Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is one of the leading causes of irreversible vision loss. There are two primary forms of AMD: exudative age-related macular degeneration (WAMD) and atrophic AMD (DAMD). While numerous medications are currently available for the treatment of WAMD, yielding significant therapeutic outcomes, effective treatments for DAMD remain scarce. Various animal studies and clinical trials on DAMD treatment have been conducted, focusing primarily on antioxidants, complement pathway inhibitors, mitochondrial protectors, visual cycle inhibitors, neuroprotectants, amphiphilic polymer-based drug delivery systems, cell therapy, photobiomodulation therapy, gene therapy, surgical interventions, and traditional Chinese medicine. Among these, antioxidant supplementation with vitamins and complement pathway inhibitor APL-2 and ACP have received Food and Drug Administration approval for the treatment of DAMD. With the continuous development of the medical field, the future will explore the treatment methods with little trauma, good efficacy and good patient compliance, and successfully achieve clinical transformation.
Definitive chemoradiotherapy (dCRT) is the general recommendation for the treatment of cervical esophageal cancer for organ preservation. However, the long-term survival of dCRT is not satisfactory. Surgical resection alone is not superior to dCRT in the treatment of cervical esophageal cancer. Surgical resection is often combined with laryngectomy, which will affect the quality of life. Recent evidence suggests that neoadjuvant therapy combined with surgery improves the long-term survival of cervical esophageal cancer. On the other hand, the development of technologies such as laryngeal preservation surgery and minimally invasive esophagectomy has reduced the risk of operation and improved the quality of life. This article will review the new progress in the comprehensive treatment of cervical esophageal cancer from the perspective of surgery.
ObjectiveTo investigate the expression of MicroRNA 155 (miR-155) in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) and analyze its correlation with clinicopathological features of ESCC. MethodsThis study included 54 patients with primary ESCC who underwent radical esophagectomy in Department of Thoracic Surgery, Henan Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University between January 2010 and November 2012. There were 47 males and 7 females with median age of 61 years (range, 45 to 82 years). Forty patients were in stage Ⅰ or Ⅱ and 14 patients in stage Ⅲ a+b. Expression of miR-155 was determined by SYBR Green qRT-PCR in ESCC tissue and corresponding adjacent normal mucosa in surgical samples from the 54 patients, and its correlation with clinicopathological features was analyzed. ResultsExpression of miR-155 was significantly lower in ESCC tissue than that in adjacent normal mucosa (Z=-4.258, P=0.000).Expression level of miR-155 was significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis (P=0.040), but not significantly correlated with smoking (P=0.430), drinking (P=0.429), age (P=0.769), gender (P=0.671), depth of invasion (P=0.230), differentiation degree (P=0.896) or pTNM (P=0.407) of ESCC. ConclusionUnder-regulation of miR- 155 expression in ESCC tissue may lead to disorders of inflammation response, immune response and relevant tumor suppressor, and may play a significant role in carcinogenesis and progression of ESCC.