In Situ Formed ROS-Responsive Hydrogel with STING Agonist and Gemcitabine to Intensify Immunotherapy against Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.

Immunotherapy, the most revolutionary anticancer strategy, faces major obstacles in yielding desirable outcomes in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) due to the highly immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (TME). Meanwhile, when used alone, the traditional first-line chemotherapeutic agent gemcitabine (GEM) in PDAC treatment is also insufficient to achieve lasting efficacy. In this study, a reactive oxygen species degradable hydrogel system, denoted as GEM-STING@Gel, is engineered to codeliver gemcitabine and the stimulator of interferon genes (STING) agonist DMXAA (5,6-dimethylxanthenone-4-acetic acid) into the tumor site.

An Ionic Liquid Ablation Agent for Local Ablation and Immune Activation in Pancreatic Cancer.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma rapidly acquires resistance to chemotherapy, remaining a fatal disease. Immunotherapy is one of the breakthroughs in cancer treatment, which includes immune checkpoint inhibitors, chimeric antigen receptor T-cell immunotherapy, and neoantigen vaccines. However, immunotherapy has not achieved satisfactory results in the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

A biomimetic nanodrug for enhanced chemotherapy of pancreatic tumors.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) remains to be one of the highest malignant tumors due to its poor chemotherapeutic efficacy and multidrug resistance. A major reason for the failure in chemotherapy is poor drug accumulation into PDAC tumor tissues due to the overexpressed extracellular matrix (ECM) stroma, which forms a major obstacle limiting the deep tissue penetration of chemotherapeutics. Herein, we report a tumor microenvironment (TME)-responsive nanodrug, based on PDAC cell membrane-coated gold nanocages (AuNCs), to co-deliver the chemotherapeutics (GEM) and nitrogen oxide (NO) donor (L-Arg) to enhance drug accumulation and reduce chemoresistance.

Pyroptosis Remodeling Tumor Microenvironment to Enhance Pancreatic Cancer Immunotherapy Driven by Membrane Anchoring Photosensitizer.

Immunotherapy, the most promising strategy of cancer treatment, has achieved promising outcomes, but its clinical efficacy in pancreatic cancer is limited mainly due to the complicated tumor immunosuppressive microenvironment. As a highly inflammatory form of immunogenic cell death (ICD), pyroptosis provides a great opportunity to alleviate immunosuppression and promote systemic immune responses in solid tumors. Herein, membrane-targeted photosensitizer TBD-3C with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) feature to trigger pyroptosis-aroused cancer immunotherapy via photodynamic therapy (PDT) is applied.

Engineered a dual-targeting biomimetic nanomedicine for pancreatic cancer chemoimmunotherapy.

The therapeutic effect of chemotherapeutics such as gemcitabine against pancreatic cancer is considerably attenuated by immune-suppressive tumor microenvironment. Improvement of chemotherapeutic efficacy by targeting tumor-associated macrophage and reprograming tumor microenvironment to enhance their efficacy may become a promising strategy. To this end, we developed a biomimetic dual-targeting nanomedicine (PG@KMCM) where gemcitabine-loaded poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles are coated with a layer of bioengineered cancer cell membrane that stably expresses peptides targeting M2-like macrophages (M2pep) while reserving tumor-associated antigens (TAAs).

The relationship between urologic cancer outcomes and national Human Development Index: trend in recent years.

Objectives: To describe the influence of the socioeconomic development on worldwide age-standardized incidence and mortality rates, as well as mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR) and 5-year net survival of urologic cancer patients in recent years.

Methods: The Human Development Index (HDI) values were obtained from the United Nations Development Programme, data on age-standardized incidence/mortality rates of prostate, bladder and kidney cancer were retrieved from the GLOBOCAN database, 5-year net survival was provided by the CONCORD-3 program. We then evaluated the association between incidence/MIR/survival and HDI, with a focus on geographic variability as well as temporal patterns during the last 6 years.

Gallbladder Adenosquamous Cancer with Situs Inversus Totalis: A Case Report and Literature Review.

Background: Situs inversus totalis (SIT) is a rare genetic congenital disease, characterized with complete right-to-left inversion of all the internal organs. We herein describe a meaningful case which was diagnosed as gallbladder adenosquamous carcinoma, a rare histology type of gallbladder cancer, with SIT.

Case Presentation: A 59-year-old Chinese woman was admitted for persistent epigastric distention and intermittent abdominal pain.

Tumor-triggered personalized microRNA cocktail therapy for hepatocellular carcinoma.

As one of the most malignant primary cancers, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) still lacks an efficient therapeutic strategy to date. Here, we developed a polymer-based nanoplatform PEI-βCD@Ad-CDM-PEG (PCACP) for functional microRNA (miRNA) therapy. PCACP exhibits excellent stability in physiological solutions, but sensitive PEG detachment and size transformation in an acidic tumor environment due to the breakdown of pH-responsive linkages, promoting tumor penetration and cellular uptake of nanoparticles, further facilitating transfection efficiency due to the proton sponge effect of polycations.

Reverting chemoresistance of targeted agents by a ultrasoluble dendritic nanocapsule.

Malignancies treated by insoluble targeted agents show low dose exposure and therapeutic responses, therefore easily develop drug resistance. Nanoparticle-modified drugs might disrupt chemoresistance by increasing dose exposure and altering resistance pathways, as administrated via the intravenous route to maximize efficacy. Herein, we proposed a self-assembled nanocapsulation strategy to construct a nanocomplex with multiarm polymer and novel dendrimer series (MAP-mG3) for encapsulating insoluble inhibitors by nucleotide lock.

Impact of national Human Development Index on liver cancer outcomes: Transition from 2008 to 2018.

Background: Liver cancer is the sixth most commonly diagnosed cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Socioeconomic development, indicated by the Human Development Index (HDI), is closely interconnected with public health. But the manner in which social development and medical advances influenced liver cancer patients in the past decade is still unknown.

A PEGylated megamer-based microRNA delivery system activatable by stepwise microenvironment stimulation.

We developed a biodegradable, oncosensitive, megamer-based delivery system for miRNA therapy. The miRNA nanotherapeutics, activatable by stepwise stimulation of acidity and reduction mimicking tumor microenvironment, efficiently improve liver-specific miR-122 expression, increasing the possibility of translational application of miR-122 therapy against liver cancer.

Esophageal neuroendocrine carcinoma complicated with unexpected hyperprocalcitonin: Case report and literature review.

Rationale: Neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) with hyperprocalcitonin are relatively rare with a low incidence rate.

Patient Concerns: An afebrile 63-year-old male with persistent low back pain unexpectedly presented with an extreme hyperprocalcitonin. Radiological assessment revealed thickening of the esophageal wall with vertebral bone destruction and liver lesions.

Combination of transarterial chemoembolization and sorafenib improves outcomes of unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma: an updated systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: The effectiveness of combination therapy of transarterial chemoembolization and sorafenib for unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma are controversial in some studies. This meta-analysis aims to compare efficacy and safety, as well as regional disparities, between transarterial chemoembolization plus sorafenib and transarterial chemotherapy alone for hepatocellular carcinoma.

Methods: We systematically searched multiple databases to select eligible studies.

A fluorogenic probe for imaging protein S-nitrosylation in live cells.

S-nitrosylation is a posttranslational modification of protein cysteine residues leading to the formation of S-nitrosothiols and its detection is crucial to understanding of redox regulation and NO-based signaling. Prototypical detection methods for S-nitrosylation are always carried out ex situ. However, the reversible nature and the tendency of transnitrosylation highlight the necessity of its probing in intact live biological contexts.