Efficacy and safety of laser ablation and microwave ablation to treat papillary thyroid microcarcinoma: A retrospective study.

OBJECTIVE: To retrospectively analyze the efficacy and safety of laser ablation (LA) and microwave ablation (MWA) in the treatment of papillary thyroid microcarcinoma (PTMC). METHODS: This was a retrospective study of 103 patients (109 nodules) who underwent thermal ablation for PTMC between October 2019 and March 2023; 61 underwent LA and 48 underwent MWA. The mean patients' age was 43.50 ± 12.42 years. After ablation, changes in tumor size at different time points, local recurrence, new lesions, lymph node metastasis, and complications were evaluated and recorded. The feasibility, success rate, and safety of LA and MWA were analyzed. RESULTS: Complete absence of enhancement on contrast-enhanced ultrasonography was observed in all target tumors after ablation. At the last follow-up, the mean volume of the PTMC nodules decreased from 0.09 ± 0.09 to 0.03 ± 0.03 ml (LA group) and from 0.11 ± 0.10 to 0.06 ± 0.08 ml (MWA group) (both, P < 0.05). There was no significant difference in volume change between the groups (P (groups): 0.520; P (groups over time): 0.423), indicating similar efficacy between the groups. There was also no significant difference in the volume reduction rate between the groups during follow-up, except for at 3 months (P = 0.023). The complication rates did not differ between the LA group (8.2 %) and MWA group (6.3 %) (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: During the short-term follow-up, ultrasound-guided LA and MWA were effective and safe for PTMC, and there were no significant differences in treatment outcomes between the methods.

Extracellular vesicle biomarkers in circulation for colorectal cancer detection: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

We provided an overview which evaluated the diagnostic performance of circulation EV biomarkers for CRC from PubMed, Medline, and Web of Science until 21 August 2022.Weidentified 48 studies that involved 7727 participants and evaluated 162 plasma/serum individual EV biomarkers including 117 RNAs and 45 proteins, as well as 45 EV biomarker panels for CRC detection. 12 studies evaluated the diagnostic performance of EV biomarkers for early CRC. The summarized sensitivity, specificity, and AUC value of individual EV RNAs and EV RNA panels were 76%, 75%, 0.87 and 82%, 79% and 0.90, respectively. Meanwhile, those of individual EV proteins and EV protein panels were 85%, 84%, 0.92 and 87%, 83%, 0.92, respectively. These results indicated that EV biomarker panels revealed superior diagnostic performance than the corresponding individual biomarkers. In early CRC, EV biomarkers showed available diagnostic value with the sensitivity, specificity, and AUC value of 80%, 75%, and 0.89.In subgroup analyses, EV miRNAs and LncRNAs held similar diagnostic value with the sensitivity, specificity and AUC value of 75%, 78%, 0.90 and 79%, 72%, 0.83, which was highly consistent with the whole EV RNAs. Significantly, the diagnostic values of EV miRNAs in plasma were marginally higher than those based on serum. In detail, the sensitivity, specificity, and AUC values were 79%, 81%, and 0.92 in plasma, as well as 74%, 77%, and 0.88 in serum, respectively. Therefore, circulation EV biomarkers could be considered as a promising biomarker for the early detection of CRC.

CCND2 is a prognostic biomarker and correlates with immune infiltration in lung adenocarcinoma.

Background: CCND2 expression influences the growth and proliferation of cancer cells and plays a crucial role in immune response of tumor. However, few studies focused on the correlation between CCND2 and lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) in terms of prognosis and tumor immune infiltration. Methods: Original LUAD case data were screened from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Using R software, we analyzed differently expressed CCND2 between LUAD and adjacent normal tissues. Kaplan-Meier analysis was conducted to determine the relationship between CCND2 expression and the overall survival of LUAD patients, and Cox regression analysis was performed to identify the independently prognostic risk factors for LUAD. Using TIMER (Tumor Immune Estimation Resource) and CIBERSORTx (Cell-type Identification by Estimating Relative Subsets of known RNA Transcripts) databases, the connection between CCND2 expression and LUAD immune infiltration was investigated. Results: The level of CCND2 was significantly lower in LUAD than in adjacent normal tissues [adjusted P<0.05 and log2 fold change (FC) =-1.33]. LUAD patients who expressed lower CCND2 had a shorter overall survival (P=0.046) and CCND2 was an independently prognostic risk factor for LUAD [hazard ratio (HR): 0.77, P=0.049]. In LUAD patients, CCND2 expression was positively associated with the levels of B cells (r=0.159, P=4.00e-04), CD8+ T cells (r=0.287, P=7.88e-11), CD4+ T cells (r=0.301, P=8.14e-12), macrophages (r=0.128, P=4.57e-03), neutrophils (r=0.373, P=1.07e-17), and myeloid dendritic cells (r=0.284, P=1.43e-10). The levels of B cells and macrophages had significantly association with the overall survival of LUAD patients. CIBERSORTx showed that the proportions of naive B cells, resting dendritic cells, and macrophages M1 were higher in the low CCND2 expression group (P<0.05); whereas macrophages M1, activated natural killer (NK) cells, and resting CD4+ memory cells were lower (P<0.05). Conclusions: CCND2 can be exploited as a novel prognostic biomarker involved in immune infiltration of LUAD, hence providing new preventative and therapeutic options for LUAD.