Manual acupuncture ameliorates inflammatory pain by upregulating adenosine A3 receptor in complete Freund's adjuvant-induced arthritis rats.

BACKGROUND: Adenosine A3 receptor (A3R) exerts analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-nociceptive effects. In this study, we determined the analgesic mechanism of manual acupuncture (MA) in rats with complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA)-induced arthritis and explored whether MA ameliorates inflammation in these rats by upregulating A3R. METHODS: Sixty Sprague Dawley (SD) rats were randomly divided into the following groups: Control, CFA, CFA + MA, CFA + sham MA, CFA + MA + DMSO, CFA + MA + IB-MECA, and CFA + MA + Reversine groups. The arthritis rat model was induced by injecting CFA into the left ankle joints. Thereafter, the rats were subjected to MA (ST36 acupoint) for 3 days. The clinical indicators paw withdrawal latency (PWL), paw withdrawal threshold (PWT), and open field test (OFT) were used to determine the analgesic effect of MA. In addition, to explore the effect of A3R on inflammation after subjecting arthritis rats to MA, IB-MECA (A3R agonist) and Reversine (A3R antagonist) were injected into ST36 before MA. RESULTS: MA ameliorated the pathological symptoms of CFA-induced arthritis, including the pain indicators PWL and PWT, number of rearing, total ambulatory distance, and activity trajectory. Furthermore, after MA, the mRNA and protein expression of A3R was upregulated in CFA-induced arthritis rats. In contrast, the protein levels of TNF-α, IL-1ß, Rap1, and p-p65 were downregulated after MA. Interestingly, the A3R agonist and antagonist further downregulated and upregulated inflammatory cytokine expression, respectively, after MA. Furthermore, the A3R antagonist increased the degree of ankle swelling after MA. CONCLUSION: MA can alleviate inflammatory pain by inhibiting the NF-κB signaling pathway via upregulating A3R expression of the superficial fascia of the ST36 acupoint site in CFA-induced arthritis rats.

Differences in breast cancer characteristics and outcomes between Caucasian and Chinese women in the US.

Chinese breast cancer patients living in the United States (US) can experience different disease patterns than Caucasians, which might allow for predicting the future epidemiology of breast cancer in China. We aimed to compare the clinicopathologic characteristics and outcomes of Caucasian and Chinese female breast cancer patients residing in the US. The study cohort consisted of 3868 Chinese and 208621 Caucasian women (diagnosed from 1990 to 2009) in the US Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Compared with the Caucasian patients, the US-residing Chinese patients had a younger age at diagnosis and a higher family income, remained married longer, and more frequently lived in metropolitan areas. Other tumor characteristics were similarly distributed between the two races. Compared with the Caucasians, the Chinese patients had a significantly improved overall survival (OS) but similar breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS). Our analysis suggested that US-residing Chinese patients had significant differences in age, family income, marital status and area of residence, compared with their Caucasian counterparts. No significant disparities were noted in BCSS between the two races, whereas the Chinese patients had a significantly better OS. These findings warrant further investigation and should be considered in the screening and treatment of breast cancer.

Clinical and pathological response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy based on primary tumor reduction is correlated to survival in hormone receptor-positive but not hormone receptor-negative locally advanced breast cancer.

PURPOSE: This study was designed to examine the relationship between different methodologies for response evaluation and long-term survival estimation in patients underwent neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCT) for breast cancer. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 569 patients who were diagnosed with LABC and received NCT followed by breast and axilla surgery. The RECIST 1.1 criteria and Miller-Payne (MP) grading scale were used to evaluate patient responses to NCT. Univariate and multivariate survival analyses were performed to investigate the correlation between treatment response and long-term patient survival. RESULTS: Clinical response (RFS [P < 0.001]; OS [P = 0.003]), pathological response evaluated by pCR (RFS [P < 0.001]; OS [P < 0.001]), and MP grade (RFS [P < 0.001]; OS [P < 0.001]) were significant predictors of risks of relapse and survival. However, in hormone receptor-positive (ER and/or PR+) subtypes, the clinical response (P = 0.004 for Luminal-A and P = 0.038 for Luminal-B) and MP grade (P = 0.002 for Luminal-A and P < 0.001 for Luminal-B) significantly predicted RFS independently according to multivariate Cox regression model. MP grade (P = 0.015 for Luminal-A and P = 0.009 for Luminal-B) also was an independent predictor of patients' OS. However, these two methods failed to predict patient survival in hormone receptor-negative (ER and PR-) subtypes. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that the value of response evaluation methods varies for different breast cancer subtypes. Conceiving of further prospective approaches for new individualized response-evaluation models are needed in the neoadjuvant setting.