SUMMARYBackground: Only limited data of the long-term effect of levosimendan on renal dysfunction in patients with decompensated heart failure (DHF) have been published previously. To date, there has been no similar study carried out in a Chinese population. Design and Methods: A prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, and double-blind study was performed to investigate the effect of levosimendan on estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) in DHF patients with renal dysfunction during a 30-day period. Sixty-six patients with left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) 40% and eGFR 15-89 mL/min/1.73 m 2 were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive a 24-h infusion with levosimendan or placebo. The B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) and eGFR were determined at baseline and day 1, 3, 7, 14, 30 after the start of treatment. Results: The eGFR levels were obviously enhanced following levosimendan, peaked at 3 days, sustained for at least 14 days, and returned to baseline by day 30 after starting infusion. In contrast, placebo did not induce any significant changes in eGFR levels during the follow-up. In addition, levosimendan resulted in a distinct decrease in BNP levels in comparison with placebo, and the beneficial effect returned to baseline by day 14 and remained so at day 30 postinfusion. Conclusions: A 24-h infusion with levosimendan transiently improved the renal dysfunction compared with placebo in patients with DHF, and its beneficial effects persisted for at least 14 days after the initiation of treatment.

SUMMARYBackground: Only limited data of the long-term effect of levosimendan on renal dysfunction in patients with decompensated heart failure (DHF) have been published previously. To date, there has been no similar study carried out in a Chinese population. Design and Methods: A prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, and double-blind study was performed to investigate the effect of levosimendan on estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) in DHF patients with renal dysfunction during a 30-day period. Sixty-six patients with left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) 40% and eGFR 15-89 mL/min/1.73 m

T-box2 (TBX2) expression has been reported to be related to aggressive tumor features. However, the role of TBX2 in non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumorigenesis has never been elucidated. So we aimed at investigating the potential role of TBX2 in NSCLC. TBX2 expression was evaluated by qRT-PCR and Western blotting in 50 paired fresh lung cancer tissues as well as immunohistochemistry on 212 paraffin-embedded sections. We showed that the expression level of TBX2 was significantly increased in NSCLC as compared with the adjacent noncancerous tissue. Positive expression level of TBX2 was associated with histological type, lymph node metastasis and distant metastasis. Kaplan-Meier survival curves showed that positive expression level of TBX2 was associated with poor overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival of NSCLC patients. Results showed that TBX2 positivity was an independent prognostic factor for OS (HR 1.87, 95% CI 1.004-3.153, p = 0.012). On the basis of these results, we suggested that TBX2 protein expression may be an unfavorable independent prognostic parameter for NSCLC.