ABSTRACT
Stevens-Johnson syndrome/toxic epidermal necrolysis (SJS/TEN) is a rare adverse cutaneous reaction with a low incidence and high mortality. Despite posing a serious threat to patients' health and lives, there is no high-quality evidence for a standard treatment regimen. Here we report the case of a 62-year-old man with stage IV pancreatic cancer who experienced immunotherapy-induced SJS/TEN. After consensus-based regular treatments at a local hospital, his symptoms became worse. Thus, he consented to receive Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) therapy. The affected parts of the patient were treated with the CHM Pi-Yan-Ning which was applied externally for 20 min twice a day. After 7 days of treatment, the dead skin began peeling away from the former lesions that had covered his hands, feet, and lips, indicating that skin had regenerated. After 12 days of treatment, the patient's skin was completely recovered. In this case, SJS/TEN was successfully treated with Pi-Yan-Ning, suggesting that there might be tremendous potential for the use of Pi-Yan-Ning in the treatment of severe skin reactions to drug treatments. Further basic investigations and clinical trials to explore the mechanism and efficacy are needed.
Subject(s)
Humans , Male , Middle Aged , Drugs, Chinese Herbal/therapeutic use , Immunologic Factors , Incidence , Skin , Stevens-Johnson Syndrome/etiologyABSTRACT
Cancer cells are known to exhibit unusual metabolic activity, and yet few metabolic cancer driver genes are known. Genetic alterations and epigenetic modifications of cancer cells result in the abnormal regulation of cellular metabolic pathways that are different when compared with normal cells. Such a metabolic reprogramming can be simulated using constraint-based modelling approaches towards predicting oncogenes. We introduced the tri-level optimization problem to use the metabolic reprogramming towards inferring oncogenes. The algorithm incorporated Recon 2.2 network with the Human Protein Atlas to reconstruct genome-scale metabolic network models of the tissue-specific cells at normal and cancer states, respectively. Such reconstructed models were applied to build the templates of the metabolic reprogramming between normal and cancer cell metabolism. The inference optimization problem was formulated to use the templates as a measure towards predicting oncogenes. The nested hybrid differential evolution algorithm was applied to solve the problem to overcome solving difficulty for transferring the inner optimization problem into the single one. Head and neck squamous cells were applied as a case study to evaluate the algorithm. We detected 13 of the top-ranked one-hit dysregulations and 17 of the top-ranked two-hit oncogenes with high similarity ratios to the templates. According to the literature survey, most inferred oncogenes are consistent with the observation in various tissues. Furthermore, the inferred oncogenes were highly connected with the TP53/AKT/IGF/MTOR signalling pathway through PTEN, which is one of the most frequently detected tumour suppressor genes in human cancer.
ABSTRACT
AIM:To investigate the clinical effect of panretinal photocoagulation (PRP) combined with calcium dobesilate in treatment of diabetic retinopathy (DR).METHODS:Selected 120 cases (240 eyes) of DR diagnosed in our hospital from January 2011 to January 2016 were retrospectively analyzed.According to whether calcium dobesilate was used, the treatment group was divided into two groups.Sixty cases were treated with PRP combined with calcium dobesilate, and 60 cases in the control group were treated with PRP only.The BCVA, CMT and clinical efficacy of the two groups were compared.RESULTS:Before treatment, there was no significant difference on BCVA between combined group and control group (P>0.05).After treatment, BCVA of combined group was higher than that of the control group (P0.05);after treatment, the combination group on CMT, neovascularization and fluorescein leakage area value were less than the control group (P<0.01).After treatment, combined group was appearance effect in 65.0%, effective in 30.0%, invalid in 5.0%, the control group was 50.8%, effective 36.7%, invalid 12.5%, all statistically significant differences between the two groups (P<0.05).CONCLUSION:PRP combined with calcium dobesilate in treatment of DR has a more significant clinical effect than PRP alone.
ABSTRACT
<p><b>OBJECTIVES</b>To investigate the association between genetic polymorphisms ofX-ray repair crosscomplementing group 1 (XRCC1) codons 194, 280, and 399 and cervical neoplasm susceptibility.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A community-based nested case-control study was conducted. The study population consisted of women living in Chiayi City, located in southwestern Taiwan, who had received pap smear screening between October, 1999, and December, 2000 (n=32,466). The potential cases were women having lesions greater than cervical intraepithelium neoplasm II (C1N2) reconfirmed by cervical biopsy. The potential controls (case: control=1∶2) were age matched (±2 yrs) and residency matched women who had had normal pap smears. In total, 100 cases (39 C1N2, 12 C1N3, 46 carcinoma in situ (CIS), and 3 invasive cancer) and 196 controls had the information on both questionnaire and data ofXRCC1 polymorphisms.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The frequency ofArg/Arg, Arg/Gln, andGln/Gln in codon 399 among cases and controls was 54% (54/100), 38% (38/100), and 8% (8/100) and 58% (114/196), 37% (73/196), and 5% (9/196), respectively, which were not significantly different. No associations were also observed betweenXRCC1 codon 194 and 280 genotypes and cervical neoplasm. While dichotomized by age (<40 vs. ≥40 yrs), smoking status (active and passive smokers vs. non-smokers), and disease status (C1N2 and C1N3 vs. CIS and invasive cancer), the results remained insignificant.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The present findings suggest thatXRRC1 codon 194, 280 and 399 genotypes may not influence cervical neoplasm risk in the Taiwanese population.</p>
ABSTRACT
Objectives: To investigate the association between genetic polymorphisms of X-ray repair cross-complementing group 1 (XRCC1) codons 194, 280, and 399 and cervical neoplasm susceptibility. Methods: A community-based nested case-control study was conducted. The study population consisted of women living in Chiayi City, located in southwestern Taiwan, who had received pap smear screening between October, 1999, and December, 2000 (n=32,466). The potential cases were women having lesions greater than cervical intraepithelium neoplasm II (CIN2) reconfirmed by cervical biopsy. The potential controls (case : control=1 : 2) were age matched (±2 yrs) and residency matched women who had had normal pap smears. In total, 100 cases (39 CIN2, 12 CIN3, 46 carcinoma in situ (CIS), and 3 invasive cancer) and 196 controls had the information on both questionnaire and data of XRCC1 polymorphisms. Results: The frequency of Arg/Arg, Arg/Gln, and Gln/Gln in codon 399 among cases and controls was 54% (54/100), 38% (38/100), and 8% (8/100) and 58% (114/196), 37% (73/196), and 5% (9/196), respectively, which were not significantly different. No associations were also observed between XRCC1 codon 194 and 280 genotypes and cervical neoplasm. While dichotomized by age (<40 vs. ³40 yrs), smoking status (active and passive smokers vs. non-smokers), and disease status (CIN2 and CIN3 vs. CIS and invasive cancer), the results remained insignificant. Conclusions: The present findings suggest that XRRC1 codon 194, 280 and 399 genotypes may not influence cervical neoplasm risk in the Taiwanese population.
