Objective To summarize the effect of the splenectomy in patients with portal hypertension on the occurrence and recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma. Methods The related literatures about the splenectomy in patients with hepatocirrhosis combined with portal hypertension or patients with hepatocellular carcinoma combined with portal hypertension in recent years were reviewed. Results At present, most academics considered that, for patients with hepatocirrhosis combined with portal hypertension, splenectomy could reduce the occurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma. For patients with hepatocellular carcinoma combined with portal hypertension, splenectomy+hepatectomy didn’t increase the perioperative mortality, and it could reduce the recurrence rate of hepatocellular carcinoma. Conclusion Splenectomy for patients with portal hypertension is safe, and it can inhibit the occurrence and progress of hepatocellular carcinoma, however, the specific mechanism remain needs further study.
ObjectiveTo explore the effects of hypoxia inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1α) on the reverse differentiation of hepatocellular carcinoma cells into liver cancer stem cells, and the maintenance of malignant biological behavior in hypoxic environment.MethodsCD133-negative cells in HepG2 cells were separated by immunomagnetic beads and divided into two groups. The cells of siRNA group were transfected with siRNA-HIF-1α to silence the expression of HIF-1α gene, while cells of the blank control group did not transfect any siRNA fragments. The two groups of cells were cultured under normal and hypoxic conditions respectively. MTT, cloning and Transwell chamber experiments were used to detect the proliferation and invasion ability of cells. Western blot and real-time PCR (RT-PCR) were used to detect the expressions of HIF-1α, CD133, CD90, and CD44 protein and mRNA in cells.ResultsMTT results showed that the cell proliferation rate increased with the prolongation of hypoxia in four groups. Compared with the blank control group at 24, 32, 40, and 48 hours, the cell proliferation rate decreased significantly after siRNA-HIF-1a transfection, on both two kinds of cultured conditions (P<0.05). The results of plate cloning experiment showed that the number of cell-forming clones increased significantly after hypoxic culture (there were significant differences between the transfected normoxic group and transfected hypoxic group, blank control normoxic group and blank control hypoxic group, P<0.05); and the formation of transfected hypoxic condition group at the same time of hypoxia was also significant (P<0.05). The number of clones were significantly less than that of the blank control group at the hypoxic condition (P<0.05). Transwell lab experiment showed that after hypoxic culture, the number of cells migrated to the inferior chamber in the transfection group was significantly reduced compared with that of the blank control group (P<0.05). Western blot and RT-PCR results showed that the expression levels of HIF-1α protein and tumor stem cell markers (CD133, CD90, and CD44 protein) in the blank control hypoxic condition group were significantly higher than those in the other three groups (P<0.05); after siRNA-HIF-1a transfection, HIF-1α mRNA and tumor stem cell markers mRNA (CD133, CD90, and CD44 mRNA) in the transfected hypoxic condition group were significantly lower than those in the transfected normal condition group and the blank control normal condition group (P<0.05).ConclusionsIn hypoxia environment, HIF-1α can promote hepatocellular carcinoma cells to differentiate into liver cancer stem cells and enhance their malignant biological behavior.
Objective Establishing Nomogram to predict the overall survival (OS) rate of patients with gastric adenocarcinoma by utilizing the database of the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program. Methods Obtained the data of 3 272 gastric adenocarcinoma patients who were diagnosed between 2004 and 2014 from the SEER database. These patients were randomly divided into training (n=2 182) and validation (n=1 090) cohorts. The Cox proportional hazards regression model was performed to evaluate the prognostic effects of multiple clinicopathologic factors on OS. Significant prognostic factors were combined to build Nomogram. The predictive performance of Nomogram was evaluated via internal (training cohort data) and external validation (validation cohort data) by calculating index of concordance (C-index) and plotting calibration curves. Results In the training cohort, the results of Cox proportional hazards regression model showed that, age at diagnosis, race, grade, 6th American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage, histologic type, and surgery were significantly associated with the survival prognosis (P<0.05). These factors were used to establish Nomogram. The Nomograms showed good accuracy in predicting OS rate, with C-index of 0.751 ［95%CI was (0.738, 0.764)］ in internal validation and C-index of 0.753 ［95% CI was (0.734, 0.772)］ in external validation. All calibration curves showed excellent consistency between prediction by Nomogram and actual observation. Conclusion Novel Nomogram for patients with gastric adenocarcinoma was established to predict OS in our study has good prognostic significance, it can provide clinicians with more accurate and practical predictive tools which can quickly and accurately assess the patients’ survival prognosis individually, and can better guiding clinicians in the follow-up treatment of patients.