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Objective: To establish a high-performance liquid chromatography orbital trap mass spectrometry (HPLC-Obitrap MS) method for screening 34 common drugs and metabolites in biological samples., Methods: The target analytes in urine and blood samples were extracted with ethyl acetate, concentrated by nitrogen blowing and redissolved. The hair samples were washed with water and acetone, dried and cut into bits of about 1 mm, and then crushed in a freezing grinder. The analytes were extracted with methanol, and after filtration, the filtrate was used for instrumental analysis. Hypersil Gold PFP (2.1 mm×100 mm, 3 µm) column was used for chromatographic separation. Methanol and 5 mmol/L ammonium acetate solution were used as mobile phase with gradient elution at a flow rate of 400 μL/min. Mass spectrometry was done by electrospray positive and negative ion alternation mode. The data were collected using Full MS and Full MS/dd-MS 2 mode. Xcalibur 4.0 software was used to control instruments and to collect data, and TraceFinder 3.3 was used for screening and identification., Results: The method's detection limits for 34 drugs and their metabolites in blood, urine and hair samples were 3.30-10700 ng/L, 4.43-5440 ng/L, 0.0350-4.21 μg/kg, respectively. The intra-day and inter-day precisions of the spiked samples at the levels of 5.0, 10, and 20 μg/L were 3.50%-6.00% and 4.18%-9.90%, respectively. A total of 1125 biological samples of urine, blood and hair were collected and screened. The results showed that 96.7% of the drug users were taking a single drug, while 3.3% were mixed drug users. The main types of drug of abuse were methamphetamine (75.8%), heroin (18.5%), ketamine (2.4%) and other drugs (3.3%), and 87.9% of the positive samples were from male users. Compared with the results of high-performance liquid chromatography triple quadrupole mass spectrometry, this method can be used to identify more types of drugs in one run and to conduct retrospective analysis., Conclusion: The method established in the study is simple and sensitive and is well suited for the screening of common drugs and metabolites in biological samples., (Copyright© by Editorial Board of Journal of Sichuan University (Medical Sciences).)

COVID-19 cases have surpassed the 109 + million markers, with deaths tallying up to 2.4 million. Tens of thousands of papers regarding COVID-19 have been published along with countless bibliometric analyses done on COVID-19 literature. Despite this, none of the analyses have focused on domain entities occurring in scientific publications. However, analysis of these bio-entities and the relations among them, a strategy called entity metrics, could offer more insights into knowledge usage and diffusion in specific cases. Thus, this paper presents an entitymetric analysis on COVID-19 literature. We construct an entity-entity co-occurrence network and employ network indicators to analyze the extracted entities. We find that ACE-2 and C-reactive protein are two very important genes and that lopinavir and ritonavir are two very important chemicals, regardless of the results from either ranking., Competing Interests: Conflict of interestThe authors declare no competing interests., (© Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, Hungary 2021.)

Composite pheochromocytoma-ganglioneuroma is extremely rare. We described two cases of composite pheochromocytomas in the adrenal medullar. Case 1 was a 70-year-old male presenting with lower abdominal pain and normal blood electrolytes. Case 2 was a 48-year-old female with palpitation and back tenderness. Biochemical investigations showed hypocalcium, hypokalemia and high level of vma. The histological images and the immunohistochemical staining demonstrated the two cases composed of pheochromocytoma and ganglioneuromoma components. Ganglioneuroma component in case 2 accounted for more proportion than that in case 1. We speculated that the varied clinical symptoms were related with the diverse proportions in composite pheochromocytome-ganglioneuroma.

Primary mucinous lesions of the urinary system are extremely rare. We describe two cases of primary mucinous lesions of the urothelial tract. One case is of mucinous metaplasia in the bladder of a 40-year-old man presenting with frequent urination, urgency, and gross hematuria. The other case is of mucinous adenocarcinoma in the pelvis of an otherwise healthy 67-year-old man with left nephrolithiasis. The histological images of the two cases demonstrate a spectrum from benign mucinous metaplasia to malignant mucinous adenocarcinoma, and suggest that mucinous metaplasia in urothelial tract may be the precancerous lesion of mucinous adenocarcinoma.

Objective: To study the possible clonal origin of neuroendocrine cells in colorectal adenocarcinoma., Methods: Twenty-six microsatellite loci were screened using laser capture microdissection, DNA extraction and whole genome amplification. Microsatellite instability (MSI) and loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in adenocarcinoma cells and neuroendocrine cells amongst 30 cases of colorectal carcinoma with neuroendocrine differentiation were detected using polymerase chain reaction-single strand conformation polymorphism (PCR-SSCP)-silver staining. The mutation status of p53 was evaluated by PCR-sequencing. The clonal origin of neuroendocrine cells in colorectal adenocarcinoma was determined., Results: Amongst the 30 cases studied, the prevalence of MSI was 16.9% while that of LOH was 8.5%. The rate showed no statistically significant difference between adenocarcinoma cells and neuroendocrine cells. In 6 cases, the microsatellite alteration was entirely consistent. In 23 cases, the rate of microsatellite alteration consistency was greater than that of inconsistency. In 1 case, the consistency and inconsistency rates were identical. There was statistically significant difference between consistency and inconsistency of microsatellite alteration. The prevalence of p53 mutation was 16.7% which was the same for both adenocarcinoma cells and neuroendocrine cells., Conclusions: Adenocarcinoma cells and neuroendocrine cells in colorectal adenocarcinoma with neuroendocrine differentiation have similar biologic changes. It is likely that they are of identical origin.

Objective: To investigate the expression of CD147 and E-cadherin in gastric carcinoma and their correlation with clinicopathological features., Methods: The expression of CD147 and E-cadherin in gastric cancer tissue chip (TC) was detected by in situ hybridization (ISH) and immunohistochemistry in 220 cases of gastric carcinoma and 31 cases with normal gastric mucosa., Results: The expression rates of CD147 mRNA, E-cadherin mRNA and E-cadherin protein were 50.5%, 17.7% and 15.5%, respectively. The CD147 expression was negatively correlated with E-cadherin expression. There was a significant relationship between CD147 mRNA expression and tumor diameter, TNM stage, invasion depth, vessel invasion, lymph node and distant metastasis. The E-cadherin mRNA expression was closely related with TNM stage, invasion depth and vascular invasion. There was a significant relationship between E-cadherin protein expression and tumor diameter, TNM stage and vascular invasion. The mean survival time in cases with CD147-positive expression was shorter than that in negative cases, while E-cadherin was in an opposite relationship., Conclusion: In gastric carcinoma, up-regulation of CD147 and down-regulation of E-cadherin are in a negative correlation. The examination of both these two factors together is useful for predicting the invasion and metastasis of gastric cancer, therefore, can be used as a significant marker to direct clinic therapy and estimation of prognosis.

Objective: To study the expression of Galectin-3 and CDC25B mRNA in gastric carcinoma and their correlation with clinical-pathological features and the survival time., Methods: Tissue microarray (TMA) technique and in situ hybridization were used to detect the expression of Galectin-3 and CDC25B mRNA in 220 gastric carcinoma specimens and 31 normal gastric mucosa samples., Results: In situ hybridization results revealed that from the 220 cases, the positive expression rate of Galectin-3 and CDC25B mRNA were 58.6% and 54.1%, respectively. There was significant relationship between the Galectin-3 mRNA expression and tumor diameter, advanced TNM stage, invasion depth, vessel invasion, lymph node and distant metastasis. There was significant relationship between CDC25B mRNA expression and tumor diameter, advanced TNM stage, vessel invasion, lymph node and distant metastasis. In addition, there was apositive relationship of Galectin-3 and CDC25B mRNA expression. Finally, the mean survival time in cases with Galectin-3 and CDC25B mRNA positive expression was significantly shorter than those without Galectin-3 and CDC25B expression., Conclusion: The expression of Galectin-3 and CDC25B mRNA appears to act as a promoting factor in the onset and development of gastric cancer. It can be used as a marker of prognosis of gastric carcinoma in clinical practice.