Background Spectral CT imaging parameters have been reported to be useful in the differentiation of pathological grades in different malignancies. This study aims to investigate the value of spectral CT in the quantitative assessment of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) with different degrees of differentiation༎ Methods There were 191 patients with proven ESCC who underwent enhanced spectral CT from June 2018 to March 2020 retrospectively enrolled. These patients were divided into three groups based on pathological results: well differentiated ESCC, moderately differentiated ESCC, and poorly differentiated ESCC. Virtual monoenergetic 40keV-equivalent image (VMI40keV), iodine concentration (IC), water concentration (WC), effective atomic number (Eff-Z), and the slope of the spectral curve(λHU) of the arterial phase (AP) and venous phase (VP) were measured or calculated. The quantitative parameters of the three groups were compared by using one-way ANOVA and pairwise comparisons were performed with LSD. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was used to evaluate the diagnostic performance of these parameters in poorly differentiated groups and non-poorly differentiated groups. Results There were significant differences in VMI40keV, IC, Eff-Z, and λHU in AP and VP among the three groups (all p < 0.05) except for WC (p > 0.05). The VMI40keV, IC, Eff-Z, and λHU in the poorly differentiated group were significantly higher than those in the other groups both in AP and VP (all p < 0.05). In the ROC analysis, IC performed the best in the identification of the poorly differentiated group and non-poorly differentiated group in VP (AUC = 0.729, Sensitivity = 0.829, and Specificity = 0.569 under the threshold of 21.08 mg/ml). Conclusions Quantitative parameters of spectral CT could offer supplemental information for the preoperative differential diagnosis of ESCC with different degrees of differentiation.
Background The altered microbiota, considered as quantitative traits has also been identified to play pivotal roles in the host vascular physiology and might contribute to diseases. To understand the role of fecal microbiota on the vascular physiology in the healthy elderly population and how lifestyle such as diet and income shape the composition of host gut microbiota to further impact pathogenesis of carotid vascular diseases.Results We performed a population-based fecal metagenomic study over 569 elderly asymptomatic healthy individuals in rural China. An association network was built based on clinical measurements and detailed epidemiologic questionnaires including blood chemistry, arterial stiffness, carotid ultrasonography, and metagenomic datasets. Carotid arterial atherosclerosis indices including intima-media thickness (IMT) were shown essential in the network and were significantly associated with lifestyles and diet. Fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, and fresh aquatic food can significantly reduce carotid artery IMT, especially in the mediation of Alistipes and Parabacteroides genus. Higher income, and exercise which are shown to improve carotid arteries mediated by Prevotella and Oligella genus.Conclusions Our study provided a Chinese population-wide phenotype-metagenomic network, revealing association and mediation effect of gut microbiota on carotid atherosclerosis by lifestyle, hinting at a therapeutic and preventive potential of microbiota in cardiovascular diseases.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the most prevalent liver cancer, makes patients' prognosis extremely poor due to frequent intrahepatic and distant metastasis. The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) plays an important role in this process. However, the content of NSUN5 in hepatocellular carcinoma and whether NSUN5 is involved in mediating the epithelial-mesenchymal transition of hepatocellular carcinoma remains unknown. In this study, based on clinicopathologic analyses of several independent HCC cohorts and the results of induced tumor formation in Nsun5 knockout mice, we observed that NSUN5 expression was increased in tumor tissues. The absence of Nsun5 would retard the malignant progression of hepatocellular carcinoma, suggesting that Nsun5 might be an important oncogene in HCC. Furthermore, we found that high expression of NSUN5 promotes EMT in HCC cells. After NSUN5 is knocked out, the HCC cell's ability to invade and migrate decreases in vivo and vitro conditions; on the other hand, NSUN5 overexpression in HCC cells had the opposite effect. Mechanically, the highly expressed NSUN5 in cancer tissues promotes the enrichment of Tri-Methyl-histone H3 (Lys4) in the promoter region of SMAD3 by interacting with WDR5, thereby promoting hepatocellular carcinoma metastasis by SMADd3-mediated EMT. In general, we identified NSUN5 as a novel promoter of metastasis in hepatocellular carcinoma and established an innovative theoretical foundation for treating this disease.
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