The relationship between muscular atrophy/sarcopenia and cardiovascular diseases in the elderly: a bibliometrics study.

BACKGROUND: As the aging population continues to increase worldwide, the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases and muscular dystrophy/sarcopenia in the elderly has escalated significantly. Cardiovascular diseases elevate the risk of muscular atrophy/sarcopenia, which results in increased disability and mortality of patients. This study analyzed the current available literature related to the relationship between cardiovascular diseases and muscular atrophy/sarcopenia in the aging population. METHODS: The Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-E) database was searched for related literature published between 1900 and March 14, 2021. The subject search was performed using the search terms "muscular atrophy" and "sarcopenia". The search formula was "muscular atrophy OR sarcopenia". The search scope was limited to "cardiovascular diseases OR cardiac & cardiovascular systems". All search results and cited references were exported in plain text format and Citespace software was used to analyze the publications in terms of year of publication, country and institution, journal of publication, authors, and keywords. RESULTS: A total of 1,004 related research documents were obtained, with a citation frequency of 26,705 times. The top five countries for the highest number of published documents were the United States, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and Italy. The top five countries involved in research cooperation were the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Germany, however, overall, there was little cooperation between countries, institutions, and authors. A number of researchers from Germany published the most documents. The author with the most cited publication was Cruz-Jentoft et al. from Spain, which deserves special attention. Professional journals of in the field of geriatrics play a significant role in this research topic. Analysis of the keywords showed that current researchers are mainly concerned with the associated risk of death. CONCLUSIONS: The relationship between muscular atrophy/sarcopenia and cardiovascular diseases is currently a hot topic of research in geriatrics and cardiovascular disease, and further studies examining the mechanisms involved and potential prevention strategies are warranted.

Effects of preemptive interferon-α monotherapy in acute leukemia patients with relapse tendency after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation: a case-control study.

Interferon-α (IFN-α) inhibits tumor growth and mimics graft-versus-leukemia after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT). In the current case-control study, we compared treatment responses in acute leukemia patients with relapse tendency post-allo-HSCT receiving preemptive IFN-α after withdrawal of immunosuppressants (n = 31) vs. receiving no IFN-α (n = 67). In the IFN-α group, 25 patients responded to the treatment without progressing to hematological relapse. In the non-IFN-α group, only 22 patients responded to the treatment. The response rate differed significantly (80.6 vs. 32.8%, P < 0.001). The 2-year cumulative incidence of relapse was 31.6 and 61.2% in the IFN-α and the non-IFN groups, respectively (P = 0.006). The 2-year leukemia-free survival and overall survival rate was 57.4 vs. 28.4% (P < 0.001) and 67.6 vs. 32.9% (P = 0.001), respectively. Among the 31 patients in the IFN-α group, 18 patients (58.1%) developed graft-versus-host disease (GVHD): 6 acute and 12 limited chronic GVHD. Patients who developed GVHD had higher treatment response rate than patients without GVHD (88.9 vs. 53.8%, P = 0.022). In conclusion, preemptive IFN-α therapy is a safe and effective treatment to prevent disease progression in high-risk patients with relapse tendency post-allo-HSCT.

[Clinical study of unrelated umbilical cord blood transplantation for 25 patients with hematological diseases].

This study was purposed to investigate the engraftment, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), transplantation related mortality (TRM), relapse and survival in hematologic patients received unrelated umbilical cord blood transplantation (UCBT). A total of 25 patients with hematological disease underwent UCBT, including 8 pediatric and 17 young adult patients. Among them 3 cases received single unit of UCBT and 22 cases received double units of UCBT. For donor/recipients human leukocyte antigen (HLA) matching: HLA 6/6 loci matched in 9 cases, HLA 4-5/6 loci matched in 16 cases. There were 19 patients with hematologic malignancies, including 3 cases in the period of disease progression and 6 cases of non-hematologic malignancies. Conditioning regimens were TBI/Cy ± Flu ± ATG or BuCy ± Flu ± ATG for 21 patients and Cy+Flu+ATG for 4 patients. For prophylaxis of acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD) the regimen of cyclosporine (CsA) as dominant drug was used. The results showed that among 16 patients (80.0%) achieved engraftment, 20 patients survived for more than 42 d after transplantation. The cumulative neutrophil recovery rate on day 42 after transplant was 64.0%, with a median time of 17.0 d;the cumulative platelet recovery rate on day 100 after transplant was 60.0 %, with a median time of 35.0 d. The cumulative rate of grade II-IV and III-IV aGVHD after transplantation 100 d was 44.0% and 30.7%, respectively. Until the end of the follow-up, the cumulative rate of TRM was 54.3%. For all the patients, overall survival rate was 42.7%. Out of 17 evaluable patients with hematologic malignancies 7 cases (41.2%) survived to date, and only 1 case relapsed, so event-free survival rate was 35.3%. Out of 5 evaluable patients with non-hematologic malignancies, 4 patients survived and 2 patients were in stable engraftment state, 2 cases with autologous hematopoietic recovery. Among 3 cases of hematologic malignancies at advanced stage, only 1 case survived to date. It is concluded that HLA-4-6/6 loci matched UCBT is an effective option to treat hematological diseases. Double cord blood transplantation (dUCBT) can overcome the disadvantage of insufficient cells of single cord blood UCBT to treat overweight children and adult.

[Clinical study of umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells for treatment of nineteen patients with steroid-resistant severe acute graft-versus-host disease].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) infusion in patients with steroid-resistant severe acute graft-versus-host disease (aGVHD). METHODS: A total of 19 patients with steroid-resistant severe aGVHD received MSCs infusion treatment. The treatment response, transplantation-related mortality, events associated with infusion and relapse rate were analyzed. RESULTS: Two patients with grade II, 5 patients with grade III and 12 patients with grade IV aGVHD received a total of 58 infusions of MSCs. The mean total dose of MSCs was 2.13 (range 0.60 - 7.20)×10(6) cells per kg bodyweight. Seven patients received one infusion, 2 patients received two infusions, and 10 patients received three or more infusions. Eleven patients had a complete response and 4 had a partial response and 4 had no response. No patients had side-effects during or immediately after infusions, and no MSCs related tumorigenesis was detected to date. Eleven patients survived and 8 died, 4 for aGVHD, 1 for infection and 2 for aGVHD with concomitant infection and 1 for underlying leukemia relapse. The cell viability of freshly prepared MSCs is 93% (92% - 95%) by trypan blue staining. The cell viability of programmatically frozen and thawed MSCs is 72% (70% - 74%). CONCLUSION: Infusion of umbilical cord-derived MSCs expanded in vitro is an effective therapy for patients with steroid-resistant severe aGVHD without negative impact on relapse. Freshly prepared MSCs are superior to frozen and thawed cells in terms of cell viability.

Conditional expression of a suicide gene by the telomere reverse transcriptase promoter for potential post-therapeutic deletion of tumorigenesis.

Integration of a therapeutic gene into the host cell genome permits stable expression of the gene product in the target cells and its progeny. However, non-directional integration of any given gene can pose the risk of activating tumor genes or silencing tumor suppressor genes. Therefore, including a safety-control element into integrating vector systems is an important advance towards safer human gene therapy. Here, we report on a gene expression cassette that can be potentially exploited in integrating vector systems to eliminate post-therapeutic tumorigenesis. The Herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (hsvTK) gene under the transcriptional control of the human telomere reverse transcriptase promoter (hTERTp) was incorporated into a self-inactivating HIV-based lentiviral vector. The hTERT promoter is silent in normal somatic cells and re-activated in tumor cells. Therefore, normal gene-corrected cells should not express hsvTK from the promoter. However, if some gene-corrected cells subsequently become tumorigenic and the hTERT promoter is re-activated, application of ganciclovir (GCV), a clinically used antiviral drug, will achieve selective deletion of the cancerous cells. Our experimental data indicated that the hTERTp-hsvTK cassette in the lentiviral vector was sufficient to differentiate between tumor cells and normal cells, thus eradicating tumor cells selectively in vitro and in vivo. These results proved the principle of using the element in integrating vectors for safer gene delivery.