Cephalometric analysis is an essential clinical and research tool in orthodontics for the orthodontic analysis and treatment planning. This paper presents the evaluation of the methods submitted to the Automatic Cephalometric X-Ray Landmark Detection Challenge, held at the IEEE International Symposium on Biomedical Imaging 2014 with an on-site competition. The challenge was set to explore and compare automatic landmark detection methods in application to cephalometric X-ray images. Methods were evaluated on a common database including cephalograms of 300 patients aged six to 60 years, collected from the Dental Department, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taiwan, and manually marked anatomical landmarks as the ground truth data, generated by two experienced medical doctors. Quantitative evaluation was performed to compare the results of a representative selection of current methods submitted to the challenge. Experimental results show that three methods are able to achieve detection rates greater than 80% using the 4 mm precision range, but only one method achieves a detection rate greater than 70% using the 2 mm precision range, which is the acceptable precision range in clinical practice. The study provides insights into the performance of different landmark detection approaches under real-world conditions and highlights achievements and limitations of current image analysis techniques.

Hericium erinaceus, an edible mushroom, has been demonstrated to potentiate the effects of numerous biological activities. The aim of this study was to investigate whether H. erinaceus mycelium could act as an anti-inflammatory agent to bring about neuroprotection using a model of global ischemic stroke and the mechanisms involved. Rats were treated with H. erinaceus mycelium and its isolated diterpenoid derivative, erinacine A, after ischemia reperfusion brain injuries caused by the occlusion of the two common carotid arteries. The production of inflammatory cytokines in serum and the infracted volume of the brain were measured. The proteins from the stroke animal model (SAM) were evaluated to determine the effect of H. erinaceus mycelium. H. erinaceus mycelium reduced the total infarcted volumes by 22% and 44% at a concentration of 50 and 300 mg/kg, respectively, compared to the SAM group. The levels of acute inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin-1β, interleukin-6 and tumor necrosis factor á, were all reduced by erinacine A. Levels of nitrotyrosine-containing proteins, phosphorylation of p38 MAPK and CCAAT enhancer-binding protein (C/EBP) and homologous protein (CHOP) expression were attenuated by erinacine A. Moreover, the modulation of ischemia injury factors present in the SAM model by erinacine A seemed to result in the suppression of reactive nitrogen species and the downregulation of inducible NO synthase (iNOS), p38 MAPK and CHOP. These findings confirm the nerve-growth properties of Hericium erinaceus mycelium, which include the prevention of ischemic injury to neurons; this protective effect seems to be involved in the in vivo activity of iNOS, p38 MAPK and CHOP.

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The outcomes of patients with metastatic gastric cancer (mGC) are poor. Recent studies have identified the prognostic impact of inflammatory response and nutritional status on survival for patients with gastric cancer. This study aims to create a prognostic model using inflammatory- and nutrition-based scores to predict survival in patients with mGC treated with chemotherapy.After institutional review board approval, patients who had mGC and were treated with chemotherapy from 2007 to 2012 at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital were retrospectively reviewed. Significantly predictive factors were identified by multivariate Cox regression analyses. Based on these variables, a prognostic model using inflammatory- and nutrition-based scores was constructed to predict survival. Kaplan-Meier curves were plotted to estimate overall survival. The c-statistic values with 95% confidence interval (CI) were also calculated to access their predicting performances.Our study consisted of 256 patients with a median age of 60 years and a median follow-up visit of 18.5 months. Multivariate analyses showed that neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), modified Glasgow prognostic score (mGPS), and Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) were independently related to survival. After computing these scores, patients were classified into favorable-, intermediate-, and poor-risk groups. The median overall survival were 27.6 versus 13.2 versus 8.2 months in favorable, intermediate, and poor-risk groups, respectively. The 2-year survival rate was 52% versus 16% versus 3% in favorable-, intermediate-, and poor-risk groups, respectively. (P < 0.001). The c-statistic value of our model at 2 years is 0.8 (95% CI, 0.75–0.86).NLR, mGPS, and PG-SGA were independently related to survival. Our prognostic model using inflammatory- and nutrition-based scores could provide prognostic information to patients and physicians.

Pursestring closure has significantly fewer surgical site infections and achieves better cosmetic outcomes following stoma reversal than conventional primary closure.

Erinacine A, a major active component of a diterpenoid derivative isolated from Hericium erinaceus mycelium, has been demonstrated to exert anticancer effects. Herein, we present an investigation of the molecular mechanism of erinacine A induction associated with cancer cells’ aggressive status and death. A proteomic approach was used to purify and identify the differentially expressed proteins following erinacine A treatment and the mechanism of its action in apoptotic and the targets of erinacine A. Our results demonstrate that erinacine A treatment of HCT‐116 and DLD‐1 cells increased cell cytotoxicity and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production as well as decreased cell proliferation and invasiveness. Ten differentially displayed proteins were determined and validated in vitro and in vivo between the erinacine A‐treated and untreated groups. In addition, erinacine A time‐dependent induction of cell death and inhibitory invasiveness was associated with sustained phosphorylation of the PI3K/mTOR/p70S6K and ROCK1/LIMK2/Cofilin pathways. Furthermore, we demonstrated that erinacine A–induced HCT‐116 and DLD‐1 cells viability and anti‐invasion properties by up‐regulating the activation of PI3K/mTOR/p70S6K and production of ROS. Experiments involving specific inhibitors demonstrated that the differential expression of cofilin‐1 (COFL1) and profilin‐1 (PROF1) during erinacine A treatment could be involved in the mechanisms of HCT‐116 and DLD‐1 cells death and decreased aggressiveness, which occurred via ROCK1/LIMK2/Cofilin expression, with activation of the PI3K/mTOR/p70S6K signalling pathway. These findings elucidate the mechanism of erinacine A inhibiting the aggressive status of cells by activating PI3K/mTOR/p70S6K downstream signalling and the novel protein targets COF1 and PROF1; this could be a good molecular strategy to limit the aggressiveness of CRC cells.

CIL-102 (1-[4-(furo[2,3-b]quinolin-4-ylamino)phenyl]ethanone) is a well-known, major active agent of the alkaloid derivative of Camptotheca acuminata with valuable biological properties, including anti-tumorigenic activity. In this study, we investigated the molecular mechanisms by which CIL-102 mediated the induction of cell death, and we performed cell cycle G2/M arrest to clarify molecular changes in colorectal cancer cells (CRC). Treatment of DLD-1 cells with CIL-102 resulted in triggering the extrinsic apoptosis pathway through the activation of Fas-L, caspase-8 and the induction of Bid cleavage and cytochrome c release in a time-dependent manner. In addition, CIL-102 mediated apoptosis and G2/M arrest by phosphorylation of the Jun N-terminus kinase (JNK1/2) signaling pathway. This resulted in the expression of NFκB p50, p300 and CREB-binding protein (CBP) levels, and in the induction of p21 and GADD45 as well as the decreased association of cdc2/cyclin B. Furthermore, treatment with the JNK1/2 (SP600125), NFκB (PDTI) or the p300/CBP (C646) inhibitors abolished CIL-102-induced cell cycle G2/M arrest and reversed the association of cdc2 with cyclin B. Therefore, we demonstrated that there was an increase in the cellular levels of p21 and GADD45 by CIL-102 reduction in cell viability and cell cycle arrest via the activation of the JNK1/2, NFκB p50, p300 and CBP signaling modules. Collectively, our results demonstrated that CIL-102 induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis of colon cancer cells by upregulating p21 and GADD45 expression and by activating JNK1/2, NFκB p50 and p300 to provide a new mechanism for CIL-102 treatment.

Background/Aims: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common type of cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. PRDXs are antioxidant enzymes that play an important role in cell differentiation, proliferation and apoptosis and have diverse functions in malignancy development. However, the mechanism of aberrant overexpression of PRDX6 in CRC remains unclear. Methods: Boyden chamber assay, flow cytometry and a lentiviral shRNA targeting PRDX6 and transient transfection with pCMV-6-PRDX6 plasmid were used to examine the role of PRDX6 in the proliferation capacity and invasiveness of CRC cells. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) with tissue array containing 40 paraffin- embedded CRC tissue specimens and Western blot assays were used to detect target proteins. Results: PRDX6 was significantly up-expressed in different comparisons of metastasis of colorectal adenomas in node-positive CRC (P = 0.03). In in vitro HCT-116, PRDX6 silencing markedly suppressed CRC cell migration and invasiveness while also inducing cell cycle arrest as well as the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS); specific overexpression of PRDX6 had the opposite effect. Mechanistically, the PRDX6 inactivation displayed decreased levels of PRDX6, N-cadherin, β-catenin, Vimentin, Slug, Snail and Twist-1 through the activation of the PI3K/ AKT/p38/p50 pathways, but they were also significantly inhibited by PRDX6 transfectants. There was also increased transcriptional activation of dimethylation of histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4me3) of PRDX6 promoter via the activation of the PI3K/Akt/NFkB pathways. Conclusion: Our findings demonstrated that PRDX6 expression plays a characteristic growth-promoting role in CRC metastasis. This study suggests that PRDX6 may serve as a biomarker of node-positive status and may have a role as an important endogenous regulator of cancer cell tumorigenicity in CRC. PRDX6 may also be an effective therapeutic target.