Clinicopathological Characteristics and Prognosis of Hepatoid Adenocarcinoma of the Stomach:Evaluation of a Pooled Case Series

Hepatoid adenocarcinoma of the stomach (HAS)is an extremely rare and unique gastric malignancy.The present study aimed to examine the relevance of the clinicopathological characteristics of HAS with patient prognosis.We retrospectively reviewed clinical data of 34 HAS patients treated at our institution between January 2010 and December 2016,as well as 294 cases reported prior to 2017 in research databases.Among these patients,45.6%(115/252)had lesions in the gastric antrum and 77.0%(235/305)were male.Elevated levels of serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP)were detected in most patients(75/93,80.6%).Vascular invasion(199/286,69.6%),lymph node metastasis (222/283,78.4%),and preoperative distant metastasis (121/328,36.9%)were commonly observed.The 5-year disease-free survival (DFS)and disease-specific survival (DSS) were 20.7%and 29.2%,respectively.DFS and DSS of patients receiving neoadjuvant therapy were significantly higher than those of patients receiving postoperative adjuvant therapy [DFS:P<0.001, hazard ratio (HR)=-1.831,95%confidence interval (CI):0.060-0.429;DSS:P<0.001,HR=-2.185, 95%CI:0.032-0.401].In conclusion,HAS exhibits distinct clinicopathological characteristics and a strikingly worse prognosis when compared with common gastric cancer.Complete surgery,early pTNM stage,and adjuvant therapy may predict a more favorable prognosis.Neoadjuvant therapy is strongly recommended for patients with lymph node metastasis or/and preoperative distant metastasis.

Development of a magnetite-gene complex for gene transfection

The key to successful gene therapy is tofind a suitable method and carrier for transfection to allow a gene to be transferred into a cell and integrated into the target gene.The aim of this study was to determine whether biomagnetic material could be combined with the nucleic acid for gene transfection.Dextran-coated iron oxide nanoparticles(DCIONPs)were prepared and mixed with the plasmid pGenesil-1 containing the test gene,which expresses enhanced greenfluorescent protein(eGFP).PGenesil-1 empty vector was used as a control.The binding ability was assessed by electrophoresis of the DNA on agarose gels and quantification using BANDS-CAN software.Using different gene carriers,Lipofecta-mine 2000,Sofast,and DCIONPs,the large intestine cancer(Lovo)cell line was transfected in vitro with or without a magneticfield.The expression of eGFP was observed byfluorescence microscopy,and the transfection efficiency was compared.The results showed there was a rapid increase in combining rate when the quality ratio of DCIONPs and pGenesil-1 ascended from 1∶1 to 5∶1.However,the combining rate increased less rapidly as the quality ratio continued ascending.The expression of eGFP showed that the early transfection rate could be improved by applying a magneticfield.In conclusion,the DCIONPs we synthesized are able to carry plasmid DNA and enhance the early transfection efficiency when using a magneticfield.