Bioscience reports
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Review Meta Analysis
Efficacy of tripterygium glycosides combined with ARB on diabetic nephropathy: a meta-analysis.
The purpose of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the beneficial and adverse effects of tripterygium glycosides (TGs) combined with angiotensin II receptor blocker (ARB) on diabetic nephropathy (DN). We searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, China Science and Technology Journal Database up to June 2017. Weighted mean difference (WMD) and standardized mean difference (SMD) were used for continuous variables and all variables were expressed by 95% confidence interval (CI). ⋯ Compared with ARB alone, TG combined with ARB showed no significant difference in improving blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c). Minor side effects from the combined treatment were observed and mainly focused on the abnormal liver function. TG combined with ARB offers a novel concept in treating DN, more high-quality RCTs are needed for better understanding and applying the combined treatment in DN.
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Skin cutaneous melanoma (SKCM) is one of the most deadly malignancies. Although immunotherapies showed the potential to improve the prognosis for metastatic melanoma patients, only a small group of patients can benefit from it. Therefore, it is urgent to investigate the tumor microenvironment in melanoma as well as to identify efficient biomarkers in the diagnosis and treatments of SKCM patients. ⋯ Furthermore, prognostic genes were verified in the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) databases and used to predict immune infiltrating cells component. Our study revealed seven immune subtypes with different risk values and identified T cells as the most abundant cells in the immune microenvironment and closely associated with prognostic outcomes. In conclusion, the present study thoroughly analyzed the tumor microenvironment and identified prognostic immune-related biomarkers for metastatic melanoma.