Thoracic duct is the largest lymphatic vessel in the body. It originates from the chyle pool in the abdominal cavity, upward across aortic hiatus of the diaphragm into the right thoracic cavity, and finally importing into the left jugular vein angle. Thoracic duct plays a very important role in the transporting process of the body's lymph and chylous fluid. More than 70% of the lymph and chylous fluid transport through it into the blood. If the thoracic duct was damaged, it would lead to fluid and electrolyte imbalance, immune dysfunction, malnutrition and the patient's life would be endangered when it was serious. Therefore, the clinical significance of the thoracic duct is always a hot research issue. Through unremitting exploration in recent years, we have a further understanding about structure and function of the thoracic duct. And we used this to remould and ligate it to cure some intractable disease. Now we summarize the research progress as follows.
Esophageal carcinoma is a kind of common malignant tumor in the digestive tract. Although a lot of basic researches and clinical trials have been carried out all over the world, neither the diagnostic level nor the therapeutic effects have been obviously improved. The 5-year survival rate of esophageal cancer patient is still lower than that of other malignant tumors. Up to now, some frontier researches consider that the reason of the esophageal carcinoma being difficult to cure is related to the stem cells in it. Elimination or suppression of these stem cells may bring new hope for the treatment of esophageal cancer. This article generally introduces the specific markers, separation and indentification methods about the esophageal cancer stem cell. The targeted therapy is also mentioned.
Objectives To evaluate the effect of preoperative body mass index (BMI) on the perioperative and long-term results in esophageal squamous cell cancer patients. Method We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 503 patients with esophageal cancer between January 2001 and December 2009. There were 268 males and 235 females with the median age of 57 years ranging from 32-88 years. The associations between preoperative BMI and clinic patholo-gical characteristics were assessed by using the χ2 or Fisher's exact test. Survival analysis was performed by Kaplan-Meier curves with log-rank tests. ResultsThe 1-year, 3-year, 5-year, and 10-year overall survival rate for the entire cohort of patients was 64.0%, 49.0%, 43.0%, and 41.0% respectively. The occurance rates of weight loss, lymph node metastases, and poorly differentiated tumorigenesis represented statistically higher in patients with BMI≤18.5 kg/m2 than those in the patients with BMI>18.5 kg/m2 (P=0.026, P=0.006, P=0.048). For the cohort, the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed a significant trend toward a decreased survival in esophageal cancer patients with underweight (P=0.001). No statistical difference in overall complication, anastomotic leakage, and pulmonary complication rate was detected among the different BMI classes(P=0.162, P=0.590, P=0.376). Univariate and multivariate analysis showed that the drinking status, pathological stage, and underweight were the independent prognostic factors. ConclusionsAfter esophagectomy, BMI is not associated with the incidence of postoperative complications in patients. Patients with underweight are usually diagnosed with advanced stage, therefore tend to have poorer survivals than those with normal or over-weight.
Objective We modeled superior vena cava (SVC) occlusion in rabbits to observe the effect of different blocking time on brains. Method Forty rabbits were randomly divided into four groups. Group Ⅰ was set as a control group (n=10). Group Ⅱ was set as a 30 minutes SVC blocking time group (n=10). Group Ⅲ was set as a 60 minutes SVC blocking time group (n=10). And group Ⅳ was set as a 90 minutes SVC blocking time group (n=10). We detected the patho- logical and physiological changes in the course of the experiment. After the intervention, malondialdehyde (MDA) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) of brain tissue homogenate in each group were detected. Brain sections were stained with hematoxylin-eosin (HE). And we observed the edema and damage of brain tissue under the microscope. Results There was no obvious change on the content of MDA and SOD within 30 minutes interruption (P>0.05). When the blocking time was longer than 60 minutes, the content of MDA increased significantly (P<0.05) and the SOD decreased significantly (P<0.05). Compared to the group Ⅰ and the group Ⅱ, the brain water content in the group Ⅲ and the group Ⅳ with a interruption time above 60 minutes increased significantly. And under the microscope, the cell edema and damage induced by ischemia and hypoxia increased significantly. Conclusion The blocking time of SVC within 30 minutes is relatively safe. But there would be significant brain edema and neurocyte degeneration when the blocking time is more than 60 minutes.