Historical Review of Acute Pancreatitis Research Over the Last 80 Years.

OBJECTIVES: Research on acute pancreatitis (AP) has been ongoing for a long time. It is necessary to summarize and investigate the history of AP research. METHODS: Publications related to AP research were retrieved from PubMed. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) terms, countries, journals, and publication dates were analyzed. Co-occurrence analysis was conducted to illustrate the holistic trend in AP research. A dynamic bar graph, heat maps, and line charts were created to illustrate change trends of MeSH terms. RESULTS: In total, 28,222 publications with 8558 MeSH terms were retrieved from 1941 to 2020. Among these, 16,575 publications with 7228 MeSH terms were from 2001 to 2020. The top 10 MeSH terms showed a considerable change from 1941 to 1970 but remained stable since the 1970s. Four clusters obtained from the co-occurrence analysis were "experiments on animals," "diagnosis and treatment," "prognosis and expectation," and "protein and enzyme." From 1941 to 2020, 33 MeSH terms with increasing trends (MH-I) and 15 MeSH terms with decreasing trends (MH-D) were selected to create a heat map (every decade). Meanwhile, 16 MH-I and 41 MH-D were selected to create the heat map from 2001 to 2020 (every 2 years). CONCLUSION: Over the past 80 years, the pathogenesis, treatment, risk management, and experimental model were the main research highlights. Optimal supportive management, minimally invasive treatment, and prediction of prognosis are subjects of interest for clinical practitioners; signal transduction to identify a target for precise treatment is the focus of experimental research in AP.

Enhanced photothermal and chemotherapy of pancreatic tumors by degrading the extracellular matrix.

The degradation of extracellular matrix (ECM) to increase drug permeability is an attractive approach to enhancing pancreatic cancer therapy efficiency. Herein, polypyrrole nanoparticles (PPy NPs) were prepared by a template-guided chemical oxidation method. These PPy NPs with abundant surface pores were used to load the anticancer drug doxorubicin (DOX). In order to intelligently control the DOX release, PPy/DOX NPs were further entrapped with a thermoresponsive ligand, lauric acid (LA), to form PPy-LA/DOX NPs. Bromelain (BL) was then grafted onto the surface of PPy-LA NPs or PPy-LA/DOX NPs through an amidation reaction with the carboxyl group of LA. It was found that the DOX release of PPy-LA/DOX NPs was pH and temperature responsive, reaching a maximum amount of 85.9% within 48 h at pH = 5.4 and 50 °C. Moreover, it was demonstrated that the resultant PLB (PPy-LA-BL) NPs could efficiently hydrolyze the collagen in ECM and enhance the permeability of DOX to the pancreatic tumor. Remarkably, PLB NPs not only featured admirable photothermal conversion but also exhibited obvious photoacoustic imaging capability, which enabled imaging-guided enhanced tumor ablation. This study is anticipated to provide a feasible strategy to improve the permeability of nanoparticles to tumors.