Prostate cancer (PCa) metastasis significantly influences treatment decisions and prognosis. This study evaluated the individual and combined diagnostic ability of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), Gleason score and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in detecting metastasis. The study included data from 120 biopsy-confirmed PCa patients treated from 2019 to 2023. Whole-body MRI images, incorporating high-resolution T2 and axial DWI sequences, were evaluated by experienced radiologists. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and logistic regression models were used to assess the diagnostic performance of ADC, Gleason score, and PSA in detecting metastasis. The prevalence of PCa metastasis was 25.0%, with pelvic lymph node metastasis (16.7%) and bony metastasis (12.5%) being most prevalent. Patients with PCa metastasis had significantly lower ADC values, higher Gleason scores, and higher PSA levels compared to those without metastasis. Individually, an ADC cut-off of ≤549.00 mm2/s was the best marker for detecting metastasis. The combined bioscore model including PSA, ADC values and Gleason score was the best independent predictor, correlating with a 159-fold increased likelihood of detecting PCa metastasis. This study demonstrated the prognostic ability of PCa markers in detecting metastasis. ADC was an independent, sensitive, specific, and accurate diagnostic marker. The combined bioscore model of ADC, PSA and Gleason score significantly enhanced the identification of patients with PCa metastasis.
As one of the most prevalent tumors, colorectal cancer (CRC) owns complex pathogenesis and the high recurrence rate significantly influence the prognosis of patients with KRAS mutant CRC, to discovery the crosstalk among KEAP1-NFE2L2 and oncogenic KRAS as the potential prognostic biomarkers in CRC, which might be used to develop novel and effective therapeutics. By using bioinformatics analysis, we explored and identified key genes as the predicted targets in the crosstalk among KEAP1 oncogenic signatures of KRAS mutation that were linked with development, metastasis, and poor prognosis in CRC. We further investigated the correlations between the clinical characteristics and expressions of prognostic genes among the KRAS and KEAP1-related key hub genes in CRC, which as predicted targets to find the potential herbal ingredients in HERB database, further to verify the active herbal ingredients could regulate the key targets that related to KEAP1-NFE2L2 in KRAS mutant CRC. The newest TCGA data reveals that the mutation of KRAS is found in 44% of CRC patients. In total, 28 genes were identified as differentially expressed genes (DEGs), and the hub genes such as CDKN2A, SPP1, FOS, BCL2L11, and HPSE were verified. Results indicated that key genes (SOX9, SPP1) significant correlation with the target prediction of the active herbal ingredients by molecular docking analysis. Furthermore, KEAP1, NFE2L2, SOX9 expression were decreased significantly with the treatment of potential ingredients. Furthermore, cyclopamine could enhance the sensitivity of HCT116 cells, downregulated the expression of SPP1, and induced activation of KEAP1-NFE2L2 pathway, which cell death are characteristic features of apoptosis, and enhanced anticancer effect. Therefore, KEAP1-related genes might be important oncogenic signatures in KRAS mutant CRC cells and cyclopamine was identified as a potential ingredient and regulated the predict targets of SOX9 and SPP1, may be expand the efficacy and range of novel and effective therapeutics.
To explore computed tomography (CT) findings and pathological features of intestinal inflammatory myofibroblastic tumors (IMT). A retrospective review was conducted on the CT features of five patients with pathologically confirmed IMT, which were then compared with the corresponding pathological findings. The study included four female and one male patients. The tumors were located in the rectum (n = 1), small intestine (n = 2), or cecum (n = 2). One patient exhibited a cystic solid mass with exophytic growth and the solid components showed moderate enhancement. Additionally, flaky low-density, marginal line-like calcified shadows were observed around the lesions. Two cases presented as solid masses within the lumen of the intestinal tract, showing obvious non-uniform enhancement along with visible enhancement shadows of small blood vessels. One patient had a metastasis. In two other cases, solid masses grew outside the lumen of the intestinal tract, demonstrating progressive and delayed enhancement on enhanced scans, as well as local nodular enhancement and ring enhancement. These two cases also exhibited focal sarcomatoid lesions, along with their respective IMTs. Histologically, these tumors mainly consist of proliferating spindle myofibroblast cells accompanied by variable infiltration by interstitial inflammatory cells, such as fibroblasts. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed positive staining for smooth muscle actin (SMA) in ∼80% of the cells tested, while vimentin staining was positive in ∼60% of the cells. Intestinal IMT is an extremely rare tumor with imaging features that can reflect the underlying pathological characteristics to some extent, thus aiding diagnosis.
Gambogic acid is a natural bioactive compound from the brownish resin of the Garcinia hanburyi trees, which has been shown to induce cell death of cancer cells with a synergistic effect together with other compounds. In the present study, we aim to investigate whether the combination of gambogic and chloroquine, one of the inhibitor of autophagy, could increase cell death in human NSCLC cells. As a result, gambogic acid and chloroquine synergistically suppress the growth of NSCLC cells (CI <0.9). Moreover, the combination of gambogic acid and chloroquine significantly promotes apoptosis than that either alone does. Mechanistically, the results demonstrate that gambogic acid increases PINK1 expression at mRNA and protein level, accompanied with downregulation of Tom20, suggesting the mitophagy process is activated. Both silencing PINK1 and treatment of chloroquine could inhibit mitophagy, therefore disrupting the clearance of damaged mitochondria. Thus, co-treatment of gambogic acid and chloroquine results in an elevated level of ROS, which facilitates cell death. Taken together, our finding highlights that the synergistically inhibitory effect of gambogic acid and chloroquine on NSCLC cells is associated with the accumulation of mitochondrial damage.
The aim of this study was to examine the effect of a positive emotion-based exercise intervention on quality of life (QOL), fatigue, and mental health status in patients with lung cancer undergoing chemotherapy. A total of 80 patients with lung cancer undergoing chemotherapy were selected and divided into an observation group and a control group, with 40 patients in each group. Patients in the control group received routine care and were educated about the benefits of exercise, while patients in the experimental group received an additional exercise intervention based on positive emotions. We assessed patients’ quality of life, fatigue, and mental health at the time of recruitment and 12 weeks after the exercise intervention. After the intervention, patients in the experimental group had a higher overall QOL score than those in the control group, with statistically significant differences in body, role, and emotions (p < .05). After the intervention, patients in the experimental group had less fatigue than those in the control group, with statistical differences between the two groups (p = .047). After the intervention, patients in the experimental group had lower scores in depression (p = .008) and anxiety (p = .245) than those in the control group. We found that patients with lung cancer receiving chemotherapy benefited from an exercise intervention based on positive emotions in terms of improvements in quality of life, fatigue, and mental health status.