Using ROPScore and CHOP ROP for early prediction of retinopathy of prematurity in a Chinese population.

PURPOSE: Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) is a disease that causes vision loss, vision impairment, and blindness, most frequently manifesting among preterm infants. ROPScore and CHOP ROP (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia ROP) are similar scoring models to predict ROP using risk factors such as postnatal weight gain, birth weight (BW), and gestation age (GA). The purpose of this study was to compare the accuracy and difference between using ROPScore and CHOP ROP for the early prediction of ROP. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted from January 2009 to December 2019 in China. Patients eligible for enrollment included infants admitted to NICU at ≤32 weeks GA or those with ≤1500 g BW. The sensitivity and specificity of ROPScore and CHOP ROP were analyzed, as well as its suitability as an independent predictor of ROP. RESULTS: Severe ROP was found in 5.0% of preterm infants. The sensitivity and specificity of the ROPScore test at any stage of ROP was 55.8 and 77.8%, respectively. For severe ROP, the sensitivity and specificity was 50 and 87.0%, respectively. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for the ROPScore for predicting severe ROP was 0.76. This value was significantly higher than the values for birth weight (0.60), gestational age (0.73), and duration of ventilation (0.63), when each was category measured separately. For the CHOP ROP, it correctly predicted infants who developed type 1 ROP (sensitivity, 100%, specificity, 21.4%). CONCLUSIONS: The CHOP ROP model predicted infants who developed type 1 ROP at a sensitivity of 100% whereas ROPScore had a sensitivity of 55.8%. Therefore, the CHOP ROP model is more suitable for Chinese populations than the ROPScore test. CLINICAL REGISTRATION NUMBER AND STROBE GUIDELINES: This article was a retrospective cohort study and reported the results of the ROPScore and CHOP ROP algorithms. No results pertaining to interventions on human participants were reported. Thus, registration was not required and this study followed STROBE guidelines.

Altered glutamate cysteine ligase expression and activity in renal cell carcinoma.

Oxidative stress has been linked to the progression of mutations and cancer. Increased glutathione (GSH) contents have been observed in a number of different human cancer tissues. GSH is synthesized de novo in a two-step process catalyzed by glutamate cysteine ligase (GCL). The present study aimed to investigate whether GCL was associated with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). The protein expression levels of the GCL subunits (catalytic subunit, GCLc; and modulatory subunit, GCLm) and GCL activity were examined in renal cancer tissue. A total of 46 patients fulfilling the RCC criteria of the World Health Organization, revised in 2004, were enrolled. The tumor and adjacent tissues were sampled from all the subjects by surgery. The study demonstrated that GCLc and GCLm protein expression and the GCL activity were significantly increased in the tumor tissue from RCC patients. These results indicate that increased expression and enzymatic activity of GCL is closely associated with RCC and thus, this suggests an important role for GSH in the pathogenesis of RCC.

[Effects of K237 on the proliferation of PC-3M cells and mRNA expressions of bax and bcl-2].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the inhibitory effect of polypeptide K237 on the proliferation of human hormone refractory prostate cancer cell line PC-3M and its possible mechanism. METHODS: PC-3M cells were divided into three experimental groups and a control, treated with polypeptide K237 at the concentration of 50, 100, 200 and 0 micromol/L, respectively, for 48 hours. The effects of K237 on the proliferation of different groups of the PC-3M cells were analyzed by MTF, and the mRNA expression levels of bax and bcl-2 were detected by RT-PCR. RESULTS: After polypeptide K237 treatment, the PC-3M cells became round, small and less transparent in cytoplasm, and some shed and suspended in the culture medium. The growth inhibition rates of the PC-3M cells were (12.6 +/- 0.95)%, (17.8 +/- 0.99)% and (27.2 +/- 1.12)% in the 50, 100 and 200 micromol/L concentration groups. RT-PCR analysis showed that the bax/beta-actin values of the 50, 100, 200 and 0 micromol/L groups were 0.919 +/- 0.071, 0.971 +/- 0.083, 0.992 +/- 0.102 and 0.889 +/- 0.067, and the bcl-2/beta-actin values of the four groups were 0.896 +/- 0.085, 0.791 +/- 0.084, 0.764 +/- 0.702 and 0.922 +/- 0.097, respectively, both with significant differences between the experimental and the control groups (P < 0.01). The mRNA expression of bax was upregulated and that of bcl-2 downregulated in a dose-dependent manner. CONCLUSION: Polypeptide K237 may induce apoptosis of PC-3M cells by affecting the expressions of bax and bcl-2, and thus suppress the proliferation of prostate cancer cells.