Increasing evidence shows that hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a principal cause of cancer-related mortality globally, especially among Asian and African populations. Collagen type I α1 (COL1A1) is the major component of type I collagen. While aberrant expression of COL1A1 and COL1A2 is implicated in numerous cancers, the differential role of COL1A1 in malignant, premalignant and normal tissues remains unclear, and its clinical significance in HCC has not been elucidated. In this study, using bioinformatics analysis of publicly-available HCC microarray data from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) and RNAseq data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database, we determined that COL1A1 is significantly upregulated in HCC tumor tissues in comparison to normal tissues. Our analysis also revealed that COL1A1 confers survival advantage and enhanced oncogenicity on HCC cells. Interestingly, the siRNA-mediated silencing of COL1A1 expression (siCOLIA1) suppressed HCC cells clonogenicity, motility, invasiveness and tumorsphere formation. Concomitantly, siCOL1A1 abrogated Slug-dependent epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and HCC stemness gene-signature, by attenuating expression of stemness markers SOX2, OCT4 and CD133. The present study provides some mechanistic insight into COL1A1 activity in HCC and highlights its putative role as an important diagnostic biomarker and potential therapeutic target in early development and metastasis of HCC.

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Understanding how cancer symptom distress and resilience contribute to quality of life (QoL) in adolescent cancer and may potentially help these patients achieve better health-related outcomes. The objective of this study was to describe cancer symptom distress, QoL, and resilience in adolescents with cancer and to determine whether resilience is a mediating variable. Forty adolescent cancer patients were recruited, and data were collected via a demographic questionnaire, the Cancer Symptom Distress Scale, the Resilience Scale, and the Minneapolis-Manchester Quality of Life Scale. Pearson's correlation, multiple regressions, and the Sobel test were conducted. Both resilience and cancer symptom distress were regressed against QoL, accounting for 62.1% of observed variation in QoL scores. The bootstrap result estimated the true indirect effect between -.0189 and -.0024, with a 95% confidence interval. Resilience mediates the relationship between cancer symptom distress and QoL. Clinical use of a resilience measure, for example to use in developing and evaluating interventions focused on enhancing resilience, may be practical for nurses.

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The association between asthma and PA is complex when the child's BMI is considered. Results suggest that reduced PAs with respect to respiratory symptom severity, childhood obesity, and functional impairment are important areas for future studies.

School-based cervical cancer prevention education can be effective. The Facebook-assisted discussion method was more effective than the in-person discussion. Providing the human papillomavirus vaccine free of charge would increase female adolescents' intention to be vaccinated.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of PbtO2-guided therapy with traditional intracranial pressure- (ICP-) guided treatment on the management of cerebral variables, therapeutic interventions, survival rates, and neurological outcomes of moderate and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) patients. From 2009 to 2010, TBI patients with a Glasgow coma scale <12 were recruited from 6 collaborative hospitals in northern Taiwan, excluding patients with severe systemic injuries, fixed and dilated pupils, and other major diseases. In total, 23 patients were treated with PbtO2-guided management (PbtO2 > 20 mmHg), and 27 patients were treated with ICP-guided therapy (ICP < 20 mmHg and CPP > 60 mmHg) in the neurosurgical intensive care unit (NICU); demographic characteristics were similar across groups. The survival rate in the PbtO2-guided group was also significantly increased at 3 and 6 months after injury. Moreover, there was a significant correlation between the PbtO2 signal and Glasgow outcome scale-extended in patients from 1 to 6 months after injury. This finding demonstrates that therapy directed by PbtO2 monitoring is valuable for the treatment of patients with moderate and severe TBI and that increasing PaO2 to 150 mmHg may be efficacious for preventing cerebral hypoxic events after brain trauma.