Impact of meticulousness of pathologists on lymph node harvest after radical resection of invasive rectal carcinoma / 中华胃肠外科杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To analyze the impact of meticulousness of pathologists on the lymph node harvest after radical resection of invasive rectal carcinoma.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>From January 2008 to May 2009, the clinical data of rectal cancer patients undergone operation were reviewed retrospectively. After multidisciplinary cooperation on rectal cancer, a new rule was applied to request the pathologists to find no less than 15 nodes in single colorectal specimen from January 2009. Patients were divided into two groups (2008 group and 2009 group) and the node harvest numbers were compared. Excluded criteria were recurrent colorectal tumor, Tis tumor, R(1) or R(2) resection, tumor resection transanally or endoscopically, the cases enrolled in other prospective research, synchronous diseases affecting the surgical procedure for the rectal cancer (familial adenomatous polyposis, synchronous colorectal carcinoma) and rectal cancer receiving neoadjuvant chemoradiation. Statistical analysis was performed using One-Sample Kolmogorov- Smirnov test, Mann-Whitney test, Independent-Samples T test and Chi-Square test(SPSS 15.0).</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>A total of 232 patients were identified, including 76 cases in the 2009 group and 156 cases in 2008 group. The lymph node retrieval in the 2009 group was significantly more than that in 2008 group (16.0+/-0.3 vs 11.4+/-0.3, P<0.01). A significantly higher percentage of patients was found in 2009 group with a lymph node harvest equal to or more than 12 nodes (72/76 vs 71/156, P<0.01). There were no significant differences in gender (46/76 vs 86/156, P=0.436), age (58.1+/-1.3 vs 59.2+/-1.1, P=0.527), distance from tumor to anal verge (7.4+/-0.4 vs 7.1+/-0.3, P=0.761), proportion of sphincter-sparing surgery (67/76 vs 140/156, P=0.715), ratio of well and moderate differentiated tumors (68/76 vs 125/156, P=0.074) and overall TNM stage (P=0.167) between the two groups.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The lymph node harvest in 2009 group is significantly more than that in 2008 group. The good performance of pathologists could produce adequate number of lymph nodes for rectal cancer without neoadjuvant chemoradiation.</p>

Study on the dynamic changing profiles of telomeric restricted fragment length among sex balanced different age groups / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVE@#In human, both in vivo and in vitro, telomere shortening appears to be a major component of cell senescence and aging. The detailed telomere shortening status and mechanism in peripheral blood cell is needed to be further characterized.@*METHODS@#One hundred and twenty three peripheral blood samples were collected from healthy individuals of different age groups and the mean telomeric restricted fragment (TRF) was measured using Southern Blotting with Dig labeled probe. The samples of different groups were homogenized in sex components as indicated by chi 2 test of sex ratio of different test groups (P > 0.05).@*RESULTS@#The average length of TRF is shortening with aging and distinguished shortening dynamic profiles could be observed. Further analysis showed that there might be a shortening peak near the age of 5.@*CONCLUSION@#There are distinguished dynamics profiles of telomere shortening among different age groups. Thus, the results indicate that it might be possible to infer individual age by telomeric restricted fragment length assay.