Activities of Biapenem against Mycobacterium tuberculosis in Macrophages and Mice / 生物医学与环境科学（英文）

OBJECTIVE@#To assess the activities of biapenem against multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis.@*METHODS@#Biapenem/clavulanate (BP/CL) was evaluated for in vitro activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) multidrug-resistant (MDR) isolates, extensively drug-resistant (XDR) isolates, and the H37RV strain. BP/CL activity against the H37Rv strain was assessed in liquid cultures, in macrophages, and in mice..@*RESULTS@#BP/CL exhibited activity against MDR and XDR Mtb isolates in liquid cultures. BP/CL treatment significantly reduced the number of colony forming units (CFU) of Mtb within macrophages compared with control untreated infected macrophages. Notably, BP/CL synergized in pairwise combinations with protionamide, aminosalicylate, and capreomycin to achieve a fractional inhibitory concentration for each pairing of 0.375 in vitro. In a mouse tuberculosis infection model, the efficacy of a cocktail of levofloxacin + pyrazinamide + protionamide + aminosalicylate against Mtb increased when the cocktail was combined with BP/CL, achieving efficacy similar to that of the positive control treatment (isoniazid + rifampin + pyrazinamide) after 2 months of treatment.@*CONCLUSION@#BP/CL may provide a new option to clinically treat MDR tuberculosis.

Comparison of Histological, Microbiological, and Molecular Methods in Diagnosis of Patients with TBLN Having Different Anti-TB Treatment Background / 生物医学与环境科学（英文）

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>The influence of anti-tuberculosis (TB) treatment history on tuberculous lymphadenitis (TBLN) diagnosis is unclear. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the diagnostic methods, including histology, microbiology, and molecular tests, used for TBLN.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>In this study, suspected patients with TBLN and having different anti-TB treatment background were enrolled. All the samples were tested simultaneously by histology, Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) staining, mycobacterial culture (culture), Xpert MTB/RIF (xpert), real-time PCR, and high-resolution melting curve PCR (HRM). Thereafter, the performance of these methods on samples with different anti-TB treatment background was assessed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>In our study, 89 patients were prospectively included 82 patients with TBLN and 7 with other diseases. The overall sensitivities of Xpert, real-time PCR, histology, ZN staining, and culture were 86.6%, 69.5%, 58.5%, 43.9%, and 22.0%, respectively. The anti-TB treatment history revealed dramatic influences on the sensitivity of culture (P < 0.0001). In fact, the treatment that lasted over 3 months also influenced the sensitivity of Xpert (P < 0.05). However, the treatment history did not affect the performance of remaining tests (P > 0.05). For rifampicin drug susceptibility test (DST), the anti-TB treatment showed only significant influence on the success rate of culture DST (P = 0.001), but not on those of Xpert and HRM tests (P > 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Other tests as well as culture should be considered for patients with TBLN having retreatment history or over 1-month treatment to avoid false negative results.</p>

Impact of TNM staging and treatment mode on the prognosis of non-small cell lung cancer / 中华肿瘤杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To study the impact of TNM staging and combined treatment mode on the survival of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>From January 1997 to December 2002, 987 NSCLC patients were surgically treated in this hospital. Of those, 574 received combined modality therapy (surgery + chemotherapy/radiotherapy), while 413 underwent operation alone. Their clinicopathological data were retrospectively analyzed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The 1-, 3-, 5-, and 10-year overall survival rates were 87.7%, 57.5%, 54.6% and 54.5%, respectively, for the whole group, which were 90.6%, 57.5%, 54.3% and 54.1% for the combined therapy group versus 83.8%, 57.6%, 55.2% and 55.2% for the group treated by surgical resection alone. The 1-year survival rate of the combined therapy group was significantly higher than that of the surgical resection alone group (90.6% vs. 83.8%) (P<0.01). With regard to the T factor, 5-year survival rate of the combined therapy group (surgery + radiotherapy) was higher than that of surgery alone group, especially in T4 cases (43.6% vs. 12.7%), with a significant difference between them (P<0. 05). As for the N factor, the 1-year survival rate of NO patients in the combined therapy group (surgery + chemotherapy/radiotherapy) was significantly higher than that of surgery alone group (94.4%, 97.9% vs. 90.0%) (P<0.05). The 1-year survival rate of N1 patients in the combined therapy group (surgery + chemotherapy or + chemotherapy and radiotherapy) was 91.7% and 100% versus 82.9% in the surgery alone group (P<0.01); The 1- and 3-year survival rates of N2 patients in the combined modality therapy group (surgery + chemotherapy) were 82.1% and 37.3%, while those of the surgery alone group were 69.4% and 26.5%, respectively, with a significant difference (P<0.05, P<0.01). All the severity of primary tumor, distance of lymph node involvement, and distant tumor metastasis significantly worsen the prognosis of the patients.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The prognosis in NSCLC patients treated with combined modality therapy (surgery + chemotherapy/radiotherapy) is better than that with surgery alone. The larger the original tumor and the farther the lymph node and tumor metastases, the worse the prognosis is for NSCLC patients.</p>

Expression of HDGF and its implication in stage I non-small cell lung cancer / 中华肿瘤杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To evaluate the expression of HDGF and its implication in patients who undergone radical resection for stage I non-small cell lung cancer.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Immunohistochemical technique was applied to detect the expression of HDGF in 118 lung cancer tissues and 30 normal lung tissues as control. At the same time, the expression of VEGF and Ki-67 labeling rate of the tumors was evaluated.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>HDGF expression was observed in all cases, and significantly higher than that in normal lung tissues (52.23 +/- 10.35 vs. 156.73 +/- 70.95, P < 0.01). Expresson of HDGF was closely related to histological classification, and the expression in adenocarcinoma was much stronger than that in squamous cell cancers (P = 0.001), but not related to other clinicopathological factors. VEGF expression was closely related to the expression of HDGF. HDGF expression in the VEGF high expression group was much higher than that in VEGF low expression group (171.77 +/- 81.07 vs. 142.81 +/- 59.84, P = 0.028). Ki-67 expression was also closely related to the expression of HDGF, the labeling rate of Ki-67 in high HDGF expression group was much higher than that in low HDGF expression group (30.49% +/- 7.88% vs. 17.80% +/- 5.63%, P = 0.001). Univariate analysis showed that the patients with high HDGF expression had a shorter overall survival than that with low HDGF expression (40.0% vs. 77.5%, P = 0.008), and multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that HDGF was a significantly independent predictive factors for patients with stage I NSCLC (RR = 1.011, P = 0.002).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>HDGF expression is upgraded in postoperative stage I non-small cell lung cancer patients. HDGF is a significantly independent predictive factor for patients with stage I NSCLC. HDGF may play an important role on carcinogenesis and development of stage I NSCLC through promoting cell proliferation and neoangiogenesis of the tumor.</p>