Int J Med Sci
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Objectives: To report a COVID-19 outbreak among workers and inpatients at a medical ward for especially vulnerable patients. Methods: Descriptive study of a nosocomial COVID-19 outbreak registered in March-April 2020 at medical ward of onco-hematological patients in an Spanish hospital. Confirmed cases were hospitalized patients, healthcare and non-healthcare workers who tested positive by PCR on a nasopharyngeal swab. ⋯ One healthworker required Intensive Care Unit admission, and all of them recovered completely. Conclusions: In the hospital setting, close patients surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 is essential, especially in immunosuppressed patients. Replacing nebulizations or high-flow oxygen therapies, when other equivalent options were available, to reduce dispersion, and controlling ventilation ducts, together with hygiene measures and an active follow-up on inpatients, visitors and workers appear to be important in preventing nosocomial outbreaks.
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Tumor metastasis is the main reason for the death of most cancer patients. C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) has been demonstrated to be overexpressed in numerous types of cancer. CXCR4 selectively binds with stromal cell-derived factor 1 (SDF1), also known as C-X-C family chemokine ligand 12 (CXCL12) (CXCL12/SDF-1), which induced tumor proliferation and metastasis. ⋯ In cells transfected with constitutively active Akt plasmids, a reverse effect of Salmonella-induced inhibition of CXCR4 was observed. Tumor cells have chemotactic response to CXCL12 in migration assay, and we found that Salmonella reduced tumor chemotactic response after CXCL12 treatment. The C57BL/6 mice were intravenously injected with B16F10 and LL2 cells pre-incubated with or without Salmonella, the tumor size and lung weight of Salmonella group had obviously decreased, indicating anti-metastatic effect that confirmed the findings from the in vitro experiments.
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Observational Study
Development and validation a simple model for identify malignant ascites.
The differential diagnosis of benign ascites and malignant ascites is incredibly challenging for clinicians. This research aimed to develop a user-friendly predictive model to discriminate malignant ascites from non-malignant ascites through easy-to-obtain clinical parameters. All patients with new-onset ascites fluid were recruited from January 2014 to December 2018. ⋯ With a cut-off level of 0.83, the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and area under the ROC of the model for identifying malignant ascites in the development dataset were 84.7%, 88.8%, 87.6%, and 0.874 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.822-0.926), respectively, and 80.9%, 82.6%, 81.5%, and 0.863 (95% CI,0.817-0.913) in the validation dataset, respectively. The diagnostic model has a similar high diagnostic performance in both the development and validation datasets. The mathematical diagnostic model based on the five markers is a user-friendly method to differentiate malignant ascites from benign ascites with high efficiency.
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Background: Because the halo around the tumor in shear wave elastography (SWE) is defined as the "stiff rim" sign, the diagnosis of breast lesions with the stiff rim sign is popular. However, only a few studies have described the stiff rim sign quantitatively. Objective: This study aimed to investigate the usefulness of the stiff rim sign in the diagnosis and tumor, node, metastasis stage of breast cancer. ⋯ The PPVs of SWE for T1 and T2 staging were higher than B-mode ultrasound (P < 0.05). Conclusions: BI-RADS combined with "stiff rim" sign is expected to improve the diagnostic performance of breast lesions to avoid unnecessary biopsy. The maximum diameter of the lesion measured in SWE is more accurate than B-mode ultrasound in the estimation of T staging, which is beneficial to the treatment and prognosis of breast cancer.
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Observational Study
A novel prognostic factor TIPE2 inhibits cell proliferation and promotes apoptosis in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).
Background: Tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-alpha-induced protein 8-like 2 (TIPE2 or TNFAIP8L2) is a newly discovered negative immune regulator. Studies have shown that TIPE2 causes significant malignant biological effects and is differentially expressed in various malignant tumors. However, the expression and roles of TIPE2 in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) are largely unknown. ⋯ Conclusions: For the first time, this study demonstrated that TIPE2 is an independent prognostic factor in PDAC. TIPE2 inhibited the proliferation and induced apoptosis via regulating survivin/caspase3/7 signaling pathway. These results indicated that TIPE2 is a potential biomarker for predicting the prognosis of PDAC patients and plays a pivotal role in the progression of PDAC.