XELOX (capecitabine plus oxaliplatin) plus bevacizumab (anti-VEGF-A antibody) with or without adoptive cell immunotherapy in the treatment of patients with previously untreated metastatic colorectal cancer: a multicenter, open-label, randomized, controlled, phase 3 trial.

Fluoropyrimidine-based combination chemotherapy plus targeted therapy is the standard initial treatment for unresectable metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC), but the prognosis remains poor. This phase 3 trial (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT03950154) assessed the efficacy and adverse events (AEs) of the combination of PD-1 blockade-activated DC-CIK (PD1-T) cells with XELOX plus bevacizumab as a first-line therapy in patients with mCRC. A total of 202 participants were enrolled and randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive either first-line XELOX plus bevacizumab (the control group, n = 102) or the same regimen plus autologous PD1-T cell immunotherapy (the immunotherapy group, n = 100) every 21 days for up to 6 cycles, followed by maintenance treatment with capecitabine and bevacizumab. The main endpoint of the trial was progression-free survival (PFS). The median follow-up was 19.5 months. Median PFS was 14.8 months (95% CI, 11.6-18.0) for the immunotherapy group compared with 9.9 months (8.0-11.8) for the control group (hazard ratio [HR], 0.60 [95% CI, 0.40-0.88]; p = 0.009). Median overall survival (OS) was not reached for the immunotherapy group and 25.6 months (95% CI, 18.3-32.8) for the control group (HR, 0.57 [95% CI, 0.33-0.98]; p = 0.043). Grade 3 or higher AEs occurred in 20.0% of patients in the immunotherapy group and 23.5% in the control groups, with no toxicity-associated deaths reported. The addition of PD1-T cells to first-line XELOX plus bevacizumab demonstrates significant clinical improvement of PFS and OS with well tolerability in patients with previously untreated mCRC.

Periodic Microstructures Fabricated by Laser Interference with Subsequent Etching.

Periodic nanostructures have wide applications in micro-optics, bionics, and optoelectronics. Here, a laser interference with subsequent etching technology is proposed to fabricate uniform periodic nanostructures with controllable morphologies and smooth surfaces on hard materials. One-dimensional microgratings with controllable periods (1, 2, and 3 µm) and heights, from dozens to hundreds of nanometers, and high surface smoothness are realized on GaAs by the method. The surface roughness of the periodic microstructures is significantly reduced from 120 nm to 40 nm with a subsequent inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching. By using laser interference with angle-multiplexed exposures, two-dimensional square- and hexagonal-patterned microstructures are realized on the surface of GaAs. Compared with samples without etching, the diffraction efficiency can be significantly enhanced for samples with dry etching, due to the improvement of surface quality.

Ultra-smooth micro-optical components of various geometries.

A dry-etching-assisted femtosecond laser lithography technology is proposed to in-site fabricate micro-optical components with an ultra-smooth three-dimensional continuous profile on a non-planar substrate. Owing to the nanometric resolution of femtosecond laser multi-photon polymerization and dry etching, smooth micro-optical components can be realized on hard materials with surface roughness of approximately 1.5 nm. With flexible and arbitrary designability of femtosecond laser lithography, various high-quality micro-optical components are realized on sapphire. These results indicate that dry-etching-assisted femtosecond laser lithography has promising potential for versatile fabrication of arbitrary ultra-smooth micro/nanostructures on hard materials.

Applicative Value of Serum CA19-9, CEA, CA125 and CA242 in Diagnosis and Prognosis for Patients with Pancreatic Cancer Treated by Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the application value of serum CA19-9, CEA, CA125 and CA242 in diagnosis and prognosis of pancreatic cancer cases treated with concurrent chemotherapy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: 52 patients with pancreatic cancer, 40 with benign pancreatic diseases and 40 healthy people were selected. The electrochemiluminescence immunoassay method was used for detecting levels of CA19-9, CEA and CA125, and a CanAg CA242 enzyme linked immunoassay kit for assessing the level of CA242. The Kaplan-Meier method was used for analyzing the prognostic factors of patients with pancreatic cancer. The Cox proportional hazard model was applied for analyzing the hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidential interval (CI) for survival time of patients with pancreatic cancer. RESULTS: The levels of serum CA19-9, CEA, CA125 and CA242 in patients with pancreatic cancer were significantly higher than those in patients with benign pancreatic diseases and healthy people (P<0.001). The sensitivity of CA19-9 was the highest among these, followed by CA242, CA125 and CEA. The specificity of CA242 is the highest, followed by CA125, CEA and CA19-9. The sensitivity and specificity of joint detection of serum CA19-9, CEA, CA125and CA242 were 90.4% and 93.8%, obviously higher than single detection of those markers in diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. The median survival time of 52 patients with pancreatic cancer was 10 months (95% CI7.389~12.611).. Patients with the increasing level of serum CA19-9, CEA, CA125, CA242 had shorter survival times (P=0.047. 0.043, 0.0041, 0.029). COX regression analysis showed that CA19-9 was an independent prognostic factor for patients with pancreatic cancer (P=0.001, 95%CI 2.591~38.243). CONCLUSIONS: The detection of serum tumor markers (CA19.9, CEA, CA125 and CA242) is conducive to the early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and joint detection of tumor markers helps improve the diagnostic efficiency. Moreover, CA19-9 is an independent prognostic factor for patients with pancreatic cancer.