Purpose To estimate the effects of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations on ovarian cancer and breast cancer survival. Experimental Design We searched PUBMED and EMBASE for studies that evaluated the associations between BRCA mutations and ovarian or breast cancer survival. Meta-analysis was conducted to generate combined hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for overall survival (OS) and progression free survival (PFS). Results From 1201 unique citations, we identified 27 articles that compared prognosis between BRCA mutation carriers and non-carriers in ovarian or breast cancer patients. Fourteen studies examined ovarian cancer survival and 13 studies examined breast cancer survival. For ovarian cancer, meta-analysis demonstrated that both BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers had better OS (HR: 0.76, 95% CI: 0.70-0.83 for BRCA1 mutation carriers; HR: 0.58, 95% CI: 0.50-0.66 for BRCA2 mutation carriers) and PFS (HR: 0.65, 95% CI: 0.52-0.81 for BRCA1 mutation carriers; HR: 0.61, 95% CI: 0.47-0.80 for BRCA2 mutation carriers) compared to non-carriers, regardless of tumor stage, grade, or histologic subtype. Among breast cancer patients, BRCA1 mutation carriers had worse OS (HR: 1.50, 95%CI: 1.11-2.04) than non-carriers, but were not significantly different from non-carriers in PFS. BRCA2 mutation was not associated with breast cancer prognosis. Conclusions Our analyses suggest that BRCA mutations are robust predictors of outcomes in both ovarian and breast cancer and these mutations should be taken into account when devising appropriate therapeutic strategies.

Icaritin is an active prenylflavonoid derived from Epimedium genus, a traditional Chinese medicine. Icaritin has a wide range of pharmacological and biological activities, including cardiovascular function improvement, hormone regulation and antitumor activity. Here, we investigated the effect of icaritin on multiple myeloma (MM) in vitro and in vivo. Icaritin inhibited cell growth of MM cell line and primary MM cells. In contrast, icaritin had low or no cytotoxic effect on normal hematopoiesis. We also demonstrated that in MM xenograft mouse models, icaritin suppressed tumor growth and decreased serum IL-6 and IgE levels, but did not show adverse reactions such as body weight loss. The anti-MM activity of icaritin was mainly mediated by inhibiting IL-6/JAK2/STAT3 signaling. We suggest that icaritin can be further tested in clinical trials in MM.

Advanced and recurrent gynecological cancers are associated with poor prognosis and lack of effective treatment. The developments of the molecular mechanisms on cancer progression provide insight into novel targeted therapies, which are emerging as groundbreaking and promising cancer treatment strategies. In gynecologic malignancies, potential therapeutic targeted agents include antiangiogenic agents, poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors, tumor-intrinsic signaling pathway inhibitors, selective estrogen receptor downregulators, and immune checkpoint inhibitors. In this article, we provide a comprehensive review of the clinical evidence of targeted agents in gynecological cancers and discuss the future implication.

The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 began in December 2019 and rapidly became a pandemic. The present study investigated the significance of lymphopenia on disease severity. A total of 115 patients with confirmed COVID-19 from a tertiary hospital in Changsha, China, were enrolled. Clinical, laboratory, treatment and outcome data were gathered and compared between patients with and without lymphopenia. The median age was 42 years (1–75). Fifty-four patients (47.0%) of the 115 patients had lymphopenia on admission. More patients in the lymphopenia group had hypertension (30.8% vs. 10.0%, P = 0.006) and coronary heart disease (3.6% vs. 0%, P = 0.029) than in the nonlymphopenia group, and more patients with leukopenia (48.1% vs 14.8%, P<0.001) and eosinopenia (92.6% vs 54.1%, P<0.001) were observed. Lymphopenia was also correlated with severity grades of pneumonia (P<0.001) and C-reactive protein (CRP) level (P = 0.0014). Lymphopenia was associated with a prolonged duration of hospitalization (17.0 days vs. 14.0 days, P = 0.002). Lymphocyte recovery appeared the earliest, prior to CRP and chest radiographs, in severe cases, which suggests its predictive value for disease improvement. Our results demonstrated the clinical significance of lymphopenia for predicting the severity of and recovery from COVID-19, which emphasizes the need to dynamically monitor lymphocyte count.

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Even though our result did not necessarily represent the true recurrence rate, our study provided some evidence about the likelihood of fertility and recurrence risk for future pregnancies after previous CSP.

In the present study, 90 patients with newly diagnosed acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) were studied for all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and arsenic trioxide (As₂O₃) combination treatment in remission induction and postremission therapy. In addition, 20 APL patients who had achieved complete remission (CR) with an ATRA-based regimen received ATRA/As₂O₃ combination for consolidation and maintenance were also enrolled. The results showed that ATRA/As₂O₃ combination therapy yielded a high CR rate of 93.3% and a significantly shorter time to enter CR (median: 31 days; range: 18–59 days) compared to the ATRA-based regimen (n = 72; median: 39 days; range: 25–62 days). With the ATRA/As₂O₃ combination for CR maintaining, regardless of the way by which CR was attained, the relapse-free survival was significantly better than with an ATRA plus cytotoxic chemotherapy regimen (92.9 ± 3.2% vs. 72.4 ± 7.6%, for the 3-year Kaplan-Meier estimate of relapse-free survival). The drug toxicity profile showed that with the use of As₂O₃, the incidence of hepatotoxicity was obviously high during remission induction but decreased significantly during postremission treatment. We conclude that APL patients may benefit from the early use of the combination of ATRA and As₂O₃, in either remission induction or consolidation/maintenance.

Recent studies have found that administration of stem cells or extracellular vehicles (EVs) derived from stem cells exert neuroprotective effects after transient global ischemia. However, the underlying mechanisms of this effect remain unclear, especially at the level of synaptic functions. In this study, we compared the suppressive effects on cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) upregulation by EVs derived from bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSC-EV), adipose tissue MSC (AdMSC-EV) and serum (serum-EV). Then we examined whether BMSC-EVs could restore functional integrity of synaptic transmission and plasticity. Mice were randomly assigned to four groups: sham, sham with EV treatment, ischemia and ischemia with EV treatment. EVs were administered by intracerebroventricular injection (ICVI). We examined the consequence of transient global ischemia on pre- and post-synaptic functions of the hippocampal CA3-CA1 synapses at basal level, and long-term potentiation (LTP), an activity-dependent form of synaptic plasticity. Then we tested the therapeutic effects of EVs on these synaptic deficits. Meanwhile, Morris water maze (MWM) test was performed to examine the efficacy of EVs in rescuing ischemia-induced impairments in spatial learning and memory. EV treatment significantly restored impaired basal synaptic transmission and synaptic plasticity, and improved spatial learning and memory compared with the control group. In addition, EVs significantly inhibited ischemia-induced pathogenic expression of COX-2 in the hippocampus. EVs exert ameliorating effects on synaptic functions against transient global cerebral ischemia, which may be partly attributed to suppression of COX-2 pathogenic expression.