Background and objectives: Vitexin is a natural flavonoid glycoside mainly extracted from the leaves of vitex, which has a variety of physiological activities. For example, vitexin has antitumor and anti-inflammation activities, and it can also promote blood circulation in the body. However, the function and mechanism of vitexin in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) are still unclear. Materials and methods: Cell Counting Kit-8 assay and cell cycle analysis were performed to examine cell survival in response to vitexin. Immunoblotting was used to analyze relative proteins’ expression. NPC xenograft models were established to assess the effect of vitexin in vivo. The luciferase activity of pNFκB-Luc was analyzed by using Dual-Luciferase Reporter Assay System. Quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction was performed to detect relative genes’ expression. Kinase activity of IKKβ was analyzed in a cell-free system. Results: In this study, vitexin was found to display significant antitumor activity in NPC in vitro and in vivo. In NPC cells, vitexin inhibited cell cycle progression in NPC cells and induced the cleavages of PARP and inhibited antiapoptotic proteins’ expression, including Bcl-2 and Mcl1. Further studies indicated that vitexin significantly suppressed the luciferase activity of pNF-κB-Luc and inhibited the activation of NF-κB key regulators, including p65, IκBα and IKKs in NPC cells. Moreover, the kinase activity of IKKβ could be suppressed by vitexin in a cell-free system, and overexpression of CA-IKKβ could attenuate the inhibitory effect of vitexin on p65 phosphorylation. Conclusion: These results indicated that vitexin displayed antitumor activity by suppressing NF-κB signaling in NPC, which suggested that vitexin could be as a potential drug for the treatment of NPC in the future.

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Background and Objective. This study sets out to provide reference for the clinical treatment and provide reference for clinical practice by comparing the therapeutic effects of dynamical-system surgery under nasal endoscope and low-temperature plasma radiofrequency ablation (LTPRA).Methods. NIP patients ( n = 106 ) admitted between January 2020 and March 2021 were selected and grouped as follows according to the random number table method: a dissection group treated with dynamical-system surgery under nasal endoscope and an ablation group treated with LTPRA. The clinical curative effects of the two procedures were compared, and the related indexes (operation time (OT), intraoperative blood loss (IBL), and length of stay (LOS)) and postoperative adverse reactions (ARs) were counted. In addition, fasting venous blood samples were collected before treatment (T0), as well as 3 (T1) and 7 days after treatment (T2) to detect inflammatory factors (IFs; C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α)) and T lymphocyte subsets (CD3+, CD4+, and CD8+). Finally, all patients received a one-year follow-up to compare the differences in prognostic survival rate and disease recurrence rate between groups. Results. The ablation group has a similar LOS to the dissection group ( P > 0.05 ), but lower OT and IBL. No marked difference was observed between groups in terms of the total effective rate ( P > 0.05 ), but the adverse reaction rate was higher in the dissection group compared with the ablation group ( P < 0.05 ). Compared with T0, elevated CRP, IL-6, TNF-α, and CD3+ were observed in both cohorts at T1, with lower levels in the ablation group as compared to the dissection group, while CD4+ and CD8+ decreased in both cohorts and were higher in the ablation group ( P < 0.05 ). Meanwhile, the levels of CRP, IL-6, TNF-α, and CD3+ in both groups were lower at T2 compared to T1, whereas those of CD4+ and CD8+ in both groups were higher at T2 compared to T1 ( P < 0.05 ). As indicated by the statistics on prognostic follow-up, the two cohorts of patients showed no evident difference in the 1-year survival rate and disease recurrence rate ( P > 0.05 ). Conclusions. Both dynamical-system surgery under nasal endoscope and LTPRA have good therapeutic effects on NIP, but the latter is safer and can effectively reduce the postoperative inflammatory reaction of patients and maintain the stability of immune function, which has higher clinical application value.