How to deal with giant pituitary adenomas: transsphenoidal or transcranial, simultaneous or two-staged?

Giant pituitary adenomas (diameter >4 cm) are a challenge to treat, and there is no consensus on the optimal surgical strategy. We report here our experience in surgical management of these lesions. Adult patients with giant pituitary adenomas (n = 62; 54 non-functioning and eight hormone-secreting adenomas) who underwent surgical resection at our hospital from 2009 to 2015 were retrospectively reviewed.

Efficacy and safety of high-dose dual therapy for Helicobacter pylori rescue therapy: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Objective: Although some studies have reported >90% success with high-dose dual proton pump inhibitor (PPI)-amoxicillin dual therapy for Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) eradication, the efficacy of this therapy remains controversial. We aimed to re-evaluate the efficacy and safety of high-dose dual therapy on H.

Gene Expression Profiling Stratifies IDH1-Mutant Glioma with Distinct Prognoses.

Isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH)1 mutation is one of the most important genetic aberrations in glioma. Even several genetic events have refined its prognostic value, the genome-wide expression alteration has not been systematically profiled. In this work, RNA-seq expression data from 310 patients in the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas database were included as training set, while another 297 patients with microarray data were used as internal validation set.

Adsorptive removal of ciprofloxacin by sodium alginate/graphene oxide composite beads from aqueous solution.

Graphene oxide (GO) was encapsulated into environmentally benign sodium alginate (SA) to prepare a GO-SA composite hydrogel and an aerogel, which were then used as adsorbents to remove ciprofloxacin from aqueous solutions. The characteristics of these materials were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The characterizations demonstrated that the incorporation of GO improved the pore uniformity of the gels and decreased the pore sizes.

Bioinformatic profiling identifies an immune-related risk signature for glioblastoma.

Objective: To investigate the local immune status and its prognostic value in glioma.

Methods: A cohort of 297 glioma samples with whole genome microarray expression data from the Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas database were included for discovery. The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database was used for validation.

Recent Advances in Boron-Containing Conjugated Porous Polymers.

Porous polymers, integrating the advantages of porous materials and conventional polymers, have been well developed and exhibited tremendous attention in the fields of material, chemistry and biology. Of these, boron-containing conjugated porous polymers, featuring tunable geometric structures, unique Lewis acid boron centers and very rich physical properties, such as high specific surface, chargeable scaffold, strong photoluminescence and intramolecular charge transfer, have emerged as one of the most promising functional materials for optoelectronics, catalysis and sensing, Furthermore, upon thermal treatment, some of them can be effectively converted to boron-doped porous carbon materials with good electrochemical performance in energy storage and conversion, extensively enlarging the applicable scope of such kinds of polymers. In this review, the synthetic approaches, structure analyses and various applications of the boron-containing conjugated porous polymers reported very recently are summarized.

Adsorptive removal of antibiotics from aqueous solution using carbon materials.

Antibiotics, an important type of environmental contamination, have attracted many researchers to the study of their removal from aqueous solutions. Adsorption technology is a fast, efficient, and economical physicochemical method that is extensively used in wastewater treatment. From original activated carbon and carbon nanotubes to the latest graphene-based materials, carbon-based materials have been widely used as highly effective adsorbents for contaminant removal from aqueous solution because of their large specific surface area, high porosity, and high reaction activity.

Bioinformatic analyses reveal a distinct Notch activation induced by STAT3 phosphorylation in the mesenchymal subtype of glioblastoma.

OBJECTIVE Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and lethal type of malignant glioma. The Cancer Genome Atlas divides the gene expression-based classification of GBM into classical, mesenchymal, neural, and proneural subtypes, which is important for understanding GBM etiology and for designing effective personalized therapy. Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), a critical transcriptional activator in tumorigenesis, is persistently phosphorylated and associated with an unfavorable prognosis in GBM.

Triple Boron-Cored Chromophores Bearing Discotic 5,11,17-Triazatrinaphthylene-Based Ligands.

A series of novel chromophores fused with multiple boron cores have been successfully synthesized by the complexation of three difluoroboryl or diphenylboryl at the periphery of 5,11,17-triazatrinaphthylene derivative ligands. Their sterically congested molecular scaffolds with expanded π-conjugated discotic backbones render them with unique electronic properties including large Stokes shifts, tunable electrochemical behaviors, and low-lying LUMO energy levels up to -3.18 eV.

Alteration of Skin Mechanical Properties in Patients Undergoing Botulinum Toxin Type A Injections of Forehead Rhytides.

Background: Although application of botulinum toxin type A (BTX-A) for the treatment of forehead rhytides has become very popular, the effects of its intramuscular injections on the skin mechanical properties remain unclear.

Objectives: We prospectively investigated the alterations in the mechanical properties of the skin of patients who received intramuscular injections of botulinum toxin A (BTX-A) for forehead rhytides and compared two injection doses.

Methods: Of the 42 enrolled patients, one randomly assigned half received intramuscular injections of two units (group I), and the other half received four units (group II) of BTX-A in each injection point.

Depletion of histone demethylase KDM5B inhibits cell proliferation of hepatocellular carcinoma by regulation of cell cycle checkpoint proteins p15 and p27.

Background: KDM5B is a jmjc domain-containing histone demethylase which remove tri-, di-, and monomethyl groups from histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4). KDM5B has been determined as an oncogene in many malignancies. However, its expression and role in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remain unknown.

[Occupational noise-induced deafuess diaqnosis analysis in Jiangsu from 2006 to 2009].

Objective: In order to provide the evidence for taking the measures to prevent noise hazards, the condition sand influence factors of occupational noise deafness diagnosis in Jiangsu province from 2006 to 2013 were analyzed.

Methods: According to the 13 administrating personnel report of noise deafness diagnosed occupational disease prevention and control institutions in Jiangsu province from 2006 to 2013, the diagnosis of occupational noise deafness were retrospectively analyzed.

Results: By the end of December 31 2013, 297 cases of noise deafness were diagnosis occupational disease within this province.

Correction: A highly enantioselective Biginelli reaction using self-assembled methanoproline-thiourea organocatalysts: asymmetric synthesis of 6-isopropyl-3,4-dihydropyrimidines.

Correction for 'A highly enantioselective Biginelli reaction using self-assembled methanoproline-thiourea organocatalysts: asymmetric synthesis of 6-isopropyl-3,4-dihydropyrimidines' by Zhijun Hang et al., Chem. Commun.

L0-regularized time-varying sparse inverse covariance estimation for tracking dynamic fMRI brain networks.

Exploration of time-varying functional brain connectivity based on functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data is important for understanding dynamic brain mechanisms. l1-penalized inverse covariance is a common measure for the inference of sparse structure of functional brain networks, and it has been recently extended to estimate time-varying sparse brain networks by using a sliding window and incorporating a smoothing constraint on temporal variation. However, l1 penalty cannot induce maximum sparsity, as compared with l0 penalty, so l0 penalty is supposed to have superior quality on inverse covariance estimation.

Selective conversion of carbon monoxide to hydrogen by anaerobic mixed culture.

A new method for the conversion of CO to H2 was developed by anaerobic mixed culture in the current study. Higher CO consumption rate was obtained by anaerobic granular sludge (AGS) compared to waste activated sludge (WAS) at 55 °C and pH 7.5.

Stereocontrolled synthesis of rosuvastatin calcium via iodine chloride-induced intramolecular cyclization.

A novel, stereoselective approach towards rosuvastatin calcium from the known (S)-homoallylic alcohol has been developed. The synthesis is highlighted by a regio- and stereocontrolled ICl-induced intramolecular cyclization of chiral homoallylic carbonate to deliver the C6-formyl statin side chain with a syn-1,3-diol moiety. An improved synthesis of the rosuvastatin pyrimidine core moiety is also included.

Three-dimensional Carbon Nitride/Graphene Framework as a High-Performance Cathode for Lithium-Ion Batteries.

A three-dimensional polymeric carbon nitride/graphene framework (CN/GF) was fabricated by the ionic self-assembly of graphene oxide and protonated polymeric carbon nitride nanosheets. As the cathode material in lithium-ion batteries, CN/GF showed an excellent reversible capacity of 184 mA h g(-1) at 0.05 A g(-1) for 150 cycles and maintained the capacity of 60 mA h g(-1) at 5 A g(-1) .

A highly enantioselective Biginelli reaction using self-assembled methanoproline-thiourea organocatalysts: asymmetric synthesis of 6-isopropyl-3,4-dihydropyrimidines.

An efficient self-assembled methanoproline-thiourea organocatalyst for the synthesis of optically active 6-isopropyl-3,4-dihydro-pyrimidines via an asymmetric Biginelli reaction was developed, which is superior to the individual precatalyst. A wide range of optically active 6-isopropyl-3,4-dihydropyrimidines with remarkable pharmacological interest was obtained in high yields with excellent enantioselectivities (up to 99% ee). A plausible transition state has been proposed to explain the origin of the activation and the asymmetric induction.

Reactor performances and microbial communities of biogas reactors: effects of inoculum sources.

Anaerobic digestion is a very complex process that is mediated by various microorganisms, and the understanding of the microbial community assembly and its corresponding function is critical in order to better control the anaerobic process. The present study investigated the effect of different inocula on the microbial community assembly in biogas reactors treating cellulose with various inocula, and three parallel biogas reactors with the same inoculum were also operated in order to reveal the reproducibility of both microbial communities and functions of the biogas reactors. The results showed that the biogas production, volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentrations, and pH were different for the biogas reactors with different inocula, and different steady-state microbial community patterns were also obtained in different biogas reactors as reflected by Bray-Curtis similarity matrices and taxonomic classification.

Reduced medical costs and hospital days when using oral arsenic plus ATRA as the first-line treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia.

We have demonstrated that oral arsenic (Realgar-Indigo naturalis formula, RIF) plus all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) is not inferior to intravenous arsenic trioxide (ATO) plus ATRA as the first-line treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL). To compare the cost-effectiveness of oral and intravenous arsenic, we analyzed the results of 30 patients in each group involved in a randomized controlled trial at our center. The median total medical costs were $13,183.

Pre-treatment neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio is associated with neutrophil and T-cell infiltration and predicts clinical outcome in patients with glioblastoma.

Background: Markers of systemic inflammation are correlated with patient survival in various cancers. The prognostic value of neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) was compared with that of platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR) in patients with glioblastoma. The association of NLR with neutrophil and T- cell infiltration was also explored.

A five-miRNA signature with prognostic and predictive value for MGMT promoter-methylated glioblastoma patients.

Although O(6)-methylguanine DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) promoter methylation status is an important marker for glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), there is considerable variability in the clinical outcome of patients with similar methylation profiles. The present study aimed to refine the prognostic and predictive value of MGMT promoter status in GBM by identifying a micro (mi)RNA risk signature. Data from The Cancer Genome Atlas was used for this study, with MGMT promoter-methylated samples randomly divided into training and internal validation sets.

Effectiveness of drug treatment strategies to prevent asthma exacerbations and increase symptom-free days in asthmatic children: a network meta-analysis.

Objective: To determine the effectiveness and safety of current maintenance therapies that include inhaled corticosteroids (ICS), long-acting β-agonists (LABA) and/or leukotriene receptor antagonists (LTRAs) in preventing exacerbations and improving symptoms in pediatric asthma.

Methods: A systematic review with network meta-analysis was conducted after a comprehensive search for relevant studies in the PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase and Clinical Trials databases, up to July 2014. Randomized clinical trials were selected comparing treatment strategies of the Global Initiative for Asthma guidelines.

Can lateral ventricle contact predict the ontogeny and prognosis of glioblastoma?

Lateral ventricle contact (LVC) by glioblastomas has been proposed to reveal their origin and may have prognostic value; however, results from previous studies have been controversial. This study explored the association between LVC and tumor origin and prognosis in glioblastoma patients. Magnetic resonance imaging and clinical data from 115 glioma patients were retrospectively reviewed, and Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox proportional hazards models were used to assess the occurrence of LVC as a function of survival in 43 glioblastoma patients.

The prognostic role of preoperative serum albumin levels in glioblastoma patients.

Background: Serum albumin level is a reliable and convenient marker of the nutritional status of patients, and has been identified as a prognostic marker in glioblastoma. However, because of the recent wide application of standard radio-chemotherapy for the treatment of glioblastoma patients, the prognostic effect of preoperative serum albumin levels needs to be re-evaluated and the related mechanism should be further explored.

Methods: A total of 214 patients with histologically proven glioblastoma who underwent treatment at our institution between 2009 and 2012 were retrospectively analyzed.