Background: Coronaviruses are a large group of viruses from the Coronaviridae family. Not only do the coronaviruses disrupt patients' lives, but they also affect caregivers. This study aimed to assess the burden of family caregivers of COVID-19 patients discharged from a hospital in eastern Iran. Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted with 210 family caregivers of COVID-19 inpatients and outpatients. A total of 210 COVID-19 patients referred to 22nd-Bahman Hospital of Khaf from March 2020 to June 2020 were selected via simple randomization. Data were collected using the Zarit caregiver burden scale and a demographics form. Results: The care burden scores were 83.2% and 80.9% in the family caregivers of inpatients and outpatients, respectively, indicating the severity of care burden for COVID-19 patients. The mean scores of objective, subjective, and subjective-objective caregiver burden were significantly higher in male family caregivers and caregivers of inpatients than in female caregivers and caregivers of outpatients [p <0.01]. Conclusion: The high objective, subjective, and subjective-objective caregiver burden in family caregivers is an alarm for mental health policy-makers. Therefore, healthcare managers need to consider plans and measures to reduce the care burden of family caregivers of COVID-19 patients.

Metastasis of tumor cells is a complex challenge and significantly diminishes the overall survival and prognosis of cancer patients. The epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a well‐known mechanism responsible for the invasiveness of tumor cells. A number of molecular pathways can regulate the EMT mechanism in cancer cells and nuclear factor‐kappaB (NF‐κB) is one of them. The nuclear translocation of NF‐κB p65 can induce the transcription of several genes involved in EMT induction. The present review describes NF‐κB and EMT interaction in cancer cells and their association in cancer progression. Due to the oncogenic role NF‐κB signaling, its activation enhances metastasis of tumor cells via EMT induction. This has been confirmed in various cancers including brain, breast, lung and gastric cancers, among others. The ZEB1/2, transforming growth factor‐β, and Slug as inducers of EMT undergo upregulation by NF‐κB to promote metastasis of tumor cells. After EMT induction driven by NF‐κB, a significant decrease occurs in E‐cadherin levels, while N‐cadherin and vimentin levels undergo an increase. The noncoding RNAs can potentially also function as upstream mediators and modulate NF‐κB/EMT axis in cancers. Moreover, NF‐κB/EMT axis is involved in mediating drug resistance in tumor cells. Thus, suppressing NF‐κB/EMT axis can also promote the sensitivity of cancer cells to chemotherapeutic agents.

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Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is considered one of the greatest challenges to human life and is the most common form of liver cancer. Treatment of HCC depends on chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, and immunotherapy, all of which have their own drawbacks, and patients may develop resistance to these therapies due to the aggressive behavior of HCC cells. New and effective therapies for HCC can be developed by targeting molecular signaling pathways. The expression of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) in human cancer cells changes, and during cancer progression, the expression tends to increase. After induction of STAT3 signaling by growth factors and cytokines, STAT3 is phosphorylated and translocated to the nucleus to regulate cancer progression. The concept of the current review revolves around the expression and phosphorylation status of STAT3 in HCC, and studies show that the expression of STAT3 is high during the progression of HCC. This review addresses the function of STAT3 as an oncogenic factor in HCC, as STAT3 is able to prevent apoptosis and thus promote the progression of HCC. Moreover, STAT3 regulates both survival- and death-inducing autophagy in HCC and promotes cancer metastasis by inducing the epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT). In addition, upregulation of STAT3 is associated with the occurrence of chemoresistance and radioresistance in HCC. Specifically, non-protein-coding transcripts regulate STAT3 signaling in HCC, and their inhibition by antitumor agents may affect tumor progression. In this review, all these topics are discussed in detail to provide further insight into the role of STAT3 in tumorigenesis, treatment resistance, and pharmacological regulation of HCC. Graphical Abstract

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