Comparison of the BOPPPS model and traditional instructional approaches in thoracic surgery education.

BACKGROUND: BOPPPS (bridge-in, learning objective, pretest, participatory learning, posttest, and summary) is a student-centered modular teaching model that improves classroom teaching effectiveness. This study's primary aim was to explore whether the BOPPPS model has advantages over traditional instructional approaches in teaching lung cancer courses to clinical medical interns. METHODS: A total of 88 students majoring in clinical medicine of Shandong First Medical University and Shandong University, who had clinical practice in thoracic surgery from January 2018 to December 2019, were divided into two groups, receiving the same lung cancer teaching content. The experimental group (n = 44) utilized the BOPPPS model, while the control group (n = 44) used the traditional instructional approach. A questionnaire was used to attain the students' satisfaction and self-evaluation of the course, and a post-study examination was used to assess end-of-course performance. RESULTS: The experimental group's theoretical examination scores with the BOPPPS teaching model were significantly higher than those in the control group. Students preferred the BOPPPS model more than the traditional instructional approach in course satisfaction, student-teacher interaction, learning initiative, analytical ability, clinical thinking ability, and self-study ability (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Compared with the traditional instructional approach. The BOPPPS model can better inspire clinical medical students' enthusiasm for thoracic surgery and enhance the students' comprehensive ability. In a word, the BOPPPS model has better teaching effectiveness in the clinical teaching practice of thoracic surgery, which is worthy of reference and popularization.

Molecular Mechanisms Involving the Sonic Hedgehog Pathway in Lung Cancer Therapy: Recent Advances.

According to the latest statistics from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), lung cancer is one of the most lethal malignancies in the world, accounting for approximately 18% of all cancer-associated deaths. Yet, even with aggressive interventions for advanced lung cancer, the five-year survival rate remains low, at around 15%. The hedgehog signaling pathway is highly conserved during embryonic development and is involved in tissue homeostasis as well as organ development. However, studies have documented an increasing prevalence of aberrant activation of HH signaling in lung cancer patients, promoting malignant lung cancer progression with poor prognostic outcomes. Inhibitors targeting the HH pathway have been widely used in tumor therapy, however, they still cannot avoid the occurrence of drug resistance. Interestingly, natural products, either alone or in combination with chemotherapy, have greatly improved overall survival outcomes for lung cancer patients by acting on the HH signaling pathway because of its unique and excellent pharmacological properties. In this review, we elucidate on the underlying molecular mechanisms through which the HH pathway promotes malignant biological behaviors in lung cancer, as well as the potential of inhibitors or natural compounds in targeting HH signaling for clinical applications in lung cancer therapy.

Roles of N6-Methyladenosine Demethylase FTO in Malignant Tumors Progression.

In 2007, the fat mass and obesity-associated (FTO) gene was discovered initially to regulate body mass index and obesity and was subsequently found to be the first mRNA N6-methyladenosine (m6A) demethylation enzyme, which can demethylate m6A. A growing body of evidence shows that m6A modification is involved in a variety of cell biological processes, including cell proliferation, apoptosis, and self-renewal through different regulatory mechanisms. In recent years, a large number of studies have found that m6A modification play key role in the occurrence and development of tumors, such as acute myeloid leukemia, breast cancer, lung cancer, etc. As a function of m6A demethylase, FTO has attracted more and more attention in cancer. There is evidence that specific FTO single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may be significantly associated with overweight and cancer susceptibility by regulating the expression of related genes. Besides, when the expression level of FTO is altered or dysfunctional, it may be involved in the occurrence and progression of a variety of tumors as a tumor suppressor gene or oncogene, usually in an m6A-dependent manner. Further research found that FTO is involved in the development of different kinds of malignant tumors, but the mechanism is unknown. According to this review, The FTO gene's research progress in tumors is reviewed, aiming to find new targets for molecular pathological diagnosis and molecular targeted therapy of tumors.

Clinical and prognostic features of MMP-2 and VEGF in AEG patients.

Adenocarcinoma of the esophagogastric junction (AEG) has been increased in recent years and has become a worldwide problem that seriously affects human health. The purpose of the study is to investigate the clinical and prognostic characteristics of the matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression in AEG patients. A total of 69 patients were enrolled in this study. The result showed that the high expression of MMP-2 was significantly associated with tumor differentiation (P < 0.05) and depth of invasion (pT, P < 0.05). The high expression of VEGF was significantly associated with pT (P < 0.05) and lymph node metastasis (pN, P < 0.05). There was a positive correlation between MMP-2 and VEGF expression (P < 0.01). The 5-year survival rate for the 69 AEG patients was 40.6% and it was significantly associated with tumor differentiation (P < 0.05), pN (P < 0.01), pTNM stage (P < 0.01), MMP-2 expression (P < 0.05), and VEGF expression (P < 0.05). Cox multivariate regression demonstrated that tumor differentiation and pN were independent factors for the 5-year survival rate. Our study showed that MMP-2 and VEGF could work synergistically in AEG development.

Krüppel-Like Factor 6 Splice Variant 1: An Oncogenic Transcription Factor Involved in the Progression of Multiple Malignant Tumors.

Krüppel-like factor 6 (KLF6) is one of the most studied members of the specificity protein/Krüppel-like factor (SP/KLF) transcription factor family. It has a typical zinc finger structure and plays a pivotal role in regulating the biological processes of cells. Recently, it has been considered to play a role in combatting cancer. Krüppel-like factor 6 splice variant 1 (KLF6-SV1), being one of the alternative KLF6 splicing isoforms, participates in tumor occurrence and development and has the potential to become a new target for molecular targeted therapy, although its action mechanism remains to be determined. The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive and systematic review of the important role of KLF6-SV1 in human malignant tumors to provide novel insights for oncotherapy.

Decolorization and degradation of reactive dye during the dyed cotton fabric rinsing process.

Dyeing process of textile consumes large quantities of water, which results in huge amounts of colored wastewater. Most of the dye wastewater treating methods focused on the treatment of wastewater after the rinsing process of dyed textile. In this paper, tetraacetylethylenediamine/hydrogen peroxide (TAED/H2O2) active oxidation (AO) system was developed to rinse dyed textile and decolorize the rinsing wastewater simultaneously. The results indicated that the decolorization ratio of the rinse effluent obtained by AO method were in the range of 51.72%-84.15% according to different dyes and the COD value decreased more than 30% compared with that of traditional rinsing process. The decolorization kinetics investigation showed that the decolorization of dyes during AO rinsing process followed the law of pseudo-first order kinetics. The result of UV-Vis and UPLC-MS analysis demonstrated that the dye was degraded into colorless organic molecular fragments and partly mineralized during the AO rinsing process.