Correlation between secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine protein expression and the prognosis of postoperative patients exhibiting esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between the expression level of secreted protein acidic and rich in cysteine (SPARC) and the prognosis of postoperative patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC). The expression level of SPARC was detected in the 89 ESCC tissue cases and 100 healthy esophageal mucosa cases, which served as the controls. Immunohistochemistry and reverse transcription­polymerase chain reaction (RT­PCR) were employed to evaluate the SPARC expression in cases with ESCC. RT­PCR demonstrated that the positive rates of SPARC mRNA expression in ESCC were 71.91% (64/89). The positive rates of normal esophageal mucosa mRNA expression were 15.00% (15/100), which were significantly lower than that in the ESCC tissue samples. The difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). Immunohistochemical staining indicated that the positive expression rate of SPARC protein in the ESCC tissue samples was significantly higher than that in the esophageal mucosa tissue samples (65.17 vs. 8.00%; P<0.001). The expression of SPARC protein was negatively correlated with lymph node metastasis (P<0.05), which was not associated with the pathologic gross morphology, tumor differentiation degree or other clinical features. The survival of patients with ESCC was not associated with the expression level of SPARC protein (P>0.05), but was associated with the tumor location (P<0.05), differentiation (P<0.001) and staging (P<0.05). Thus, SPARC mRNA and protein were highly expressed in ESCC, and negatively correlated with lymph node metastasis, which was not associated with postoperative survival of ESCC patients. Thus, detection of SPARC mRNA and protein expression levels may facilitate early diagnosis and prognosis assessment of ESCC.

[Effects of transection of cervical spinal cord on lipopolysaccharide induced acute lung injury in rat].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effects of transection of cervical spinal cord (TCSC) on acute lung injury (ALI) and its potential mechanism in rat. METHODS: Seventy-two rats were randomly divided into three groups: normal control group (NC, n=8), endotoxemia group (ET, n=32) and endotoxemia with TCSC group (TCSC, n=32), and the latter two groups were divided into four subgroups respectively according to different time intervals (n=8). Endotoxemia model was established by injecting lipopolysaccharide (LPS, 10 mg/kg) intravenously, and the spinal cord at 7th cervical spine of rats was transected in TCSC group. Samples of blood and lung were collected at different time intervals. The plasma levels of norepinephrine (NE) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) were measured by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and enzyme-lined immunosorbent assay (ELISA) respectively, and arterial blood oxygen pressure (PaO2) was determined by blood-gas analyser. The changes in histopathology and lung wet/dry weight (W/D) ratio were also observed in every group. RESULTS: The changes in the levels of NE and lung W/D ratio of the TCSC group was significantly decreased than those of ET group, but PaO2 of TCSC group was increased obviously than that of ET group (all P<0.05), and the degree of lung injury was less intensive in the TCSC group. At all the time points, the level of IL-6 of TCSC group was lower compared with ET group (all P<0.05). The results of correlation analysis suggested that there was a positive correlation between plasma NE and IL-6 concentration (r=0.458, P<0.05), a negative correlation between NE and PaO2 (r= -0.528, P<0.05). CONCLUSION: Sympathectomy as a result of TCSC at 7th cervical spine may palliate the degree of ALI and improve oxygenation in rats with endotoxemia by inhibiting excessive activation of adrenoceptor.