Insight into the Role of Psychological Factors in Oral Mucosa Diseases.

With the development of psychology and medicine, more and more diseases have found their psychological origins and associations, especially ulceration and other mucosal injuries, within the digestive system. However, the association of psychological factors with lesions of the oral mucosa, including oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC), burning mouth syndrome (BMS), and recurrent aphthous stomatitis (RAS), have not been fully characterized. In this review, after introducing the association between psychological and nervous factors and diseases, we provide detailed descriptions of the psychology and nerve fibers involved in the pathology of OSCC, BMS, and RAS, pointing out the underlying mechanisms and suggesting the clinical indications.

Co-delivery of paclitaxel and gemcitabine by methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(lactide-coglycolide)-polypeptide nanoparticles for effective breast cancer therapy.

Traditional chemotherapeutic drugs have shown limited clinical curative effects in antitumor therapy. The application of multidrug combination and adjuvant-drug carriers is a feasible strategy to overcome the limitations while minimizing the dosage of single drug and acquiring the synergistic effects in tumor therapy. However, the systemic toxicity, drug resistance, and tumor recurrence are still unavoidable. Here we develop core-shell nanoparticles (NPs) to encapsulate paclitaxel (PTX) and gemcitabine (GEM) for breast cancer therapy. We find that the NPs could encapsulate PTX and GEM, with an encapsulation efficiency of 96.3 and 95.13%, respectively. Moreover, the drug loading of these NPs is 2.71% (PTX) and 2.64% (GEM). Notably, the co-delivery of GEM and PTX performs enhanced anticancer effect compared with the PTX alone or GEM alone therapy at the same concentration, which indicates a synergistic effect. Moreover, encapsulation of PTX and GEM by methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(lactide-coglycolide) also shows enhanced anticancer effects (81.5% tumor inhibition) and reduced systemic toxicity in vivo compared with free drugs (65% tumor inhibition). Together with those results, co-delivery of PTX and GEM by methoxy poly(ethylene glycol)-poly(lactide-coglycolide) might have important potencies in clinical applications for breast cancer therapy.

Technical note: factors affecting dose distribution in the overlap region of two-segment total body irradiation by helical tomotherapy.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effects of various treatment planning parameters to identify the optimal gap distance for precise two-segment total body irradiation (TBI) using helical tomotherapy (HT) with fixed jaw mode. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Data of a treatment plan for 8 acute leukemia patients (height range: 109-130 cm) were analyzed. All patients underwent total-body computed tomography (CT) with 5-mm slice thickness. A lead wire, placed at 10 cm above the patella, was used to mark the boundary between the two segments. Target volumes and organs at risk were delineated using a Varian Eclipse 10.0 physician's workstation. Different distances between the lead wire and the boundary of the two targets were used. CT images were transferred to the HT workstation to design the treatment plans, by adjusting parameters, including the field width (FW; 2.5 cm, and 5 cm), pitch (0.287 and 0.430), modulation factor (1.8). The plans were superimposed to analyze the dose distributions in the overlap region when varying target gap distances, FWs, pitches to determine the optimal combinations. RESULTS: The pitch did not affect the dose distribution in the overlap region. The dose distribution in the overlap region was mostly homogeneous when the target gap distance was equal to the FW. Increased FW diminished the effect of the target gap distance on the heterogeneous index of the overlap region. CONCLUSIONS: In two-segment TBI treatments by HT with Helix mode, a gap distance equal to the FW may achieve optimal dose distribution in the overlap region.

Experimental Investigation of Guided Wave Imaging in Thin Soft Media under Various Coupling Conditions.

Guided wave imaging for the artery remains in its infancy in clinical practice mainly because of complex arterial microstructure, hemodynamics and boundary conditions. Despite the theoretically known potential effect of the surrounding medium on guided wave propagation in thin media in non-destructive testing, experimental evidence pertaining to thin soft materials, such as the artery, is relatively scarce in the relevant literature. Therefore, this study first evaluated the propagating guided wave generated by acoustic radiation force in polyvinyl alcohol-based hydrogel plates differing in thickness and stiffness under various material coupling conditions (water and polyvinyl alcohol bulk). A thin-walled polyvinyl alcohol hollow cylindrical phantom coupled by softer gelatin-agar phantoms and an excised porcine aorta surrounded by water and pork belly were further examined. Guided waves in the thin structure and shear waves in the bulk media were captured by ultrafast ultrasound imaging, and guided wave dispersion as a function of the frequency-thickness product was analyzed using the zero-order anti-symmetric Lamb wave model to estimate the shear modulus of each thin medium studied. Results confirmed the deviated shear modulus estimates from the ground truth for thin plates, the thin-walled hollow cylindrical phantom and the porcine aorta bounded by stiffness-unmatched bulk medium. The findings indicated the need for (i) careful interpretation of estimated shear moduli of thin structure bounded by bulk media and (ii) a generalized guided wave model that takes into account the effect of coupling medium.

A malonitrile-functionalized metal-organic framework for hydrogen sulfide detection and selective amino acid molecular recognition.

A novel porous polymeric fluorescence probe, MN-ZIF-90, has been designed and synthesized for quantitative hydrogen sulfide (H2S) fluorescent detection and highly selective amino acid recognition. This distinct crystalline structure, derived from rational design and malonitrile functionalization, can trigger significant enhancement of its fluorescent intensity when exposed to H2S or cysteine molecules. Indeed this new metal-organic framework (MOF) structure shows high selectivity of biothiols over other amino acids and exhibits favorable stability. Moreover, in vitro viability assays on HeLa cells show low cytotoxicity of MN-ZIF-90 and its imaging contrast efficiency is further demonstrated by fluorescence microscopy studies. This facile yet powerful strategy also offers great potential of using open-framework materials (i.e. MOFs) as the novel platform for sensing and other biological applications.