A modified surgical technique of shortening renal ischemia time in left renal cancer patients with Mayo level II-IV tumor thrombus.

BACKGROUND: To explore the safety and effectiveness of a modified surgical technique which could shorten the time of renal ischemia in left renal cancer and Mayo level II to IV inferior vena cava (IVC) tumor thrombus. METHOD: We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 14 cases with left renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and Mayo level II to IV IVC tumor thrombus from February 2015 to July 2019. Preoperative imaging showed that there was no obvious sign of tumor thrombus invading the blood vessel wall. During the surgery, after the right renal artery, the right renal vein and the distal end of IVC were blocked, the balloon catheter was used and the tumor thrombus was removed completely from the IVC. The incision of IVC was closed by Satinsky clamp to make IVC partially blocked. Then the right renal artery and right renal vein were released. The incision of IVC was sutured continuously. At last, the Satinsky clamp and the blocking band at the distal end of the IVC were released. RESULT: There were 8 cases (57.1%) of Mayo level II, 3 cases (21.4%) of Mayo level III and 3 cases (21.4%) of Mayo level IV. The operation was successfully completed in all 14 patients. There were 2 cases (14.3%) operated by complete laparoscopic approach, 8 cases (57.1%) by open approach, and 4 patients (28.6%) by laparoscopic conversion to open approach. The occlusion time of right renal artery and vein (renal ischemia time) was 3 to 15 min, with an average of (6.8 ± 3.2) minutes. The mean time of IVC occlusion was (19.4 ± 4.9) min. Preoperative creatinine was 66 to 130 µmol/L, with an average of (96.6 ± 21.2) µmol/L. One week after operation, serum creatinine was 64 to 632 µmol/L, with an average of (132.4 ± 144.9) µmol/L. Among the 14 cases, 5 (42.9%) had early postoperative complications. Besides one of the 14 patients died in perioperative period, the median follow-up of other 13 cases was 10 months (range: 4-29 months). The 5 (35.7%) of the 14 cases were died of disease. CONCLUSION: This modified procedure was relatively safe and effective in shortening the time of renal ischemia in left RCC patients with Mayo II to IV IVC tumor thrombus.

microRNA-448 inhibits stemness maintenance and self-renewal of hepatocellular carcinoma stem cells through the MAGEA6-mediated AMPK signaling pathway.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) occurs mainly in patients with chronic liver disease and cirrhosis. Increasing evidence has identified the involvement of microRNAs (miRNAs) acting as essential regulators in the progression of HCC. As predicted by microarray analysis, miR-448 might potentially affect HCC progression by regulating the melanoma-associated antigen (MAGEA). Therefore, the present investigation focused on exploring whether or not miR-448 and MAGEA6 were involved in the self-renewal and stemness maintenance of HCC stem cells. The interaction among miR-448, MAGEA6, and the AMPK signaling pathway was evaluated. It was noted that miR-448 targeted and downregulated MAGEA6, thus activating the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signaling pathway in HCC. Furthermore, for the purpose of exploring the functional relevance of MAGEA6 and miR-448 on the sphere formation, colony formation, and invasion and migration of HCC stem cells, the CD133+ CD44 + HCC stem cells were sorted and treated with the mimic or inhibitor of miR-448, small interfering RNA (siRNA) against MAGEA6 or an AMPK activator AICAR. MAGEA6 silencing or miR-448 overexpression was demonstrated to inhibit the abilities of sphere formation, colony formation, cell migration, and invasion of HCC cells. Afterwards, a rescue experiment was conducted and revealed that MAGEA6 silencing reversed the effects of miR-448 inhibitor on stemness maintenance and self-renewal of HCC stem cells. Finally, after the in vivo experiment was carried out, miR-448 was observed to restrain the tumor formation and stemness in vivo. Altogether, miR-448 activates the AMPK signaling pathway by downregulating MAGEA6, thus inhibiting the stemness maintenance and self-renewal of HCC stem cells, which identifies miR-448 as a new therapeutic strategy for HCC.

LncRNA SNHG8 is identified as a key regulator of acute myocardial infarction by RNA-seq analysis.

BACKGROUND: Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in numerous physiological functions. However, their mechanisms in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) are not well understood. METHODS: We performed an RNA-seq analysis to explore the molecular mechanism of AMI by constructing a lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA axis based on the ceRNA hypothesis. The target microRNA data were used to design a global AMI triple network. Thereafter, a functional enrichment analysis and clustering topological analyses were conducted by using the triple network. The expression of lncRNA SNHG8, SOCS3 and ICAM1 was measured by qRT-PCR. The prognostic values of lncRNA SNHG8, SOCS3 and ICAM1 were evaluated using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. RESULTS: An AMI lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA network was constructed that included two mRNAs, one miRNA and one lncRNA. After RT-PCR validation of lncRNA SNHG8, SOCS3 and ICAM1 between the AMI and normal samples, only lncRNA SNHG8 had significant diagnostic value for further analysis. The ROC curve showed that SNHG8 presented an AUC of 0.850, while the AUC of SOCS3 was 0.633 and that of ICAM1 was 0.594. After a pairwise comparison, we found that SNHG8 was statistically significant (P SNHG8-ICAM1 = 0.002; P SNHG8-SOCS3 = 0.031). The results of a functional enrichment analysis of the interacting genes and microRNAs showed that the shared lncRNA SNHG8 may be a new factor in AMI. CONCLUSIONS: Our investigation of the lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory networks in AMI revealed a novel lncRNA, lncRNA SNHG8, as a risk factor for AMI and expanded our understanding of the mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of AMI.

Role of vascular clamping in hepatic resection: a review.

Hepatic resection is usually a complicated surgical procedure. In the course of liver organ resection overwhelming safety measures are extremely important simply because this organ has parallel vascular source. Expensive machines are launched in schedule operative practice without the proper evidence of their efficaciousness or efficiency in excess of less complicated procedures. Intermittent clamping of 10 minutes could be accomplished in the affected person with disadvantaged liver organ performance for instance in cirrhosis. Blended utilization of a balloon occlusion catheter, electrocautery and/or ultrasonic coagulating shear and endo-GIA staplers, generally seem to preserve satisfactory homeostasis which helps prevent gas embolization in the course of laparoscopic hepatectomy in human beings. Selection of clamping is perfectly up to the surgeons. For minimal hepatic resection some experts do not implement any clamping strategy. Collaboration amongst specialists and anesthetists is significant to ascertain this challenge throughout resection.

Silencing of long noncoding RNA HOXA11-AS inhibits the Wnt signaling pathway via the upregulation of HOXA11 and thereby inhibits the proliferation, invasion, and self-renewal of hepatocellular carcinoma stem cells.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major cause of cancer-related deaths, but its molecular mechanisms are not yet well characterized. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) play crucial roles in tumorigenesis, including that of HCC. However, the role of homeobox A11 antisense (HOXA11-AS) in determining HCC stem cell characteristics remains to be explained; hence, this study aimed to investigate the effects of HOXA11-AS on HCC stem cell characteristics. Initially, the expression patterns of HOXA11-AS and HOXA11 in HCC tissues, cells, and stem cells were determined. HCC stem cells, successfully sorted from Hep3B and Huh7 cells, were transfected with short hairpin or overexpression plasmids for HOXA11-AS or HOXA11 overexpression and depletion, with an aim to study the influences of these mediators on the self-renewal, proliferation, migration, and tumorigenicity of HCC stem cells in vivo. Additionally, the potential relationship and the regulatory mechanisms that link HOXA11-AS, HOXA11, and the Wnt signaling pathway were explored through treatment with Dickkopf-1 (a Wnt signaling pathway inhibitor). HCC stem cells showed high expression of HOXA11-AS and low expression of HOXA11. Both HOXA11-AS silencing and HOXA11 overexpression suppressed the self-renewal, proliferation, migration, and tumorigenicity of HCC stem cells in vivo, as evidenced by the decreased expression of cancer stem cell surface markers (CD133 and CD44) and stemness-related transcription factors (Nanog, Sox2, and Oct4). Moreover, silencing HOXA11-AS inactivated the Wnt signaling pathway by decreasing the methylation level of the HOXA11 promoter, thereby inhibiting HCC stem cell characteristics. Collectively, this study suggested that HOXA11-AS silencing exerts an antitumor effect, suppressing HCC development via Wnt signaling pathway inactivation by decreasing the methylation level of the HOXA11 promoter.

Automatic Recognition of Fetal Facial Standard Plane in Ultrasound Image via Fisher Vector.

Acquisition of the standard plane is the prerequisite of biometric measurement and diagnosis during the ultrasound (US) examination. In this paper, a new algorithm is developed for the automatic recognition of the fetal facial standard planes (FFSPs) such as the axial, coronal, and sagittal planes. Specifically, densely sampled root scale invariant feature transform (RootSIFT) features are extracted and then encoded by Fisher vector (FV). The Fisher network with multi-layer design is also developed to extract spatial information to boost the classification performance. Finally, automatic recognition of the FFSPs is implemented by support vector machine (SVM) classifier based on the stochastic dual coordinate ascent (SDCA) algorithm. Experimental results using our dataset demonstrate that the proposed method achieves an accuracy of 93.27% and a mean average precision (mAP) of 99.19% in recognizing different FFSPs. Furthermore, the comparative analyses reveal the superiority of the proposed method based on FV over the traditional methods.

Type II Diabetes Patients with Proteinuria and the Recovery of Their Metabolic Parameters.

The aim of this study is to provide reasonable guidelines for type II diabetes patients with proteinuria to recover their metabolic parameters. A cross-sectional study was conducted in selected groups of type 2 diabetic patients. Hypoglycemic and antihypertensive drug use was recorded. Certain physical examinations were conducted including routine urine test, urinary albumin/creatinine ratio, metabolic parameters of blood glucose and lipid, and other biochemical indicators. Medication and metabolic indicators were compared between the groups based on the seriousness of the proteinuria. A total of 923 cases were selected for this study, with an average age of 63 years. Based on the proteinuria contents, the cases were divided into three groups of proteinuria negative, microalbuminuria, and clinical proteinuria. The recovery rates of the blood pressure control for the groups were 44.2, 35.3, and 36.3 %, respectively. The glycated hemoglobin control recovery rates were 22.2, 18.5, and 15.2 % in the groups. The groups' triglyceride control satisfaction rates were 44.4, 43.3, and 39.8 %. The satisfaction rates of total cholesterol control were 34.5, 26.8, and 25.7 %, respectively and the satisfaction rates of LDL-c control of the three groups were 30.6, 23.8, and 22.1 %. This indicated an unregulated use of hypoglycemic agents, antihypertensives, and lipid-lowering drugs and low recovery rates for metabolic indicators of the cases. Among the 923 cases, 397 had microalbuminuria or clinical proteinuria, and only 22 patients took angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEI) or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) as antihypertensive drugs. The use of antihypertensive drugs is not standardized, and only a small portion of patients were treated with ACEI or ARB drugs. Therefore, the proteinuria in diabetic patients should be timely screened and evaluated, as well as renal and metabolic function comprehensively regulated and antihypertensives and lipid-lowering drugs rationally used.

Research on virtual chinese human eye and its application.

In this paper a method to establish Virtual Chinese Human Eye was presented. In this method, five datasets were established base on eye tissue slices. 3-D structure model, physical model, and physiological model of eyeball were built up. Someone of them can be used in education and clinic. The research on Virtual Chinese Human Eye still awaits long-term and will have a major effect.