Short-term effect of ambient air pollution on outpatient visits for children in Guangzhou, China.

This study examined the short-term relationship between ambient air pollutants and children's outpatient visits, and identified the effect of modifications by season. Daily recordings of air pollutants (CO, NO2, O3, SO2, PM10, and PM2.5) and children's outpatient visit data were collected in Guangzhou from 2015 to 2019. A generalized additive model adjusted for potential confounding was introduced to verify the association between ambient air pollution and outpatient visits for children. Subgroup analysis by season was performed to evaluate the potential effects. A total of 5,483,014 children's outpatient visits were recorded. The results showed that a 10 µg/m3 increase in CO, NO2, O3, SO2, PM10, and PM2.5 corresponded with a 0.19% (95% CI: 0.15-0.24%), 2.46% (2.00-2.92%), 0.27% (0.07-0.46%), 7.16% (4.80-9.57%), 1.16% (0.83-1.49%), and 1.35% (0.88-1.82%) increase in children's outpatient visits on the lag0 of exposure, respectively. The relationships were stronger for O3, PM10, and PM2.5 in the warm seasons, and for CO, NO2, and SO2 in the cool seasons. When adjusting for the co-pollutants, the effects of CO, NO2, and PM10 were robust. The results of this study indicate that six air pollutants might increase the risk of children's outpatient visits in Guangzhou, China, especially in the cool season.

CircRNA hsa_circ_0000043 acts as a miR-4492 sponge to promote lung cancer progression via BDNF and STAT3 expression regulation in anti-benzo[a]pyrene-trans-7,8-dihydrodiol-9,10-epoxide-transformed 16HBE cells.

Increasing evidence shows that circular RNA (circRNA) plays an important role in the progression of lung cancer. In this study, we found that has_circ_0000043 was highly expressed in 16HBE-T human bronchial epithelial cells that were malignantly transformed by benzo[a]pyrene-trans-7,8-diol-9,10-epoxide via circRNA microarray. We verified that hsa_circ_0000043 was also significantly overexpressed in lung cancer cell lines and tissues. Moreover, hsa_circ_0000043 overexpression was positively correlated with poor clinicopathological parameters, such as tumor-node metastasis stage, distant metastasis, lymph-node metastasis, and overall survival. In vitro assays revealed that hsa_circ_0000043 inhibition suppressed 16HBE-T cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. Furthermore, hsa_circ_0000043 inhibition suppressed tumor growth in a mouse xenograft model. We discovered that hsa_circ_0000043 binds with miR-4492, acting as a miR-4492 sponge. Decreased miR-4492 expression was also associated with poor clinicopathological parameters. Thus, hsa_circ_0000043 was shown to contribute to the proliferation, malignant transformation ability, migration, and invasion of 16HBE-T cells via miR-4492 sponging and BDNF and STAT3 involvement.

Association between PM2.5-bound metals and pediatric respiratory health in Guangzhou: An ecological study investigating source, health risk, and effect.

Background: The adverse effects of 2.5-µm particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure on public health have become an increasing concern worldwide. However, epidemiological findings on the effects of PM2.5-bound metals on children's respiratory health are limited and inconsistent because PM2.5 is a complicated mixture. Objectives: Given the vulnerability of children's respiratory system, aim to pediatric respiratory health, this study evaluated the potential sources, health risks, and acute health effects of ambient PM2.5-bound metals among children in Guangzhou, China from January 2017 to December 2019. Methods: Potential sources of PM2.5-bound metals were detected using positive matrix factorization (PMF). A health risk assessment was conducted to investigate the inhalation risk of PM2.5-bound metals in children. The associations between PM2.5-bound metals and pediatric respiratory outpatient visits were examined with a quasi-Poisson generalized additive model (GAM). Results: During 2017-2019, the daily mean concentrations of PM2.5 was 53.39 µg/m3, and the daily mean concentrations of PM2.5-bound metals range 0.03 ng/m3 [thorium (Th) and beryllium (Be)] from to 396.40 ng/m3 [iron (Fe)]. PM2.5-bound metals were mainly contributed by motor vehicles and street dust. PM2.5-bound arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), cobalt (Co), chromium (Cr)(VI), nickel (Ni), and lead (Pb) were found to pose a carcinogenic risk (CR). A quasi-Poisson GAM was constructed that showed there were significant associations between PM2.5 concentrations and pediatric outpatient visits for respiratory diseases. PM2.5 was significantly associated with pediatric outpatient visits for respiratory diseases. Moreover, with a 10 µg/m3 increase in Ni, Cr(VI), Ni, and As concentrations, the corresponding pediatric outpatient visits for respiratory diseases increased by 2.89% (95% CI: 2.28-3.50%), acute upper respiratory infections (AURIs) increased by 2.74% (2.13-3.35%), influenza and pneumonia (FLU&PN) increased by 23.36% (20.09-26.72%), and acute lower respiratory infections (ALRIs) increased by 16.86% (15.16-18.60%), respectively. Conclusions: Our findings showed that PM2.5 and PM2.5-bound As, Cd, Co, Cr(VI), Ni, and Pb had adverse effects on pediatric respiratory health during the study period. New strategies are required to decrease the production of PM2.5 and PM2.5-bound metals by motor vehicles and to reduce levels of street dust to reduce children's exposure to these pollutants and thereby increase child health.

Phase III study of HR-positive/HER2-negative/lymph node-positive breast cancer non-responsive to primary chemotherapy: a randomized trial.

There are few studies focus on post-neoadjuvant treatment in hormone receptor-positive (HR+)/human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HER2-)/lymph node-positive (LN+) breast cancer, a multi-center, open-label, randomized, controlled phase III trial was conducted to evaluate pathological response-guided non-cross-resistant adjuvant chemotherapy in patients with HR+/HER2-/LN+ breast cancer who were non-responsive to primary chemotherapy. Patients received four cycles of non-cross-resistant adjuvant chemotherapy plus endocrine therapy (ET), or ET alone. Forty patients responsive to neoadjuvant chemotherapy and with Miller and Payne G4 or G5 and LN- status were assigned to the observation group. Distant disease-free survival was the primary endpoint. The final intention-to-treat analysis comprised 379 patients. After a median follow-up period of 72.4 months, the 5-year distant disease-free survival was 92% and 90% in the chemotherapy plus ET and ET-alone groups, respectively. Comparatively, the observation group showed a trend towards better distant disease-free survival. For patients non-responsive to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, adjuvant non-cross-resistant chemotherapy did not significantly improve distant disease-free survival compared to ET alone.