Effects of Cytokines on Early Death in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Acute Promyelocytic Leukemia / 中国实验血液学杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To explore the effect of cytokine levels on early death and coagulation function of patients with newly diagnosed acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL).@*METHODS@#Routine examination was performed on 69 newly diagnosed APL patients at admission. Meanwhile, 4 ml fasting venous blood was extracted from the patients. And then the supernatant was taken after centrifugation. The concentrations of cytokines, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and ferritin were detected by using the corresponding kits.@*RESULTS@#It was confirmed that cerebral hemorrhage was a major cause of early death in APL patients. Elevated LDH, decreased platelets (PLT) count and prolonged prothrombin time (PT) were high risk factors for early death (P <0.05). The increases of IL-5, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12p70 and IL-17A were closely related to the early death of newly diagnosed APL patients, and the increases of IL-5 and IL-17A also induced coagulation disorder in APL patients by prolonging PT (P <0.05). In newly diagnosed APL patients, ferritin and LDH showed a positive effect on the expression of IL-5, IL-10 and IL-17A, especially ferritin had a highly positive correlation with IL-5 (r =0.867) and IL-17A (r =0.841). Moreover, there was a certain correlation between these five high-risk cytokines, among which IL-5 and IL-17A (r =0.827), IL-6 and IL-10 (r =0.823) were highly positively correlated.@*CONCLUSION@#Elevated cytokine levels in newly diagnosed APL patients increase the risk of early bleeding and death. In addition to the interaction between cytokines themselves, ferritin and LDH positively affect the expression of cytokines, thus affecting the prognosis of APL patients.

Liposomal melatonin dry powder inhalers for the treatment of primary lung cancer / 药学学报

Melatonin (MLT) is an endogenous chemical that has antitumor effects at high doses. However, it shows low oral bioavailability and short in vivo half-life, leading to drug resistance. Here, liposomal melatonin dry powder inhalers (LMD) were prepared, and were used for treatment of primary rat lung cancer by pulmonary delivery. Liposomal melatonin (LM) was prepared by the ethanol injection method to achieve an entrapment efficiency of 98.89%. LMD was obtained by freeze-drying after LM was mixed with mannitol. LMD appeared as spherical particles under a scanning electron microscope. The rehydrated liposomes had a small size of 65.15 nm and the zeta potential of -14.2 mV without change inentrapment efficiency. LMD had an aerodynamic particle size of 6.73 ± 0.012 μm and a fine particle fraction (FPF<8.06 μm) of 22.2%, suitable for pulmonary delivery. When administered with the same dose, LMD showed much higher inhibition on A549 lung cancer cells than MLT and gemcitabine. LMD of a large dose had no effect on the growth of normal lung epithelial cells (BEAS-2B). Rat lung cancer models were established after 45 days by instilling 3-methylcholanthrene (MCA) and N,N-dimethylnitrosamine (DEN) into the rat lungs once (the experiments had been approved by the ethics committee and carried out in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations). Decreases of tumor nodules and inflammatory cells in the tumor-bearing rat lungs were observed after treatment of MLT, gemcitabine and LMD by pulmonary delivery compared with the models, wherein LMD was most effective. The efficiencies of inhibition of NF-κB p65, increase of Tunel detection (indicating enhancement of apoptosis), and decrease of malondialdehyde corresponded to LMD being most effective. Therefore, given the fact that LMD can deliver the drug into the tumor tissues of lungs, and it presents as a promising pulmonary inhalable regiment for treatment of lung cancer.