MCE showed a diagnostic accuracy similar to that of standard gastroscopy. These results suggest that MCE is a promising alternative to gastroscopy for noninvasive screening of gastric diseases.Clinical trial registration number: NCT01903629.

AbstractsSeveral studies have focused on umbilical cord-derived mesenchymal stem cells (UC-MSCs) due to their potential therapeutic effects in a cluster of diseases. However, there has been no bibliometric analysis evaluating the evolution in UC-MSC research. Therefore, this study aimed to assess scientific activity regarding UC-MSC research. Publications on UC-MSCs were retrieved from the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E) of the Web of Science (WoS) from 1975 to 2017. Statistical analyses were performed using Excel, GraphPad Prism 5, and VOSviewer software. Comparative analyses were employed to assess contributions between different countries, institutes, and researchers. With 21.26 citations per paper, 1206 papers cited 25,517 times were included. Mainland China contributed the most with 558 papers, with the most citations (6858 times) and the highest H-index (43). South Korea ranked first for number of papers per million people and per trillion gross domestic product (GDP). Keywords were stratified into two clusters by VOSviewer software: cluster 1, “treatments and effects”; and cluster 2, “characteristics”. The average appearing years (AAY) of keywords in cluster 1 was more recent than that in cluster 2. For promising hotspots, “TNF-α” showed the latest AAY at 2014.09, followed by “migration”, “angiogenesis”, and “apoptosis”. We conclude that the number of publications has been continuously growing dramatically since 2002 and that mainland China and South Korea are the most productive regions. The focus gradually shifts from “characteristics” to “treatments and effects”. Attention should be drawn to the latest hotspots, such as “TNF-α”, “migration”, “angiogenesis”, and “apoptosis”. Furthermore, funding agencies might increase investments in exploring the therapeutic potential of UC-MSCs.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s13287-018-0785-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background Osteoarthritis (OA) is a common degeneration disease characterized with joint pain. The aim of the present study was to systemically review the effects of LIPUS on pain relief and functional recovery in patients with knee osteoarthritis (OA). Methods PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library were searched manually for researches on LIPUS treatment in patients with knee OA from 1945 to July 2017. Two investigators independently selected the studies according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, extracted the concerned data, and assessed the included studies. Meta-analysis was performed to evaluate VAS, WOMAC, and ambulation speed between control and LIPUS groups. Results Five studies were selected in this study. Compared with control group, LIPUS group received a decrease of pain intensity with moderate heterogeneity (-0.79, 95% CI, -1.57 to 0.00; I2 = 65%, P = 0.04) by VAS and improvement in knee function by WOMAC (-5.30, 95% CI, -2.88 to -7.71; I2 = 44%, P = 0.17). No significant improvement was found in ambulation speed (0.08 m/s, 95% CI, -0.02 to 0.18 m/s; I2 = 68%, P = 0.03). Conclusion The present study includes 5 high quality randomized controlled trials. The result indicated that LIPUS, used to treat knee OA without any adverse effect, had a beneficial effect on pain relief and knee functional recovery. More evidence is needed to prove whether LIPUS is effective in improving walking ability.

Background Recent reports suggest that the long non-coding RNA LBX2 antisense RNA 1 (LBX2-AS1) acts as an important regulator in cancer progression, but its significance in colorectal cancer (CRC) remains undetermined. Methods LBX2-AS1 expression levels in CRC were determined from the GEPIA database and CRC tissues to investigate clinical relevance. meRIP-PCR assays investigated the molecular mechanisms underlying the function of m6A in LBX2-AS1. Loss of function experiments was used to define the role of LBX2-AS1 in the progression of CRC. The ceRNA function of LBX2-AS1 was evaluated by RNA immunoprecipitation. In vitro and PDX models were used to determine if LBX2-AS1 promotes 5-fluorouracil resistance. Results Data from the TCGA and our institutional patient cohorts established that LBX2-AS1 levels were significantly upregulated in most CRC tissues relative to normal adjacent colon tissues. Moreover, LBX2-AS1 levels were positively correlated with aggressive disease characteristics, constituting an independent prognostic indicator of overall patient survival. Mechanistic investigations suggested that the increased LBX2-AS1 in CRC was mediated by METTL3-dependent m6A methylation. In vitro experiments indicated that knockdown of LBX2-AS1 inhibited CRC proliferation, migration and invasion with this phenotype linked to LBX2-AS1-mediated regulation of AKT1, acting as a ceRNA to sponge miR-422a. Ex vivo analysis of patient-derived CRC xenografts showed that low LBX2-AS1 expression cases exhibited 5-FU responsiveness and clinical investigations confirmed that low LBX2-AS1 expression was associated with improved clinical benefits from 5-FU therapy. Conclusions Together these results suggest that LBX2-AS1 may serve as a therapeutic target and predictor of 5-FU benefit in CRC patients.

The classical therapeutic indication for type B aortic dissection is based on either medication or open surgery; medication therapy is recommended for relatively stable uncomplicated type B aortic dissection. With improvements in endovascular repair and the potential risk of disease progression, it is now necessary to evaluate the requirement for revision of the therapeutic choice of uncomplicated type B aortic dissection based on morphological features and time window. Data from 252 patients diagnosed as uncomplicated type B aortic dissection from 1992 to 2015 were analyzed retrospectively. Among these cases, 117 patients received medication therapy and 135 patients underwent endovascular repair. The 60-month survival rate in the endovascular group was higher than that in the medication group (92.3% vs 67.6%). According to the morphological evaluation, visceral artery involvement and false/true lumen ratios over 0.7 were strong risk factors for medical treatment alone. Increased surgical time and blood loss were found in patients treated in the chronic phase, compared with those who underwent endovascular repair within 14 days of the onset of symptoms. With improvements in aortic remodeling techniques, endovascular repair has been shown to improve long-term survival rates of patients with uncomplicated aortic dissection. Considering the potential risk of death, we recommend that patients with visceral artery involvement and a false/true lumen ratio over 0.7 should receive endovascular repair aggressively. Furthermore, delayed endovascular repair in the chronic phase does not improve the long-term outcome of uncomplicated type B aortic dissection.

Background. The prognostic value of tumor deposit (TD) count in colorectal cancer (CRC) patients has been rarely evaluated. This study is aimed at exploring the prognostic value of TD count and finding out the optimal cutoff point of TD count to differentiate the prognoses of TD-positive CRC patients. Method. Patients diagnosed with CRC from Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2012, were analyzed. X-tile program was used to identify the optimal cutoff point of TD count in training cohort, and a validation cohort was used to test this cutoff point after propensity score matching (PSM). Univariate and multivariate Cox proportional hazard models were used to assess the risk factors of survival. Results. X-tile plots identified 3 (P<0.001) as the optimal cutoff point of TD count to divide the patients of training cohort into high and low risk subsets in terms of disease-specific survival (DSS). This cutoff point was validated in validation cohort before and after PSM (P<0.001, P=0.002). More TD count, which was defined as more than 3, was validated as an independent risk prognostic factor in univariate and multivariate analysis (P<0.001). Conclusion. More TD count (TD count≥4) was significantly associated with poor disease-specific survival in CRC patients.

Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT), a major metabolic regulator, has been identified as a predictor of cancer prognosis in ovarian and colorectal cancers. The study aims to evaluate the significance of stromal NNMT in gastric cancer (GC). Expression of stromal NNMT in 612 GC and 92 non-malignant tissues specimens was investigated by immunohistochemistry (IHC). The association between NNMT expression and occurrence of cancer or patient outcome was further analyzed, and the factors contributing to disease prognosis were evaluated by multiple Cox models. Stromal NNMT expression was higher in the malignant tissue ( p<0.001). NNMT expression was significantly associated with GC stage ( p=0.006). Compared to stromal “NNMT-low” cases, “NNMT-high” cases has lower disease-specific survival (hazard ratio [HR], 2.356; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.591–3.488; p<0.001) and disease-free survival (HR = 2.265; 95% CI = 1.529–3.354; p<0.001), as observed by multivariate Cox analysis after adjusting for stromal NNMT expression with other factors such as tumor grade and size. Notably, patients with stage II NNMT-low GC might be negatively affected by adjuvant chemotherapy, but lower stromal NNMT expression predicted a more favorable prognosis for GC. Our study confirmed that stromal NNMT expression is significantly increased in GC, which predicts an unfavorable post-operative prognosis for GC:

Background Early detection of colorectal carcinoma (CRC) would help to identify tumors when curative treatments are available and beneficial. However, current screening methods for CRC, e.g., colonoscopy, may affect patients’ compliance due to the uncomfortable, invasive and time-consuming process. In recent decades, methylation profiles of blood-based circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) have shown promising results in the early detection of multiple tumors. Here we conducted a study to investigate the performance of ctDNA methylation markers in early detection of CRC. Results In total, 742 participants were enrolled in the study including CRC (n = 332), healthy control (n = 333), benign colorectal disease (n = 65) and advanced adenoma (n = 12). After age-matched and randomization, 298 participants (149 cancer and 149 healthy control) were included in training set and 141 (67 cancer and 74 healthy control) were in test set. In the training set, the specificity was 89.3% (83.2–93.7%) and the sensitivity was 88.6% (82.4–93.2%). In terms of different stages, the sensitivities were 79.4% (62.1–91.2%) in patients with stage I, 88.9% (77.3–95.8%) in patients with stage II, 91.4% (76.9–98.2%) in patients with stage III and 96.2% (80.3–99.9%) in patients with stage IV. Similar results were validated in the test set with the specificity of 91.9% (83.1–97.0%) and sensitivity of 83.6% (72.5–91.6%). Sensitivities for stage I-III were 87.0% (79.7–92.4%) in the training set and 82.5% (70.2–91.3%) in the test set, respectively. In the unmatched total population, the positive ratios were 7.8% (5.2–11.2%) in healthy control, 30.8% (19.9–43.5%) in benign colorectal disease and 58.3% (27.5–84.7%) in advanced adenoma, while the sensitivities of stage I–IV were similar with training and test sets. Compared with methylated SEPT9 model, the present model had higher sensitivity (87.0% [81.8–91.2%] versus 41.2% [34.6–48.1%], P < 0.001) under comparable specificity (90.1% [85.4–93.7%] versus 90.6% [86.0–94.1%]). Conclusions Together our findings showed that ctDNA methylation markers were promising in the early detection of CRC. Further validation of this model is warranted in prospective studies.