Nanoparticles-based phototherapy systems for cancer treatment: Current status and clinical potential.

Remarkable progress in phototherapy has been made in recent decades, due to its non-invasiveness and instant therapeutic efficacy. In addition, with the rapid development of nanoscience and nanotechnology, phototherapy systems based on nanoparticles or nanocomposites also evolved as an emerging hotspot in nanomedicine research, especially in cancer. In this review, first we briefly introduce the history of phototherapy, and the mechanisms of phototherapy in cancer treatment. Then, we summarize the representative development over the past three to five years in nanoparticle-based phototherapy and highlight the design of the innovative nanoparticles thereof. Finally, we discuss the feasibility and the potential of the nanoparticle-based phototherapy systems in clinical anticancer therapeutic applications, aiming to predict future research directions in this field. Our review is a tutorial work, aiming at providing useful insights to researchers in the field of nanotechnology, nanoscience and cancer.

Prediction of tumor size in patients with invasive ductal carcinoma using FT-IR spectroscopy combined with chemometrics: a preliminary study.

Precise detection of tumor size is essential for early diagnosis, treatment, and evaluation of the prognosis of breast cancer. However, there are some errors between the tumor size of breast cancer measured by conventional imaging methods and the pathological tumor size. Invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) is a common pathological type of breast cancer. In this study, serum Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) combined with chemometric methods was used to predict the maximum diameter and maximum vertical diameter of tumors in IDC patients. Three models were evaluated based on the pathological tumor size measured after surgery and included grid search support vector machine regression (GS-SVR), back propagation neural network optimized by genetic algorithm (GA-BP-ANN), and back propagation neural network optimized by particle swarm optimization (PSO-BP-ANN). The results show that three models can accurately predict tumor size. The GA-BP-ANN model provided the best fitting quality of the largest tumor diameter with the determination coefficients of 0.984 in test set. And the GS-SVR model provided the best fitting quality of the largest vertical tumor diameter with the determination coefficients of 0.982 in test set. The GS-SVR model had the highest prediction efficiency and the lowest time complexity of the models. The results indicate that serum FT-IR spectroscopy combined with chemometric methods can predict tumor size in IDC patients. In addition, compared with traditional imaging methods, we found that the experimental results of the three models are better than traditional imaging methods in terms of correlation and fitting degree. And the average fitting error of PSO-BP-ANN and GA-BP-ANN models was less than 0.3 mm. The minimally invasive detection method is expected to be developed into a new clinical diagnostic method for tumor size estimation to reduce the diagnostic trauma of patients and provide new diagnostic experience for patients. Graphical Abstract.

Cadmium risk in the soil-plant system caused by weathering of carbonate bedrock.

Enrichment of cadmium (Cd) during weathering and pedogenesis of carbonate rocks has resulted in large areas of lands with soil Cd concentrations exceeding the official guidelines in China and other countries. However, it is reported in many studies that the risk of soil contamination by Cd from this natural process can be neglected as most of the Cd is not bioavailable. Noticing that the previous studies focused only on eluvial areas but not on lowland alluvium, where Cd from the eluvial areas can be transported and accumulated, we selected the Qingyang county in Anhui province, where there are two small drainage basins developed wholly on carbonate bedrock, to compare the Cd speciation and activity between eluvium and alluvium, and to evaluate the risk of Cd pollution to the latter. By the application of systematic sampling and analysis of the bedrock, soil, and rice grain samples, and in comparison with the previously acknowledged "high background with low mobility" area in Guizhou, it was found that soil developed from alluvium has both higher total Cd and higher mobile Cd proportion than soil from the upland eluvium. A very high percentage of rice grain samples (51%) grown on the alluvial soil exceeded the food standard for Cd (0.2 mg kg-1). Therefore, the spatial division of alluvium and eluvium should be the first step in the assessment of the Cd risk in carbonate regions, and special attention should be given to soil developed from alluvium.

3D printing and coating to fabricate a hollow bullet-shaped implant with porous surface for controlled cytoxan release.

Intratumoral implants have aroused great interests for local chemotherapy of cancer, however, how to efficiently control drug release from implants is still a great challenge. Herein, we designed and prepared a new hollow bullet-shaped implant with porous surface by 3D printing, loaded chemotherapeutic agent cytoxan (CTX) with tetradecyl alcohol or lecithin as matrix and coated it with poly (lactic acid) to obtain a CTX implant, which has a highly tuned drug release property with a drug release time from 4 h to more than 1 month. The drug release from the implant can be easily controlled by changing pore sizes, kinds of matrices, and coating thickness.

Angiopep-2 modified PEGylated 2-methoxyestradiol micelles to treat the PC12 cells with oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation.

2-Methoxyestradiol (2ME2), as a microtubule and hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) inhibitor, can be used to treat cerebral ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. However, its poor water solubility compromises its efficacy as a neuroprotectant. Herein, we synthesized PEGylated 2ME2 and angiopep-2 capped PEGylated 2ME2 and fabricated angiopep-2 modified PEGylated 2ME2 micelles containing free 2ME2 (ANG-PEG-2ME2/2ME2) via emulsion-solvent evaporation method. The effect of the micelles on ischemia-reoxygenation injury was evaluated by oxygen-glucose deprivation/reoxygenation (OGD/R) models with different degrees of PC12 cell damage. In comparison with free 2ME2, the micelles significantly increased the cell viability, inhibited reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and apoptosis for PC12 cells with 0.5 and 4 h OGD followed by 24 h reoxygenation. Taken together, the angiopep-2 modified 2ME2-loaded micelles could effectively reduce the injury of PC12 cells induced by OGD/R.

[Clinical Efficacy and Safety of Rituximab Combined with Fludarabine and Cyclophosphamide for Treatment of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the clinical efficacy and safety of rituximab combined with fludarabine and cyclophosphamide for the treatment of the chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). METHODS: Forty cases of CLL patients treated in our hospital from March 2010 to March 2014 years were selected and divided into the observation group (20 cases) and control group (20 cases) by random number table method. The patients in control group were treated with CHOP chemotherapy, the patients in observation group were treated with rituximab combined with fludarabine, cyclophosphamide treatment. The therapeutic efficacy of patients in 2 groups was analyzed according to the peripheral hemogram indexes, symptom and sign disappeared time as well as adverse reaction incidence. RESULTS: the remission rate in observation group was 90.00%, which was significantly higher than that in control group (70.00%) (P < 0.05); the peripheral hemogram indexes in 2 groups before treatment showed no significant difference (P > 0.05), and were significantly improved after treatment, but the white blood cell count and lymphocyte absolute number were significantly lower in observation group as compared to the control group (P < 0.05); symptom and sign disappeared time in observation group were significantly shorter as compared with the control group (P < 0.05); adverse reaction incidence in obseovation group was significantly lower as compared with control group (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: application of rituximab combined with fludarabine and cyclophosphamide in the treatment of CLL shows the higher curative effect, can effectively improve the symptoms and reduce the incidence of adverse reactions. It is worthy to be popularized.