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Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) emerged in Wuhan and rapidly spread throughout the world in December 2019. The present study aimed to describe the clinical characteristics and laboratory findings of 78 patients with COVID-19 in order to enhance the understanding of the disease. Medical records and data of 78 patients with COVID-19, including demographics, clinical features, laboratory findings and radiological characteristics, were collected and analyzed. Of the 78 hospitalized patients with COVID-19, the median age was 66.5 years and 48.7% of patients were male. Hypertension and diabetes were the most common chronic underlying diseases, and the most common symptoms were a cough and a fever. Furthermore, the most common findings on the chest CT were extensive ground-glass opacity and bilateral shadowing. Anemia and lymphocytopenia were the most common abnormalities identified during routine blood tests. COVID-19 caused early liver renal damage, with 52.9% of patients displaying elevated D-dimer levels, 98.7% of patients displaying elevated IL-6 levels and 80.8% of patients displaying a reduced level of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). In the present single-center case study of 78 patients with COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, the patients displayed abnormal routine blood tests, liver function, renal function and levels of D-dimer, LDL-C and IL-6. Therefore, the development of drugs and vaccines that can be used to prevent and treat infections of COVID-19 is urgently required.

Objectives Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) associated with major vascular invasion is an advanced stage disease with an extremely poor prognosis and low survival rate. Our study evaluated the survival benefit of radiotherapy (RT) in HCC patients with major vascular invasion through Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. Methods We analyzed 3181 HCC patients with major vascular invasion cases diagnosed from 2004 to 2013. Patients (N = 308) who underwent RT and patients (N = 2873) who did not receive RT were compared. We successfully analyzed patients using propensity score matching (PSM). Kaplan‐Meier and Cox‐regression analyses were applied to assess prognosis. Results The median survival time in radiation‐treated group was longer compared to the control group (7 months vs 3 months; P

The role of 12-lipoxygenase (12-LOX) in tumorigenesis has been well established in several types of human cancer, including gastric cancer. It was reported that epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) contributes to tumor invasion and metastasis. However, whether 12-LOX promotes the invasion and metastasis of human gastric cancer cells via EMT remains to be elucidated. In the present study, the expression of 12-LOX and EMT markers, N-cadherin and E-cadherin, was evaluated in gastric cancer and adjacent normal mucosa samples by immunohistochemical analysis. 12-LOX-overexpressing gastric cancer cells were established via lentiviral transfection of SCG-7901 cells. Wound-healing and Transwell assays were performed to examine the regulation of cell metastasis and invasion by 12-LOX. Furthermore, the regulation of N-cadherin expression by 12-LOX was evaluated using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blotting. The results revealed that the expression of 12-LOX and N-cadherin was significantly higher in gastric cancer compared with that in adjacent normal mucosa tissues (P

Cancer cells can survive under hypoxia by metabolic reprogramming to achieve a high level of glycolysis, which contributes to the development of chemoresistance. Therefore, inhibition of glycolysis would be a novel strategy for overcoming hypoxia‑induced drug resistance. Baicalein, a flavonoid derived from the root of Scutellaria baicalensis, has been reported to exert strong antitumor activity toward various types of cancer. In the present study, we evaluated the effect of baicalein on hypoxia-induced 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) resistance in gastric cancer AGS cells and investigated the possible molecular mechanisms. We found that baicalein increased the sensitivity of AGS cells to 5-FU treatment under hypoxia. In addition, the hypoxia-enhanced glycolytic flux and expression of several critical glycolysis-associated enzymes (HK2, LDH-A and PDK1) in the AGS cells were suppressed by baicalein. Furthermore, baicalein inhibited hypoxia-induced Akt phosphorylation by promoting PTEN accumulation, thereby attenuating hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) expression in AGS cells. These results together suggest that inhibition of glycolysis via regulation of the PTEN/Akt/HIF-1α signaling pathway may be one of the mechanisms whereby baicalein reverses 5-FU resistance in cancer cells under hypoxia.