Efficacy and safety of icotinib in Chinese patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer after failure of chemotherapy / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>The preclinical experiments and several clinical studies showed icotinib, an oral epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) tyrosine kinase inhibitor, in Chinese patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who failed previous chemotherapy. We performed a retrospective study of the efficacy and safety of icotinib monotherapy in a different and more recent sample of Chinese patients.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The clinical data of 149 patients with advanced NSCLC who were admitted to Zhejiang Cancer Hospital from August 1, 2011 to July 31, 2012 were retrospectively analyzed. All patients were given icotinib treatment after the failure of previous chemotherapy. Univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted based on the Kaplan Meier method and Cox proportional hazards model.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The objective response rate was 33/149 and disease control rate was 105/149. No complete response occurred. Median progression free survival (PFS) with icotinib treatment was 5.03 months (95% CI: 3.51 to 6.55). Median overall survival was 12.3 months (95% CI: 10.68 to 13.92). Multivariate analysis showed that the mutation of EGFR and one regimen of prior chemotherapy were significantly associated with longer PFS. At least one drug related adverse event was observed in 65.8% (98/149) of patients, but mostly grade 1 or 2 and reversible and none grade 4 toxicity.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>Icotinib monotherapy is an effective and well tolerated regimen for Chinese patients with NSCLC after the failure of chemotherapy. It is a promising agent and further study with icotinib in properly conducted trials with larger patient samples and other ethnic groups is warranted.</p>

Impact and treatment of chemotherapy-induced anemia on lung cancer patients / 国际肿瘤学杂志

Anemia is commonly observed in lung cancer patients,and it is mainly caused by chemotherapy.Anemia can cause several debilitating symptoms such as fatigue and tachycardia which will not only influence the patients' quality of life and therapy effect,but also short the survival time.So anemia has been regarded as a poor independent prognostic indicator of the disease.Transfusion the erythrocytes and using the erythropoiesis stimulating agents is the main treatments of the disease.Using the erythropoiesis stimulating agents is the main treatment before the hemoglobin decreasing significantly in order to reduce the times of transfusion.Keeping the hemoglobin between 10.0-12.0 g/dl can improve the patients' quality of life and avoid the adverse events such as thrombus formation at the same time.

Research progress in liver pit cells / 解剖学报

Pit cells (PCs) are hepatic natural killer cells(HNKCs), and play an important role in resisting tumor, resisting virus, regulating hepatocyte growth and differentiation, inhibiting liver fibrosis and so on. In the paper, research progress in liver pit cells is briefly summarized.