Effect and safety of sorafenib in patients with intermediate hepatocellular carcinoma who received transarterial chemoembolization: A retrospective comparative study

AIM To evaluate the safety and efficacy of sorafenib plus transarterial chemoembolization(TACE) treatment for intermediate hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC).METHODS Sixty-seven patients with intermediate-stage [Barcelona Clinic liver cancer stage B(BCLC-B)] HCC who were treated with sorafenib plus TACE or TACE alone between 2009 and 2011 were included in the study. Follow-up was until 2014 or patient death. Two groups were defined in the experiment: The experimental group, treated with sorafenib plus TACE, and the control group, treated with standard TACE alone.RESULTS The Kaplan-Meier survival analysis showed that the median overall survival(m OS) of the experimental group was 35.2 mo, while that of the control group was 22.0 mo(P < 0.05). Sorafenib plus TACE showed higher incidence rates of rash, hand-foot syndrome(HFS), and hypertension(P < 0.05) than TACE treatment alone.CONCLUSION Sorafenib plus TACE treatment for BCLC-B HCC significantly prolonged the m OS of patients compared to TACE treatment alone. The most common toxicities with sorafenib were rash(31.6%), HFS(39.5%) and hypertension(31.6%), but there were no intolerable adverse events. The Cox multivariate analysis showed that the survival of patients with BCLC-B HCC depended on the Child-Pugh classification, tumor diameter, and treatment with sorafenib plus TACE compared to TACE alone.

Chemical vapor deposition growth and transport properties of MoS_(2)-2H thin layers using molybdenum and sulfur as precursors

This paper introduces a feasible process to achieve the molybdenum disulfide atomic layers using chemical vapor deposition(CVD) method,with molybdenum thin film and solid sulfur as precursors.And some improvements were made to reduce the amount of metastable MoS_(2)-3 R.The morphology of the acquired MoS_(2) layers,existing as triangular flakes or large-area continuous films,can be controlled by adjusting the synthesis time and reacting temperature.The characterization results show that the monolayer MoS_(2) flakes reveal a(002)-oriented growth on SiO_(2)/Si substrates,and its crystalline domain size is approximately 30 μm,and the thickness is 0.65 nm.Since the synthesis of MoS_(2)-3 R is restrained,the electronic transport properties of MoS_(2) with different layers were investigated,revealing that those properties equal with those of MoS_(2) samples prepared by exfoliation methods.