[Efficacy and safety of insulin degludec for diabetes mellitus: a meta-analysis].

OBJECTIVE: To systematically evaluate the efficacy and safety of insulin degludec for diabetes mellitus (DM). METHODS: Databases including Cochrane Library, PubMed, Embase, Wanfang Data, China Biology Medicine disc (CBM) and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) were searched electronically for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) meeting including criteria and the methodological quality of studies was assessed. Then meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.0 software. RESULTS: Twelve RCTs with 6 527 patients were included into our study: 4 358 patients in degludec group and 2 169 patients in control group. Compared with insulin glargine, insulin degludec was more effective in reducing fasting blood glucose (MD=-0.40, 95%CI: -0.65--0.16, P=0.001), but less effective in improving levels of glycated hemoglobin (MD=0.13, 95%CI: 0.08-0.17, P<0.001). There was no significant difference in the incidence rate of adverse events in two groups (OR=0.98, 95%CI: 0.87-1.10, P=0.700), but incidence rate of nocturnal hypoglycaemia was significantly lower in insulin degludec group (OR=0.82, 95%CI: 0.72-0.94, P=0.004). CONCLUSIONS: Insulin degludec is non-inferior to other basal insulin in reducing levels of blood glucose, but insulin degludec can obviously reduce the incidence rate of nocturnal hypoglycaemia, so it is safer than other basal insulin. The long-term efficacy and safety should be further studied .

Zebrafish models of leukemia.

The zebrafish, Danio rerio, is a well-established, invaluable model system for the study of human cancers. The genetic pathways that drive oncogenesis are highly conserved between zebrafish and humans, and multiple unique attributes of the zebrafish make it a tractable tool for analyzing the underlying cellular processes that give rise to human disease. In particular, the high conservation between human and zebrafish hematopoiesis (Jing & Zon, 2011) has stimulated the development of zebrafish models for human hematopoietic malignancies to elucidate molecular pathogenesis and to expedite the preclinical investigation of novel therapies. While T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia was the first transgenic cancer model in zebrafish (Langenau et al., 2003), a wide spectrum of zebrafish models of human hematopoietic malignancies has been established since 2003, largely through transgenesis and genome-editing approaches. This chapter presents key examples that validate the zebrafish as an indispensable model system for the study of hematopoietic malignancies and highlights new models that demonstrate recent advances in the field.