Dual-phase contrast-enhanced multislice computed tomography scans play a key role in the diagnosis of abdominal wall desmoid-type fibromatoses.

BACKGROUND: Abdominal wall desmoid-type fibromatoses (AWDF) are occasionally encountered in clinical work, but related CT reports are rare, and most cases were misdiagnosed as malignant tumors. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to determine the diagnostic value of multislice computed tomography (MSCT) in relation to the clinical diagnosis of AWDF. METHODS: The medical records of 14 patients whose pathology results provided initial confirmation of AWDF were reviewed, and data describing their clinical characteristics, tumors' MSCT characteristics, and the condition of the surrounding tissues were analyzed and summarized retrospectively. Intraobserver and interobserver reproducibilities were evaluated. RESULTS: AWDF tended to occur in women of childbearing age (24-32 years). They occurred more frequently during the first year following pregnancy. The mean disease duration was 5.64 ± 3.78 months. All isolated tumors were growing along the musculoaponeurotic layer, and their maximum diameters were between 32 and 76 mm. Tumors' capsules were incomplete, and although the tumors infiltrated the surrounding muscles, the surrounding fat tissue and vessels were not infiltrated. None of the patients' tumors showed cystic degeneration, calcification, necrosis, or peritumoral edema. The tumors had slightly lower densities on the pre-contrast enhancement scans and mild-to-moderate enhancement after contrast enhancement. All tumors contained ribbon-like structures, and approximately 65% of the tumors encircled vascular structures. CONCLUSION: Dual-phase contrast-enhanced MSCT scans were associated with a high level of diagnostic efficacy for AWDF. The abdominal wall masses grew along the musculoaponeurotic layer, which, together with the ribbon-like structures within the tumors, should prompt clinicians to consider the presence of AWDF.

A Novel Circulating MiRNA-Based Signature for the Diagnosis and Prognosis Prediction of Early-Stage Cervical Cancer.

BACKGROUND: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to play a key role in regulating the progression of cervical cancer (CC). This study aimed to develop a circulating miRNA-based molecular signature for the diagnosis and prognosis prediction of early-stage CC. METHODS: This study included 112 patients diagnosed with early-stage CC, 45 patients confirmed with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and 90 healthy subjects. Compared to the normal controls, the expression level of miR-21 was increased, while the levels of miR-125b and miR-370 were decreased in CC in both GSE30656 and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) cohort. The expression levels and diagnostic value of these candidate miRNAs were then validated through qRT-PCR. Their diagnostic and prognostic values for early-stage CC were further explored. RESULTS: Compared to the patients with CIN and healthy subjects, serum miR-21 was increased, while serum miR-125b and serum miR-370 were reduced in early-stage CC. In addition, combining these molecules yielded good performance for differentiating early-stage CC from CIN or healthy subjects. Moreover, strong association was found between serum miR-21 and lymph node metastasis (LNM) as well as recurrence-free survival of early-stage CC. Similar observations were found for serum miR-125b and serum miR-370. Patients with simultaneously high serum miR-21 + low serum miR-125b + low serum miR-370 suffered a high risk of LNM and recurrence, while those with low serum miR-21 + high serum miR-125b + high serum miR-370 had little risk for LNM and recurrence. CONCLUSIONS: Combining serum miR-21, miR-125b and miR-370 as a miRNA-based signature is promising for the detection and prognosis prediction of early-stage CC.

Quasiparticle electronic structure and optical absorption of diamond nanoparticles from ab initio many-body perturbation theory.

The excited states of small-diameter diamond nanoparticles in the gas phase are studied using the GW method and Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) within the ab initio many-body perturbation theory. The calculated ionization potentials and optical gaps are in agreement with experimental results, with the average error about 0.2 eV. The electron affinity is negative and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital is rather delocalized. Precise determination of the electron affinity requires one to take the off-diagonal matrix elements of the self-energy operator into account in the GW calculation. BSE calculations predict a large exciton binding energy which is an order of magnitude larger than that in the bulk diamond.

Quasiparticle band structures and optical properties of magnesium fluoride.

The quasiparticle and optical properties of magnesium fluoride (MgF(2)) are computed within the GW approximation based on many-body perturbation theory (MBPT). The many-body effects appearing in self-energy and electron-hole interactions have an important influence on the electronic and optical properties. The DFT-LDA calculation shows a 6.78 eV band gap. Two methods are employed to evaluate the self-energy within the GW approximation in the present work. The generalized plasmon pole model (GPP) provides a band gap of 12.17 eV, which agrees well with the experimental value of 12.4 eV (Thomas et al 1973 Phys. Status Solidi b 56 163). Another band gap value of 11.30 eV is obtained by using a full frequency-dependent self-energy, which is also not far from the experimental value and is much better than the result from the LDA calculation. The calculated optical spectrum within DFT is significantly different from the experiment. Although the calculated optical absorption threshold within the GW method is close to the experiment, the overall shape of the spectrum is still similar to the case of DFT. However, the overall shape of the spectrum via the Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) method agrees well with the experiment.

[Expression and prognostic value of transcriptional factor sp1 in breast cancer].

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Transcriptional factor Sp1 is involved in many biological processes, such as cell proliferation, apoptosis, differentiation and transformation, and plays an important role in invasion and metastasis of tumors. However, the expression patterns of Sp1 in various tumors are different. This study was to investigate the correlations of Sp1 expression to metastasis, invasion, and prognosis of breast cancer. METHODS: The expression of Sp1 in 60 specimens of breast cancer and 12 specimens of adjacent breast tissue was detected by EnVision immunohistochemistry. Its correlation to clinicopathologic features of breast cancer was analyzed by Cox regression analysis. RESULTS: The positive rate of Sp1 was 71.67% in breast cancer tissues, and 33.33% in adjacent tissues. Sp1 staining in cancer tissue was positively correlated to TNM stage (r=0.349, P<0.05), tumor invasion (r=0.407, P<0.01), and lymph node metastasis (r=0.314, P<0.05). Univariate analysis indicated that the overall survival rate was significantly lower in Sp1-positive patients than in Sp1-negative patients (41.86% vs. 82.35%, P<0.05). Cox multivariate analysis showed that Sp1 expression, TNM stage, invasion and lymph node metastasis were independent prognostic factors of breast cancer. CONCLUSIONS: Sp1 maybe participate in the invasion and metastasis of breast cancer, and is one of the valuable markers indicating poor prognosis of breast cancer. Sp1 detection, with consideration of tumor invasion and clinical stage, may increase the accuracy of predicting prognosis of patients with breast cancer.

Thidiazuron-induced regeneration of Echinacea purpurea L.: micropropagation in solid and liquid culture systems.

The goals of this study were to investigate thidiazuron (TDZ)-induced morphogenesis of Echinacea purpurea L. and to assess the possibility of developing a liquid-based protocol for rapid micropropagation. Callus development and root organogenesis were observed on leaf explants cultured on media containing 2,4-dicholorophenoxyacetic acid or dicamba, but no plantlets were regenerated. Addition of TDZ to the culture medium as the sole growth regulator resulted in the production of regenerable callus cultures. The highest rate of regeneration was observed for explants cultured on medium with TDZ at 2.5 microM or higher. Tissue derived from 1.0 microM TDZ treatments was used to initiate liquid cultures. All liquid treatments produced a similar number of regenerants but significantly more healthy plants were obtained from cultures grown in the presence of 0.1 and 1.0 microM TDZ. This TDZ-based micropropagation system is the first liquid, large-scale propagation protocol developed for the mass production of E. purpurea plants.