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Food flavor is an important attribute of high-quality foods. The consumers’ preference for foods is largely determined by taste and smell perception. The traditional food flavor evaluation methods include sensory evaluation, smart devices and instrumental analysis methods. Sensory evaluation is reliable but prone to taste fatigue and individual subjectivity. The structure of smart devices is complex, and there are some differences between the working principle and the actual taste transmission, resulting in limited applications. The cell-based biosensor is a new method to detect and evaluate food flavor that integrates living cells as sensitive elements, transducers and signal processing devices. They show the advantages of high sensitivity, good selectivity and fast response and have become a hotspot in the field of biosensors. Based on a review of recent research achievements, this paper briefly introduces the concept and basic structure of cell-based biosensors, and focuses on the results of research in the field of taste and smell evaluation and their application. The perception and transmission mechanisms in practical application are elucidated, and the flavor perception information for foods that has been obtained by researchers is summarized. Finally, the problems existing in the development of cell-based biosensors are discussed, and possible future trends are projected in food flavor evaluation.

Background: Though the concept of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) has been progressively known by the surgeons and applied clinically, the current status of its cognition among thoracic surgeons and application in thoracic surgery is still unknown. Based on the analysis of a survey of thoracic surgeons and nurses on chest ERAS during a national conference, we aimed to analyze the status and difficulties of the application of ERAS in thoracic surgery., Methods: A total of 773 questionnaires were collected during the first West China chest ERAS Forum and analyzed. The content of the questionnaire can be divided into two parts, including the respondents' institute and personal information, 10 questions on ERAS., Results: (1) Current status of clinical application of ERAS is the concept rather than the practice: 69.6% of the surgeons and 58.7% of the nurses agreed with this view; in addition, 88.5% of the doctors and 85.7% of the nurses believed that the concept of ERAS may be applicable to every branches of surgery; (2) 55.6% of the doctors and 69.1% of the nurses believed that the reason of poor clinical application of ERAS included no mature procedure, lack of consensus and specifications; (3) The best team for the clinical practice of ERAS should be based on surgeon-centered multidisciplinary cooperation and integration of medical care: 62.1% of the surgeons and 70.7% of nurses agreed with this view; (4) 73.7% of the surgeons and 81.9% of the nurses agreed that mean hospital stay, patients' experience in hospital and social satisfaction should be the evaluation standard of ERAS practice., Conclusions: The application of ERAS in thoracic surgery is still the concept rather than the practice. The reason included the lack of clinical applicable specifications and scheme.

Objective: To observe the outcome of stage I lung cancer treated by single-direction video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (SD-VATS) major lung resection., Methods: Between May 2006 and December 2013, a total of 3 743 patients with lung cancer underwent surgical treatment in Department of Thoracic Surgery, West China Hospital. The clinical date of 783 patients with stage I lung cancer treated by SD-VATS lobectomy/segmentectomy was analyzed retrospectively. There were 388 males and 395 females with a mean age of (59 ± 10) years (range 25 to 86 years). There were 740 cases of lobectomy and 43 cases of segmentectomy. Twenty patients underwent conversion to open thoracotomy. The methods of Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox proportional hazard regression model were used to investigate the long term outcome and prognostic factors., Results: The mean operating time was (145 ± 54) minutes (range 70 to 460 minutes). The median intraoperative blood loss was 50 (70) ml (range 5 to 1 200 ml). The postoperative morbidity and 90-day mortality were 13.3% and 1.0%, respectively. 5.9% patients were lost to follow-up. Finally 730 patients were enrolled into prognostic analysis with a mean follow-up time of (37 ± 18) months (range 5 to 92 months). The 5-year overall survival (OS), disease free survival (DFS), and cancer specific survival (CSS) were 83.8%, 74.4%, and 86.6%, respectively. The 5-year OS of IA and IB were 90.7% and 79.8% respectively. Univariate and multivariate analysis indicated that age ≥ 60 years (OR = 1.786, 95% CI: 1.081 to 2.948, P = 0.023), non-adenocarcinoma (OR = 1.647, 95% CI: 1.204 to 2.253, P = 0.002), and higher T status (OR = 2.709, 95% CI: 1.031 to 7.121, P = 0.043) were independently associated with poor OS; higher T status (OR = 5.118, 95% CI: 2.330 to 11.240, P = 0.000) and higher pathological stage status (OR = 0.369, 95% CI: 0.137 to 0.991, P = 0.048) were independently associated with poor DFS; non-adenocarcinoma (OR = 1.717, 95% CI: 1.224 to 2.409, P = 0.002) and higher T status (OR = 5.029, 95% CI: 1.432 to 17.659, P = 0.012) were independently associated with poor CSS., Conclusion: SD-VATS lung cancer resection is a safe and feasible method for the treatment of stage I lung cancer resulting good outcomes.