Search

BACKGROUND: The gut microbiome is associated with the response to immunotherapy in a variety of advanced cancers. However, the influence of the gut microbiome on locally advanced esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) during programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) antibody immunotherapy plus chemotherapy is not clearly demonstrated. To explore the crosstalk between the gut microbiome and clinical response in locally advanced thoracic ESCC during neoadjuvant camrelizumab and chemotherapy METHODS: Patients who were diagnosed with locally advanced thoracic ESCC and had not received treatment were enrolled. The treatment regimen was two cycles of camrelizumab combined with carboplatin and albumin paclitaxel before surgery. The research endpoints were pathological complete response (pCR) and major pathological response (MPR). Fecal samples were collected at three time points: before neoadjuvant therapy, after two cycles of neoadjuvant therapy, and after surgery. We performed 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) V3–V4 sequencing of the gene amplicons of fecal samples, as well as bacterial diversity and differential abundance analyses. RESULTS: A total of 46 patients were recruited, and 44, 42, and 35 fecal samples were collected at the three time points, respectively. Statistically significant differences were observed in the amplicon sequence variant (ASV)-level alpha diversity indices, including Chao1, Shannon, and Good’s coverage, between the three time points. The non-pCR-enriched gut microbiota included Proteobacteria, Dialister, Aeromonadales, Pseudomonadales, Thermi, Deinococci, Moraxellaceae, Rhodocyclales, Rhodocyclaceae, and Acinetobacter. The non-MPR-enriched gut microbiota included Pseudomonadales and the mitochondria family. The MPR-enriched gut microbiota included the Barnesiellaceae, Pyramidobacter, Dethiosulfovibrionaceae, Odoribacteraceae, Butyricimonas, Prevotella, Barnesiella, and Odoribacter. Patients with ≥3 grade adverse events (AEs) exhibited enrichment in the Succiniclasticum, Nakamurella, Rhizobium, Granulicella, Phyllobacteriaceae, Pelagibacteraceae, Actinosynnemataceae, Aquirestis, Flavisolibacter, Chelativorans, Coxiellaceae Acidicapsa, Acidobacteriaceae, Lentzea, Staphylococcus, Plesiomonas, Dysgonomonas, Pseudonocardia, and Ellin6075. CONCLUSIONS: We found that the diversity of the gut microbiome declined after neoadjuvant PD-1 antibody immunotherapy plus chemotherapy and surgery. Patients with pCR had different types and proportions of gut microbiota before treatment compared to those without pCR. We also observed the difference between patients with or without ≥ grade 3 AEs. The taxonomic features of the gut microbiome are potential biomarkers that could predict the pathological response and AEs.

278 Background: To explore the efficacy and safety of neoadjuvant camrelizumab and chemotherapy for locally advanced thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) by an open label, single-arm, phase 2 clinical trial (ClinicalTrials.gov, Identifier number: NCT04506138). Methods: The eligible patients were arranged to receive 2 cycles of camrelizumab (200mg, day 1) combined with carboplatin (AUC = 5, day 1) and albumin paclitaxel (100 mg/m2, day 1, 8). All treatments were given intravenously in 3-week cycle. Patients underwent surgery within 4-6 weeks after the completion of neoadjuvant treatment. The primary endpoint was pathologic complete response (pCR), and secondary endpoints were major pathological response (MPR), safety and feasibility. The quality of life (QoL) was assessed by the Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Esophageal (FACT-E) scale and EQ-5D-3L scale. Results: A total of 46 patients were recruited, among whom the clinical stage II, III, and IVa at baseline were 11 (23.9%), 33 (71.7%), and 2 (4.3%), respectively. Forty-five patients completed 2 cycles of neoadjuvant treatment. One patient received 1 cycle of neoadjuvant treatment and then lost to be followed up. Eight patients did not receive surgery. Except 1 patient accept exploratory surgery, 37 patients (37/46, 80.4%) achieved R0 resection. Eight patients (8/37, 21.6%) had pCR in both primary tumors and lymph nodes. MPR of primary tumors and lymph nodes was observed in 18 patients (18/37, 48.6%). During neoadjuvant treatment period, all 46 patients presented with treatment-related AEs (TRAEs) of any grade. Seven patients (7/46,15.2%) experienced grade ≥ 3 TRAEs. One patient suffered grade 5 immune-associated pneumonia. The most common TRAEs were anemia (32/46, 70.0%), followed by thrombocytopenia (15, 32.6%), leukopenia (14, 30.4%), neutropenia (13, 28.3%), rash (12, 26.1%), reactive cutaneous capillary endothelial proliferation (RCCEP) (7, 15.2%). The median interval between the first cycle of neoadjuvant treatment and surgery was 64 days (range, 56-77 days). Symptom scores in FACT-E scale were improved by neoadjuvant treatment (t = -2.60, P = 0.01). PD-L1 CPS (< 10 vs ≥ 10), PD-L1 TPS (< 1% vs ≥ 1%) and TMB (split according to top 20% of TMB value) had no effect on the pCR rate and MPR rate. Conclusions: Neoadjuvant camrelizumab combined with chemotherapy achieved a promising pathologic response, which was effective and safe. Meanwhile, neoadjuvant treatment improved QoL of patients. Some larger multi-center trials are undergoing for further confirmation of efficacy and safety. Clinical trial information: NCT04506138.

In this paper, we propose a new method for designing dual polarized beam switching antennas by using reconfigurable radial waveguides excited by central probes and feeding multiple radiating elements. The power distribution of the radiating elements is controlled by cylindrical electromagnetic bandgap structures made of metallic wires loaded with PIN diodes. The proposed technique allows azimuth beam switching and multiple beams, with arbitrary and well controlled polarizations, using low dc voltage. First, a new rectangular periodic structure is used as a model for analyzing the transmission and reflection coefficients for different diode states. Then, numerical and experimental results are presented for a reconfigurable radial waveguide power divider and for the radiating elements. Finally, numerical and experimental results are presented and discussed for a complete dual polarized antenna operating at wireless local area network (WLAN) 5 GHz band (5.18–5.825 GHz).

Background Pulmonary artery sarcoma is too rare for a randomized controlled trial or cohort study. We aimed to perform a retrospective analysis on the therapeutic effect of adjuvant therapy on postoperative survival time. Methods Medline and EMBASE database were searched for articles on pulmonary artery sarcoma published between 1923 and 2018. Age, gender, postoperative overall survival, therapeutic approach, tumor extension, tumor localization, status of resection margins, metastasis, surgical method were extracted as parameters to analyze postoperative overall survival. Results A total of 162 articles and 275 cases are included in analysis. Median postoperative overall survival time was 31 months. Patients who received adjuvant and/or neo-adjuvant therapy were associated with improved survival [hazard ratio (HR) =0.64, P=0.017, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.45–0.92]. Patients with complete resection or without metastasis had longer postoperative overall survival compared with incomplete resection (HR =0.55, P=0.002, 95% CI: 0.37–0.79) or with metastasis (HR =6.01, P=0.000, 95% CI: 3.33–10.67). Subgroup analysis suggested chemotherapy was related with longer postoperative overall survival (HR =0.63, P=0.015, 95% CI: 0.43–0.91), especially for patients with incomplete resection (HR =0.53, P=0.025, 95% CI: 0.31–0.92) and metastasis (HR =0.44, P=0.000, 95% CI: 0.28–0.68). Conclusions Radical surgery offers the only chance to cure pulmonary artery sarcoma. Palliative and aggressive surgery can relieve the symptoms and extend the life expectance. Patients can benefit from adjuvant and/or neo-adjuvant chemotherapy, especially those who have metastasis or undergo incomplete resection.

The sound barrier is the main measure of noise control of high-speed railway in China. This paper analyzes the application status and effect of high-speed railway sound barrier, clarifies the noise reduction effect and main influencing factors of various types of vertical sound barriers used and analyzes the problems existing in the application of vertical sound barrier to high-speed railway in China. The prospects of three aspects of vertical sound barrier optimization, new sound barrier and enhanced noise source control technology are proposed to promote the comprehensive control of high-speed railway noise. Research on high-speed railway noise control technology provides reference.

This paper considers the resource allocation problem of Space Division Multiple Access (SDMA)/ Multiple Input Single Output (MISO)/Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) systems. Equal power allocation (EPA) is used among subcarriers to reduce the complexity of the problem. Furthermore, a novel algorithm called proportional rate greedy (PRG) is proposed to choose users and allocate powers among selected users for each subcarrier. Such EPA-PRG algorithm can be applied to different fairness issues. From simulation, it can both achieve high throughput and ensure the fairness among users without increasing the complexity.

A 49-year-old female presented with a solitary pulmonary nodule on the chest screening computed tomography (CT) scan. The nodule was 1.3 cm in diameter and located in the apical segment of left upper lobe. The lesion was considered to be cT1aN0M0 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and a 3-port video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) wedge resection was performed. Intraoperative frozen sections revealed a lung adenocarcinoma. Therefore, sequential S1+2+3 segmentectomy of the left upper lobe was performed, also systematic lymph node dissection was carried out. The final pathological stage was pT1aN0M0 (Ia).

Parallel RTS Processing MAC Protocol (PRP-MAC) can improve network throughput, but data packets are not always sent in a synchronized way. So PRP-MAC still produces the packet collisions in the network, which impact the performance of the network. In this paper, we proposed an improved PRP-MAC called IPRP-MAC protocol. This protocol can avoid collisions by using 3 types of CTS packets which are used to make sure the transmitters sent the data packets synchronously. Finally, the simulation results show that IPRP-MAC can enhance the network throughput compared to PRP-MAC.

It is well known that MIMO technology can provide additional space degrees of freedom and increase the channel capacity greatly. However, it is a challenge to design the MAC layer when using MIMO in ad hoc networks. In FT (Follow Traffic) scheme, RTS/CTSs are sent simultaneously and used to estimate the traffic load. The node allocates the channel estimation resources in order of decreasing received power of RTS. Though FT scheme greatly improves the throughput, the fairness among nodes is declined and the complexity of receivers is increased. To address the problem, this paper presents a scheme of MAC layer based on random number allocation strategy, in which the node allocates the channel estimation resources in an increasing order of random number in each RTS. The throughput performance of the proposed scheme is suboptimal, but it ensures the fairness and reduces the complexity of the receivers.