Impact of hepatectomy and postoperative adjuvant transarterial chemoembolization on serum tumor markers and prognosis in intermediate-stage hepatocellular carcinoma

BACKGROUND Primary hepatocellular carcinoma(HCC)is a common malignant tumour,and its early symptoms are often not obvious,resulting in many patients experiencing middle-to late-stage disease at the time of diagnosis.The optimal time for surgery is often missed for these patients,and those who do undergo surgery have unsatisfactory long-term outcomes and a high recurrence rate within five years.Therefore,postoperative follow-up treatments,such as transhepatic arterial chemoembolization(TACE),have become critical to improving survival and reducing recurrence rates.AIM To validate the prophylactic role of TACE after hepatic resection and to assess its impact on patient prognosis.METHODS This study investigated the efficacy of TACE in patients with intermediate-stage HCC after hepatectomy.When the post-treatment results of the observation group and the control group were compared,it was found that the inclusion of TACE significantly improved the clinical efficacy,reduced the levels of tumour markers and did not aggravate the damage to liver function.Thus,this may be an effective and comprehensive treatment strategy for patients with intermediate-stage HCC that helps to improve their quality of life and survival time.RESULTS When the baseline data were analysed,no statistical differences were found between the two groups in terms of gender,age,hepatitis B virus,cirrhosis,Child-Pugh grading,number of tumours,maximum tumour diameter and degree of tumour differentiation.The assessment of clinical efficacy showed that the post-treatment overall remission rate of the observation group was significantly higher than that of the control group.In terms of changes in tumour markers,the alpha-fetoprotein and carcinoembryonic antigen levels in the patients in the observation group decreased more significantly after treatment compared with those in the control group.When post-treatment changes in liver function indicators were analysed,no statistical differences were found in the total bilirubin,alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase levels between the two groups.CONCLUSION In patients with intermediate-stage HCC,post-hepatectomy TACE significantly improved clinical outcomes,reduced tumour-marker levels and may have improved the prognosis by removing residual lesions.Thus,this may be an effective and comprehensive treatment strategy for patients with intermediate-stage HCC.

Advances in Application of Bistortae Rhizoma in Mongolian Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine

Mongolian medicine and traditional Chinese medicine have different interpretations of Bistortae Rhizoma,including its name,nature and taste,function and efficacy.This paper sorted out the related application of Chinese and Mongolian medicine from the records of Materia Medica.The chemical components and pharmacological effects of Bistortae Rhizoma were summarized to provide a reference for the clinical application of Bistortae Rhizoma in traditional Chinese medicine and Mongolian medicine,and for the better development and utilization of national medicines.

Deduction and Validation of an Eulerian-Eulerian Model for Turbulent Dilute Two-Phase Flows by Means of the Phase Indicator Function-Disperse Elements Probability Density Function

A statistical formalism overcoming some conceptual and practical difficulties arising in existing two-phase flow (2PHF) mathematical modelling has been applied to propose a model for dilute 2PHF turbulent Hows. Phase interaction terms with a clear physical meaning enter the equations and the formalism provides some guidelines for the avoidance of closure assumptions or the rational approximation of these terms. Continuous phase averaged continuity, momentum, turbulent kinetic energy and turbulence dissipation rate equations have been rigorously and systematically obtained in a single step. These equations display a structure similar to that for single-phase flows. It is also assumed that dispersed phase dynamics is well described by a probability density function (pdf) equation and Eulerian continuity, momentum and fluctuating kinetic energy equations for the dispersed phase are deduced. An extension of the standard k-e turbulence model for the continuous phase is used. A gradient transport model is adopted for the dispersed phase fluctuating fluxes of momentum and kinetic energy at the non-colliding, large inertia limit. This model is then used to predict the behaviour of three axisymmetric turbulent jets of air laden with solid particles varying in size and concentration. Qualitative and quantitative numerical predictions compare reasonably well with the three different sets of experimental results, studying the influence of particle size, loading ratio and flow confinement velocity.

Harmonic Measures and Numerical Computation of Cauchy Problems for Laplace Equations

It is well known that the Cauchy problem for Laplace equations is an ill-posed problem in Hadamard’s sense.Small deviations in Cauchy data may lead to large errors in the solutions.It is observed that if a bound is imposed on the solution,there exists a conditional stability estimate.This gives a reasonable way to construct stable algorithms.However,it is impossible to have good results at all points in the domain.Although numerical methods for Cauchy problems for Laplace equations have been widely studied for quite a long time,there are still some unclear points,for example,how to evaluate the numerical solutions,which means whether they can approximate the Cauchy data well and keep the bound of the solution,and at which points the numerical results are reliable?In this paper,the authors will prove the conditional stability estimate which is quantitatively related to harmonic measures.The harmonic measure can be used as an indicate function to pointwisely evaluate the numerical result,which further enables us to find a reliable subdomain where the local convergence rate is higher than a certain order.

Projection-based Consistent Test for Linear Regression Model with Missing Response and Covariates

In recent years,there has been a large amount of literature on missing data.Most of them focus on situations where there is only missingness in response or covariate.In this paper,we consider the adequacy check for the linear regression model with the response and covariates missing simultaneously.We apply model adjustment and inverse probability weighting methods to deal with the missingness of response and covariate,respectively.In order to avoid the curse of dimension,we propose an empirical process test with the linear indicator weighting function.The asymptotic properties of the proposed test under the null,local and global alternative hypothe tical models are rigorously investigated.A consisten t wild boot strap method is developed to approximate the critical value.Finally,simulation studies and real data analysis are performed to show that the proposed method performed well.