Diffusion-based culture and real-time impedance monitoring of tumor spheroids in hydrogel microwells of a suspended membrane under microfluidic conditions.

Tumor spheroids are widely studied for in vitro modeling of tumor growth and responses to anticancer drugs. However, current methods are mostly limited to static and perfusion-based cultures, which can be improved by more accurately mimicking pathological conditions. Here, we developed a diffusion-based dynamic culture system for tumor spheroids studies using a thin membrane of hydrogel microwells and a microfluidic device. This allows for effective exchange of nutrients and metabolites between the tumors and the culture medium flowing underneath, resulting in uniform tumor spheroids. To monitor the growth and drug response of the spheroids in real-time, we performed spectroscopic analyses of the system's impedance, demonstrating a close correlation between the tumor size and the resistance and capacitance of the system. Our results also indicate an enhanced drug effect on the tumor spheroids in the presence of a low AC electric field, suggesting a weakening mechanism of the spheroids induced by external perturbation.

Reliability and Validity of the Chinese Version of the Nurses' Cancer Pain Management Competency Scale.

BACKGROUND: The Nurses' Cancer Pain Management Competency Scale (NCPMCS) is a tool to explore nurses' competencies and subjective experiences in cancer pain management, and to help nurses understand their current shortcomings in cancer pain management. The scale, currently available only in English and translated into Chinese for wider adoption abroad, provides a tool for Chinese nurses to assess their level of cancer pain management. Furthermore, based on the scale's specific score, they can evaluate their lack of understanding about cancer pain management, advance research into this area, and enhance their capacity to control cancer pain while providing patient care. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to translate and localize the new scale, and to measure its reliability and validity. The study was also to provide a way to quickly and accurately measure the competency of cancer pain management among nursing staff in China. METHODS: The Bristling translation approach was used to translate, translate back, and culturally modify the English version of the cancer pain management competency scale for nurses to create the Chinese version. A convenience sample was used for the study, 220 clinical nurses from three Grade III hospitals in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China, were chosen by convenience sampling. The Chinese version of the scale was used for this investigation. RESULTS: The Cancer Pain Management Competency Scale for Nurses has 14 items over 4 dimensions in its Chinese form. From the exploratory factor analysis, four common components were recovered; the cumulative variance rate was 81.994%, the scale's Cronbach's α coefficient was 0.902, and the Cronbach's α coefficient for each dimension ranged from 0.800 to 0.938. Retest reliability was 0.915, scale content validity was 0.865, and Spearman-Brown's broken half reliability was 0.808. CONCLUSION: Nurses' cancer pain management competency in clinics can be assessed using the Chinese version of the Nurses' Cancer Pain Management Competency Scale, which has strong validity and reliability.

Rocking- and diffusion-based culture of tumor spheroids-on-a-chip.

Tumor spheroids are now intensively investigated toward preclinical and clinical applications, necessitating the establishment of accessible and cost-effective methods for routine operations. Without losing the advantage of organ-chip technologies, we developed a rocking system for facile formation and culture of tumor spheroids in hydrogel microwells of a suspended membrane under microfluidic conditions. While the rocking is controlled with a step motor, the microfluidic device is made of two plastic plates, allowing plugging directly syringe tubes with Luer connectors. Upon injection of the culture medium into the tubes and subsequent rocking of the chip, the medium flows back and forth in the channel underneath the membrane, ensuring a diffusion-based culture. Our results showed that such a rocking- and diffusion-based culture method significantly improved the quality of the tumor spheroids when compared to the static culture, particularly in terms of growth rate, roundness, junction formation and compactness of the spheroids. Notably, dynamically cultured tumor spheroids showed increased drug resistance, suggesting alternative assay conditions. Overall, the present method is pumpless, connectionless, and user-friendly, thereby facilitating the advancement of tumor-spheroid-based applications.

Socioecological influencers of health-promoting lifestyles in Chinese: a preliminary survey using convenient samples.

Background: Healthy lifestyles are considered important means to reduce the burden of diseases. This cross-sectional study was conducted based on the Ecological Model of Health Behavior (EMHB) to analyze the factors associated with the health-promoting lifestyles of Chinese residents. Methods: We carried out a cross-sectional investigation in July 2023. Our investigated factors included social-demographic characteristics (including sex, age, education level, employment status, marital status, personal monthly income, and daily behavioral habits [which were measured by a questionnaire)], health literacy [which was measured by the Chinese version of the Health Literacy Scale Short-Form scale (HLS-SF12)], and family health [which was measured by the Chinese version of the Short-Form of the Family Health Scale (FHS-SF)]. Our outcome was health promoting lifestyle, which was measured by a revised version of Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile-II (HPLP-IIR). Data were analyzed using stepwise regression. Results: A total of 1,402 participants were enrolled. Higher scores of HLS-SF12 (ß = 0.467), having regular exercise (ß = 0.212), and regular physical examination (ß = 0.088) were associated with better health-prompting lifestyles. However, older age (≥60 years) (ß = -0.046), drinking (ß = -0.066), and sleeping time (5-6 h/day) (ß = -0.048) were associated lower levels of health-prompting lifestyles. Living with family (ß = 0.077), FHS-SF (ß = 0.104), and married (ß = -0.077) were significant influencers. Unemployed (ß = -0.048), receiving retirement pay (ß = -0.053), and economic support provided by parents (ß = 0.094) were associated with better health-prompting lifestyles. There were multiple influencing factors of the six dimensions of the HPLP-IIR. Our findings indicate that community residents with higher health literacy, better family health, and health-related behaviors tend to have better health-promoting lifestyles. Conclusion: Our findings have confirmed the complex impacts of social-ecological factors on health-promoting lifestyles, which may help policy makers with health-promotion strategies making and also help researchers to control for confounding in study design.