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Recent phase 1-2 trials reported manageable safety profiles and promising antitumor activities of anti-PD-1 drugs (pembrolizumab, nivolumab, camrelizumab and JS001) with/without chemotherapy in recurrent/metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma (RM-NPC), however head-to-head comparison among these regimens is lacking. We aimed to comprehensively compare the efficacy and safety of different anti-PD-1 drugs, standard chemotherapy, and their combination therapy in RM-NPC. Adverse event (AE) and objective response rate (ORR) were assessed. The pooled incidence rates of grade 1-5/3-5 AEs were 74.1%/29.6, 54.2%/17.4, 92.3%/24.5, 96.8%/16.1, 91.2%/42.8, and 100%/87.9% for pembrolizumab, nivolumab, JS001, camrelizumab, chemotherapy and camrelizumab+chemotherapy, respectively, which suggested that nivolumab and pembrolizumab exhibited the optimal safety regarding grade 1-5 AEs whereas camrelizumab and nivolumab regarding grade 3-5 AEs. As second- or later-line therapy, ORR was higher with camrelizumab (34.1%), followed by pembrolizumab (26.3%), JS001 (23.3%), and nivolumab (19.0%); whereas ORR with first-line nivolumab reached 40%. Additionally, first-line camrelizumab+chemotherapy achieved a dramatically higher ORR than that with chemotherapy alone (90.9% vs. 64.1%). Pooled ORR was 28.4 and 17.4% for PD-L1--positive and PD-L1--negative patients, respectively (P = 0.11). Here, we represent preliminary evidence for the comparative safety and efficacy of existing anti-PD-1 agents with/ without chemotherapy in RM-NPC, which indicated that camrelizumab has the least toxicity profile and merits future investigation. Our findings might provide insights into the future design of immunotherapy trials in RM-NPC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we grafted thermoresponsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm) onto a Si substrate as the medium in a microfluidic device to detect specific DNA molecules [human genomic DNA (hgDNA528), 528 bp] at extremely low concentrations (down to 2 ng/μl). After using the polymerase chain reaction to amplify the released human gDNA signal from the tethered PNIPAAm on the substrate, the amplified human gDNA molecules were characterized through agarose gel electrophoresis. The tethered PNIPAAm in the fluid device allowed the precise detection of the human gDNA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electromagnetically induced grating effect in thermal and cold atoms has been studied theoretically. Studies have shown that, by adjusting the parameters, the first-order diffraction efficiency of the probe beam in the cold atomic system and the thermal atomic system is 34% and 31%, respectively, which is very close to the ideal diffraction efficiency of the sinusoidal grating. However, it is more difficult to prepare the cold atomic system than to prepare the thermal atomic system in the practical application, so the study of the electromagnetically induced grating effect in the thermal atomic system may be helpful for practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial information on the tumor immune microenvironment is of clinical relevance. Here, we aimed to quantify the spatial heterogeneity of lymphocytes and cancer cells and evaluated its prognostic value in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). The scanned immunohistochemistry images of 336 NPC patients from two different hospitals were used to generate cell density maps for tumor and immune cells. Then, Getis-Ord hotspot analysis, a spatial statistic method used to describe species biodiversity in ecological habitats, was applied to identify cancer, immune, and immune-cancer hotspots. The results showed that cancer hotspots were not associated with any of the studied clinical outcomes, while immune-cancer hotspots predicted worse overall survival (OS) in the training cohort. In contrast, a high immune hotspot score was significantly associated with better OS (HR 0.41, 95% CI 0.22-0.77, P = .006), disease-free survival (DFS) (HR 0.43, 95% CI 0.24-0.75, P = .003) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) (HR 0.40, 95% CI 0.20-0.81, P = .011) in NPC patients in the training cohort, and similar associations were also evident in the validation cohort. Importantly, multivariate analysis revealed that the immune hotspot score remained an independent prognostic indicator for OS, DFS, and DMFS in both cohorts. We explored the spatial heterogeneity of cancer cells and lymphocytes in the tumor microenvironment of NPC patients using digital pathology and ecological analysis methods and further constructed three spatial scores. Our study demonstrates that spatial variation may aid in the identification of the clinical prognosis of NPC patients, but further investigation is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]