Comparison of the short-term outcomes of open and laparoscopic hepatectomy in the treatment of recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma: a single-center retrospective study.

Background: To retrospectively analyze the short-term outcomes between open hepatectomy (OH) and laparoscopic hepatectomy (LH) in the treatment of recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The objective is to develop the optimal surgical method for patients with recurrent liver cancer after operation. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the data of 165 HCC patients whose cancer recurred after hepatectomy between January 2015 and March 2021 at our medical center. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 74 patients were eventually enrolled in this study. Results: Tumors located in S1, S7, or S8 and larger tumor diameters were more frequent in the OH group, and the difference was statistically significant. Furthermore, there were notable differences between the LH and OH groups in terms of intraoperative blood loss (140.00 vs. 348.68 mL, P<0.001), mean operation time (150.95 vs. 203.28 min, P=0.024), and mean postoperative hospital stay (6.76 vs. 11.28 days, P=0.014). There were no statistically significant differences in the remaining characteristics between the two groups. There was no significant difference in recurrence-free survival and overall survival between the two groups. Conclusions: Compared with OH, LH can significantly reduce the amount of intraoperative blood loss and shorten the operation time and postoperative hospital stay. At the same time, laparoscopic surgery may be a better surgical approach for patients with tumors of smaller diameter located in segments 2 to 6.

Surgical Treatment of Postoperative Abdominal Metastases of Hepatocellular Carcinoma: 10-Year Experience in a Single Center.

OBJECTIVE: The significance of surgical treatment was analyzed by retrospectively collecting data on the re-resection of intra-abdominal metastases after hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) surgery in our center over the past 10 years. METHODS: The clinical and pathological data of 15 patients who developed intra-abdominal metastases after HCC resection and underwent re-resection from January 2010 to January 2020 were collected to analyze the patients' characteristics and prognosis. RESULTS: Of the 15 cases of abdominal metastasis, the majority (8 cases) had greater omental metastasis. There were 4 cases of mesenteric metastases, 1 case of abdominal wall metastasis, 1 case of mesenteric plus rectal wall metastasis, and 1 case of colon and mesenteric metastasis. The 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) rates were 31.1%, 23.3%, and 11.7%, respectively. The 1-year, 3-year, and 5-year overall survival rates were 93.3%, 28.7%, and 19.1%, respectively. Three patients are currently surviving disease-free, with survival times of 130.4 months, 43.3 months, and 9.4 months, respectively. CONCLUSION: Although the current guidelines do not recommend surgical resection as the preferred treatment for postoperative abdominal metastases of HCC, surgical resection is recommended for patients with limited or solitary metastasis in the abdominal cavity.

Supramolecular hybrid hydrogel based on host-guest interaction and its application in drug delivery.

In this work, we developed a simple, novel method for constructing gold nanocomposite supramolecular hybrid hydrogels for drug delivery, in which gold nanocrystals were utilized as building blocks. First, methoxypoly(ethylene glycol) thiol (mPEG-SH, molecular weight (MW)=5 K) capped gold nanocrystals (nanospheres and nanorods) were prepared via a facile one-step ligand-exchange procedure. Then, the homogeneous supramolecular hybrid hydrogels were formed, after adding α-cyclodextrin (α-CD) into PEG-modified gold nanocrystal solutions, due to the host-guest inclusion. Both gold nanoparticles and inclusion complexes formed between α-CD and PEG chain provided the supra-cross-links, which are beneficial to the gelation formation. The resulting hybrid hydrogels were fully characterized by a combination of techniques including X-ray diffraction, rheology studies, and scanning electron microscopy. Meanwhile, the hybrid hydrogel systems demonstrated unique reversible gel-sol transition properties at a certain temperature caused by the temperature-responsive reversible supramolecular assembly. The drug delivery applications of such hybrid hydrogels were further investigated in which doxorubicin was selected as a model drug for in vitro release, cytotoxicity, and intracellular release studies. We believe that the development of such hybrid hydrogels will provide new and therapeutically useful means for medical applications.

Ionic liquid-based electromembrane extraction and its comparison with traditional organic solvent based electromembrane extraction for the determination of strychnine and brucine in human urine.

An ionic liquid-based electromembrane extraction (IL-EME) method was presented, and its performance was compared with 2-ethylnitrobenzene (ENB) based EME for the determination of strychnine and brucine in human urine. For the two methods, the fundamental extraction parameters such as supported liquid membrane, voltage, extraction time, pH values of sample solution and acceptor solution, temperature and salting-out effect were separately optimized. IL-EME provided 96- and 122-fold enrichment factors for strychnine and brucine, respectively, which were better than those obtained in EME (83- and 86-fold, respectively). The calibration curves were linear over the ranges of 20-720 µg L(-1) for strychnine and 20-640 µg L(-1) for brucine with the correlation coefficients higher than 0.9950. The repeatability of EME and IL-EME were evaluated by five parallel experiments giving the relative standard deviations of 5.12-6.98%. As the results indicated, compared with ENB based EME, the proposed IL-EME is more reliable and could provide better extraction performance for the determination of strychnine and brucine in human urine.

Multiple functional ionic liquids based dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction combined with high performance chromatography for the determination of phenolic compounds in water samples.

A new mode of ionic liquid based dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (IL-DLLME) is developed. In this work, [C6MIm][PF6] was chosen as the extraction solvent, and two kinds of hydrophilic ionic liquids, [EMIm][BF4] and [BSO3HMIm][OTf], functioned as the dispersive solvent. So in the whole extraction procedure, no organic solvent was used. With the aid of SO3H group, the acidic compound was extracted from the sample solution without pH adjustment. Two phenolic compounds, namely, 2-naphthol and 4-nitrophenol were chosen as the target analytes. Important parameters affecting the extraction efficiency, such as the type of hydrophilic ionic liquids, the volume ratio of [EMIm][BF4] to [BSO3HMIm][OTf], type and volume of extraction solvent, pH value of sample solution, sonication time, extraction time and centrifugation time were investigated and optimized. Under the optimized extraction conditions, the method exhibited good sensitivity with the limits of detection (LODs) at 5.5 µg L(-1)and 10.0 µg L(-1) for 4-nitrophenol and 2-naphthol, respectively. Good linearity over the concentration ranges of 24-384 µg L(-1) for 4-nitrophenol and 28-336 µg L(-1) for 2-naphthol was obtained with correlation coefficients of 0.9998 and 0.9961, respectively. The proposed method can directly extract acidic compound from environmental sample or even more complex sample matrix without any pH adjustment procedure.

Ultrasound-assisted ionic liquid dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction coupled with high performance liquid chromatography for sensitive determination of trace celastrol in urine.

Ultrasound-assisted ionic liquid dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (UA IL-DLLME) coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) has been developed for the determination of celastrol in human urine samples. In the microextraction procedure, ionic liquid (IL) was used as extraction solvent and dispersed into the aqueous sample solution as fine droplets by means of dispersive solvent and ultrasonication which promoted the analyte to migrate into IL phase more easily. Several important parameters affecting the extraction efficiency were studied and optimized, including the type and volume of extraction solvent and dispersive solvent, sample pH, ultrasonication time, cooling time, centrifugation time and salting-out effect. Under the optimized conditions, 110-fold enrichment factor was obtained and the limit of detection (LOD) was 1.6 µg/L at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3. The calibration curve was linear over the range of 10-1000 µg/L for celastrol in human urine sample, with a correlation coefficient of 0.9980. Intra- and inter-assay precision were 0.43% and 2.78%, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied to the real human urine samples and good spiked recoveries in the range of 93.2-109.3% were obtained.

[Weibull analysis and flexural strength of glass-infiltrated alumina composite machined by CAD/CAM].

PURPOSE: To explore the structural reliability of machined infiltrated ceramic made from ultrafine alumina powder for dental CAD/CAM by means of flexural strength together with Weibull analysis. METHODS: Ultrafine grain-sized alumina powder made from ammonium aluminum sulfate was sintered into one kind of porous machined ceramic block. After being infiltrated by lanthanum glass powder, a glass infiltrated alumina composite was produced. Thirty bar specimens were prepared. The flexural strength was measured with the three-point bending test. The fracture stress values were analyzed by Weibull analysis to determine the Weibull modulus values(m). The strength values at failure probabilities of 1% and 5% failure were also calculated. X ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis were conducted. RESULTS: The mean flexural strength and standard deviation were (375.5+/-66.88) MPa coupled with Weibull modulus of 6.2. Strength values at failure probability of 1% and 5% were 191.79 MPa and 249.83 MPa, respectively. The micrograph under SEM indicated the prefabricated sintered alumina block retained a structure of continuous three-dimensional open pores, whereas the composite characterized itself as a pore-free structure after glass infiltration. XRD indicated the major crystal phase was alpha-alumina. CONCLUSIONS: The average fracture strength can not be used reliably as a design parameter for brittle all-ceramic crown materials. Compared with the average fracture strength alone, the use of flexure strength test combined with the Weibull analysis as a method of predicting survival rates from the strength data could be favorable in identifying the failure mechanisms involved in ceramic crown fracture, which would result in an improved validation of the strength data.