in the mean fluorescence intensity in HFF-1 cel s among the three groups. It was observed that mPPF/PFOB mainly gathered around the MCF-7 cel membrane, while mPP/PFOB randomly distributed in the cytoplasm. After mPPF/PFOB binding to MCF-7 cel s, they could enhance ultrasound echo in vitro. These findings indicate that the targeted nanoparticles mPPF/PFOB have good biocompatibility and can specifical y bind to breast cancer MCF-7 cel s in vitro and enhance the imaging capability.

A microcapsule is a spherical, with a diameter that can be controlled in the range of 200 -1500 μm and biocompatible semipermeable membrane, which allows the bidirectional diffusion of nutrients,oxygen, secreted therapeutic product, and waste but prevents the penetration of high molecular weight substances from the microcapsule, such as antibodies and immunocytes. In comparison to monolayer culture and multicellular tumor spheroid model, orthotopic injection of microencapsulated tumor cells has uncomparable advantages in cell proliferation, mimicking the in vivo situation, making orthotopic tumor model and distant organ metastases model. Microencapsulated tumor assay has the potential of being widely used for in vitro anticancer drug screening and evaluation of the effects. This article mainly reviews the advantages of microencapsulated tumor assay and its application.

Pancreatic cancer is a highly malignant tumor. Animal models of pancreatic cancer included xenograft models, carcinogen induced models, genetically engineered models. Xenograft models are relatively reliable and feasible, but the growth pattern is different between serve immunodeficienct animals and human beings. Carcinogens induced models simulated the environmental factors to reconstruct the development of pancreatic cancer. But carcinogens could have other biological effects. Genetically engineered models could make the occurrence of pancreatic cancer at the molecular level. But it is difficult to control the transgenic product accurately. No model could meet all the needs of different experiments. It is important to choose a suitable animal model in different experiments.

Objective To evaluate the quality of life and influencing factors in patients with breast cancer after breast-conserving surgery, so as to provide theoretical support for preoperative health education and postoperative rehabilitative intervention for these patients. Methods 120 breast conserving surgery (BSC) and 140 modified radical mastectomy (MRM) patients were assessed with Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast (FACT-B V4.0) one week after operation. Life quality was evaluated between the two groups, and the influencing factors were also analyzed. Results Postoperative breast cancer patients after breast conserving surgery were with good breast complementary attention, lower emotion state. The other scores of quality of life had no statistical difference. Influencing factors on the quality of life of breast cancer patients were anxiety state, relationship of family members, position of surgery and character type. Conclusions It suggests that nursing specialists should make out corresponding, scientific and reasonable nursing intervention schemes based on the characteristics of different groups of people to ease psychological burden, and elevate the quality of life effectively for postoperative breast conserving surgery patients.

BACKGROUND: Microcarrier culture technology has become a new and large scale cell culture technology. It has been mainly used in the amplification research of tissue engineering seed cells. Microcarder possesses the advantage of larger surface area and plays an essential role in microcarrier culture technology.OBJECTIVE: To sum up the biomaterials and methods of microcarrier preparation, and provide theoretical foundation for the study of microcarrier culture technology and tissue engineering.METHODS: Articles were retrieved from PubMed, Wanfang, and VIP databases with the key words of "micrecarrier, biomaterials cell culture, tissue englneering" in both English and Chinese between 1967/2009 and 1990/2009, respectively. Inclusion criteria:study addressing microcarrier materials, preparation, and performance; study of microcerrier cell culture; animal experiments and clinical applications. A total of 34 articles were originally retrieved based on their titles and abstracts.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Although a lot of studies have reported research and preparation of microcarrier, clinical application remains still difficult. Recently, varying materials will be made into novel compound materials by new technology,which can adjust mechanics and biodegredation of microcarder via surface modification.

BACKGROUND: Contacting with blood, most of polymer materials lead to different extents of blood coagulation, which limits their clinical application. Therefore, developing polymer materials with excellent anticoagulant property has become a key to clinical study of bioartificial liver materials.OBJECTIVE: To in vitro detect the blood dompatibility of polyacrylamide grafted polypropylene (PP) membrane (PP-g-AAm), a novel artificial liver reactor material.METHODS: Prior to and after modification, hemolytic test, prothrombin time and activated partial thromboplastin time tests of PP membrane were performed; blood platelet CD62P and CD63 expression rates were determined by flow cytometry, and platelet adhesion on PP and PP-g-AAm membranes by scanning electron microscopy.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The hemolysis ratio of PP and PP-g-AAm membranes was 1.32% and 1.46%, respectively.Compared with PP-g-AAm membrane, prothrombin time and activated partial thromboplastin time of PP membrane weremarkedly shorter (P < 0.05). CD62P and CD63 expression rates in the PP-g-AAm membrane were significantly lower than PP membrane (P < 0.05). Scanning electron microscopy results revealed that there were obvious changes of platelets adhering to these two membranes, but platelets adhering to PP-g-AAm membrane were fewer than PP membrane. These results indicate that PP-g-AAm membrane exhibits good blood compatibility.