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Purpose: Due to the poor and unpredictable prognosis of breast cancer (BC) patients with bone metastasis, it is necessary to find convenient and available prognostic predictors. This study aimed to recognize the clinical and prognostic factors related to clinical laboratory examination and to construct a prognostic nomogram for BC bone metastasis., Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 32 candidate indicators from clinical features and laboratory examination data of 276 BC patients with bone metastasis. Univariate and multivariate regression analyses were performed to identify significant prognostic factors related to BC with bone metastasis. Nomogram was constructed and estimated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves, calibration curves, and decision curve analysis., Results: Patients were randomly grouped into training ( n  = 197) and validation cohorts ( n  = 79). In training cohort, the multivariate regression analysis revealed that age, other organ metastasis sites, serum level of lactate dehydrogenase, globulin, white blood cell count, mean corpuscular volume, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, and monocyte ratio were independent prognostic factors for BC with bone metastasis. The prognostic nomogram in training cohort exhibited areas under the ROC curve (AUCs) of 0.797, 0.782, and 0.794, respectively, for predicting 1-, 3-, and 5-year overall survival. In validation cohort, the nomogram still showed acceptable discrimination ability (AUCs: 0.723, 0.742, and 0.704) and calibration., Conclusion: This study constructed a novel prognostic nomogram for BC patients with bone metastasis. It could serve as a potential tool of survival assessment to help individual treatment decision-making for clinicians.

Background: Insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3 (IGFBP3) has been reported to be related to the risk of some cancers. Here we focussed on serum IGFBP3 as a possible biomarker of diagnosis and prognosis for oesophageal squamous carcinoma (ESCC)., Methods: Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to measure the serum IGFBP3 level in the training cohort including 136 ESCC patients and 119 normal controls and the validation cohort with 55 ESCC patients and 42 normal controls. The receiver operating characteristics curve (ROC) was used to assess the diagnosis value. Cox proportional hazards model was applied to select factors for survival nomogram construction., Results: Serum IGFBP3 levels were significantly lower in early-stage ESCC or ESCC patients than those in normal controls ( p  < .05). The specificity and sensitivity of serum IGFBP3 for the diagnosis of ESCC were 95.80% and 50.00%, respectively, with the area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.788 in the training cohort. Similar results were observed in the validation cohort (88.10%, 38.18%, and 0.710). Importantly, serum IGFBP3 could also differentiate early-stage ESCC from controls (95.80%, 52.54%, 0.777 and 88.10%, 36.36%, 0.695 in training and validation cohorts, respectively). Furthermore, Cox multivariate analysis revealed that serum IGFBP3 was an independent prognostic risk factor (HR = 2.599, p  = .002). Lower serum IGFBP3 level was correlated with reduced overall survival ( p  < .05). Nomogram based on serum IGFBP3, TNM stage, and tumour size improved the prognostic prediction of ESCC with a concordance index of 0.715., Conclusion: We demonstrated that serum IGFBP3 was a potential biomarker of diagnosis and prognosis for ESCC. Meanwhile, the nomogram might help predict the prognosis of ESCC. Key MessageSerum IGFBP3 showed early diagnostic value in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma with independent cohort validation. Moreover, serum IGFBP3 was identified as an independent prognostic risk factor, which was used to construct a nomogram with improved prognosis ability in oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

Background: Adenosine 2A receptor (A 2A R) is involved in many physiological and pathological functions and serves as an important drug target. Inhibition of A 2A R may alleviate symptoms associated with a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the currently used A 2A R antagonists have specificity limitations., Research Design and Methods: A Fab fragment (Fab2838) of an A 2A R mouse monoclonal antibody can specifically bind to A 2A R to form a complex and inhibit the activity of its receptor. We constructed the vector AntiA 2A R, a small-molecule peptide that binds to and inhibits A 2A R based on Fab2838., Results: Experiments in HEK293T cells showed that peptide AntiA 2A R of 29 peptides was the most effective among the synthesized peptides in inhibiting the A 2A R downstream signal cAMP/PKA/CREB. In neurons, the AntiA 2A R reversed the calcium flow change induced by the A 2A R agonist CGS21680 (1 μM). Furthermore, AntiA 2A R expression in the mice striatum weakened the p-PKA/p-CREB signal, enhanced locomotor abilities and increased time spent in the center area in the home-cage observation experiment and increased anxiolytic behavior in the elevated-plus maze test., Conclusions: Antagonistic peptide AntiA 2A R can effectively block the A 2A R signaling pathway. This provides a new strategy for the specific inhibition of A 2A R and provides information needed for drug development.

This retrospective study evaluated the embryo pooling strategy for managing insufficient number of embryos in preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) through serial vitrification of cleavage-stage embryos from consecutive cycles, and simultaneous blastocysts biopsy in combination with blastocysts obtained in ultimate fresh cycle. A retrospective analysis of the cumulative pregnancy rate of 68 patients underwent cleavage-stage embryos accumulation (Embryo Pooling Group) and 94 patients underwent one stimulation cycle (Control Group) over a 2-year period were conducted. The blastocyst formation rate was comparable between the consecutive cycles and the ultimate cycle in embryo pooling group (56.0 versus 62.0%, p = .078). No significant difference existed between twice-vitrified and once-vitrified warmed blastocysts with respect to implantation rate (50.8 versus 46.3%, p = .658). The implantation rate and cumulative pregnancy rate of embryo pooling group were 49.0 and 67.6%, respectively, which were statistically comparable to the corresponding values of 48.9 and 73.4% obtained in control group. Our study suggests that in patients undergoing ICSI-PGD who do not reach enough embryos in a single stimulation cycle, pooling embryos from consecutive ovarian stimulation cycles is a promising strategy, which can render a cumulative pregnancy rate comparable to those patients who only require one stimulation cycle.

To investigate the impact of anti-nuclear antibodies (ANAs) on the outcome of in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer (IVF-ET), 66 (96 cycles) infertile women positive for anti-nuclear antibodies (ANA+ group), and 233(285 cycles) infertile women negative for ANAs (ANA- group) were enrolled. The clinical characteristics and IVF outcome were compared between the two groups. In the ANA+ group, the proportion of MII oocytes and two-pronuclear zygotes (2PN), cleavage rate, number of available embryos and proportion of available embryos, number of high-quality embryos and proportion of high-quality embryos were significantly lower than those in the ANA- group. In addition, the pregnancy rate and implantation rate in patients positive for ANA was markedly lower than the ANA- patients (28.1% vs 46.4%, 15% vs 25.7%, respectively). Thus, our findings suggest that the presence of ANAs significantly interfere with the oocyte and embryo development, as well as reduce implantation and pregnancy rate in patients undergoing IVF treatment.

Background: To investigate clinical characteristics and risk factors of Chinese patients with post-operative acute kidney injury (PO-AKI)., Methods: Patients with PO-AKI in Ruijin Hospital from December 1997 to December 2005 were retrospectively studied., Results: Patients' mean age was 62.2 ± 18.1 years. There were 111 males and 57 females. The mean serum creatinine at diagnosis was 370.41 ± 320.92 μmol/L and the mean estimated glomerular filtration rate was 33.56 ± 24.24 mL/min. For the outcome of the patients, 38 died and the mortality rate was 22.6%. There were 17 patients (10.1%) with Acute Dialysis Quality Initiative-RIFLE (risk-injury-failure-loss-end classification) phase R, 21 (12.5%) with phase I, and 130 (77.4%) with phase F. There was no significant difference in mortality regarding patients who underwent different types of surgeries. For the risk factors related to PO-AKI, acute tubular necrosis (ATN) increased relative risk of mortality PO-AKI (odds ratio = 7.089, 95% confidence interval = 2.069-24.288, p < 0.001). Multivariate regression models showed that ATN had a positive correlation with mortality of PO-AKI., Conclusions: PO-AKI is one of the most common causes of AKI in patients who underwent operations. Special attention should be paid to risk factors related to PO-AKI in order to improve prognosis.

Two new prenylated coumarins, sinensins A and B, have been isolated from the roots of Spiranthes sinensis (Pers.) Ames. Their structures were elucidated as 5-gamma, gamma-dimethylallyl-8-[2-(2,6-dihydroxyphenyl)-3-dimethyl-but-2-enyol]-umbelliferon (1) and 4,6-di(gamma, gamma-dimethylallyl)-8-lavandulyl-umbelliferon (2) on the basis of spectroscopic analysis.

Two new prenylated dihydroflavanoids have been isolated from the medicinal plant of Dolichos tenuicaulis (Baker) Craib. Their structures were elucidated as (2S)-5,2',6'-trihydroxy-8-prenyl-6,7-(3-prenyl-2,2-dimethylpyrano)-3',4'-(2,2-dimethyl-1-keone-cyclohexadiene)-flavanone (1) and (2S)-5,2',6'-trihydroxy-8-prenyl-6,7-(3-prenyl-2,2-dimethyl-1-keone-cyclohexadiene)-flavanone (2) on the basis of spectroscopic analysis.