The effect of stretching exercises before orthotic treatment on the immediate in-orthosis correction of the patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: A pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Stretching exercise is generally used for improving flexibility. However, its application to promote orthotic treatment for patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) remains unknown. OBJECTIVE: This study was to explore the effect of pre-orthosis stretching exercises on spinal flexibility and initial in-orthosis correction for the patients with AIS. STUDY DESIGN: A pilot-controlled study. METHODS: An experimental group (EG) of 13 subjects (10 girls and 3 boys) with AIS allocating to self-stretching exercises and a control group (CG) of 19 AIS subjects (14 girls and 5 boys) with no stretching before orthosis fitting were recruited. The spinal flexibility of the EG was evaluated with an ultrasound imaging system and physical measurements. The initial in-orthosis correction rates between the 2 groups were compared with the independent t test, and the correlation analysis between the spinal flexibility measured from ultrasound images and physical measurement was performed with the Pearson correlation test. RESULTS: The initial Cobb angle of EG and CG were 25.70° ± 7.30° and 28.09° ± 5.58°, respectively. No significant difference was observed between the initial in-orthosis Cobb angle of EG (11.13° ± 6.80°) and CG (15.65° ± 9.10°) (p = 0.06). However, the spinal flexibility after stretching exercises was improved (p < 0.001), and the spinal flexibility changes measured with ultrasound and physical forward-bending method were significantly correlated (r = 0.57, p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Stretching exercises before orthotic treatment could improve the spinal flexibility but did not cause a better in-orthosis correction. A study with a larger sample size and longer follow-up period should be conducted to investigate the long-term effect of stretching exercises.

Associations between spinal flexibility and bracing outcomes in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis: a literature review.

OBJECTIVES: To identify the existing assessment methods used to measure the spinal flexibility of adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis before bracing and to evaluate the predictive effect of spinal flexibility on bracing outcomes. METHODS: A broad literature search was performed in the PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, CINAHL, Scopus, and Cochrane Library databases to obtain relevant information about spinal flexibility and bracing outcomes. All literature was retrieved by October 14, 2023. The inclusion and exclusion criteria were meticulously determined. The quality of each included study and the level of evidence were evaluated by the Quality in Prognosis Studies (QUIPS) method and the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system, respectively. RESULTS: After screening 1863 articles retrieved from databases, a total of 14 studies with 2261 subjects were eligible for the final analysis in this review. Overall, nine methods of flexibility assessment were identified, including supine radiographs, supine lateral bending radiographs, lateral bending radiographs but without clear positions, hanging radiographs, fulcrum bending physical method, and ultrasound imaging in the positions of supine, prone, sitting with side bending and prone with side bending. In addition, five studies demonstrated that flexibility had a strong correlation with in-brace correction, and eleven studies illustrated that spinal flexibility was a predictive factor of the bracing outcomes of initial in-brace Cobb angle, initial in-brace correction rate, curve progression, and curve regression. The results of GRADE demonstrated a moderate-evidence rating for the predictive value of spinal flexibility. CONCLUSION: Supine radiography was the most prevalent method for measuring spinal flexibility at the pre-brace stage. Spinal flexibility was strongly correlated with the in-brace Cobb angle or correction rate, and moderate evidence supported that spinal flexibility could predict bracing outcomes.

Role of BCYRN1 in hepatocellular carcinoma pathogenesis by lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA network analysis and its diagnostic and prognostic value.

Aim: This study aimed to excavate the roles of BCYRN1 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Methods: A comprehensive strategy of microarray data mining, computational biology and experimental verification were adopted to assess the clinical significance of BCYRN1 and identify related pathways. Results:BCYRN1 was upregulated in HCC and its expression was positively associated with both tumor, node, metastasis and worse survival rate in patients with HCC. Through combing plasma BCYRN1 with alpha fetoprotein, the diagnosis of HCC was remarkably improved. BCYRN1 may regulate some cancer-related pathways to promote HCC initiation via an lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA network. Conclusion: Our results propose BCYRN1 as a potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarker and offer a novel perspective to explore the etiopathogenesis of HCC.

A Logistic Regression Model for Noninvasive Prediction of AFP-Negative Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

α-Fetoprotein is commonly used in the diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma. However, the diagnostic significance of α-fetoprotein has been questioned because a number of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma are α-fetoprotein negative. It is therefore necessary to develop novel noninvasive techniques for the early diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma, particularly when α-fetoprotein level is low or negative. The current study aimed to evaluate the diagnostic efficiency of hematological parameters to determine which can act as surrogate markers in α-fetoprotein-negative hepatocellular carcinoma. Therefore, a retrospective study was conducted on a training set recruited from Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University-including 171 α-fetoprotein-negative patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and 102 healthy individuals. The results show that mean values of mean platelet volume, red blood cell distribution width, mean platelet volume-PC ratio, neutrophils-lymphocytes ratio, and platelet count-lymphocytes ratio were significantly higher in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma in comparison to the healthy individuals. Most of these parameters showed moderate area under the curve in α-fetoprotein-negative patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, but their sensitivities or specificities were not satisfactory enough. So, we built a logistic regression model combining multiple hematological parameters. This model presented better diagnostic efficiency with area under the curve of 0.922, sensitivity of 83.0%, and specificity of 93.1%. In addition, the 4 validation sets from different hospitals were used to validate the model. They all showed good area under the curve with satisfactory sensitivities or specificities. These data indicate that the logistic regression model combining multiple hematological parameters has better diagnostic efficiency, and they might be helpful for the early diagnosis for α-fetoprotein-negative hepatocellular carcinoma.

Up-Regulation of hsa-miR-210 Promotes Venous Metastasis and Predicts Poor Prognosis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma.

Objective: To investigate the potential biomarkers for venous metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and briefly discuss their target genes and the signaling pathways they are involved in. Materials and Method: The dataset GSE6857 was downloaded from GEO. Significantly differentially expressed miRNAs were identified using the R package "limma," After that, the survival analysis was conducted to discover the significance of these up-regulated miRNAs for the prognosis of HCC patients. Additionally, miRNAs which were up-regulated in venous metastasis positive HCC tissues and were significant for the prognosis of HCC patients were further verified in clinical samples using RT-qPCR. The miRNAs were then analyzed for their correlations with clinical characteristics including survival time, AFP level, pathological grade, TNM stage, tumor stage, lymph-node metastasis, distant metastasis, child-pugh score, vascular invasion, liver fibrosis and race using 375 HCC samples downloaded from the TCGA database. The target genes of these miRNAs were obtained using a miRNA target gene prediction database, and their functions were analyzed using the online tool DAVID. Results: 15 miRNAs were differentially expressed in samples with venous metastasis, among which 7 were up-regulated in venous metastasis positive HCC samples. As one of the up-regulated miRNAs, hsa-miR-210 was identified as an independent prognostic factor for HCC. Using RT-qPCR, it was evident that hsa-miR-210 expression was significantly higher in venous metastasis positive HCC samples (p = 0.0036). Further analysis indicated that hsa-miR-210 was positively associated with AFP level, pathological grade, TNM stage, tumor stage and vascular invasion. A total of 168 hsa-miR-210 target genes, which are mainly related to tumor metastasis and tumor signaling pathways, were also predicted in this study. Conclusion: hsa-miR-210 might promote vascular invasion of HCC cells and could be used as a prognostic biomarker.

A miRNA Combination as Promising Biomarker for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Diagnosis: A Study Based on Bioinformatics Analysis.

Background: miRNAs dysregulate in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), showing promise for diagnostic biomarkers which may be found through exploration of differentially expressed miRNAs when comparing HCC and normal liver tissues. Materials and Methods: In the present research, candidate miRNAs were selected and verified using screening dataset GSE12717 and training dataset GSE10694, respectively. A miRNA combination was constructed using stepwise logistic regression analysis and validated using two datasets GSE74618 and TCGA. Target genes of miRNAs in the combination were obtained using a miRNA target gene prediction database. Functional analysis was conducted using an online tool DAVID. We also analyzed the mRNA-Seq data of project LIHC from TCGA to identify the hub target genes of the miRNAs. Results: A miRNA combination, which is composed of hsa-miR-221 and hsa-miR-29c was defined in this study. The miRNA combination is more effective in discriminating HCC patients from normal individuals than individual miRNAs. Additionally, the combined miRNAs showed a lower misdiagnosis rate than AFP in HCC diagnosis. In terms of the functional analysis, a total of 27 target genes of hsa-miR-221 and 96 target genes of hsa-miR-29c were obtained. Among which, INSIG1 was the common target of the two miRNAs. It was also found that both previously mentioned miRNAs played important roles in the regulation of transcription, cell proliferation, and involvement in cancer-related pathways. Lastly, 2 hub target genes of hsa-miR-221 and 16 hub target genes of hsa-miR-29c were obtained. Conclusion: We established a miRNA combination as a promising tool for HCC diagnosis, and the target genes we predicted provide possible points of penetration for researching these two miRNAs in HCC.

LncRNAs and EGFRvIII sequestered in TEPs enable blood-based NSCLC diagnosis.

BACKGROUND: Tissue biopsy-based cancer diagnosis has limitations because of the fact that tumor tissues are in constant evolution and extremely heterogeneous. The current study was aimed to examine whether tumor-educated blood platelets (TEPs) might be a potential all-in-one source for blood-based cancer diagnostics to overcome the limitations of conventional cancer biopsy. METHODS: In the present study, we evaluated the expression pattern of MAGI2 antisense RNA 3 (MAGI2-AS3) and ZNFX1 antisense RNA 1 (ZFAS1) in both plasma and platelets of 101 non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was generated to evaluate their diagnostic potential. In addition, epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations were detected in DNA and RNA samples of platelets for companion diagnostics. RESULTS: Our results showed that the levels of MAGI2-AS3 and ZFAS1 in both plasma and platelets of NSCLC patients were significantly downregulated than those in healthy controls. A positive correlation of long noncoding RNA expression was observed between platelets and plasma (r=0.738 for MAGI2-AS3, r=0.751 for ZFAS1, respectively). By ROC analysis, we found that molecular interrogation of MAGI2-AS3 and ZFAS1 in TEPs and plasma can offer valuable diagnostic performance for NSCLC patients (area under the ROC curve [AUC] MAGI2-AS3 = 0.853/0.892, and AUC ZFAS1 =0.780/0.744 for diagnosing adenocarcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma cases from controls, respectively). Clinicopathologic characteristic analysis further revealed that MAGI2-AS3 level significantly correlated with tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) stage (p=0.001 in TEPs, p=0.003 in plasma), lymph-node metastasis (p=0.016 in TEPs, p=0.023 in plasma), and distant metastasis (p=0.045 in TEPs, p=0.045 in plasma), while ZFAS1 level was only correlated with TNM stage (p=0.005 in TEPs, p=0.044 in plasma). Furthermore, EGFRvIII RNA existed in both TEPs and plasma, but EGFR intracellular mutations cannot be detected in DNA of TEPs isolated from NSCLC. CONCLUSION: Our data suggested that TEP is a promising source for NSCLC diagnosis and companion diagnostics.

Tumor-Derived Exosomal Long Noncoding RNAs as Promising Diagnostic Biomarkers for Prostate Cancer.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Exosomal circulating long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in blood are emerging as clinically useful and non-invasive biomarkers for tumor diagnosis. However, normal cells can also secrete exosomes, so it is a prerequisite to obtain tumor-derived exosomes for better understanding of their diagnostic impacts in cancer. In this study, a dual-antibody-functionalized immunoaffinity system was established to isolate exosomes and investigate their lncRNAs expression pattern and clinical significance in prostate cancer (PCa). METHODS: A commercially available kit was used to isolate total exosomes, which were then purified by a dual-antibody-functionalized immunoaffinity system. RT-qPCR was performed to detect the expression of exosomal lncRNAs. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were plotted to assess the diagnostic value. RESULTS: Expression levels of two lncRNAs in tumor-derived exosomes were significantly higher than those in total exosomes. The levels of SAP30L-AS1 were upregulated in benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), and SChLAP1 levels were significantly higher in PCa than in BPH and healthy individuals. The area under the ROC curve indicated that SAP30L-AS1 and SChLAP1 had adequate diagnostic value to distinguish PCa from controls. Two lncRNAs separately combined with prostate specific antigen (PSA) possessed a moderate ability for discrimination. SAP30L-AS1 expression level was related to PSA values and tumor invasion. SChLAP1 expression was significantly higher in patients with higher Gleason scores, and was also effective in differentiating between BPH and PCa when the concentration of PSA was in the gray zone. CONCLUSION: The isolation of tumor-derived exosomes by dual-antibody-functionalized immunoaffinity systems and detection of their lncRNAs in plasma may lead to the identification of suitable biomarkers, with potential diagnostic utility.

Association between Polymorphisms in MicroRNAs and Risk of Urological Cancer: A Meta-Analysis Based on 17,019 Subjects.

Accumulating evidence has demonstrated that some single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) existing in miRNAs correlate with the susceptibility to urological cancers. However, a clear consensus still not reached due to the limited statistical power in individual study. Thus, we concluded a meta-analysis to systematically evaluate the association between microRNA SNPs and urological cancer risk. Eligible studies were collected from PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and CNKI databases. Pooled odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval (95% CI) were calculated to assess the strength of the relationships between three SNPs (miR-196a2, C>T rs11614913; miR-146a, G>C rs2910164; and miR-499, A>G rs3746444) and the risk of urological cancers. In addition, the stability of our analysis was evaluated by publication bias, sensitivity and heterogeneity analysis. Overall, a total of 17,019 subjects from 14 studies were included in this meta-analysis. We found that CT (miR-196a2, C>T rs11614913) was a risk factor for renal cell carcinoma (CT vs. CC: OR = 1.72, 95%CI = 1.05-2.80, P = 0.03, I2 = 66%), especially in Asian population (CT vs. CC: OR = 1.17, 95%CI = 1.04-1.32, P < 0.01, I2 = 0%). miR-146a G>C rs2910164 was a protective factor of urological cancers (C vs. G: OR = 0.87, 95%CI = 0.81-0.93, P < 0.01, I2 = 0%), especially for bladder cancer. miR-499 A>G rs3746444 was correlated with an increased risk of urological cancers, specifically in Asian population. In conclusion, our meta-analysis suggests that polymorphisms in microRNAs, miR-196a2, C>T rs11614913, miR-146a G>C rs2910164 and miR-499 A>G rs3746444, may be associated with the development of urological cancers and the risks mainly exist in Asian populations.

miR-22 targets YWHAZ to inhibit metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma and its down-regulation predicts a poor survival.

Many miRNAs are associated with the carcinogenesis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and some exhibit potential prognostic value. In this study, to further confirm the prognostic value of miRNAs in HCC, we employed miRNA-sequencing data of tumor tissues of 372 HCC patients released by The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and identified 3 miRNAs including miR-22, miR-9-1 and miR-9-2 could be used as independent predictors for HCC prognostic evaluation. As a tumor-suppressive miRNA, miR-22 was down-regulated in HCC tissues. This down-regulation correlated with tumor vascular invasion, Edmondson-Steiner grade, TNM stage, and AFP level. Moreover, biofunctional investigations revealed that miR-22 significantly attenuated cellular proliferation, migration and invasion of HCC cells. Additionally, through gene expression profiles and bioinformatics analysis, YWHAZ was identified to be a direct target of miR-22 and its overexpression partially counteracted the inhibitory effects of miR-22 on HCC cells. Finally, molecular studies further confirmed that miR-22 promoted the accumulation of FOXO3a in nucleus and subsequently reversed invasive phenotype of HCC cells by repressing YWHAZ-mediated AKT phosphorylation. Taken together, these data demonstrate that miR-22 exhibits tumor-suppressive effects in HCC cells by regulating YWHAZ/AKT/FOXO3a signaling and might be used as an independent prognostic indicator for HCC patients.