Nine-year survival of a 60-year-old woman with locally advanced pancreatic cancer under repeated open approach radiofrequency ablation:A case report

BACKGROUND Radiofrequency ablation(RFA)is gaining popularity as an additional therapy for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.RFA appears to be an attractive treatment option for patients with unresectable,locally advanced and nonmetastatic pancreatic cancer.CASE SUMMARY A 60-year-old woman with 2 mo intermittent upper abdominal pains was admitted to hospital.She had undergone radical gastrectomy(Billroth II)for gastric antral cancer.Contrast-enhanced computed tomography(CECT)and abdominal ultrasound displayed a primary tumor in the neck of the pancreas.Pathological examination showed that the lesion was a pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma.According to the results of the imaging,open approach RFA was selected to treat the primary tumor.Eight months later,CECT follow-up revealed local recurrence of the tumor,and another open RFA was performed.Although there is evidence that RFA for recurrence of other cancers such as hepatocellular carcinoma may prolong patient survival,it remains unclear whether repeat RFA for local recurrence of pancreatic cancer is feasible.The patient continued to enjoy 9 years of life following the first RFA.CONCLUSION RFA of locally advanced,nonresectable,nonmetastatic,pancreatic tumor is characterized by feasibility-based treatment giving rise to tumor reduction based on improvement of quality of life.

Progress in organocatalytic asymmetric (4+3) cycloadditions for the enantioselective construction of seven-membered rings

Chiral seven-membered ring systems such as seven-membered carbocycles and heterocycles are widely found in natural products and pharmaceuticals.Therefore,the catalytic enantioselective construction of such frameworks has evoked considerable interest in the field of chemistry.Among the various approaches,organocatalytic asymmetric(4+3)cycloadditions are highly effective for the enantioselective construction of seven-membered rings.Over the past two decades,substantial efforts have been devoted to this field and chemists have developed various organocatalytic asymmetric(4+3)cycloadditions.This review summarizes the progress in organocatalytic asymmetric(4+3)cycloadditions from 2003 to early 2022 and provides insights into challenging issues faced in this research field,enabling the future development of this field.

Time-dependent changes in eye-specific segregation in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus and superior colliculus of postnatal mice

Eye-specific segregation in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus(dLGN) and superior colliculus(SC) starts from the embryonic stage and continues to develop postnatally until eye-opening in mice. However, there have been few systematic studies on the details of this developmental process. Here, we carried out time-dependent studies of eye-specific segregation in the dLGN and SC. Our results demonstrated that the development of eye-specific segregation in the SC is completed before postnatal day 12(P12), which is earlier than in the dLGN(P20). During the whole period, ipsilateral and overlapping axonal projections decreased continuously in both the dLGN and SC. On the other hand, contralateral axonal projections showed little change, except for a slight decrease between P8 and P20 in the dLGN.