Benefits of the Seattle biopsy protocol in the diagnosis of Barrett's esophagus in a Chinese population.

AIM: To investigate the benefits of the Seattle protocol in the diagnosis of Chinese individuals with Barrett's esophagus. METHODS: Subjects enrolled were patients from one center with endoscopically-suspected esophageal metaplasia. These patients first received narrow-band imaging-targeted biopsy, and later, the Seattle protocol-guided biopsy, within a period from October 2012 to December 2014. Those cases without initial pathologic patterns of intestinal metaplasia (IM) and then appearance or loss of IM tissue were designated as Group A or B, respectively. Those with initial pathologic patterns of IM, which then persisted or were lost were designated as Group C or D, respectively. RESULTS: The number of cases for each group was as follows: A: 20, B: 78, C: 31 and D: 14. The distribution of the Prague criteria M levels of Group A was significantly higher than Group B (P = 0.174). Among these groups, Group C had the highest proportions of hiatus hernia (54.8%), long segment Barrett's esophagus (29%), and also the highest Prague criteria M levels. The sensitivity of IM detection was 69.2% for the narrow-band imaging-targeted biopsy and 78.5% for the Seattle protocol-guided biopsy. The difference was not significant (P = 0.231). The number of detectable dysplasias increased from one case via the NBI-target biopsy to five cases via the Seattle protocol-guided biopsy, including one case of adenocarcinoma. CONCLUSION: The Seattle protocol improved the IM detection in our subjects with higher Prague criteria M levels and disclosed more cases with dysplastic tissues.

The incidence of esophageal cancer and dysplasia in a Chinese population with nondysplastic Barrett's esophagus.

AIM: The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence of dysplastic transformation of Barrett's esophagus (BE) in a Chinese population. METHOD: Data from nondysplastic BE patients at Taichung Veterans General Hospital were collected from May 2008 to June 2017. The enrolled individuals received regular upper gastrointestinal (UGI) endoscopy during follow up. The pathological transformations, including low-grade dysplasia (LGD), high-grade dysplasia (HGD), or esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), were collected prospectively until June 2017. Rates of progression were calculated in cases with a diagnosis of dysplasia or EAC. RESULTS: There were 51 subjects who met the inclusion criteria, with a mean follow up of 3.71 years (SD, 1.61) and a total follow up of 189.1 patient-years. Eight cases (15.7%) developed LGD, with a calculated incidence rate of 2.9% per year. The mean time to development of LGD was 3.26 years (SD, 2.68-3.84). One subject (2%) developed EAC, with a calculated incidence rate of 0.4% per year. No case with HGD was detected. CONCLUSION: In a Chinese population with nondysplastic BE, 15.7% of cases developed LGD, with an incidence rate of 2.9% per year, and 2% of cases developed EAC, with an incidence rate of 0.4% per year.

[Effects of sewage discharge on abundance and biomass of meiofauna].

In order to elucidate the effects of sewage discharge on abundance and biomass of meio- fauna, a seasonal survey was carried out on meiofauna at stations with different distances to a sewage outlet in the middle intertidal zone of No. 1 bathing beach in Huiquan Bay, Qingdao in spring (April), summer (August), autumn (October) and winter (December), 2011. The results showed that the annual average meiofaunal abundance was (1859.9 ± 705.1) ind · 10 cm(-2), with higher values of (2444.9 ± 1220.5) ind · 10 cm(-2) at Station S2 (20 m to the sewage outlet) and (2492.2 ± 1839.9) ind · 10 cm(-2) at Station S3 (40 m to the sewage outlet), while the lowest value of (327.9 ± 183.2) ind · 10 cm(-2) was observed at Station S1 (0 m to the sewage outlet) in terms of horizontal distribution. The annual average biomass was (1513.4 ± 372.7) µg · 10 cm(-2). Meiofaunal abundance and biomass varied seasonally with the highest values in spring and the lowest values in summer. A total of 11 meiofaunal groups were identified, including nematodes, copepods, polychaetes, oligochaetes, tardigrades, halacaroideans, planarians, ostracods, isopods, crustacean nauplii and others. Free-living marine nematodes were the dominant group constituting 83. 1% of the total abundance, followed by benthic copepods, accounting for 12. 8% of the total abundance. In terms of vertical distribution, most of the meiofauna concentrated in the top 0-2 cm, and the meiofauna abundance decreased with increasing the sediment depth. Meiofauna was also noted to migrate deeper into the sediment in the winter. Pearson correlation analysis showed that meiofaunal abundance and biomass had highly significant negative correlations with sediment median particle diameter and organic matter content. In addition, tourism-induced activities affected meiofaunal abundance and distribution. A comparison with historical data from similar studies was carried out, and the applicability of the ratio of abundance of nematodes to copepods in monitoring organic pollution was discussed.

Continuous labeling of circulating tumor cells with microbeads using a vortex micromixer for highly selective isolation.

Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) are identified in transit within the blood stream of cancer patients and have been proven to be a main cause of metastatic disease. Current approaches for the size-based isolation of CTCs have encountered technical challenges as some of the CTCs have a size similar to that of leukocytes and therefore CTCs are often lost in the process. Here, we propose a novel strategy where most of the CTCs are coated by a large number of microbeads to amplify their size to enable complete discrimination from leukocytes. In addition, all of the microbead labeling processes are carried out in a continuous manner to prevent any loss of CTCs during the isolation process. Thus, a microfluidic mixer was employed to facilitate the efficient and selective labeling of CTCs from peripheral blood samples. By generating secondary vortex flows called Taylor-Gortler vortices perpendicular to the main flow direction in our microfluidic device, CTCs were continuously and successfully coated with anti-epithelial cell adhesion molecule-conjugated beads. After the continuous labeling, the enlarged CTCs were perfectly trapped in a micro-filter whereas all of the leukocytes escaped.

[Castanopsis jianfengensis sap flow and its relationships with environmental factors in tropical montane rainforest].

By the method of thermal dissipation and using ICT-2000TE apparatus made in Australia, the Castanopsis jianfengensis sap flow and the variations of environmental factors in a mixed tropical montane rainforest at Jianfengling Nature Forest Reserve (18 degrees 36'N, 108 degrees 52'E, 860 m altitude) were measured synchronously during the dry and rainy seasons, 2002. The results showed that the sap flow density of C. jianfengensis exhibited mono-peak pattern in clear days and multi-peak pattern in cloudy or rainy days. Sap flow density had significant positive correlations with solar radiation, air temperature, vapor pressure deficit and wind speed, but negative correlation with air relative humidity. In dry season, sap flow density was positively correlated with soil temperature but less correlated with soil moisture, while it was in adverse in rainy season, indicating that rainfall had a greater influence on the sap flow. The linear regression patterns between sap flow and environmental factors were built, which all met the significance at 0.01 level with F test. The mean transpiration rate of C. jianfengesis was 103.5 kg x d(-1) and 41.3 kg x d(-1) for whole tree, and 1.94 mm x d(-1) and 0.77 mm x d(-1) for the stand in dry and rainy season, respectively.