Clinicopathological Features and Prognosis of Gastroenteropancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors: Analysis from a Single-institution

Zeng, Yu-Jie,Liu, Lu,Wu, Heng,Lai, Wei,Cao, Jie-Zhi,Xu, He-Yang,Wang, Jie,Chu, Zhong-Hua Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention 2013 Asian Pacific journal of cancer prevention Vol.14 No.10

Background: The gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasm (GEP-NEN) is the most common type of neuroendocrine neoplasm. We summarized data in our centre to investigate the clinicopathological features, diagnostic methods, therapeutic approaches and prognosis for this neoplasm to increase knowledge of this disease in Asian populations. Method: A total of 122 patients treated at Sun Yet-san Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University between January 2000 and December 2011 were analyzed retrospectively. Results: Pancreas was the most common site of involvement (65/122, 53.3%); this disease has no special symptoms; positive rates of chromogranin A (CgA) and synaptophysin (Syn) were 81.1% and 87.7%, respectively. The positive rate of Syn had statistical difference among the three grades, but not CgA. Some 68 patients had G1 tumors, 32 G2 tumors and 22 G3 tumors, and Chi-square test showed that higher grading was correlated with worse prognosis (${\chi}^2=32.825$, P=0.0001). A total of 32 patients presented with distant metastasis, and 8 cases emerged during following up. Cox proportional hazards regression modeling showed that the tumor grade (P=0.01), lymphatic metastasis (P=0.025) and distant metastasis (P=0.031) were predictors of unfavorable prognosis. The overall 5-year survival rate was 39.6%, the 5-year survival rate of G1 was 55.7%, and the G2 and G3 were 34.2% and 0%, respectively. Conclusions: The incidence of gastroenteropancreatic neuroendocrine tumors has risen over the last 12 years. All grades of these diseases metastasize readily, and further research regarding the treatment of patients after radical surgery is needed to prolong disease-free survival.

Investigation of pressure pulsations in a reactor coolant pump with mixed-flow vaned diffuser and spherical casing

Xide Lai,Daoxing Ye,Bo Yu,Xiaoming Chen,Yaguang Heng 대한기계학회 2022 JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Vol.36 No.1

Pressure pulsations are an important factors that cause unstable phenomena such as vibration and noise in the reactor coolant pump (RCP), which is much more complex than inside a general mixed-flow pump due to its structure and actual operating conditions. It is necessary to figure out its characteristics at different operating conditions in order to meet the high requirements of reliability and safety in both design and operation phases. Pressure pulsations inside the impeller and diffuser vanes was carefully investigated by using 3D unsteady flow simulations of the completed pump at 5 operating conditions. To seek the relationship between the pressure pulsations characteristics and operating conditions, the timedomain and frequency-domain characteristics of pressure pulsations at different locations inside the RCP were analyzed. It has been shown that the dominant frequency of pressure pulsations is mainly governed by the blade-passing frequency due to rotor-stator interaction (RSI) between the impeller and diffuser vanes at all operating conditions, and the amplitude of pressure pulsations mainly depends on the operating discharges. The influence on the peak amplitude of its higher harmonics can be neglected when operating at the design discharge, but cannot be negligible for operating at the smaller discharge. The behavior of pressure pulsations at the inlet of the impeller in circumferential direction is not the same and more intensive on the suction side than the pressure side of a blade at different operating conditions, but it is almost the same at the outlet of the impeller as the interaction between the impeller and diffuser vanes. The maximum amplitude of pressure pulsations mainly depends on the operating discharge and reaches the smallest level at the design operating condition. Due to geometric features of the spherical casing, the vortex flow inside the spherical casing leads to the highly irregular and unsteady pressure pulsations inside flow channel of the impeller and diffuser under the smaller discharge operating conditions, and the amplitude of pressure pulsations in higher frequencies increases with the decreasing of the operating discharge. The amplitude of pressure pulsations inside the whole flow channel distinctly increases when the RCP is operating at the extreme small operating discharge. The spherical casing does have influence on the pressure pulsations inside the impeller and diffuser vanes, the effect is stronger under smaller discharge operating conditions than at larger ones.

Ginseng-plus-Bai-Hu-Tang ameliorates diet-induced obesity, hepatic steatosis, and insulin resistance in mice

Hsu-Feng Lu,Yu-Heng Lai,Hsiu-Chen Huang,I-Jung Lee,Lie-Chwen Lin,Hui-Kang Liu,Hsiao-Hsuan Tien,Cheng Huang 고려인삼학회 2020 Journal of Ginseng Research Vol.44 No.2

Background: Dietary fat has been suggested to be the cause of various health issues. Obesity, hypertension,cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and kidney disease are known to be associatedwith a high-fat diet (HFD). Obesity and associated conditions, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus andnonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), are currently a worldwide health problem. Few prospectivepharmaceutical therapies that directly target NAFLD are available at present. A Traditional ChineseMedicine, ginseng-plus-Bai-Hu-Tang (GBHT), is widely used by diabetic patients to control glucose levelor thirst. However, whether it has therapeutic effects on fat-induced hepatic steatosis and metabolicsyndrome remains unclear. Methods: This study was conducted to examine the therapeutic effect of GBHT on fat-induced obesity,hepatic steatosis, and insulin resistance in mice. Results: GBHT protected mice against HFD-induced body weight gain, hyperlipidemia, andhyperglycemia compared with mice that were not treated. GBHT inhibited the expansion of adiposetissue and adipocyte hypertrophy. No ectopic fat deposition was found in the livers of HFD mice treatedwith GBHT. In addition, glucose intolerance and insulin sensitivity in HFD mice was also improved byGBHT. Conclusion: GBHT prevents changes in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism in a HFD mouse model. Ourfindings provide evidence for the traditional use of GBHT as therapy for the management of metabolicsyndrome.

Ginseng-plus-Bai-Hu-Tang ameliorates diet-induced obesity, hepatic steatosis, and insulin resistance in mice

Lu, Hsu-Feng,Lai, Yu-Heng,Huang, Hsiu-Chen,Lee, I-Jung,Lin, Lie-Chwen,Liu, Hui-Kang,Tien, Hsiao-Hsuan,Huang, Cheng The Korean Society of Ginseng 2020 Journal of Ginseng Research Vol.44 No.2

Background: Dietary fat has been suggested to be the cause of various health issues. Obesity, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and kidney disease are known to be associated with a high-fat diet (HFD). Obesity and associated conditions, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), are currently a worldwide health problem. Few prospective pharmaceutical therapies that directly target NAFLD are available at present. A Traditional Chinese Medicine, ginseng-plus-Bai-Hu-Tang (GBHT), is widely used by diabetic patients to control glucose level or thirst. However, whether it has therapeutic effects on fat-induced hepatic steatosis and metabolic syndrome remains unclear. Methods: This study was conducted to examine the therapeutic effect of GBHT on fat-induced obesity, hepatic steatosis, and insulin resistance in mice. Results: GBHT protected mice against HFD-induced body weight gain, hyperlipidemia, and hyperglycemia compared with mice that were not treated. GBHT inhibited the expansion of adipose tissue and adipocyte hypertrophy. No ectopic fat deposition was found in the livers of HFD mice treated with GBHT. In addition, glucose intolerance and insulin sensitivity in HFD mice was also improved by GBHT. Conclusion: GBHT prevents changes in lipid and carbohydrate metabolism in a HFD mouse model. Our findings provide evidence for the traditional use of GBHT as therapy for the management of metabolic syndrome.

Delay of Surgery for Spinal Metastasis due to the COVID-19 Outbreak Affected Patient Outcomes

Chia-Jung Hsieh,Chun-Yu Wu,Yen-Heng Lin,Yu-Cheng Huang,Wen-Chi Yang,Tom Wei-Wu Chen,Wei-Li Ma,Wei-Hsin Lin,Feng-Ming Hsu,Furen Xiao,Shih-Hung Yang,Dar-Ming Lai,Chang-Mu Chen,Shin-Yi Chao,Fon-Yih Tsuan 대한척추신경외과학회 2023 Neurospine Vol.20 No.4

Objective: The present study is to analyze the effects of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID 2019) outbreak and the subsequent lockdown on the outcomes of spinal metastasis patients. Methods: The study was a retrospective analysis of data from a prospective cohort study. All patients underwent surgical intervention for spinal metastases between January 2019 and December 2021 and had at least 3 months of postoperative follow-up. The primary outcome was overall mortality during the 4 different stages (pre-COVID-19 era, COVID-19 pandemic except in Taiwan, national lockdown, lifting of the lockdown). The secondary outcomes were the oncological severity scores, medical/surgical accessibility, and patient functional outcome during the 4 periods as well as survival/mortality. Results: A total of 233 patients were included. The overall mortality rate was 41.20%. During the Taiwan lockdown, more patients received palliative surgery than other surgical methods, and no total en bloc spondylectomy was performed. The time from surgeon visit to operation was approximately doubled after the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan (75.97, 86.63, 168.79, and 166.91 hours in the 4 periods, respectively). The estimated survival probability was highest after the national lockdown was lifted and lowest during the lockdown. In the multivariate analysis, increased risk of mortality was observed with delay of surgery, with emergency surgery having a higher risk with delays above 33 hours, urgent surgery (below 59 and above 111 hours), and elective surgery (above 332 hours). Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic and related policies have altered daily clinical practice and negatively impacted the survival of patients with spinal metastases.