SLITRK3 expression correlation to gastrointestinal stromal tumor risk rating and prognosis

AIM: To assess the influence of SLIT and NTRKlike family member 3(SLITRK3) on the prognosis of gastrointestinal stromal tumor(GIST) and determine whether SLITRK3 can help improve current risk stratification systems.METHODS: We hypothesized that SLITRK3 could be used as a prognostic molecular biomarker for GIST. 35 fresh tumor samples and 417 paraffin-embedded specimens from GIST patients were utilized. SLITRK3m RNA expression in GIST tumor tissue was detected by real-time polymerase chain reaction, and SLITRK3 protein levels were estimated by immunohistochemistry. The correlation of SLITRK3 expression with various tumor clinicopathological characteristics and follow-up data were analyzed.RESULTS: GIST tumors had high expression of SLITRK3 compared with adjacent normal tissues and the expression level gradually increased with risk grade. SLITRK3 protein expression was closely associated with gastrointestinal bleeding, tumor site, tumor size, mitotic index, and National Institutes of Health(NIH) classification. Survival analysis showed that SLITRK3 expression was closely correlated with overall survival and disease-free survival of GIST patients. Multivariate analysis also identified SLITRK3 expression, mitotic index, and NIH stage as significant risk factors of GIST recurrence.CONCLUSION: SLITRK3 expression is a highly significant predictor of GIST recurrence and metastasis. Combinations of SLITRK3 and NIH stage have strong predictive and prognostic value, and are feasible markers for clinical practice in gastrointestinal stromal tumor.

A thermal-hydrodynamic coupling method for simulating the interplay between bubble departure and wall temperature variation in nucleate boiling

A thermal-hydrodynamic coupling model is used to investigate the interplay between the wall temperature distribution and the bubble departure during the nucleate boiling process.The boiling process is modeled as the combination of three subprocesses:the transient heat conduction process in the solid heater,the evaporation of the microlayer underneath the bubble,and the bubble dynamics in the two-phase bulk fluid region.The moving bubble interface is captured by the volume of fluid method in the OpenFOAM framework.The proposed model is validated against the experimental results of the boiling process of the water on an Indium Tin Oxide heater.The predicted results agree well with related measurements in the literature.Following the validation,the effects of the boiling heat flux on the bubble departure period are examined.The results show that the bubble departure period decreases with the increase of the applied heat flux.High heat flux will cause irregularity in the departure periods for successive bubbles due to the influence of the wake flow evoked by the rising bubble.Furthermore,the influence of the bubble contact angle on the boiling heat-transfer performance is investigated.It is confirmed that the bubble departure diameter increases with the increase of the contact angle,meanwhile,the average wall temperature decreases with the increase of the contact angle.