Circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood as a diagnostic biomarker of breast cancer: A meta-analysis.

Purpose: Studies have reported that breast cancer (BC) patients' circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have varying results for their diagnostic role. Thus, we conducted a meta-analysis to systematically assess the accuracy of CTCs in the diagnosis of BC. Methods: A meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the overall accuracy of CTC detection. A pooled analysis of sensitivity (SEN), specificity (SPE), positive likelihood ratio (PLR), negative likelihood ratio (NLR), and diagnostic advantage ratio (DOR) was used to measure diagnostic accuracy. In addition, the area under the summary receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) was used to discriminate BC from non-BC. An analysis of the threshold effect was calculated using the Spearman correlation coefficient. We calculated the Q and I2 statistics to determine whether the studies were heterogeneous. Sensitivity analysis was performed by removing studies one by one. Publication bias was assessed by Deeks' funnel plot asymmetry test. Results: Studies from the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science, Wanfang, Vip, and CNKI databases were collected for diagnosing BC from January 2000 to April March 2023. Finally, 8 publications were retrieved in total containing 2014 cases involved in the study. Based on a random-effects model, it was found that the pooled SEN was 0.69 (0.55 - 0.80), SPE was 0.93 (0.60 - 0.99), PLR was 9.5 (1.4 - 65.9), NLR was 0.33 (0.23 - 0.48), DOR was 29 (4 - 205) and the AUC of the summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve was 0.81 (0.77 - 0.84). Some heterogeneity was found in the article, but there was no threshold effect to account for it (P = 0.27). Deek's funnel plot asymmetry test indicated that no publication bias was observed in this meta-analysis (P = 0.52). Conclusion: The results of this meta-analysis confirmed that CTCs were an important component of noninvasive methods of confirming BC with SEN of 0.69 (0.55 - 0.80), SPE of 0.93 (0.60 - 0.99) and AUC of 0.81 (0.77 - 0.84).

Development and validation of nomograms for predicting survival in patients with de novo metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.

Metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (mTNBC) is a heterogeneous disease with a poor prognosis. Individualized survival prediction tool is useful for this population. We constructed the predicted nomograms for breast cancer-specific survival (BCSS) and overall survival (OS) using the data identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. The Concordance index (C-index), the area under the time-dependent receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and the calibration curves were used for the discrimination and calibration of the nomograms in the training and validation cohorts, respectively. 1962 mTNBC patients with a median follow-up was 13 months (interquartile range, 6-22 months), 1639 (83.54%) cases died of any cause, and 1469 (74.87%) died of breast cancer. Nine and ten independent prognostic factors for BCSS and OS were identified and integrated to construct the nomograms, respectively. The C-indexes of the nomogram for BCSS and OS were 0.694 (95% CI 0.676-0.712) and 0.699 (95% CI 0.679-0.715) in the training cohort, and 0.699 (95% CI 0.686-0.712) and 0.697 (95% CI 0.679-0.715) in the validation cohort, respectively. The AUC values of the nomograms to predict 1-, 2-, and 3-year BCSS and OS indicated good specificity and sensitivity in internal and external validation. The calibration curves showed a favorable consistency between the actual and the predicted survival in the training and validation cohorts. These nomograms based on clinicopathological factors and treatment could reliably predict the survival of mTNBC patient. This may be a useful tool for individualized healthcare decision-making.

Hydrogel from Acellular Porcine Adipose Tissue Accelerates Wound Healing by Inducing Intradermal Adipocyte Regeneration.

As an important component of the skin, intradermal adipocytes are closely associated with skin homeostasis and wound healing. Although studies have focused on the role of fibroblasts, keratinocytes, and inflammatory cells in wound healing, the role of adipocytes has not been fully investigated. Here, we verified whether the induction of adipocyte regeneration in a wound bed can effectively promote wound healing, finding that the hydrogel from acellular porcine adipose tissue in combination with adipose-derived stem cells can induce in situ adipogenesis in the wound microenvironment. The newly regenerated adipocytes enhanced fibroblast migration, accelerated wound closing, and enhanced wound epithelialization. More importantly, newly formed intact skin structure was observed after treating the wound with adipose-derived stem cell-loaded hydrogel from acellular porcine adipose tissue. These results show that hydrogel from acellular porcine adipose tissue might substantially improve re-epithelialization, angiogenesis, and skin-appendage regeneration, making it a promising therapeutic biomaterial for skin wound healing.

Clinicopathologic study of invasive micropapillary carcinoma of the breast.

Invasive micropapillary carcinoma (IMPC) is a rare subtype of breast carcinoma. It is presumed to be more aggressive than invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC), though it is uncertain whether the prognoses of IMPC and IDC differ. In this retrospective study, we compared the clinicopathologic characteristics and survival between 170 female patients with IMPC (pure or mixed with IDC) and 728 with pure IDC. The IMPC patients had higher clinical stages and histologic grades, higher incidences of lymphovascular invasion and axillary lymph node extracapsular extension, and a higher degree of lymph node involvement than IDC patients. Moreover, IMPC was associated with increases in estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) positivity and HER-2 overexpression. Although locoregional recurrence-free survival (LRRFS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) were poorer in IMPC patients than IDC patients, overall survival and distant metastasis survival did not differ between the two groups. Multivariate analysis revealed that IMPC was an independent prognostic factor for LRRFS in breast cancer, and IMPC patients had poorer clinicopathologic characteristics and poorer RFS and LRRFS than IDC patients. We therefore suggest that to improve treatment decisions, patients with breast carcinoma be tested for the presence of this specific subtype.

Hydrogel derived from decellularized porcine adipose tissue as a promising biomaterial for soft tissue augmentation.

Decellularized extracellular matrix (ECM) scaffolds from human adipose tissue, characterized by impressive adipogenic induction ability, are promising for soft tissue augmentation. However, scaffolds from autologous human adipose tissue are limited by the availability of tissue resources and the time necessary for scaffold fabrication. The objective of the current study was to investigate the adipogenic properties of hydrogels of decellularized porcine adipose tissue (HDPA). HDPA induced the adipogenic differentiation of human adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) in vitro, with significantly increased expression of adipogenic genes. Subcutaneous injection of HDPA in immunocompetent mice induced host-derived adipogenesis without cell seeding, and adipogenesis was significantly enhanced with ADSCs seeding. The newly formed adipocytes were frequently located on the basal side in the non-seeding group, but this trend was not observed in the ADSCs seeding group. Our results indicated that, similar to human adipose tissue, the ECM scaffold derived from porcine adipose tissue could provide an adipogenic microenvironment for adipose tissue regeneration and is a promising biomaterial for soft tissue augmentation. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Biomed Mater Res Part A: 105A: 1756-1764, 2017.