The 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (ASCO-GI) was held from January 23 to 25, 2025. Several significant studies on the treatment of esophageal and gastroesophageal junction (GEJ) cancer were presented at the symposium, highlighting notable advances, particularly in the perioperative and advanced settings. Immunotherapy has demonstrated significant promise in the neoadjuvant treatment of esophageal cancer, showing potential to become a standard treatment. Furthermore, the long-term survival benefits of combining immunotherapy with chemotherapy for advanced GEJ cancer were further validated. This article summarizes and interprets the researches presented at the symposium concerning perioperative and advanced treatments for esophageal and GEJ cancers.

Objective     To evaluate the clinical effectiveness of valve-sparing aortic root replacement (VSARR) in the treatment of patients with dilated aortic root after operation for tetralogy of Fallot (TOF). Methods     A retrospective analysis was conducted on clinical data of TOF patients with aortic root dilation who underwent VSARR in our hospital from 2016 to 2022. Results     Finally 14 patients were collected, including 8 males and 6 females, with a median age of 22 years ranging from 12-48 years. Among them, 5 patients had severe aortic valve regurgitation, 4 moderate regurgitation, and 5 mild or no regurgitation. Six patients had sinus of valsalva dilation, and 8 significant dilation of the ascending aorta. One patient had residual shunt due to ventricular septal defect, and 9 severe pulmonary valve regurgitation. The David procedure was performed in 10 patients, Yacoub procedure in 2 patients, and Florida sleeve in 2 patients. There was no perioperative mortality in the group. The median follow-up time was 2.9 years (ranging from 0.4 to 6.0 years). One patient had mild aortic valve regurgitation, and the rest had minimal or no regurgitation. One patient had mild stenosis of the left ventricular outflow tract, and the rest patients had no obvious stenosis. Conclusion     VSARR is a satisfactory treatment for aortic root dilation in patients with TOF, with no significant increase in the incidence of left ventricular outflow tract stenosis or aortic regurgitation during mid-term follow-up.

The 2024 American Society of Clinical Oncology Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (ASCO-GI) was held in San Francisco, the USA from January 18th to 20th, 2024 (local time). The multiple studies presented in this symposium will have a significant impact on the clinical practice of esophageal cancer. This article will focus on the surgical methods of esophageal cancer, perioperative immunotherapy, drug therapy for advanced esophageal cancer, rescue treatment after immunotherapy resistance, and other relevant aspects. It aims to summarize and interpret the significant advancements in the field of esophageal cancer presented in this symposium.

OBJECTIVE To establish the fingerprint of Shenfukang Ⅱ capsule(SC-Ⅱ), and to screen out its indicative compounds for quality control combined with chemometrics methods and network pharmacology. METHODS The HPLC fingerprint of 10 batches of SC-Ⅱ was established, and similarity evaluation was analyzed by Similarity Evaluation System for Chromatographic Fingerprint of TCM(2012 A Edition) to determine common peaks; common peaks were identified through standard comparison. Chemometrics methods was used to evaluate quality of 10 batches of SC-Ⅱ, and network pharmacology was used to screen out core targets and pathways of SC-Ⅱ. Combined with the above results, indicative compounds for quality control of SC-Ⅱ were screened out. RESULTS A total of 37 common peaks were obtained in the HPLC fingerprint, the similarity of samples was greater than 0.97. Twenty compounds were identified as morroniside, loganin, paeoniflorin and et al. The samples were divided into two categories by chemical pattern recognition, salvianolic acid B, morroniside, salvianolic acid A and paeoniflorin were differential marker compounds for SC-Ⅱ. Network pharmacology predicted that active compounds such as salvianolic acid B, paeoniflorin and morroniside might exert pharmacological effects through 45 core targets and 15 main pathways. The research preliminary preliminarily predicted that morroniside, paeoniflorin and salvianolic acid B were quality control index components for SC-II. CONCLUSION The established HPLC fingerprint method is simple and good repeatability. The quality control indicative compounds of SC-Ⅱ can provide a basis for its quality control.

Objective    To summarize our experience in the treatment of esophageal foreign bodies. Methods    A retrospective analysis of 149 patients of esophageal foreign bodies in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Air Force Military Medical University from December 2011 to May 2019 was carried out, including 75 (50.3%) females and 74 (49.7%) males with an average age of 57 (2-85) years. Results    There were 146 patients confirmed by endoscopy, and 3 patients were not found foreign body. Among the confirmed patients, 127 patients were removed by gastroscope and 19 patients were treated by operation. Esophageal foreign bodies are mainly related to the types of food. Jujube seed is the most common food foreign body in the northwest China. The injury rate of mucosal was 47.54% within 48 hours. The complication rate of taking out the foreign body after 48 hours was 100.0%. The success rate by endoscopy decreased (P=0.005), if the foreign body combined perforation. There was no statistical difference between the neck and other parts when using ultra-fine gastroscope (P=0.157). Conclusion    The sharper the foreign body is, the easier the perforation is. The earlier the foreign body is removed, the less complications are. The size of the foreign body determines the difficulty of endoscopic removal. Gastroscopy is the first choice for diagnosis and treatment, especially ultra-fine gastroscopy, and the foreign bodies that cannot be removed by endoscopy need surgical treatment.

Age-related macular degeneration(ARMD)is one of the main causes of irreversible visual impairment in the middle-aged and elderly people, which severely impacts the patient's life quality and poses a substantial health economic burden on society. There are two types of late ARMD in clinic: wet ARMD and dry ARMD. Anti-vascular endothelial growth factor drugs, as first-line clinical drugs for wet ARMD, achieved remarkable efficacy. For dry ARMD, however, effective therapies are in the air. This review focuses on the potential drugs, biological therapies and traditional Chinese medicines that made significant progresses in clinical trials for dry ARMD, including anti-inflammatory drugs(doxycycline and FHTR2163), anti-oxidants(risuteganib and elamipretide), complement inhibitors(APL-2 and zimura), visual cycle modulators(ALK-001), neuroprotective agents(brimonidine), stem cell transplantation(MA09-hRPE and BMMF), gene therapy(HMR59), and traditional Chinese medicine(saffron, curcumin, quercetin and resveratrol). The new drugs exhibited favorable clinical efficacy and broad application prospects, which would foster hope for improvement and treatment of ARMD.

Retinal vascular diseases such as retinopathy of prematurity, diabetic retinopathy, and retinal vein occlusion, and other retinal vascular diseases, with abnormal proliferation of retinal neovascularization as the main pathological manifestation. Exosomes derived from bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells transmit biologically active molecules through paracrine action to mediate the exchange of materials and information between cells. Among them, miRNA and other contents play key roles in transmitting information to regulate the proliferation of endothelial cells, the formation of the lumen, and new blood vessels in an ischemic and hypoxic environment. And it can cross the blood-retinal barrier without causing immune and inflammatory reactions and has great potential in the treatment of ophthalmic diseases. This article summarizes the role and possible mechanism of miRNA in bone marrow mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes in retinal neovascularization, with a view to broadening new ideas for the application of exosomes in the diagnosis and treatment of ophthalmic diseases.

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has updated and released the NCCN esophageal and esophagogastric junction cancers clinical practice guidelines in oncology (version 3. 2022). Compared with the version 4 of the guidelines in 2021, the 3 versions in 2022 have some updates and revisions, mainly focusing on molecular marker detection, perioperative treatment, advanced immunotherapy, radiotherapy and other aspects. This article will interpret the main content of the new edition of the guidelines, in order to enhance the understanding of the guidelines and guide the clinical practice of diagnosis and treatment.

Objective    To explore whether surgery combined with adjuvant chemotherapy can bring survival benefits to patients with cervical and upper thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Methods    The clinical data of patients with cervical and upper thoracic ESCC who underwent R0 resection and neck anastomosis in our department from 2006 to 2010 were retrospectively analyzed. Patients received neoadjuvant therapy or adjuvant radiotherapy were excluded. The adjuvant chemotherapy group was given a combination of taxanes and platinum based chemotherapy after surgery; the surgery alone group did not receive adjuvant chemotherapy. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the survival difference between the adjuvant chemotherapy group and the surgery alone group. Results    A total of 181 patients were enrolled, including 141 (77.9%) males and 40 (22.1%) females, with an average age of 61.0±8.2 years (80 patients aged≤61 years, 101 patients aged>61 years). There were 70 (38.7%) patients of cervical ESCC, and 111 (61.3%) patients of upper thoracic ESCC. Eighty-seven (48.1%) patients underwent postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy, and 94 (51.9%) patients underwent surgery alone, and the basic clinical characteristics were well balanced between the two groups (P>0.05). The median survival time of patients in the adjuvant chemotherapy group and the surgery alone group was 31.93 months and 26.07 months, and the 5-year survival rate was 35.0% and 32.0%, respectively (P=0.227). There was no statistical difference in median survival time between the cervical ESCC and upper thoracic ESCC group (31.83 months vs. 29.76 months, P=0.763). For cervical ESCC patients, the median survival time was 45.07 months in the adjuvant chemotherapy group and 14.70 months in the surgery alone group (P=0.074). Further analysis showed that the median survival time of lymph node negative group was 32.53 months, and the lymph node positive group was 24.57 months (P=0.356). The median survival time was 30.43 months in the lymph-node positive group with adjuvant chemotherapy and 17.77 months in the lymph-node positive group with surgery alone. The survival curve showed a trend of difference, but the difference was not statistically significant (P=0.557). Conclusion    There is no statistical difference in the long-term survival of cervical and upper thoracic ESCC patients after R0 resection. Postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy may have survival benefits for patients with cervical ESCC and upper ESCC with postoperative positive lymph nodes, but the differences are not statistically significant in this setting.

Objective    To investigate the safety and feasibility of laryngeal mask general anesthesia as a replacement of tracheal intubation general anesthesia in the "three-port" thoracoscopic thymectomy via subxiphoid and subcostal arch for thymoma patients without myasthenia. Methods    From January 2018 to June 2019, clinical data of patients with thymoma who underwent the novel "three-port" operation in our institution were analyzed retrospectively. The patients were divided into two groups according to the anesthesia methods, including a tracheal intubation general anesthesia group and a laryngeal mask general anesthesia group. There were 70 patients in the tracheal intubation general anesthesia group, including 42 males and 28 females, with an average age of 45.83±15.89 years. There were 39 patients in the laryngeal mask general anesthesia group, including 26 males and 13 females, with an average age of 43.31±15.64 years. The clinical data of the two groups were compared. Results    The baseline characteristics of the patients in the two groups were well balanced (P>0.05). No massive bleeding, conversion to thoracotomy, postoperative myasthenia or death occurred in those patients. No patient with laryngeal mask anesthesia had a conversion to tracheal intubation anesthesia during the operation. There was no significant difference in the operation time, intraoperative bleeding, intraoperative maximum partial pressure of CO2, lowest partial pressure of oxygen and anesthesia effect score between the two groups (P>0.05). There was also no statistical difference in postoperative aspiration, gastrointestinal discomfort, length of hospital stay, pain score and patient satisfaction degree between the two groups (P>0.05). However, the anesthesia time before operation and the time of awake after anesthesia in the laryngeal mask anesthesia group were significantly shorter than those in the tracheal intubation general anesthesia group (P<0.05), and the incidence of transient arrhythmia, laryngeal discomfort and hoarseness in the laryngeal mask general anesthesia group was significantly lower than that in the tracheal intubation general anesthesia group (P<0.05). Conclusion    The "three-port" thoracoscopic thymectomy via subxiphoid and subcostal arch under laryngeal mask general anesthesia is safe and feasible in the treatment of thymoma without myasthenia, and can be recommended routinely.