Connective tissue growth factor expression hints at aggressive nature of colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND Connective tissue growth factor(CTGF)is a mediator of transforming growth factor-beta signaling and plays a key role in connective tissue remodeling,inflammatory processes and fibrosis in various illnesses including cancer.AIM To investigate the role of CTGF in colorectal cancer(CRC)progression and to compare the CTGF expression with different clinicopathological parameters.METHODS Real-time polymerase chain reaction,immunohistochemistry and Western blotting was performed to evaluate the CTGF expression and the results were statistically analyzed against the clinicopathological variables of patient data using STATA software version 16.RESULTS CTGF expression levels in tumor specimens were significantly higher than their paired normal specimens.The higher protein expression levels showed a significant association with smoking,staging,tumor grade,invasion depth,necrosis of tumor tissue,and both lymphovascular and perineural invasion.As per the cox regression model and classification tree analysis,tumor-nodemetastasis stage and perineural invasion were important predictors for CTGF expression and prognosis of CRC patients.Survival analysis indicated that CTGF overexpression was associated with poorer overall and disease-free survival.CONCLUSION Expression of CTGF was increased in CRC and was linked with poor overall and disease-free survival of CRC patients.These findings support prior observations and thus CTGF may be a possible prognostic marker in CRC.

Methods of screening,monitoring and management of cardiac toxicity induced by chemotherapeutics

Cardiac toxicity is one of the most common side effects of anticancer drugs.Cardiac toxicity results dysfunction of heart including hypotension,heart failure,and even cause death in extreme cases.The potential risk of cardiotoxicity is a huge concern in chemotherapeutics mediated cancer treatment.The individual with any pre-existing cardiac issues are excluded from clinical trials due to the potential risk of cardiotoxicity.Because of the potential cardiotoxicity,there is an emerging need for alternatives of some very potent anticancer drugs(doxorubicin/DOX,5-fluorouracil/5 FU,trastuzumab).While a patient is being treated with anticancer drugs,early blood screening,biomarker detection,and careful monitoring of cardiac functions are necessary to be able to avoid any irreversible cardiac damage.Therefore,early detection methodology to monitor cardiotoxicity in real-time,and a drug formulation that prevent interaction between drug and cardiac cell,seemingly have potential to mitigate the risk.In this review,we have summarized the cardiotoxicity of the most used anticancer drugs,their pathophysiology and some of the conventional and newer screening methods available to manage an individual patient in clinic.We have also incorporated our perspective on how a rationale designing of biomolecules can be used to overcome the cardiotoxicity generated chemotherapeutics.