Plasma metabolic profiling on postoperative colorectal cancer patients with different traditional Chinese medicine syndromes.

OBJECTIVES: This study aims to investigate the metabolic profiles of postoperative colorectal cancer (PCRC) patients with different traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndromes and to discuss the metabolic mechanism under PCRC progression and TCM syndrome classification. METHODS: Fifty healthy controls (HC) and 70 PCRC patients, including 10 Dampness and heat syndrome (DHS), 33 Spleen deficiency syndrome (SDS), 19 Liver and kidney Yin deficiency syndrome (LKYDS) and 8 with non-TCM syndrome (NS) were enrolled. Plasma metabolic profiles were detected by Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares-discriminate analysis (PLS-DA). Furthermore, pathway enrichment was analyzed based on KEGG and DAVID databases and metabolic network was constructed via metaboanalyst and cytoscape. RESULTS: The top-3 metabolites with higher abundance in PCRC compared with HC were terephthalic acid (165.417-fold), ornithine (24.484-fold) and aminomalonic acid (21.346-fold). And the cholesterol (0.588-fold) level was decreased in PCRC. l-Alanine, 1, 2-ethanediamine, urea, glycerol, glycine, aminomalonic acid, creatinine and palmitic acid were specifically altered in the DHS, while d-tryptophan was exclusively changed in SDS, and l-proline, 1, 2, 3-propanetricarboxylic acid, d-galactose and 2-indolecarboxylic acids in LKYDS. CONCLUSIONS: The plasma metabolic profiles were perturbed in PCRC patients. Increased levels of terephthalic acid might indicate high risk of relapse and elevated ornithine may contribute to the post-operational recovery or may raise the susceptibility to PCRC recurrence. The metabolic profiles of DHS, SDS, LKYDS and NS were almost separately clustered, indicating the possibility of explaining TCM syndromes classification using metabolomics. Furthermore, creatinine and aminomalonic acid alternation might correlate with the formation of DHS, while d-tryptophan may associate with SDS and d-galactose and 1, 2, 3-propanetricarboxylic acid may relate to LKYDS. As numbers of patients in each TCM syndrome are small, further study is needed to verify those results.

Research advances in traditional Chinese medicine syndromes in cancer patients.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome, also known as TCM ZHENG or TCM pattern, is an integral and essential part of TCM theory that helps to guide the design of individualized treatments. A TCM syndrome, in essence, is a characteristic profile of all clinical manifestations in one patient that can be readily identified by a TCM practitioner. In this article, the authors reviewed the presentations of TCM syndromes in seven common malignancies (liver, lung, gastric, breast, colorectal, pancreatic and esophageal cancers), the objectivity and the standardization of TCM syndrome differentiation, the evaluation of TCM syndrome modeling in cancer research, and syndrome differentiation-guided TCM treatment of cancers. A better understanding of TCM syndrome theory, as well as its potential biological basis, may contribute greatly to the clinical TCM diagnosis and the treatment of cancer.

Influence of preoperative transcatheter arterial chemoembolization on liver resection in patients with resectable hepatocellular carcinoma.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the influence of preoperative transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) on liver resection in patients with resectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). METHODS: Of 126 patients with resectable HCC, 62 received preoperative TACE (TACE group) and the remaining 64 patients were selected as controls (non-TACE group). Perioperative risk factors including liver function alteration, mean blood loss during operation, mean time of clamping the porta hepatis, length of operation, postoperative abdominal drainage at day 1, 2 and 3, morbidity and mortality were compared between the two groups. RESULTS: Neither significant difference in liver function alteration nor mortality was observed between the two groups. More severe hepatic cirrhosis, longer operation time, more blood loss and postoperative abdominal drainage were noted in the TACE group than in the non-TACE group. There was no significant difference in postoperative morbidity between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Preoperative TACE for resectable HCC increases surgical difficulty and risk, and therefore should be considered prudently according to the individuality of patients.

Gene expression of hepatocyte growth factor and its receptor in HCC and nontumorous liver tissues.

AIM:To study the changes of gene expression of hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and hepatocyte growth factor receptor (HGFr) in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissue and nontumorous liver tissue and the relationship between these changes and the biological behavior of the tumor.METHODS:Gene expression of HGF and HGFr in 26 cases of HCC tissue and their adjacent nontumorous liver tissues was determined with digoxigenin labeled DNA probes.RESULTS:Positive expression of HGF in HCC tissue was similar to that in the adjacent nontumorous liver tissue, but positive rate of HGF expression was lower than HGFr gene expression. However, HGFr expression was higher in the metastatic cases than in those without metastasis. It was found that HGFr was overexpressed in HCC tissue as well as in the adjacent nontumorous liver tissue.CONCLUSION:There seems to be a close relationship between overexpression of HGFr gene and tumor metastasis, and the HGF and HGFr system plays an important role in regulating tumor growth and metastasis.