Leucovorin (folinic acid) rescue for high-dose methotrexate: A review.

High-dose methotrexate (HDMTX) is active against various malignancies; it possesses serious toxicities and is associated with patient characteristics, dosage regimens, comedications, and physiological status. There are many strategies to overcome HDMTX-induced toxicities, such as hydration, alkalization, leucovorin rescue, and haemodialysis. Leucovorin rescue is a cornerstone for toxicity prevention in HDMTX treatment. However, the leucovorin dose adjustment and the existence of leucovorin overrescue are still controversial. At present, various methods for calculating leucovorin doses in different tumour types have been proposed, including empirical calculations based on MTX plasma concentration, the Bleyer nomogram, and other methods. Nonetheless, leucovorin rescue protocols differ greatly across tumour types and medical institutions. Further studies are needed to investigate the optimal dosage regimen for leucovorin rescue in various tumours using HDMTX.

Emerging applications of nano-optical sensors combined with near-infrared spectroscopy for detecting tea extract fermentation aroma under ultrasound-assisted sonication.

The current innovative work combines nano-optical sensors with near-infrared spectroscopy for rapid detection and quantification of polyphenols and investigates the potential of the nano-optical sensor based on chemo-selective colorants to detect the dynamic changes in aroma components during the fermentation of tea extract. The procedure examined the influence of different ultrasound-assisted sonication factors on the changes in the consumption rate of polyphenols during the fermentation of tea extract versus non-sonication as a control group. The results showed that the polyphenol consumption rate improved under the ultrasound conditions of 28 kHz ultrasound frequency, 24 min treatment time, and 40 W/L ultrasonic power density. The metal-organic framework based nano-optical sensors reported here have more adsorption sites for enhanced adsorption of the volatile organic compounds. The polystyrene-acrylic microstructure offered specific surface area for the reactants. Besides, the employed porous silica nanospheres with higher porosity administered improved gas enrichment effect. The nano-optical sensor exhibits good performance with a "chromatogram" for the identification of aroma components in the fermentation process of tea extract. The proposed method respectively enhanced the consumption rate of polyphenol by 35.57%, 11.34% and 16.09% under the optimized conditions. Based on the established polyphenol quantitative prediction models, this work demonstrated the feasibility of using a nano-optical sensor to perform in-situ imaging of the fermentation degree of tea extracts subjected to ultrasonic treatment.

Tuning the NIR photoabsorption of CuWO4-x nanodots with oxygen vacancies for CT imaging guided photothermal therapy of tumors.

A traditional CuWO4 semiconductor (Eg = 2.25 eV) shows photoabsorption in the visible range with an edge at ∼550 nm, limiting its application in near-infrared (NIR) laser-induced photothermal ablation therapy (PAT). To tune the NIR photoabsorption of CuWO4, we report a trisodium citrate-induced strategy for generating oxygen vacancies. CuWO4 and CuWO4-x nanoparticles are prepared by a facile coprecipitation-solvothermal method in the absence or presence of trisodium citrate (0.2-0.5 g) as the reducing agent. Without trisodium citrate, CuWO4 consists of aggregated particles, and its dispersion has a typical yellow-green color without NIR photoabsorption. With the addition of trisodium citrate from 0.2 to 0.5 g, CuWO4-x samples are composed of monodisperse nanodots with increased sizes from ∼2 to ∼6 nm, and the color of these dispersions becomes darker with increased NIR photoabsorption, that is, from 0.178 to 0.685 at 808 nm. As a result, the aqueous dispersion of CuWO4-x-0.5 nanodots prepared with 0.5 g trisodium citrate exhibits a high photothermal efficiency of 47.6% under 808 nm laser irradiation. Simultaneously, CuWO4-x-0.5 nanodots have high X-ray attenuation as a CT imaging agent due to the presence of a heavy metal element (W). When the CuWO4-x-0.5 dispersion is injected into the tumors of mice, the tumors can be observed by CT and thermal imaging. After 808 nm laser irradiation (1.0 W cm-2, 10 min), cancer cells in vivo can be efficiently ablated by the photothermal effects of CuWO4-x, without obvious toxicity and side effects. Therefore, CuWO4-x can act as a novel all-in-one agent for CT imaging-guided photothermal therapy of tumors.