PurposeThe current study was carried out to compare the effectiveness and safety of different ALK inhibitors in treating ALK+ NSCLC.MethodsProgression‐free survival (PFS), disease control rate (DCR), overall response rate (ORR), and intracranial ORR and DCR have been aggregated to appraise the effectiveness of each ALKi. The discontinuation rate due to adverse events (AEs) was pooled to evaluate their safety. Bayesian network meta‐analyses were used to compare the ORR, DCR, PFS, and discontinuation rate of patients treated with alectinib, ceritinib, crizotinib, and chemotherapy.ResultsCompared with chemotherapy, ALK inhibitors significantly prolonged PFS [hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence interval (CI): alectinib, 0.50 (0.43‐0.58); ceritinib, 0.75 (0.69‐0.83); crizotinib, 0.71 (0.66‐0.76)]. The ORRs were significantly higher for ALK inhibitors than for chemotherapy [odds ratio (OR) and corresponding 95% CI: alectinib, 11.69 (4.29‐36.56); ceritinib, 7.85 (3.44‐19.27); crizotinib, 6.04 (3.33‐11.71)]. The discontinuation rates were lower for ALK inhibitors than for chemotherapy [OR and corresponding 95% CI: alectinib, 0.42 (0.12‐1.36); ceritinib, 0.52 (0.20‐1.35); crizotinib, 0.70 (0.30‐1.62)].Conclusions ALK+ NSCLC patients treated with ALKi tend to have longer PFS than those treated with chemotherapy. ALKi‐naïve patients tended to response better than their ALKi‐pretreated counterparts. Alectinib appeared to be preferable for treating brain metastases due to its high intracranial efficacy. Patients treated with alectinib or ceritinib tended to have higher ORR and DCR than patients with similar baselines treated with crizotinib or chemotherapy. No significant differences in discontinuation rate were found for alectinib, ceritinib, crizotinib, and chemotherapy.

Glia maturation factor-β (GMFB) is considered to be a growth and differentiation factor for both glia and neurons. GMFB has been found to be upregulated in several neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration conditions. It may function by mediating apoptosis and by modulating the expression of superoxide dismutase, granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor, and neurotrophin. In this review, we mainly discussed the role of GMFB in several neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases. On review of the literature, we propose that GMFB may be a promising therapeutic target for neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases.

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With the increasing number of medical students and scattered host hospitals, the traditional clinical internship management system has been falling behind. Thus, we have independently developed a new clinical practice management system based on the browser/server structure. We aim to evaluate the efficacy of the new medical management system on the quality of the internship and survey the users’ satisfaction. This study was conducted on the students of Second Clinical Medical College of Southern Medical University, including 672 interns (non-user group) who had not used the system and 315 users (user group). We analyzed the scores of their theoretical knowledge and clinical skills before and after the internship, which served as the quantitative standards for evaluating the efficacy of the system. User satisfaction surveys were also conducted, including by interns, clinical teachers, and teaching administrators. An analysis of scores showed that the user group had more significant improvement in both clinical knowledge and skills than the non-user group after the internship. Significant improvement was found in the user group, while there was a slight difference in the non-user group. A total of 310 students responded to the satisfaction questionnaires effectively, most of whom agreed with the system's benefits of learning theoretical knowledge (98.1%, n = 304) and clinical skills (93.9%, n = 291). Additionally, 115 clinical teachers and 27 teaching administrators were selected using a random sampling method for the survey. The results showed that 96.3% of the teachers considered the system to be helpful for improving teaching quality, and 92.6% administrators thought it was useful for implementing management. Over 90% of the participants in the 3 user groups reported a strong satisfaction of the system. With high level of user satisfaction, this system helps to strengthen the management for interns and improves the medical knowledge and skills of interns. Hence, it could be widely used in medical colleges and even in other fields.

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