Survival benefit of surgery in elderly patients with locally advanced rectal cancer.

Neoadjuvant therapy followed by radical surgery is standard for locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). However, compared to younger patients, elderly patients often had multiple commodities and may refuse surgery due to being medically unfit or the high risk of operative mortality. This study aims to explore the effects of surgery on short- and long-term mortality in elderly LARC patients using a nationwide cancer registry.

Neonatal sex and maternal factors associated with small-for-gestational-age neonates: A nationwide population-based study.

Background And Aims: Small-for-gestational-age (SGA) newborns have a higher risk of morbidity and mortality. Recognizing the risk factors for SGA helps raise early awareness of the issue and provides valuable insights for both healthcare providers and pregnant women. We aimed to identify determinants of SGA using population-based databases in Taiwan.

Thrombomodulin Improves Cognitive Deficits in Heat-Stressed Mice.

Background: Thrombomodulin (TM) exerts anticoagulant and anti-inflammatory effects to improve the survival of patients with septic shock. Heat stroke resembles septic shock in many aspects. We tested whether TM would improve cognitive deficits and related causative factors in heat-stressed (HS) mice.

5-year recurrence prediction after hepatocellular carcinoma resection: deep learning vs. Cox regression models.

Deep learning algorithms have yet to be used for predicting clinical prognosis after cancer surgery. Therefore, this study compared performance indices and permutation importance of potential confounders in three models for predicting 5-year recurrence after hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) resection: a deep-learning deep neural network (DNN) model, a recurrent neural network (RNN) model, and a Cox proportional hazard (CPH) regression model. Data for 725 patients who had received HCC resection at three medical centers in southern Taiwan between April, 2011, and December, 2015, were randomly divided into three datasets: a training dataset containing data for 507 subjects was used for model development, a testing dataset containing data for 109 subjects was used for internal validation, and a validating dataset containing data for 109 subjects was used for external validation.

Alpha-lipoic acid alleviates NAFLD and triglyceride accumulation in liver via modulating hepatic NLRP3 inflammasome activation pathway in type 2 diabetic rats.

The occurrence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The activation of nucleotide-binding domain and leucine-rich-containing family, pyrin domain-containing 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome in the liver may lead to hepatic fat accumulation. Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) has been reported to improve IR in a T2DM rodent model.

Dapagliflozin Improves Cardiac Hemodynamics and Mitigates Arrhythmogenesis in Mitral Regurgitation-Induced Myocardial Dysfunction.

Background Mitral regurgitation (MR) is a major contributor for heart failure (HF) and atrial fibrillation. Despite the advancement of MR surgeries, an effective medical therapy to mitigate MR progression is lacking. Sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors, a new class of antidiabetic drugs, has shown measurable benefits in reduction of HF hospitalization and cardiovascular mortality but the mechanism is unclear.

Microwave assisted synthesis of negative-charge carbon dots with potential antibacterial activity against multi-drug resistant bacteria.

In this research, negative-charge carbon dots (CDs) were synthesized in one-step using a microwave and found to have potential antibacterial ability against multi-drug resistant bacteria. The CDs were synthesized by using citric acid and urea as precursors, and characterized by FT-IR, TEM and fluorescence spectrophotometry. The average size of CDs was about 2.

Effect of L. on aorta endothelial damage-associated factors in high-fat diet and streptozotocin-induced type 2 diabetic rats.

Hyperglycemia plays crucial roles in vascular disease development, including macrovascular and microvascular diseases from diabetes mellitus (DM). Our previous study demonstrated that L. (RTL) aqueous and ethanol extracts alleviate hyperglycemia and inhibit insulin resistance in diabetic rats.

Ameliorative effect of L. on hyperglycemia in type 2 diabetes mellitus and glucose uptake in mouse C2C12 myoblasts.

L. (RTL) exhibits a wide range of phytochemical activities, for example, on treatment of diabetes mellitus (DM), in Orient. There is, however, few study regarding the effect of RTL on glycemic-related homeostasis in type 2 DM (T2DM).

Preprogramming therapeutic response of PI3K/mTOR dual inhibitor via the regulation of EHMT2 and p27 in pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is an aggressive disease, which is characterized by its high invasiveness, rapid progression, and profound resistance to therapy. Gemcitabine is the first-line treatment option for pancreatic cancer patients, but the overall survival is quite low. Therefore, it is an urgent issue to identify new molecules for improved therapies, with better efficacy and less toxicity.

The prognostic impact of RAP2A expression in patients with early and locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma in an endemic area.

Background: By data mining from published transcriptomic databases, we identified RAP2A as a significantly upregulated gene in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) tissues. RAP2A, a member of the RAS oncogene family, is involved in the process of GTP binding and GTPase activity. The aim of this study was to evaluate the expression of RAP2A and its prognostic impact in patients with early and locoregionally advanced NPC.

CDCA5 overexpression is an indicator of poor prognosis in patients with urothelial carcinomas of the upper urinary tract and urinary bladder.

Aims: Urothelial carcinoma (UC) is the most common tumor involving upper urinary tract (UTUC) and urinary bladder (UBUC) whose molecular survival determinants remains obscured. By computerizing a public transcriptomic database of UBUCs (GSE32894), we identified cell division cycle associated 5 (CDCA5) as the most significantly upregulated gene among those associated with G1-S transition of the mitotic cell cycle (GO:0000082). We therefore analyzed the clinicoptaological significance of CDCA5 expression in our well-characterized UC cohort.

Clinical characteristics of hyperglycemic crises in patients without a history of diabetes.

Aims/introduction: Hyperglycemic crises without a history of diabetes have not been well studied. We compared the clinical characteristics of patients with and without a history of diabetes, and evaluated the glycated hemoglobin levels.

Materials And Methods: Consecutive adult patients (aged >18 years) visiting the emergency department (ED) between January 2004 and December 2010 were enrolled if they met the criteria for a hyperglycemic crisis.