Early Pleistocene hominin teeth from Meipu, southern China.

The rarity and poor preservation of hominin fossils from the East Asian Early Pleistocene hamper our understanding of their taxonomy and possible phylogenetic relationship with other members of the genus Homo. In the 1970s, four isolated hominin teeth were recovered from the Meipu site, southern China, which biostratigraphic analysis placed in the late Early Pleistocene. Early reports assigned the teeth to late Homo erectus. Since then, the teeth have not been re-evaluated, nor has reliable dating been performed at the Meipu site. Here, biostratigraphic and paleomagnetic dating allow for a more precise chronological constraint of the Meipu hominins in the late Early Pleistocene, between 780 ka and 990 ka, making them one of the few known hominins for this time in mainland Asia. The comparison of the morphology of the Meipu teeth with other members of the genus Homo reveals that the Meipu teeth preserve traits such as moderate shoveling of the I1, the square crown contour of M1, and a buccolingually wider lingual cusp in P4 that make them closer to early Homo specimens from Africa and Homo ergaster from Dmanisi (Georgia). In addition, the Meipu teeth exhibit features that are more typical for late mainland East Asian H. erectus, such as the moderately convex I1 labial surface and a pronouncedly convex I2 labial surface. In these features, the Meipu hominins are morphologically intermediate between African/Dmanisi early Homo and East Asian Middle Pleistocene hominins. This study contributes to a better understanding of the morphologies and the taxonomic status of East Asian Early Pleistocene hominins, a time period for which the hominin evidence with secure stratigraphic context is scarce.

Does recurrent laryngeal nerve lymph node metastasis really affect the prognosis in node-positive patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the middle thoracic esophagus?

BACKGROUND: Recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) lymph node metastasis used to be shown a predictor for poor prognosis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the prognostic impact of RLN node metastasis and the number of metastatic lymph nodes in node-positive patients with squamous cell carcinoma of middle thoracic esophagus. METHODS: A cohort of 235 patients who underwent curative surgery for squamous cell carcinoma of middle thoracic esophagus was investigated. The prognostic impact was evaluated by univariate and multivariate analyses. RESULTS: Lymph node metastasis was found in 133 patients. Among them, 81 had metastatic RLN nodes, and 52 had at least one positive node but no RLN nodal involvement. The most significant difference in survival was detected between patients with metastatic lymph nodes below and above a cutoff value of six (P < 0.001). Multivariate analysis revealed that the number of metastatic lymph nodes was a significant factor associated with overall survival (P < 0.001), but RLN lymph node metastasis was not (P = 0.865). CONCLUSIONS: RLN Lymph node metastasis is not, but the number of metastatic nodes is a prognostic predictor in node-positive patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the middle thoracic esophagus.

[A comparison of clinical outcomes between standard and total two-field lymphadenectomy for squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic esophagus].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the suitable lymphadenectomy for squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic esophagus. METHODS: From January 2004 to December 2007, 300 patients with lower thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma underwent Ivor-Lewis esophagectomy with 2-field lymphadenectomy in our department. All cases were retrospectively analyzed. 143 cases underwent standard lymphadenectomy(standard group), 157 cases underwent total lymphadenectomy(total group). The clinical and pathological characteristics, the status of lymph node metastases, postoperative complications and survival rates were compared between two groups. RESULTS: There were more lymph nodes dissected(30 ± 10 vs 26 ± 8, P = 0.001)and higher respiratory failure rate(16.6% vs 0.7%, P = 0.038) in total group than in standard group. The 5-year survival rate was 28.9% and 30.2%, respectively(P = 0.936). CONCLUSION: The total 2-field lymphadenectomy doesn't provides better survival benefit for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic esophagus, instead more complications occurred. For local advanced tumor, 3-field lymphadenectomy and comprehensive treatment should be considered.

Prognostic significance of solitary lymph node metastasis in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of middle thoracic esophagus.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study is to compare clinical outcomes between patients with solitary lymph node metastasis and node-negative (N0) patients in squamous cell carcinoma of the middle thoracic esophagus. METHODS: A series of 135 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the middle thoracic esophagus were retrospectively investigated. There were 33 patients with solitary lymph node metastasis and 102 N0 patients. Skip metastasis in 33 patients with solitary lymph node metastasis was defined according to three criteria: Japanese Society for Esophageal Disease (JSED), American Joint Commission on Cancer (AJCC), and the anatomical compartment. RESULTS: In 33 patients with solitary lymph node metastasis, skip metastasis was shown in 13, 23, and 8 patients according JSED, AJCC and anatomical compartment respectively. The 5-year survival rates for N0 patients and patients with solitary lymph node metastasis were 58% and 32% respectively (P =0.008). Multivariate analysis revealed that skip metastasis was not an independent prognostic factor. CONCLUSIONS: For patients with middle thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, solitary lymph node metastasis has a negative impact on survival compared with N0 disease; skip metastasis, however, is comparable to N0 diseases in predicting prognosis.

Fine-grained parallel RNAalifold algorithm for RNA secondary structure prediction on FPGA.

BACKGROUND: In the field of RNA secondary structure prediction, the RNAalifold algorithm is one of the most popular methods using free energy minimization. However, general-purpose computers including parallel computers or multi-core computers exhibit parallel efficiency of no more than 50%. Field Programmable Gate-Array (FPGA) chips provide a new approach to accelerate RNAalifold by exploiting fine-grained custom design. RESULTS: RNAalifold shows complicated data dependences, in which the dependence distance is variable, and the dependence direction is also across two dimensions. We propose a systolic array structure including one master Processing Element (PE) and multiple slave PEs for fine grain hardware implementation on FPGA. We exploit data reuse schemes to reduce the need to load energy matrices from external memory. We also propose several methods to reduce energy table parameter size by 80%. CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, our implementation with 16 PEs is the only FPGA accelerator implementing the complete RNAalifold algorithm. The experimental results show a factor of 12.2 speedup over the RNAalifold (ViennaPackage - 1.6.5) software for a group of aligned RNA sequences with 2981-residue running on a Personal Computer (PC) platform with Pentium 4 2.6 GHz CPU.

Ivor Lewis subtotal esophagectomy with two-field lymphadenectomy for squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic esophagus.

AIM: To evaluate the clinical outcome of Ivor Lewis subtotal esophagectomy with two-field lymphadenectomy for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic esophagus. METHODS: From January 1998 to December 2001, 73 patients with lower thoracic esophageal carcinoma underwent Ivor-Lewis subtotal esophagectomy with two-field lymphadenectomy. Clinicopathological information, postoperative complications, mortality and long term survival of all these patients were analyzed retrospectively. RESULTS: The operative morbidity and mortality was 15.1% and the mortality was 2.7%. Lymph node metastases were found in 52 patients (71.2%). Nodal metastases to the upper, middle, lower mediastini and upper abdomen were found in 13 (17.8%), 15 (20.5%), 30 (41.1%), and 25 (34.2%) patients, respectively. Postoperative staging was as follows: stage I in 5 patients, stage II in 34 patients, stage III in 32 patients, and stage IV in 2 patients, respectively. The overall 5-year survival rate was 23.3%. For N0 and N1 patients, the 5-year survival rate was 38.1% and 17.3%, respectively (c2 = 22.65, P < 0.01). The 5-year survival rate for patients in stages IIa, IIb and III was 31.2%, 27.8% and 12.5%, respectively (c2 = 29.18, P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Ivor Lewis subtotal esophagectomy with two-field (total mediastinum) lymphadenectomy is a safe and appropriate operation for squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic esophagus.

Difference of gene expression profiles between esophageal carcinoma and its pericancerous epithelium by gene chip.

AIM: To study the difference of gene expression between esophageal carcinoma and its pericancerous epithelium and to screen novel associated genes in the early stage of esophageal carcinogenesis by cDNA microarray. METHODS: Total RNA was extracted with the original single step way from esophageal carcinoma, its pericancerous epithelial tissue and normal esophageal epithelium far from the tumor. The cDNA retro-transcribed from equal quantity of mRNA was labeled with Cy5 and Cy3 fluorescence functioning as probes. The mixed probes were hybridized with two pieces of BioDoor 4 096 double dot human whole gene chip. Fluorescence signals were scanned by ScanArray 3 000 laser scanner and farther analyzed by ImaGene 3.0 software with the digital computer. RESULTS: (1) A total of 135 genes were screened out, in which 85 and 50 genes whose the gene expression levels (fluorescence intensity) in esophageal carcinoma were more than 2 times and less than 0.5 times respectively compared with the normal esophageal epithelium. (2) There were also total 31 genes, among then 27 and 4 whose expressions in pericancerous tissue were 2-fold up-regulated and 0.5-fold down-regulated respectively compared with normal esophageal epithelium. (3) There were 13 genes appeared simultaneously in both pericancerous epithelium and esophageal carcinoma, while another 18 genes existed in pericancerous epithelium only. CONCLUSION: With the parallel comparison among these three gene profiles, it was shown that (1). A total of 135 genes, Whose expression difference manifested as fluorescence intensity were more than 2 times between esophageal carcinoma and normal esophageal epithelium, were probably related to the occurrence and development of the esophageal carcinoma. (2). The 31 genes showing expression difference more than 2 times between pericancerous and normal esophageal epithelium might be relate to the promotion of esophageal pericancerosis and its progress. The present study illustrated that by using the gene chip to detect the difference of gene expression profiles might be of benefit to the gene diagnosis, treatment and prevention of esophageal carcinoma.

[Intraoperative radiotherapy for 30 esophageal carcinoma patients].

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the complications and treatment results of intraoperative radiotherapy (IORT) for esophageal carcinoma. METHODS: Sixty patients with thoracic esophageal carcinoma underwent esophagectomy through right thoractomy, 30 patients of whom received IORT of 15 - 25 Gy. RESULTS: In patients who underwent IORT, 2 cases of pneumonitis, 1 case of anastomotic leak and 1 case of incisional wound infection were found. In patients underwent surgery only, 1 case of thoracic empyema and 1 case of anastomotic leak were found. All the complications ultimately healed. There was no operative mortality. During the follow-up of 3 years, in patients who underwent IORT, 2 of 3 died of radiation pneumonitis 24 and 26 months after IORT with one complicated with bronchoesophageal fistula. One of 3 died of multiple lung metastases. The 3-year survival rate was 88.0% (22/25) in IORT group and 76.0% (19/25) in surgery only group. CONCLUSION: Intraoperative radiotherapy can reduce locoregional recurrence if performed to thoracic esophageal carcinoma patients without surgical contraindication or distant metastasis. Radiation pneumonitis, a common complication difficult to manage, implies a poor prognosis and, consequently, the lung and bronchus should be protected from the radiation.

Correlation between microtubule-associated gene expression and chemosensitivity of patients with stage II non-small cell lung cancer.

The aim of this study was to explore the correlation between mRNA expression of ß-tubulin-III and stathmin in patients with stage II non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the chemosensitivity to Navelbine plus cisplatin (NP), as well as to provide a basis for personalized treatment. A single-gene quantitative test was performed to detect the mRNA expression of ß-tubulin-III and stathmin in the tumor tissue of patients with stage II NSCLC. All the patients underwent NP treatment following surgery and were followed-up to record their disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS). Statistical analyses were conducted to investigate the correlation between ß-tubulin-III and stathmin mRNA expression and DFS and OS in the patients. ß-tubulin-III mRNA expression was associated with OS in the 73 patients (P=0.003) and DFS was correlated with ß-tubulin-III mRNA expression and lymphatic metastasis (P<0.01). Stathmin mRNA expression was not correlated with OS or DFS (P>0.05). OS and DFS were longer in the patients with low ß-tubulin-III mRNA expression than in those with high ß-tubulin-III mRNA expression (P<0.01); there was no significant change in OS and DFS between the patients with high and low mRNA expression of stathmin (P>0.05). The mRNA expression levels of ß-tubulin-III in the tumor tissue of patients with stage II NSCLC may be considered as an index of prognosis and chemosensitivity, as well as a reference for personalized chemotherapeutic applications in patients.

Risk factors for No. 12p and No. 12b lymph node metastases in advanced gastric cancer in China.

BACKGROUND: The risk factors for No. 12p and No. 12b lymph node (LN) metastases in advanced gastric cancer (GC) remain controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate the risk factors for No. 12p and No. 12b LN metastases in advanced GC. METHODS: From January 1999 to December 2005, a retrospective analysis of 163 patients with advanced GC who underwent D2 lymphadenectomy in addition to No. 12p and No. 12b LN dissections was conducted. Potential clinicopathological factors that could influence No. 12p and No. 12b LN metastases were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: There were 15 cases (9.2%) with No. 12p LN metastases and 5 cases (3.1%) with synchronous No. 12b LN metastases. A logistic regression analysis revealed that the Borrmann type (III/IV versus I/II, P = 0.029), localization (lesser/circular versus greater, P = 0.025), and depth of invasion (pT4 versus pT2/pT3, P = 0.009) were associated with 11.1-, 3.8-, and 5.6-fold increases, respectively, for risk of No. 12p and No. 12b LN metastases. A logistic regression analysis also showed that No. 5 (P = 0.006) and No. 12a (P = 0.004) LN metastases were associated with 6.9- and 11.3-fold increases, respectively, for risk of No. 12p and No. 12b LN metastases. In addition, significant differences in 5-year survival of patients with and without No. 12p and No. 12b LN metastases were observed (13.3% versus 35.1%, P = 0.022). CONCLUSION: We conclude that Borrmann type, localization, and depth of invasion are significant variables for identifying patients with No. 12p and No. 12b LN metastases. Individuals with No. 5 or No. 12a LN metastases should be on high alert for the possibility of additional metastases to the No. 12p and No. 12b LNs.

Effect of Yiqi Bufei recipe [see text] on patients with pulmonary incompetence after pneumonectomy.

OBJECTIVE: To study the effect of Yiqi Bufei Recipe ([see text], YBR) on surgical tolerability, pulmonary compensatory function and post-operation rehabilitation in patients with pulmonary incompetence (PI) after pneumonectomy. METHODS: YBR intervention was applied to 60 patients with PI after pneumonectomy (as test group), the pulmonary and cardiac functions changes before and after operation, occurrence of postoperative complications, mortality, and the number of hospitalization days and intensive care unit (ICU) confinement period were observed. Meantime, for the negative and positive controls, the same parameters were observed comparatively in 60 patients with normal lung function, and in 60 patients with PI undergoing a similar operation but untreated with Chinese herbs. RESULTS: Lung function in the test group showed insignificant change before and after operation (P >0.05), while significant decrease was seen in the two control groups (P<0.05). Furthermore, the incidences of post-operation complications and mortality as well as the number of hospitalization days and the ICU confinement period in the test group were significantly lower than those in the positive control group respectively (P <0.05). CONCLUSION: YBR could relieve lung injury after pneumonectomy, improve surgical tolerability, reduce the length of postoperative hospitalization days and ICU confinement period, and lower the incidence of postoperative complications and mortality in patients with PI after pneumonectomy.

[Sleeve resection for lung cancer: a report of 82 cases].

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Bronchial sleeve resection and/or pulmovascular sleeve resection can maximize preservation of normal lung tissues after tumor resection, which provides a resection mode for lung cancer surgery. This study was to investigate the technique, operative results and survival of lung cancer patients after sleeve resection. METHODS: Eighty-two central lung cancer patients underwent sleeve resection in Zhejiang Cancer Hospital from Jun. 2001 to Dec. 2006. Among them, 23 underwent concomitant pulmovascular sleeve resection, 2 underwent pulmovascular sleeve resection alone. All patients received systematic lymph node dissection. The results of lymph node dissection and the occurrence of postoperative complications were studied. The survival of patients was analyzed by Kaplan-Meier method. RESULTS: An average of 20 lymph nodes (range, 9-57; median, 19 ) were dissected from 82 patients. Of the 82 patients, 49 (59.8%) were at stage N1, 21 (25.6%) at stage N2. Two (2.4%) patients died 2 and 3 days after operation. No bronchial anastomotic leakage occurred. The 1-, 2-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates were 78.4%, 52.5%, 39.1%, and 23.4%, respectively, with a median survival of 26 months. There were no significant differences in 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates between male and female patients, or between the patients aged of <60 and > or =60. The differences in 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates among N1(-) N2(-), N1 (+) N2(-), N2(+) patients, and among stageI, II, IIIA, IIIB patients were significant (P<0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Perioperative mortality and the incidence of anastomosis-related complications for lung cancer patients after sleeve resection are low. Sleeve resection is an alternative to pneumonectomy for certain indications. Systematic lymph node dissection does not increase operative complications and mortality. The survival of lung cancer patients after sleeve resection is conelated to lymph node metastasis and clinical stage, but has no correlation to gender or age.

[Ivor Lewis esophagectomy with two-field lymph node dissection for squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic esophagus].

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Esophagectomy with local regional lymph node dissection is the main treatment for lower thoracic esophageal carcinoma. This study was to assess the clinical outcomes of Ivor Lewis esophagectomy with two-field lymph node dissection for squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic esophagus. METHODS: Clinical data of 73 patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic esophagus, who underwent Ivor Lewis esophagectomy with two-field lymph node dissection from Jan. 1998 to Dec. 2001, were analyzed retrospectively. Kaplan-Meier method was used for survival analysis. RESULTS: The morbidity of postoperative complications was 15.1% with a 2.7% mortality rate. The lymph node metastasis rate was 71.2%; the metastasis rate of the upper mediastinal nodes was 17.8%. Of the 73 patients, 5 were at stage I, 35 at stage II, 32 at stage III, and 2 at stage IV. The overall 5-year survival rate was 23.3%. The 5-year survival rate was 38.1% for N0 patients and 17.3% for N1 patients (P<0.01), and was 31.2% for stage IIa patients, 27.8% for stage IIb patients, and 12.5% for stage III patients (P<0.01). CONCLUSION: Ivor Lewis esophagectomy with two-field lymph node dissection for squamous cell carcinoma of the lower thoracic esophagus is a safe operation, and may increase the chances of complete resection.