Gemcitabine combined with capecitabine in the treatment for 41 patients with relapsed or metastatic biliary tract carcinoma / 中华肿瘤杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the efficacy of the combination of gemcitabine with capecitabine in the chemotherapy for patients with relapsed or metastatic biliary tract carcinoma.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Forty-one patients with unresectable relapsed or metastatic carcinoma of the biliary tract were treated from March 2000 to December 2004. The regimen consisted of intravenous administration of gemcitabine plus oral intake of capecitabine every 3 weeks for more than 2 cycles. The parameters including tumor response, clinical benefit rate,survival and safety were observed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Thirty-six patients were valuable and 5 patients were excluded from this series due to various reasons. Eleven patients (30.1%) had a partial response and another 11 patients (30.1%) experieced stable disease with a clinical benefit rates of 61.1%. The median overall survival time and time to progression were 10 months and 6 months, respectively. The one-year survival rate was 40.0%. The adverse events including nausea, diarrhea and hand-foot syndrome, fatigue, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia were frequently observed, which were usually in grade I or II, rarely in grade III and none in grade IV (NCI-CTC).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Our results show that the regimen of gemcitabine combined with capecitabine is effective and well tolerated in patients with unresectable relapsed or metastatic carcinoma of the biliary tract.</p>

Effects of Erk signal transduction on the cell cycle of rat hepatic stellate cells stimulated by acetaldehyde / 中华肝脏病杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To investigate the effect of PD98059 on the proliferation and cell cycle of rat hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) stimulated by acetaldehyde and explore its mechanism.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Rat HSCs stimulated by acetaldehyde were incubated with different concentrations of PD98059. Cell proliferation was assessed by MTT colorimetric assay. Cell cycle was analysed by flow cytometry. The mRNA of cyclin D1 and CDK4 were examined by RT-PCR.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>20, 50, 100 micromol/L PD98059 could significantly inhibit the proliferation of HSCs stimulated by acetaldehyde in a does-dependent manner (0.109+/-0.020, 0.081+/-0.010 and 0.056+/-0.020 vs 0.146+/-0.030, F=31.385, P<0.05) and provoke G0/G1 phase arrest of HSCs stimulated by acetaldehyde in a does-dependent manner (61.9%+/-6.3%, 64.1%+/-3.3% and 70.9%+/-4.8% vs 55.2%+/-4.4%, F=16.402, P<0.05). 50, 100 micromol/L PD98059 could markedly inhibit cyclin D1 mRNA expression of HSC stimulated by acetaldehyde (0.56+/-0.04 and 0.46+/-0.03 vs 0.65+/-0.07, F=68.758, P<0.05) and CDK4 mRNA expression (0.39+/-0.07 and 0.33+/-0.05 vs 0.50+/-0.06, F=29.406, P<0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The Erk signal transduction pathway plays an important role in regulating the proliferation and cell cycle of rat hepatic stellate cells stimulated by acetaldehyde, which may be partly related to its regulative effect on the expression of cyclin D1 gene and CDK4 gene</p>