It was a short time from the initial investigation of tumor islands to the concept of tumor spread through air spaces (STAS) being adopted as a pattern of invasion in lung adenocarcinoma. Generally, STAS was defined as "spread of lung cancer cells into air spaces in the lung parenchyma beyond the edge of the main tumor". More and more studies had demonstrated that STAS could increase recurrence rate and cause worse prognosis in lung adenocarcinoma. However, criteria of this definition were various in previous studies, and there is no unified criterion of STAS up to now. In addition, perioperative manipulations including specimen processing and surgery procedure could squeeze tumor cells into alveolar spaces which could affect the assessment of STAS. Obviously, we need a precise definition to reduce and quantify the impacts of confounding factors. We summarize recent developments and put forward some advice for further studies in this article.
Objective To summarize the effectiveness of Nuss procedure by thoracoscopy for correction of pectus excavatum. Methods Between September 2009 and January 2012, 33 patients suffering from pectus excavatum underwent Nuss procedure by thoracoscopy. There were 26 males and 7 females, aged from 3 to 22 years (median, 9 years). There was primary operation in 32 cases and reoperation in 1 case after Ravitch procedure. Twenty-four patients had obvious clinical symptoms. The Haller index ranged from 3.3 to 50.1 (mean, 5.6). According to simplified Park classification, 25 cases were classified as symmetric type, 5 as eccentric type, and 3 as unbalanced type. Results Intercostal muscle tear occurred in 1 case during operation; pleural effusion, pulmonary infection, and thoracic vertebral pain occurred in 1 case, respectively after operation. The operation time ranged from 38 to 89 minutes (mean, 60.9 minutes). The intraoperative blood loss was 8-90 mL (mean, 26.2 mL). The postoperative hospitalization days were 6-12 days (mean, 7.6 days). All patients were followed up 12-39 months (mean, 25.6 months). Electrocardiogram and chest X-ray film showed that cardiac compression was improved, and symptoms alleviated. At the last follow-up, according to the Nuss standard, the results were excellent in 27 cases, good in 3 cases, and fair in 3 cases, with an excellent and good rate of 90.9%. There was no significant difference in results of effectiveness evaluation among less than 6 years, 6-12 years, and more than 12 years groups (Z= — 1.751, P=0.109). Conclusion Nuss procedure by thoracoscopy has the advantages of little trauma, simple operation, and fast recovery, so it can obtain satisfactory correction of pectus excavatum.
Objective To investigate the expression and clinical significance of CXCR4 in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). Methods Databases including PubMed, EMbase, Web of Science, CBM, VIP, CNKI and WanFang Data were searched from inception to April 2012, and the relevant references were also retrieved to collect relevant case-control studies. Two reviewers independently screened literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and evaluated the quality of the included studies. Then the meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.1 software. Results A total of 5 case-control studies involving 493 ESCC tissues and 136 normal esophageal tissues were included. The results of the meta-analyses showed that, as for the positive rate of CXCR4 expression, it was higher in ESCC tissues rather than normal esophageal tissues (OR=12.03, 95%CI 6.76 to 21.44, Plt;0.000 01), in ESCC tissues with lymph node metastasis rather than those without lymph node metastasis (OR=4.35, 95%CI 2.48 to 7.62, Plt;0.000 01), as well as in moderate and low differentiated ESCC tissues rather than high differentiated ESCC tissues (OR=0.51, 95%CI 0.32 to 0.81, P=0.004); but no significant difference was found between the clinical stage I-II and clinical stage III-IV ESCC tissues. Conclusion The presently limited evidence shows CXCR4 expression is associated with ESCC, lymph node metastasis and degree of cell differentiation, indicating that CXCR4 may take a role in the whole course of carcinogenesis of ESCC. But the relationship between CXCR4 expression and clinical stage of ESCC is still unclear, which needs to be further proved by more large-scale, well-designed and high quality case-control studies.
Objective To evaluate the clinical efficacy of fistula repair by stapler technique in patients with cervical tracheoesophageal fistula. Methods Retrospective analysis of 8 patients with cervical tracheoesophageal fistula who accepted operative treatment in the Department of Thoracic Surgery, Lanzhou University Second Hospital from October 2014 to October 2016 was conducted. There were 5 males and 3 females at a mean age of 46.4±13.9 years ranging from 23 to 67 years. The fistula was induced by tracheal intubation in 4 patients, by esophageal foreign bodies in 2, by tracheal stent in 1 and by esophageal diverticulum in 1. The fistula was closed by stapler technique. The surgical effects were evaluated through Karnofsky performance score (KPS), image assessment, patient satisfaction score and assessment of improvement in feeding-induced bucking. Results The operations were performed successfully with time of 117.5±6.6 min and intraoperative blood loss of 60.0±7.0 ml. After the operations, the patients did not suffer incision bleeding and infection, hoarseness, dyspnea, drinking-induced bucking, fistula relapse, tracheoesophageal stenosis or any other complications, and no death occurred during the perioperative period. The chest X-ray test was performed 1 week later showed that the pulmonary infection disappeared, and only 1 patient suffered from esophageal stenosis 1 year later. The postoperative KPS score was 90.0±7.0 points, which significantly improved in contrast to preoperation (P<0.01). Postoperative pulmonary infection area reduced significantly (P<0.05), tracheoesophageal fistula disappeared, postoperative patients satisfaction rate was 90%, and assessment of feeding-induced bucking was excellent. Conclusion Using stapler technique to repair cervical tracheoesophageal fistula is safe, easy and useful, with less operation time and postoperative complications.
Objective To explore the research state and topics of lung cancer with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in China using the visualization methods. Methods Literature about lung cancer with COPD was searched through WanFang, CNKI, CBM, PubMed, The Cochrane Library and EMbase databases from inception to March 2018 by computer. We used BICOMS software to analyze the main information and produce co-word matrix, gCLUTO software to cluster, and NetDraw and Cytoscape software to draw the pictures. Results There were 304 studies related to lung cancer with COPD which originated from 173 journals including 23 indexed by Chinese Science Citation Database (CSCD) with 42 articles published, accounting for 13.8% of the total number of studies. There were 37 articles from 24 journals indexed by Science Citation Index (SCI) accounting for 12.2% of the total number of studies. The studies grew rapidly since 2012. The study involved 32 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions, among which Beijing, Sichuan, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Jiangsu provinces and cities were the main research areas. Sixty-nine high-frequency keywords were obtained with frequency 2 as the threshold, which was clustered into 5 categories by dual cluster analysis. Among them, topic 0 showed pathogenesis and radiological diagnosis of lung cancer with COPD, topic 1 was about the clinical characteristics of different pathological types of lung cancer with COPD and Chinese medicine treatment, topic 2 aimed at the impact of risk factors on surgical complications and the relationship between chemotherapy or targeted therapies and patient survival prognosis, topic 3 involved the pigenetic correlation between lung cancer and COPD and topic 4 was about clinical studies of perioperative comprehensive management of lung cancer patients with COPD. Conclusion The bibliometrics results show that there are considerable-amount achievements on lung cancer combined with COPD in China, and the researches have gradually increased since 2012. Horizontal research topics are extensive, and the focus of the study is to explore the perioperative comprehensive management and basic research of lung cancer with COPD, but the longitudinal themes need to be further studied. The results of some studies have not yet reached a consensus. There are few high-quality multi-center studies and a lack of clinical-directed achievement.
Objective To observe the growth of xenografted tumor in nude mice after DDX46 expression decreased, and to further study the role of DDX46 in the development and progression of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. Methods DDX46-shRNA mediated RNAi was applied to silencing DDX46 in Eca-109 cells. Twenty-five female BALB/c nude mice were divided into 3 groups: an experiment group (DDX46-shRNA-LV, n=10), a control group (Control-LV, n=10) and a blank control group (Het-1A, n=5). The prepared Eca-109 cells of DDX46-shRNA-LV and Control-LV were subcutaneously injected into the right armpit of mice (4×106 cells per mouse), while Het-1A cells were subcutaneously injected into the bilateral armpits of mice (4×106 cells per side). Tumor growth was monitored twice a week on the 14th day after injection. Tumor volume was measured with calipers, in vivo imager to observe the fluorescence of each group. Further, western blotting analysis was used to detect the changes of apoptosis signaling molecules in xenografted tumor after DDX46 silence. Results The growth of xenografted tumor in nude mice was significantly slower in the DDX46-shRNA-LV group than that in the Control-LV group throughout the study period (P<0.001). Western blotting analysis showed that silencing DDX46 effectively suppressed the expression of DDX46, and upregulated the expression of cleaved Caspase-3 and cleaved PARP-1 in xenografted tumor (P<0.01). Conclusion DDX46 is involved in the development and progression of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, and the silence of DDX46 expression can inhibit the growth of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, which probably by positive regulation of apoptosis signaling pathway.
ObjectiveTo compare the surgical efficacy of Da Vinci robot-assisted minimally invasive esophagectomy (RAMIE) and video-assisted minimally invasive esophagectomy (VAMIE) on esophageal cancer.MethodsOnline databases including PubMed, the Cochrane Library, Medline, EMbase and CNKI from inception to 31, December 2019 were searched by two researchers independently to collect the literature comparing the clinical efficacy of RAMIE and VAMIE on esophageal cancer. Newcastle-Ottawa Scale was used to assess quality of the literature. The meta-analysis was performed by RevMan 5.3.ResultsA total of 14 studies with 1 160 patients were enrolled in the final study, and 12 studies were of high quality. RAMIE did not significantly prolong total operative time (P=0.20). No statistical difference was observed in the thoracic surgical time through the McKeown surgical approach (MD=3.35, 95%CI –3.93 to 10.62, P=0.37) or in surgical blood loss between RAMIE and VAMIE (MD=–9.48, 95%CI –27.91 to 8.95, P=0.31). While the RAMIE could dissect more lymph nodes in total and more lymph nodes along the left recurrent laryngeal recurrent nerve (MD=2.24, 95%CI 1.09 to 3.39, P=0.000 1; MD=0.89, 95%CI 0.13 to 1.65, P=0.02) and had a lower incidence of vocal cord paralysis (RR=0.70, 95%CI 0.53 to 0.92, P=0.009).ConclusionThere is no statistical difference observed between RAMIE and VAMIE in surgical time and blood loss. RAMIE can harvest more lymph nodes than VAMIE, especially left laryngeal nerve lymph nodes. RAMIE shows a better performance in reducing the left laryngeal nerve injury and a lower rate of vocal cord paralysis compared with VAMIE.
We reported a 32 years female patient in whom lung metastasis from breast cancer was presented as solitary pulmonary pure ground-glass opacity (GGO) lesion. The patient received rational preoperative examinations and surgery though the preoperative diagnosis was not accurate. Because of different therapy strategies and purposes, it is crucial to make distinction of atypical metastases from primary cancers. Thus, for patients with a history of malignancy, possible metastasis should be taken into consideration if new GGO was found on the CT. Besides this, the follow-up interval of CT should be shortened appropriately, preoperative examinations and surgical procedures should be made according to the suggestions of multidisciplinary team.
ObjectiveTo explore the effect of DDX46 silencing on growth and apoptosis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma cell TE-1 by the shRNA. MethodsThe relative expression of DDX46 mRNA in TE-1 cells was detected by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and compared with immortalized human esophageal squamous cell Het-1A. DDX46 shRNA-expressing lentivirus was applied to silence DDX46 (experimental group), and non-silencing control lentivirus was added (control group) with a multiplicity of infection of 5 in TE-1 cells. In both groups, cell growth was monitored using high content screening, cell colony-forming capacity was measured by colony formation assay, cell apoptosis were determined by flow cytometry. Further, the Stress and Apoptosis Signaling Antibody Array Kit was used to detect the changes of signaling molecules in TE-1 cells after DDX46 knockdown. ResultsCompared with the control group, cell counting after DDX46 silencing showed that TE-1 cell growth was significantly inhibited (P<0.001). Colony formation assay showed that cell colony-forming capacity was significantly inhibited (P<0.01). Annexin V-APC flow cytometry showed a significant increase in apoptosis (P<0.001). In PathScan® Antibody Array, the expression levels of Akt (Ser473, phosphorylation) and IκBα (Total, N/A) significantly decreased (P<0.01), and the expression of Caspase-3 (Asp175, cleaved) increased (P<0.05). ConclusionDDX46 is overexpressed in TE-1 cells. Targeted gene silencing of DDX46 inhibits cell growth, and induces cell apoptosis. DDX46 silencing probably by negative regulation of Akt/NF-κB signaling pathway, to play a role in inhibiting TE-1 cells growth and inducing apoptosis.
The incidence of rib fracture in patients with chest trauma is about 70%. Simple rib fractures do not need special treatment. Multiple rib fractures and flail chest are critical cases of blunt trauma, which often cause serious clinical consequences and need to be treated cautiously. Nowadays, there is a controversy about the diagnosis and treatment of multiple rib fractures and flail chest. In the past, most of the patients were treated by non-operative treatment, and only less than 1% of the patients with flail chest underwent surgery. In recent years, studies have confirmed that surgical reduction and internal fixation can shorten the hospital stay, and reduce pain and cost for patients with flail chest, but there is still a lack of relevant clinical consensus and guidelines for diagnosis and treatment, which leads to great differences in clinical diagnosis and treatment plans. This article reviewed the treatment, surgical indications and surgical timing of multiple rib fractures and flail chest.