Cell AND Therapy

This study investigates the effect of local oestrogen therapy (LET) on the expression of proteins participating in collagen/elastin biogenesis and immune markers in vaginal tissues of post-menopausal women with severe pelvic organ prolapse (POP). Vaginal biopsies were collected from the anterior vaginal wall of informed and consented 52 post-menopausal women with severe POP undergoing total hysterectomy. Twenty-nine of the 52 women were treated with LET (in the form of vaginal oestrogen cream or tablet), while the remaining 23 untreated patients served as the controls...

INTRODUCTION: Mobile health technologies may enhance patient empowerment and data integration along the whole care continuum. However, these interventions pose relatively new regulatory, organisational and technological challenges that limit appropriate evaluation. Lung Cancer App (LuCApp) is a mobile application developed by researchers and clinicians to promote real-time monitoring and management of patients' symptoms. This protocol illustrates a clinical trial designed to evaluate the usability, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of LuCApp versus standard of care...

Synthetic drugs are associated with adverse side-effects and rapid increase in resistance to most of them inspires to evaluate plants for their therapeutic values. We have been aimed to suggest the medicinal use of Nigella sativa seed aqueous extract to minimize the severity of liver damage via its antioxidant properties and its role in maintenance of cell ion-homeostasis. Annoyances in serum levels of some antioxidants and trace metals in human hepatitis C infected patients were compared with that from acetaminophen-induced hepatotoxic rabbits...

The GH-receptor antagonist pegvisomant (PEG) reduces peripheral IGF-1 synthesis and is used to treat acromegaly patients resistant or intolerant to somatostatin analogues (SSA). Medical therapy is generally life-long in patients with acromegaly, since disease remission is very uncommon after SSA discontinuation and has never been reported after PEG withdrawal. Here, we report for the first time the cases of two acromegaly patients treated with PEG monotherapy for many years because of resistance to SSA, who persistently maintained normal serum IGF-1 levels after PEG withdrawal...

DNA methylation is an important epigenetic change in carcinogenesis. However, the function and mechanism of DNA methylation dysregulation in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is still largely unclear. Our previous genome-wide microarray data showed that NFAT1 is one of the most hypermethylated transcription factor genes in NPC tissues. Here, we found that NFAT1 hypermethylation contributes to its down-regulation in NPC. NFAT1 overexpression inhibited cell migration, invasion, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition in vitro and tumor metastasis in vivo...

Mutated RNA splicing machinery drives many human diseases and is a promising therapeutic target for engineering and small molecule therapy. In the case of mutations in individual genes that cause them to be incorrectly spliced, engineered splicing factors can be introduced to correct splicing of these aberrant transcripts and reduce the effects of the disease phenotype. Mutations that occur in certain splicing factor genes themselves have been implicated in many cancers, particularly myelodysplastic syndromes...

Due to the traditional therapies of cancer inducing huge pains to patients, the non-invasive photo-guided therapies are attracting massive attentions of researchers. Herein, the intelligent-designed carbon-dots/hemin nanoplatforms (HCDs NPs) were developed, owning high-authority photo-therapy for cancer. The fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) effect enhanced the photo-thermal ability of HCDs NPs, endowing the synthesized nanoplatforms with photo-dynamic property simultaneously. Therefore, the obtained HCDs NPs could achieve synergetic photo-thermal and photo-dynamic therapies for cancer...

Paediatric Strategy Forums have been created by the multistakeholder organisation, ACCELERATE, and the European Medicines Agency to facilitate dialogue between all relevant stakeholders and suggest strategies in critical areas of paediatric oncology drug development. As there are many medicines being developed for B-cell malignancies in adults but comparatively few in children with these malignancies, a Paediatric Strategy Forum was held to discuss the best approach to develop these products for children. It was concluded that as current frontline therapy is highly successful, despite associated acute toxicity, de-escalation of this or substitution of presently used drugs with new medicines can only be undertaken when there is an effective salvage regimen, which is currently not available...

Iatrogenic menopause with consequent infertility is a major complication in reproductive aged women undergoing hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). Recent guidelines recommend a discussion of the possibility of infertility and the options for fertility preservation as part of informed consent before initiation of any cancer-directed therapy, including HCT. Women aged 15-49 years at the time of allogeneic HCT, between the years 2001 and 2017, were identified from the Mayo Clinic Rochester institutional HCT database...

Allogenic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) has been shown to be a treatment option for a selected group of patients with mucopolysaccharidoses (MPS) (MPS I, II, IVA, VI, and VII). Early diagnosis and timely referral to an expert in MPS are critical, followed by a complete examination and evaluation with a multidisciplinary team, including a transplant physician. Treatment recommendations for MPS are based on multiple factors such as biological, sociological, and financial effects. These include type of MPS, clinical severity, prognosis, present clinical signs and symptoms (disease stage), age at onset, the rate of progression, family significances and expectations, financial burdens, feasibility, availability, risks and benefits with available therapies such as HSCT, enzyme replacement therapy (ERT), surgical interventions, and other supportive care...

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a potentially debilitating hemoglobinopathy associated with early mortality. The only established curative therapy is hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT)with a matched sibling donor (MSD). The National Institutes of Health (NIH) nonmyeloablative regimen of alemtuzumab/300 cGy total body irradiation and prolonged sirolimus exposure for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) prophylaxis was administered to 16 children and adolescents. Infused products were unmanipulated G-CSF mobilized peripheral blood stem cells...

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Studies have shown that the etiology and pathogenesis of colorectal cancer are closely related to the tumor microenvironment, and the cancer tissue is still in the state of "energy deficit" and has to promote energy generation through high glycolysis. Rhus chinensis Mill is a Chinese herbal medicine used to treat various types of solid tumors in China. Colorectal cancer (CRC) is a heterogeneous disease group caused by abnormal changes in glucose metabolism resulted in lactic acid production, which remodels acidosis...

Breast cancer is known as a most prevalent cancer and second deadly cancer, among women worldwide. Due to the high incidence rate of breast cancer and limitations of conventional therapy it seemed essential to look for new targets in cancer cells and directly target them such as target therapy on breast cancer stem cells. In this review we indicate some of therapeutic uses of cancer stem cells in breast cancer. Some strategies are targeting surface specific markers and activated signaling pathways in their microenvironment such as Notch, Hedgehog, Wnt/b-catenin, PI3K/Akt, NF-kB, BMP and TGF-β and their maintenance and drug resistance, using various miRNAs, enhancement of CSCs apoptosis, differentiation therapy, blocking epithelial to mesenchymal transition and using different natural compounds...

Epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) have become a standard therapy for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with sensitive mutations. However, acquired resistance inevitably emerges after a median of 6~12 months. It has been demonstrated that autophagy plays an important role in EGFR-TKI resistance. 20(S)-ginsenoside Rg3 (Rg3) is proposed to sensitize the cancer cells to chemotherapy by inhibiting autophagy. We examined the ability of Rg3 to inhibit autophagy and increase the sensitivity of NSCLC cells to icotinib...

The adhesion of human epidermal keratinocytes to the implant surface is one of the most critical steps during the patient's recovery from implantation of transcutaneous prosthesis. To improve the success rate of transcutaneous prosthetic implants, we explored a new "top-down" approach to promoting this dynamic adhering process through modulation of upstream cell signaling pathways. To examine the feasibility of this novel approach, we first established an in vitro platform that is capable of providing a non-invasive, real-time, quantitative characterization of the keratinocyte-implant interaction...

Metastatic progression is a major cause of mortality in cervical cancers, but factors regulating migratory and pre-metastatic cell populations remain poorly understood. Here, we sought to assess whether a SUV39H1-low chromatin state promotes migratory cell populations in cervical cancers, using meta-analysis of data from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), immunohistochemistry, genomics and functional assays. Cervical cancer cells sorted based on migratory ability in vitro have low levels of SUV39H1 protein, and SUV39H1 knockdown in vitro enhanced cervical cancer cell migration...

BACKGROUND: Identification of clear and focused research priorities is crucial to drive research forward. OBJECTIVE: To identify research priorities in renal cell carcinoma (RCC) through a multidisciplinary collaboration between clinicians, researchers, and patients. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: In phase I, 44 RCC experts provided 24 literature reviews within their field, summarising research gaps (RGs). Three expert discussion meetings and patient interviews were performed, and 39 potential RGs were identified...

PURPOSE: To evaluate the one-year safety and efficacy of the cellular therapy of the corneal stroma by implanting autologous adipose derived adult stem cells (ADASc) with or without sheets of decellularized donor human corneal stroma within the stroma of patients with advanced keratoconus. METHODS: Prospective interventional non-randomized series of cases. Fourteen consecutive patients were selected and distributed into 3 experimental groups: A) Implantation of autologous ADASc alone (3x 106 /1mL ) (n:5); B) Decellularized donor 120 μm thick corneal stroma lamina alone (n:5); C) Recellularized donor lamina with 1x106 autologous ADASc+ another 1x106 /1mL cells at the time of the surgery (n:4)...

BACKGROUND: The efficacy of therapy for cervical cancer is related to the alteration of multiple molecular events and signaling networks during treatment. The aim of this study was to evaluate gene expression alterations in advanced cervical cancers before- and after-trans-uterine arterial chemoembolization- (TUACE). METHODS: Gene expression patterns in three squamous cell cervical cancers before- and after-TUACE were determined using microarray technique. Changes in AKAP12 and CA9 genes following TUACE were validated by quantitative real-time PCR...

BACKGROUND: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and resulting nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) are reaching global epidemic proportions. Lack of non-invasive diagnostic tools and effective therapies constitute two of the major hurdles for a bona fide treatment and a reversal of NASH progression and/or regression of the disease. Nitro-oleic acid (OA-NO2 ) has been proven effective in multiple experimental models of inflammation and fibrosis. Thus, the potential benefit of in vivo administration of OA-NO2 to treat advanced NAFLD was tested herein in a model of long-term NASH diet-induced liver damage...