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Objective:To investigate the value of visfatin in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant breast tumors and the feasibility of visfatin as a molecular marker of breast cancer.Methods:A total of 195 breast cancer patients hospitalized in the Cancer Hospital of The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences from December 2017 to July 2018 were selected as the breast cancer group, all of them were women. 80 patients with benign breast diseases in the same period were randomly selected as the breast benign disease group, all of them were women. 80 female employees with normal physical examination in the same year were selected as the normal control group. Enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used to detect the serum level of visfatin. Logistic regression was used to analyze the relationship between visfatin and clinicopathological features of breast cancer. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn to get area under curve (AUC) value, and the diagnostic efficacy was analyzed.Results:The serum visfatin level in breast cancer group was significantly higher than that in benign breast disease group and normal control group ( P<0.05). Univariate analysis showed that the serum visfatin level was related to lymph node metastasis, tumor node metastasis (TNM) stage and body mass index (BMI) (all P<0.05). The serum visfatin level was positively correlated with TNM stage and lymph node metastasis of breast cancer patients ( r=0.336, P=0.043; r=0.632, P=0.027, respectively). Multivariate regression analysis showed that lymph node metastasis was a risk factor for serum visfatin [ OR=1.098, 95% CI(1.073, 1.226), P=0.02]. According to the ROC curve of serum visfatin level in benign breast disease group and normal group, the AUC of serum visfatin were 0.652 and 0.701, respectively. When the Youden index was the highest, the sensitivity was 52.30% and 55.90% respectively, and the specificity was 73.10% and 75.0% respectively. Conclusions:Serum visfatin level can be used to distinguish benign and malignant breast cancer patients. It has a certain clinical value in the auxiliary diagnosis of breast cancer, and may be used as a potential molecular marker of breast cancer.
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Objective:To investigate whether ferroptosis of nerve cells exists in a rat model of neuropathic pain (NP), and to explore the mechanism of O 3 treatment of NP. Methods:Sixty male SD rats were randomly divided into three groups: neuropathic pain model group (NP group), sham operation group (Sham group) and ozone group (O 3 group). The partial sciatic nerve ligation was used in the NP and O 3 groups to construct a neuropathic pain model. The Sham group was subjected to sham surgery. In the O 3 group, 15 μl of O 3 (40 μg/ml) was injected locally at the injury site, and the NP and Sham were injected with the same amount of air, once per day. The mechanical contraction response threshold (MWT) and thermal contraction latency (TWL) of the rats were measured 1 day before the surgery (T0) and 1, 3, 7, 14 days after the surgery (T1 to T4). The spinal cord segments of rats were collected. The expression levels of glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4) and long chain fatty acid coenzyme A synthetase 4 (ACSL4) at T1 to T4 was detected using Western Blot. The number of NeuN+ neuron cells in the spinal dorsal horn at T4 was detected using immunofluorescence technology. The specific changes of ferroptosis at T4 was observed by a transmission electron microscopy. Iron deposition in the spinal dorsal horn at T1 to T4 was measured using ferroptosis kits. Results:Compared with the Sham group, rats in the NP group and O 3 group showed decreasing of MWT decreased and shortening of TWL at T2 to T4, decreasing of NeuN+ neurons in spinal dorsal horn at T4, specific changes of ferroptosis in mitochondria at T4, and increasing of iron content in nerve tissue at T2 to T4. Compared with the Sham group, rats in NP group showed decreasing of GPX4 level and increasing of ACSL4 level. Compared with the NP group, rats in the O 3 group showed increasing of MWT and prolonging of TWL at T2 to T4, increasing of the GPX4 level and decreasing of ACSL4 level at T2 to T4, increasing of the number of NeuN+ neuron cells in the spinal dorsal horn, improving of the mitochondrial atrophy of nerve cells, and decreasing of the iron content in nerve tissue at T2 to T4. The above results are statistically significant (all P<0.05). Conclusions:The mechanism of O 3 in treating neuropathic pain may be through inhibition of iron death.
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Objective:To investigate the clinical application value of serum carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) level in predicting lymph node metastasis of resectable medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) .Methods:140 patients of resectable MTC from Zhejiang Cancer Hospital and Hangzhou First People’s Hospital from Jan. 2009 to Feb. 2019 were included. The relationship of serum CEA and lymphatic metastasis was retrospectively analyzed in 140 patients of resectable MTC, and the clinical significance of serum CEA for predicting total lymph node, central lymph node, lateral lymph node and upper mediastinal lymph node metastasis was also evaluated.Results:The positive rate of serum CEA in resectable MTC was 77.14%. The expression level of serum CEA in resectable MTC with lymph node metastasis was significantly higher than those without lymph node metastasis ( P<0.001) . Spearman correlation analysis further indicated that the level of serum CEA expression was positively correlated with the number of lymph node metastases of resectable MTC patients ( P<0.001) . The area under curve of predicting lymphatic metastasis of total lymph node, central lymph node, lateral lymph node and upper mediastinum was 0.773, 0.768, 0.827 and 0.847. When the cut-off value of serum CEA was 6.58, 11.43, 15.74 and 30.45 ng/ml, respectively, the sensitivity of serum CEA to predict total, central, lateral neck and upper mediastinal lymph node metastasis was 88.46%, 81.43%, 85.00%, 95.00%, and the specificity was 56.45%, 60.00%, 71.25%, and 69.17%, respectively. Conclusion:Serum CEA has a high positive expression rate in resectable MTC, and its expression level has important clinical significance in evaluation of lymphatic metastasis.
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OBJECTIVE By using the VITEK32 and Microscan AS-4 microbiology identification system to identify the external quality control(QC) strains of microbes,to find out the difference and the coincidence degree with quality assessment result of the two systems. METHODS Thirty nine various strains of QC bacteria were isolated and cultured according to operation rule,and were identified by VITEK-32 and Microscan AS-4 and compared within them. RESULTS The coincidence rate of VITEK-32 and Microscan AS-4 to identify directly their species was 76.9% and 69.5% for 39 strains of QC bacteria,It was 89.7% and 76.9% after the serum or further tests,and the coincidence rate was 90.9% and 81.8% in 22 strains of Gram negatives,and 88.2% and 58.8% in 17 strains of Gram positives. CONCLUSIONS The detectable rate and coincidence rate of VITEK-32 are superior to those of Microscan AS-4,especially in the identification of Enterococcus and Streptococcus,the accuracy of Gram negatives is good,and of Gram positives is short,both them could not identify Salmonella and Shigella to their species.