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.

Objective:To explore the value of conventional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), diffusion weighted imaging (DWI), diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) sequence and pathological examination in predicting the efficacy of neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in advanced breast cancer.Methods:The clinical data of 65 cases of advanced breast cancer with NAC confirmed by pathology in the Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical University from March 2022 to May 2023 were retrospectively analyzed, including 20 cases in the pathological complete remission (pCR) group and 45 cases in the non pCR group; All patients underwent routine MRI, DWI, DKI examinations and pathological analysis. The clinical pathological data, routine MRI features, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values, mean kurtosis coefficient (MK), and mean diffusion coefficient (MD) between the two groups were analyzed; We compared the differences in various parameters between two groups and plotted receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves to compare their diagnostic efficacy of NAC in breast cancer.Results:There were significant differences in molecular typing, estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (Her-2) and Ki-67 between pCR group and non pCR group (all P<0.05). In pCR group, Her-2 overexpression type and triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) type breast cancer were more common. ER and PR were mostly negative, Her-2 was mostly positive, and Ki 67 was mainly positive. The difference in tumor T2WI signal between the pCR group and the non pCR group was statistically significant ( P<0.05), with the pCR group showing mostly moderate/low T2WI signal. The ADC and MD values of the pCR group were lower than those of the non pCR group, while the MK value of the pCR group was higher than that of the non pCR group, and the differences were statistically significant (all P<0.001). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) for predicting the efficacy of NAC using a clinical pathological model was 0.829, which was higher than the AUC of molecular subtypes, ER, PR, Her-2, and Ki-67 ( Z=3.008, 2.697, 2.815, 2.131, 2.376, all P<0.05); The AUC of the DKI+ DWI predicting the efficacy of NAC was 0.934, which was higher than that of the DWI single sequence model, and the difference in type was statistically significant ( Z=2.396, P=0.017). The diagnostic efficacy of the DKI+ DWI model was higher than that of the single parameter ADC, MD, and MK, and the differences were statistically significant ( Z=2.396, 2.219, 2.161, all P<0.05); The AUC of the combined imaging and pathology model was 0.983, and its diagnostic efficacy was higher than that of the conventional MRI feature model, pathology model, DWI model, and DKI model, with statistically significant differences ( Z=5.877, 2.961, 3.240, 2.264, all P<0.05). Conclusions:The results of pathology, conventional MRI, DWI and DKI parameters of pCR and non pCR breast cancer patients are significantly different, and the combined model is better than the single model in predicting the efficacy of NAC.

Background::Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has emerged as the leading cause of death from prostate cancer (PCa) in recent decades, bringing a great disease burden worldwide. Men with preexisting CVD have an increased risk for major adverse cardiovascular events when treated with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). The present study aimed to explore the prevalence and risk evaluation of CVD among people with newly diagnosed PCa in China.Methods::Clinical data of newly diagnosed PCa patients were retrospectively collected from 34 centers in China from 2010 to 2022 through convenience sampling. CVD was defined as myocardial infarction, arrhythmia, heart failure, stroke, ischemic heart disease, and others. CVD risk was estimated by calculating Framingham risk scores (FRS). Patients were accordingly divided into low-, medium-, and high-risk groups. χ2 or Fisher’s exact test was used for comparison of categorical variables. Results::A total of 4253 patients were enrolled in the present study. A total of 27.0% (1147/4253) of patients had comorbid PCa and CVD, and 7.2% (307/4253) had two or more CVDs. The enrolled population was distributed in six regions of China, and approximately 71.0% (3019/4253) of patients lived in urban areas. With imaging and pathological evaluation, most PCa patients were diagnosed at an advanced stage, with 20.5% (871/4253) locally progressing and 20.5% (871/4253) showing metastasis. Most of them initiated prostatectomy (46.6%, 1983/4253) or regimens involving ADT therapy (45.7%, 1944/4253) for prostate cancer. In the present PCa cohort, 43.1% (1832/4253) of patients had hypertension, and half of them had poorly controlled blood pressure. With FRS stratification, as expected, a higher risk of CVD was related to aging and metabolic disturbance. However, we also found that patients with treatment involving ADT presented an originally higher risk of CVD than those without ADT. This was in accordance with clinical practice, i.e., aged patients or patients at advanced oncological stages were inclined to accept systematic integrative therapy instead of surgery. Among patients who underwent medical castration, only 4.0% (45/1118) received gonadotropin releasing hormone antagonists, in stark contrast to the grim situation of CVD prevalence and risk.Conclusions::PCa patients in China are diagnosed at an advanced stage. A heavy CVD burden was present at the initiation of treatment. Patients who accepted ADT-related therapy showed an original higher risk of CVD, but the awareness of cardiovascular protection was far from sufficient.

BACKGROUND: Thymic carcinomas (TCs) and thymic neuroendocrine neoplasms (TNENs) are two aggressive subtypes of thymic malignancy. Traditional therapy for advanced TCs and TNENs has limited outcome. New genomic profiling of TCs and TNENs might provide insights that contribute to the development of new treatment approaches. METHODS: We used gene panel sequencing technologies to investigate the genetic aberrations of 32 TC patients and 15 TNEN patients who underwent surgery at Shanghai Chest Hospital between 2015 and 2017. Patient samples were sequenced using a 324-gene platform with licensed technologies. In this study, we focused on clinically relevant genomic alterations (CRGAs), which are previously proven to be pathogenic alterations, to identify the pathology-specific mutational patterns, prognostic signatures of TCs and TNENs. RESULTS: The mutational profiles between TCs and TNENs were diverse. The genetic alterations that ranked highest in TCs were in CDKN2A, TP53, ASXL1, CDKN2B, PIK3C2G, PTCH1, and ROS1 , while those in TNENs were in MEN1, MLL2, APC, RB1 , and TSC2 . Prognostic analysis showed that mutations of ROS1, CDKN2A, CDKN2B, BRAF, and BAP1 were significantly associated with worse outcomes in TC patients, and that mutation of ERBB2 indicated shortened disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) in TNEN patients. Further investigation found that the prognosis-related genes were focused on signal pathways of cell cycle control, chromatin remodeling/DNA methylation, phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3K)/protein kinase B (AKT)/mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR), and receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK)/RAS/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling. CONCLUSION We profiled the mutational features of 47 Chinese patients with thymic malignancy of diverse pathologic phenotypes to uncover the integrated genomic landscape of these rare tumors, and identified the pathology-specific mutational patterns, prognostic signatures, and potential therapeutic targets for TCs and TNENs.
Humans ; Thymoma ; Protein-Tyrosine Kinases/genetics* ; Proto-Oncogene Proteins/genetics* ; China ; Thymus Neoplasms/pathology* ; Prognosis ; Neuroendocrine Tumors/pathology* ; Mutation/genetics*

Abstract: Objective To investigate the prevalence of dissociative tendency and its influencing factors among middle school students, so as to provide insights into prevention and early interventions of adolescent dissociative tendency. Methods: Students at ages of 13 to 18 years that studied in 9 high schools were sampled using a multistage, stratified, cluster sampling method from 3 counties (districts) of Hangzhou City from January, 2021 and March, 2022. Participants' demographics and social, school, family environment and psychological factors were collected using self-designed questionnaires and standardized scales. The dissociative tendency was initially screened using the Adolescent Dissociative Experience Scale (A-DES), and the diagnosed by three psychiatrists according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th Edition). Factors affecting ADT were identified using a multivariable logistic regression model. Results: Totally 3 240 students were recruited, and 2 841 students were qualified, with a response rate of 87.69%. The respondents included 1 389 men (48.89%) and 1 452 women (51.11%), and had a mean age of (15.69±1.58) years. The prevalence of dissociative tendency was 24.04%, and the detection of dissociative tendency was higher among men than among women (29.23% vs. 19.08%; χ2=24.529, P<0.001). Multivariable logistic regression analysis identified negative teacher-student relationship (OR=1.055, 95%CI: 1.010-1.103), family emotional expressiveness (OR=0.872, 95%CI: 0.777-0.978), family conflict (OR=1.152, 95%CI: 1.045-1.271), family organization (OR=0.880, 95%CI: 0.780-0.992) and family cohesion (OR=0.871, 95%CI: 0.766-0.987) as factors affecting dissociative tendency among men, and somatization (OR=1.041, 95%CI: 1.002-1.082) and paranoid ideation (OR=1.094, 95%CI: 1.006-1.190) as factors affecting dissociative tendency among women. Conclusions The prevalence of dissociative tendency was 24.04% among middle school students. Negative teacher-student relationship, family emotional expressiveness, family conflict, family organization, and family cohesion may affect dissociative tendency among men, while somatization and paranoid ideation may affect dissociative tendency among women.

Graph-theory-based pathway analysis is a commonly used method for pathway searching in genome-scale metabolic networks. However, such searching often results in many pathways biologically infeasible due to the presence of currency metabolites (e.g. H⁺, H₂O, CO₂, ATP etc.). Several methods have been proposed to address the problem but up to now there is no well-recognized methods for processing the currency metabolites. In this study, we proposed a new method based on the function of currency metabolites for transferring of functional groups such as phosphate. We processed most currency metabolites as pairs rather than individual metabolites, and ranked the pairs based on their importance in transferring functional groups, in order to make sure at least one main metabolite link exists for any reaction. The whole process can be done automatically by programming. Comparison with existing approaches indicates that more biologically infeasible pathways were removed by our method and the calculated pathways were more reliable, which may facilitate the graph-theory-based pathway design and visualization.
Genome ; Metabolic Networks and Pathways

[Abstract] Objective: To investigate the expression of tight junction protein claudin-7 (CLDN-7) in pancreatic cancer and its correlation with the clinicopathological features and prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients. Methods: Oncomine, GEPIA and GEO databases were used to comprehensively analyze the mRNA expression level of CLDN-7 in pancreatic cancer, and Kaplan-Meier Plotter database was used to analyze the relationship between the expression of CLDN-7 and the survival prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients. Immunohistochemical staining was used to detect the protein level of CLDN-7 in 44 cases of pancreatic cancer tissues and 31 cases of para-cancerous tissues resected in the Department of General Surgery of the Second Hospital of Lanzhou University from 2015 to 2018, and the relationship between CLDN-7 expression and clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis of patients was also analyzed. GO (Gene Ontology) analysis and KEGG (Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes) pathway enrichment analysis were conducted to analyze the possible signaling pathways that CLDN-7 may involve in and their main functions, which were further verified in TCGA and GEPIA databases. Results: Analysis of both the databases and the clinical samples showed that CLDN-7 was significantly over-expressed in pancreatic cancer tissues, and its high expression was correlated with clinical prognosis of pancreatic cancer patients; moreover, CLDN-7 expression was an independent factor affecting the overall survival time of pancreatic cancer patients (all P<0.05). GO analysis and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis confirmed that CLDN-7 was involved in DNA damage repair and glucose metabolism in pancreatic cancer patients. TCGA and GEPIA database validation showed that CLDN-7 expression in pancreatic cancer was significantly and positively correlated with the expression of DNA damage repair related genes (POLD4, SMUG1, NTHL1) and glucose metabolism related genes (ALDOA, TALDO1, PGLS) (all P<0.01). Conclusion: CLDN-7 is highly expressed in pancreatic cancer and indicates a worse clinical prognosis; moreover, CLDN-7 is associated with DNA damage repair and intratumoral glucose metabolism in pancreatic cancer.

Objective: To observe the preventive effect of alkaline drinking water on hyperuricemia in mice. Methods: Sixty male SPF Kunming mice were randomly divided into six groups: pH 7.3, pH 8.0, pH 9.3 intervention groups, in which the mice were given water with pH values of 7.3±0.5, 8.0±0.5 and 9.3±0.6, respectively; the control group, model group and positive drug group ( with 2 g/L allopurinol ) were given double distilled water. Except for the control group, the mice in each group were given yeast by gavage (1.5 g/mL) for 13 days. On the 14th day, the mice were injected with 300 mg/kg potassium oxyzinate by intraperitoneal injection, and then fasted for 1 day. On the 16th day, serum uric acid, creatinine and urea nitrogen were detected, and renal tissues were stained to observe the morphology.The expression levels of neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin ( NGAL ), tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase 1( TIMP1 ), organic anion transporter 1 ( OAT1 ) and urate transporter 1 ( URAL-1 ) in renal tissues were determined bywestern blotting. The mRNA expression levels of URAL-1 and OAT1 were detected by real-time fluorescent quantita⁃tive polymerase chain reaction. Results: The level of serum uric acid was higher in the model group than in the control group and in the pH 9.3 intervention group (both P<0.05). The number and area of renal tubular lesions were less in the pH 9.3 intervention group than in the model group (all P<0.05). The relative expression levels of NGAL and URAT-1 proteins were lower in the pH 9.3 intervention group than in the model group, and the relative expression level of OAT1 protein was higher in the pH 9.3 intervention group than in the model group ( all P<0.05). The relativeexpression level of URAT-1 mRNA was lower in the pH 9.3 intervention group than in the model group, and the rela⁃tive expression level of OAT1 mRNA was higher in the pH 9.3 intervention group than in the model group ( all P<0.05 ). Conclusion Alkaline drinking water with pH value of 9.3±0.6 can effectively prevent hyperuricemia and acute kidney injury in mice.

Objective:To investigate the clinical features, risk factors and prognosis of Clostridium difficile infection/colonization (CDI/CDC) in emergency intensive care unit (EICU) of Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine, then provides theoretical basis for clinical treatment. Methods:A retrospective case-control study was conducted. The data of EICU patients admitted to Ruijin Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine from June 2016 to June 2020 were collected. Taking the CDI/CDC patients as research objects [ Clostridium difficile (CD) positive group] and the CD negative patients with the same gender and age difference less than 5 years who were admitted to the hospital during the same period as the control (CD negative group). Demographic information, risk factors, prognosis and stool samples were collected. Single factor analysis and binary Logistic regression were used to analyze the CD positive infection rate, risk factors, and hospital death of patients with different clinical characteristics. Results:About 487 patients in EICU were included, 76 cases were taken into CD positive group, CD positive rate was 15.6%, including CDI 11 cases, CDC 65 cases. Among the CD positive group, all of the cases used proton pump inhibitor (PPI), and 75 cases used at least one antibiotic. Seventy-six CD negative patients with or without diarrhea (CD negative group) were included in this study. Among them, 75 patients used PPI and 74 patients used at least one antibiotic. Univariate analysis showed that acute physiology and chronic health evaluation Ⅱ (APACHEⅡ), duration of hospitalization, and carbapenem use were the risk factors for CDI/CDC. There were significant differences in the above indicators between CD positive group and CD negative group [APACHEⅡ: 18.0 (12.2, 25.8) vs. 10.0 (7.0, 14.0), duration of hospitalization (days): 46.0 (30.5, 72.5) vs. 18.5 (9.2, 37.0), proportion of carbapenems: 81.6% (62/76) vs. 64.5% (49/76), all P < 0.05]. Binary Logistic analysis regression analysis showed that APACHEⅡ score [odds ratio ( OR) = 0.802, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was 0.730-0.882, P < 0.01] and duration of hospitalization ( OR = 0.960, 95% CI was 0.942-0.978, P < 0.01) were independent risk factors for CDI/CDC. There was no difference in overall mortality between the CD positive group and CD negative group [27.6% (21/76) vs. 38.2% (29/76), P = 0.167]. Conclusions:Critically ill patients in EICU routinely use PPI and antibiotics, and the use of antibiotics does not affect the CD positive rate. The independent risk factors of CDI/CDC are the APACHEⅡ score and the duration of hospitalization, but fecal CD positive has no obvious influence on death.