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Background: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Particularly, cases of bone metastasis have poorer prognoses. Case Presentation: A 62-year-old woman with suspected advanced HCC accompanied by bone metastasis with severe back pain and sciatica showed disease remission after cyproheptadine monotherapy. Initially, her serum alpha fetal protein (AFP) level was high, reaching up to 17697.62 ng/ml. A dose of 4 mg cyproheptadine, 3 times a day for 17 months was prescribed as the only treatment. Within 3 months, the serum AFP level gradually normalized down to 4.3 ng/ml. Both liver biopsy and bone biopsies were subsequently performed after 2 weeks of cyproheptadine. The results showed no malignancy. During the 34 months of follow-ups, the serum AFP remained normal in the range of 1.05 to 2.86 ng/ml. The patient has survived for 5 years without back pain and sciatica thus far. Conclusions: This is the first report to investigate a successful clinical approach in cyproheptadine monotherapy for an advanced HCC patient with bone metastasis. We recommend cyproheptadine as a potential anti-HCC agent for the treatment of HCC with bone metastasis, but more related studies such as prospectively clinical trials, and ideally randomized trials are still needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The monodisperse dual temperature/pH-sensitive nanoparticles are prepared by distillation-precipitation polymerization, which use the acrylic acid (AA) and N-Isopropyl acrylamide (NIPAM) as the monomer materials and divinyl benzene (DVB) as the crosslinking agent. The nanoparticles with excellent stability shows good pH responsiveness and temperature sensitivity that can shrink freely in response to acidic environmental stimuli. The monodisperse nanoparticles may thus be very promising for use in many applications in which rapid responses to dual environmental stimuli are required. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The novel functionality of aromatic tetrazole derivatives with high nitrogen content predetermines a great interest totetrazole-cntaining polymer. The dependency of tetrazole content, intrinsic viscosity properties of the polyacrylonitrile- poly(5-vinyltetrazole) (PAN-PVT) was studied by FT-IR and UV-Vis spectroscopies, and PAN-PVT exhibits munch higher intrinsic viscosity than original polyacrylonitrile. The PAN-PVT hollow-fiber ultrafiltration membranes were prepared by using the dry-wet spinning method. Cross-section, internal, and external surfaces of the hollow fibers structure were studied by SEM. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Simple Summary: Post-radiofrequency ablation (Post-RFA) fever is a common minor complication of radiofrequency ablation in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma. We aim to evaluate the risk factors and positive blood culture rate of patients with post-RFA fever. We demonstrated that when younger people with a low serum albumin level underwent general anesthesia, the tumor numbers and tumor sizes were associated with a higher rate of post-RFA fever. A low incidence of bacteremia (4.8%) among patients with post-RFA fever was a novel finding which might indicate that prophylactic antibiotics are unnecessary for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma before ablation. Post-radiofrequency ablation (RFA) fever is a self-limited complication of RFA. The correlation between post-RFA fever and bacteremia and the risk factors associated with post-RFA fever have not been evaluated. Patients with newly diagnosed or recurrent hepatocellular carcinoma who underwent ultrasonography-guided RFA between April 2014 and February 2019 were retrospectively enrolled. Post-RFA fever was defined as any episode of body temperature >38.0 °C after RFA during hospitalization. A total of 272 patients were enrolled, and there were 452 applications of RFA. The frequency of post-RFA fever was 18.4% (83/452), and 65.1% (54/83) of post-RFA fevers occurred on the first day after ablation. Patients with post-RFA fever had a longer hospital stay than those without (9.06 days vs. 5.50 days, p < 0.001). Only four (4.8%) patients with post-RFA fever had bacteremia. The independent factors associated with post-RFA fever were younger age (adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 0.96, 95% CI, 0.94–0.99, p = 0.019), low serum albumin level (adjusted OR = 0.49, 95% CI, 0.25–0.95, p = 0.036), general anesthesia (adjusted OR = 2.06, 95% CI, 1.15–3.69, p = 0.015), tumor size (adjusted OR = 1.52, 95% CI, 1.04–2.02, p = 0.032), and tumor number (adjusted OR = 1.71, 95% CI, 1.20–2.45, p = 0.003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant viruses can be genetically modified to generate chimeric virus particles (CVPs) carrying heterologous peptides fused on the surface of coat protein (CP) subunits as vaccine candidates. However, some factors may be especially significant in determining the properties of chimeras. In this study, peptides from various sources and of various lengths were inserted into the Bamboo mosaic virus-based (BaMV) vector CP N-terminus to examine the chimeras infecting and accumulating in plants. Interestingly, it was found that the two different strains Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) VP1 antigens with flexible linker peptides (77 or 82 amino acids) were directly expressed on the BaMV CP, and the chimeric particles self-assembled and continued to express FMDV antigens. The chimeric CP, when directly fused with a large foreign protein (117 amino acids), can self-fold into incomplete virus particles or disks. The physicochemical properties of heterologus peptides N-terminus, complex strand structures of heterologus peptides C-terminus and different flexible linker peptides, can affect the chimera accumulation. Based on these findings, using plant virus-based chimeras to express foreign proteins can increase their length limitations, and engineered plant-made CVP-based vaccines have increasing potential for further development as novel vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]