A phase II prospective randomized controlled trial of weekly paclitaxel combined with S-1 or fluorouracil for advanced gastric carcinoma / 中华肿瘤杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To evaluate the efficacy and safety of weekly paclitaxel combined with S-1 or fluorouracil in the first line treatment of advanced gastric carcinoma.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Two hundred and forty patients with untreated advanced gastric carcinoma were randomized into two arms, patients in the experimental arm were given paclitaxel and S-1, while those in the control arm received paclitaxel and fluorouracil. The regimen of experimental arm was paclitaxel 60 mg/m(2) by intravenous infusion, day 1, 8, 15; S-1 80 - 120 mg/day given by oral administration, day 1 - 14. The regimen of control arm was fluorouracil 500 mg/m(2) by intravenous infusion continuously, day 1 - 5; CF 20 mg/m(2) by intravenous infusion, day 1 - 5. The regimens in both arms were repeated every 28 days. The efficacy and safety of both arms were assessed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Two hundred and twenty-eight patients were analyzed in the full analysis set, and 192 patients were analyzed in per-protocol set (experimental arm 100 patients, control arm 92 patients). The overall response rates of experimental and control arms were 50.0% and 28.3% (P = 0.002), and the disease control rates were 82.0% and 70.7% (P = 0.064), respectively. The primary endpoints of experimental arm were non-inferior to that of the control arm. The secondary endpoint of experimental arm in terms of median progression free survival was significantly better than that of control arm (5 months versus 4 months, P = 0.006). The experimental arm had a higher incidence of grade III-IV bone marrow suppression than the control arm, but the incidence of fever in both arms was not significantly different.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>Oral administration of S-1 is an alternative option of venous infusional fluorouracil. Weekly paclitaxel combined with S-1 is a safe regimen and has a promising efficacy.</p>

Overexpression of cyclin L2 induces apoptosis and cell-cycle arrest in human lung cancer cells / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Uncontrolled cell division is one of the hallmarks of tumor growth. Researches have been focused on numerous molecules involved in this process. Cyclins are critical regulatory proteins of cell cycle progression and/or transcription. The present study aimed to investigate the anti-proliferative effect of cyclin L2, and to define its growth regulatory mechanisms using human lung adenocarcinoma cell line A549.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Human cyclin L2 was transfected into human lung adenocarcinoma cells (A549 cell), and was expressed in a mammalian expression vector pcDNA3.1. The effects and mechanisms of the cyclin L2 in cell growth, cell cycle analysis and apoptosis were studied by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2, 5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT), flow cytometry or Western blot, respectively.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Overexpression of cyclin L2 inhibited the growth of A549 cells. Cell cycle analysis in cells transfected with pCCNL2 revealed an increment in proportion in G0/G1 phase ((68.07 +/- 4.2)%) in contrast to (60.39 +/- 2.82)% of the cells transfected with mock vector. Apoptosis occurred in (7.25 +/- 0.98)% cells transfected with pCCNL2, as compared with (1.25 +/- 0.21)% of the mock vector control group. Cyclin L2-induced-G0/G1 arrest and apoptosis involved upregulation of caspase-3 and downregulation of Bcl-2 and survivin.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The results indicate that overexpression of cyclin L2 protein may promote efficient growth inhibition of human lung adenocarcinoma cells by inducing G0/G1 cell cycle arrest and apoptosis.</p>