Objective
To evaluate whether surgery-related complications are increased after hepatic arterial infusion chemotherapy (HAIC) using oxaliplatin plus fluorouracil/leucovorin for conversion compared with primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) resection and the optimal timing of conversion surgery (CS).
Background
HAIC has been widely used for advanced HCC, especially initially unresectable HCC, to facilitate conversion to curative-intent resection in approximately 23.8% of cases. However, the optimal timing of surgery to reduce surgical complications must be clarified.
Methods
Data from 320 HCC patients, including 107 initially unresectable patients in the HAIC-Surgery group and 213 patients in the Surgery group, were retrospectively collected and analyzed. Survival outcomes and the incidence of surgery-related complications were compared.
Results
There was no significant difference in recurrence-free survival (RFS) between the HAIC-Surgery group and the Surgery group (HR: 1.140, 95% CI: 0.8027–1.618,
p
=0.444). The HAIC-Surgery group had a higher incidence of surgery-related complications than the Surgery group [biliary leakage (10.3% vs 4.2%,
p
=0.035), abdominal bleeding (10.3% vs 3.8%,
p
=0.020), pleural effusion (56.1% vs 23.0%,
p
<0.0001) and ascites effusion (17.8% vs 5.2%,
p
<0.0001)]. In the HAIC-Surgery group, postoperative liver function decreased and abdominal bleeding increased with more preoperative HAIC cycles (Spearman=0.229,
p
=0.042, Spearman=0.198,
p
=0.041, respectively). The pathological complete remission (pCR) rate after 3–5 HAIC cycles was significantly higher than that after 1–2 cycles (29.4% vs 13.2%,
p
=0.043).
Conclusion
The prognosis of advanced HCC after conversion surgery is comparable to that after direct surgery. Rather than increasing pCR, more HAIC cycles can exacerbate liver dysfunction and surgery-related complications.
RF energy harvesting is a promising potential solution for providing convenient and perpetual energy supplies to low-power wireless sensor networks. In this letter, we investigate the energy harvesting performance of a wireless sensor node powered by harvesting RF energy from an existing multiuser MIMO system. Specifically, we propose a random unitary beamforming-based cooperative beam selection scheme to enhance the energy harvesting performance at the sensor. Under a constant total transmission power constraint, the multiuser MIMO system tries to select a maximal number of active beams for data transmission while satisfying the energy harvesting requirement at the sensor. We derive the exact closed-form expression for the distribution function of harvested energy in a coherence time over Rayleigh fading channels. We further investigate the performance tradeoff of the average harvested energy at the sensor versus the sum-rate of the multiuser MIMO system. Index Terms-Cooperative RF energy harvesting, multiuser MIMO system, random unitary beamforming.
Quasi-hexagonal VO2/Ag3VO4 heterogeneous photocatalyst was successfully synthesized via a hydrothermal method. Detailed characterization was carried out based on X-ray powder diffraction pattern, scanning electron microscopy, UV-visible diffuse-reflectance spectroscopy. The as-prepared samples exhibited strong absorption in the UV-light region and displayed excellent UV-light-driven photocatalytic activities and stabilities in degradation of Rhodamine B under UV-light irradiation (λ = 400 nm). This enhanced photocatalytic activity might be attributed to the heterogeneous structure.
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