Search

Detecting rare circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the bloodstream is extremely challenging. We had previously developed a novel polymeric microfluidic device, "CTC-chip," for capturing CTCs and have shown high capture efficiency in lung cancer cell lines by conjugating Abs against epithelial cell adhesion molecules (EpCAM). This study aimed to optimize the EpCAM-chip and clarify the prognostic impact of CTCs in lung cancer patients. Of 123 patients with pathologically proven lung cancer, both progression-free survival (P = .037) and cancer-specific survival (P = .0041) were predominantly poor when CTCs were detected before treatment. After classification into surgical and chemotherapy groups, progression-free survival was worse in CTC-positive patients in both groups (surgery, P = .115; chemotherapy, P = .012), indicating that the detection of baseline CTCs is a risk factor for recurrence and progression. Furthermore, we recovered captured CTCs using micromanipulators and undertook mutation analysis using PCR. Thus, the EpCAM-chip is a highly sensitive system for detecting CTCs that contributes to the prediction of recurrence and progression and enables genetic analysis of captured CTCs, which could open new diagnostic, therapeutic, and prognostic options for lung cancer patients.

ObjectivesTo determine the incidence of cerebral infarction after lobectomy at different sites using inpatient data from a diagnosis procedure combination database.DesignRetrospective cohort study.SettingData were retrieved from the Japanese diagnosis procedure combination inpatient database for patients who underwent lobectomies for lung cancer between April 2018 and March 2020.ParticipantsThe analysis included 37 352 patients from 556 institutions who underwent lobectomies for lung cancer.Main outcomes and measuresThe occurrence of cerebral infarction after lobectomy during hospitalisation was estimated using multilevel logistic regression models adjusted for sex, age, body mass index, smoking history, activity of daily living, surgical approach (thoracotomy or video-assisted), clinical cancer stage, comorbidities and hospital-level factors to describe the association between cerebral infarction and different lobectomy sites.ResultsOverall cerebral infarction after lobectomy occurred in 99 patients (0.27%): 29 with left upper lobectomy (0.39%), 19 with left lower lobectomy (0.34%), 32 with right upper lobectomy (0.24%), 6 with right middle lobectomy (0.21%) and 13 with right lower lobectomy (0.16%). The multilevel multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed high ORs for the left upper lobectomy and left lower lobectomy groups. In both univariate and multivariate analyses, left upper lobectomy had the highest OR for the occurrence of cerebral infarction compared with lobectomies at other sites.Conclusions and relevanceLeft upper lobectomy had the highest OR for the occurrence of cerebral infarction after lung cancer lobectomy during hospitalisation. There is an urgent need to investigate the specific mechanisms underlying postoperative cerebral infarction after left upper lobectomy and to establish preventive measures such as altering surgical methods, using radiological examinations for early detection and better use of anticoagulants.

There is little evidence to demonstrate the impact of heparin bridging (HB) in major surgery. This study aimed to evaluate the benefits and risks of HB in lung cancer surgery by comparing HB and non-HB (NHB) groups. We extracted patients who were taking an anticoagulant, were diagnosed with lung cancer, and underwent lung resection between April 2014 and March 2018 from a nationwide database in Japan. We compared the HB and NHB groups to determine the benefits and risks of HB. The proportion of postoperative thromboembolism and bleeding events between the HB and NHB groups was the primary outcome. We performed propensity score matching to remove any HB assignment bias. We selected 2416 patients, and among these, 1068 patients had HB and 1348 did not. Propensity score matching extracted 1500 patients: 750 with HB and 750 without HB. After matching, a Chi-square test showed no significant difference in the incidence of postoperative thromboembolism (1.5% vs 0.9%, p value = 0.343) and bleeding events (5.9% vs 4.0%, p value = 0.124) between the two groups. There was no significant difference in the incidence of postoperative thromboembolism and bleeding in the patients with and those without HB.

The prognostic impact of tumoral programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression in correlation with neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) was retrospectively assessed in 83 patients with completely resected stage I squamous cell carcinoma of the lung, as PD-L1 is a potent regulator of cancer immunity and NLR is a potential surrogate of immune status. Forty-three patients (51.8%) had tumor with positive PD-L1 expression. There was no significant correlation between PD-L1 expression and NLR. PD-L1-positivity failed to provide a significant prognostic impact (overall survival [OS] rate at 5 years, 53.0% in PD-L1-positive patients versus 70.1% in PD-L1-negative patients; P = 0.117). Among NLR-low (P = 0.020). In contrast, among NLR-high (≥2.2) patients, PD-L1-positivity provided no prognostic impact (P = 0.680). When NLR status and tumoral PD-L1 status were combined, “NLR-low and PD-L1-negative” was a significant and independent factor to predict a favorable recurrence-free survival (hazard ratio, 0.237 [95% confidence interval, 0.083 to 0.674]; P = 0.007) and OS (hazard ratio, 0.260 [0.091 to 0.745]; P = 0.012). These results suggest the prognostic impact of tumoral PD-L1 expression might be influenced by the status of NLR.

CD155 serves an important role in tumor progression by promoting cell proliferation and migration. CD155 is also involved in the immune evasion of tumor cells, which may cause the development and progression of tumors. Accordingly, CD155 has emerged as a novel target in cancer immunotherapy; however, its expression in lung cancer remains unclear. To assess CD155 expression and its prognostic significance, 96 patients with completely resected pathologic stage I adenocarcinoma of the lung were retrospectively reviewed. Immunohistochemical staining was performed to evaluate CD155 expression on tumor cells. Expression levels of programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), another molecule participating in immune evasion, were also evaluated immunohistochemically. CD155 expression was positive in 37 patients (38.5%). CD155-positivity was associated with aggressive tumor behavior, such as pleural invasion and vascular invasion. In addition, CD155-positivity was a significant factor to predict a poor prognosis (5-year overall survival (OS) rate, 63.3% for CD155-positive patients vs. 93.1% for CD155-negative patients; P0.001). Patients harboring tumors with positive CD155 and PD-L1 expression showed the poorest prognosis (5-year OS rate, 44.4% for both-positive patients vs. 85.4% for the other patients; P0.001). The positive expression status of both CD155 and PD-L1 was a significant and independent unfavorable prognostic factor (hazard ratio, 3.86; 95% confidence interval, 1.51-9.89; P=0.004; in a multivariate analysis). In conclusion, CD155-positivity was associated with aggressive tumor behavior, and was a factor to predict a poor prognosis. Its prognostic impact was enhanced when combined with PD-L1 expression status. These results should be validated in a large-scale study.

Both extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP) and pleurectomy/decortication (P/D) are used for the surgical treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). This study aimed to compare the operative and clinical outcomes and survival between EPP and P/D.We performed a retrospective analysis of the surgical and clinical data of 40 patients who underwent either EPP (n = 18) or P/D (n = 22) for MPM at our institution between January 2000 and December 2018.In comparison to EPP, P/D was associated with a higher intraoperative bleeding volume (1175 vs 1805 ml, p = 0.0020) and greater duration of postoperative thoracic drainage (3 vs 16 days, p 0.0001). Adjuvant chemotherapy was more common after P/D (81.8%) than after EPP (33.3%; p = 0.0024). For epithelioid-type MPM, overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) were significantly better in patients who underwent P/D in comparison to those who underwent EPP (p = 0.040 and p = 0.015, respectively), with no difference for the biphasic and sarcomatoid types of MPM. A Cox proportional hazards regression model identified P/D as a significant favorable prognostic factor for OS [hazard ratio (HR), 0.391; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.175-0.871; p = 0.022] and RFS (HR, 0.418; 95% CI, 0.190-0.920; p = 0.030).Based on our findings, P/D may be superior to EPP for improving the prognosis of patients with resectable epithelioid-type MPM.

The impact of perioperative heparin bridging (HB) for lung surgery in patients on anti-clotting drugs remains unclear. We performed a retrospective study to assess its effect on surgical safety by comparing HB and non-HB groups. This study included 274 consecutive patients on anti-clotting drugs who underwent surgery for lung cancer. Of these, 77 received HB and 197 did not. Propensity score matching extracted 124 patients, consisting of 62 patients with HB and 62 patients without HB. Endpoints were surgical safety. There was no statistically significant difference in the outcomes of surgical safety outcomes between the HB and non-HB group after propensity-score matching, operative time (172 vs. 203 min, p = 0.131), volume of blood loss (60 vs. 70 ml, p = 0.335), need for intraoperative RBC transfusion (3.2 vs. 6.5%, p = 0.680), chest tube drainage volume on the 1st postoperative day (200 vs. 200 ml, p = 0.796), and chest tube placement duration (3 vs. 3 days, p = 0.606). The influence of perioperative HB on postoperative thromboembolic or bleeding events in lung cancer surgery is not obvious, but its surgical safety appears to be acceptable.

Detection of rare tumor cells circulating in the blood (CTCs) presents technical challenges. CellSearch, the only approved system for clinical use, fails to capture epithelial cell adhesion molecule‐negative CTCs such as malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). We have developed a novel microfluidic device (CTC‐chip) in which any Ab to capture CTCs is conjugated. The CTC‐chip was coated with an Ab against podoplanin that is abundantly expressed on MPM. Circulating tumor cell‐detection performance was evaluated in experimental models in which MPM cells were spiked in blood sampled from a healthy volunteer and in clinical samples drawn from MPM patients. The CTC‐chip showed superior CTC‐detection performance over CellSearch in experimental models (sensitivity, 63.3%‐64.5% vs 0%‐1.1%; P

In our previous study, a microfluidic system was developed based on podoplanin detection for capturing circulating tumor cells (CTCs), derived from malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). However, non-epithelioid MPM shows low podoplanin protein expression compared with that in epithelioid MPM; thus, some CTC populations may be missed. To overcome this limitation, a new CTC-detection chip was developed by combining the conventional podoplanin antibody (clone: NZ-1.2) with an epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)-targeted antibody (cetuximab). The cell-capture efficiency of the Cocktail-chip reached 100% in all the histological MPM cell lines. The median CTC-counts from 19 patients with MPM (epithelioid/non-epithelioid: 10/9) with the NZ-1.2- and Cocktail-chips were 1 and 3 (P=0.311) in 1 ml peripheral blood, 1.5 and 2 (P=0.332) in epithelioid MPM, and 1 and 3 (P=0.106) in non-epithelioid MPM, respectively. Overall, the Cocktail-chip showed an improved ability to detect more CTCs in patients with non-epithelioid MPM compared with that in the conventional NZ-1.2-chip, showing non-significant, but higher CTC detection. Furthermore, CTC-counts, determined using the Cocktail-chip were significantly correlated with the clinical stage of non-epithelioid MPM. In epithelioid MPM, the Cocktail-chip achieved a CTC-detection efficiency equivalent to that in the conventional NZ-1.2-chip. The Cocktail-chip enabled sensitive CTC detection of all histological MPM, including the non-epithelioid subtype, which may provide a foundation for the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis of MPM progression.

BACKGROUND: Approximately 15–29.6% of patients with thymoma have myasthenia gravis (MG). Some of these patients develop MG after thymectomy despite having no history of MG or related symptoms. Few previous studies have examined the risk factors for the development of post-thymectomy MG in patients with thymoma. Herein, we retrospectively reviewed our institutional experience with patients with thymoma who developed MG after thymectomy. METHODS: Twenty-six patients with thymoma but without MG, who were tested preoperatively for anti-acetylcholine receptor antibody (anti-AChR-Ab) levels, underwent surgical resection at our hospital between 2013 and 2020. Patients with thymic carcinoma were excluded from the study. We evaluated the association of outcomes with preoperative anti-AChR-Ab levels and post-thymectomy MG. We performed a χ(2) test for bivariate analysis of categorical data. Differences were considered significant at P0.3 nmol/L) preoperative anti-AChR-Ab levels. Post-thymectomy MG occurred in two of the five patients (40%) with high preoperative anti-AChR-Ab levels. A high preoperative serum anti-AChR-Ab titer was significantly associated with post-thymectomy MG (P=0.0267). The anti-AChR-Ab titer was also measured postoperatively in four of the five (80%) patients with high preoperative levels. The anti-AChR-Ab titer decreased in two of these four patients, and neither developed postoperative MG. CONCLUSIONS: Preoperative and postoperative anti-AChR-Ab positivity might be associated with post-thymectomy MG. Therefore, regular measurement of anti-AChR-Ab levels after thymectomy is required.

There is an increasing number of cases of two-stage surgery for synchronous or metachronous lung cancer. We discuss the surgical treatment strategy for multiple lung cancers.We retrospectively reviewed the clinicopathological factors and prognosis of 105 patients (210 surgeries) who underwent two-stage surgery for lung cancer during the period from 2010 to 2019 in our department.A total of 105 cases were reviewed;58 males and 47 females, 67 were synchronous and 38 were metachronous. Long-term prognosis of death from other diseases due to respiratory diseases was found in eight patients (7.6%). Recurrence of lung cancer was observed in 29 (27.6%), and cancer death was found in 9 of them. The overall three-year and five-year survival rates were 85.3% and 71.3 %, respectively. The absence of ground-glass opacity components in the tumor( p=0.036) and advanced pathological stage( p=0.048) were significantly associated with postoperative recurrence.The recurrence rate was high in cases of solid tumors and advanced pathological stage, even in multiple lung cancers. Thus, an appropriate combination of limited surgery and standard surgery should be used, taking into account the nature of the tumor and the patient's ability to tolerate the surgery.

Although nanoscale multiferroics with coupled ferroelectricity and magnetism are of great technological and fundamental importance, the ferroic orders are inevitably destroyed in atomic-scale dimensions due to the intrinsic size effect or depolarization field. Here, we propose a strategy for atomic-size multiferroics by engineering the otherwise detrimental point defects in nonmagnetic paraelectric $\mathrm{SrTi}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$. Systematic exploration using first-principles and molecular dynamics simulations demonstrates that the Ti antisite $({\mathrm{Ti}}_{\mathrm{Sr}})$ defects in $\mathrm{SrTi}{\mathrm{O}}_{3}$ have a tendency toward clustering with compact closure, which contributes to complex electrical polarization due to the large off-centering displacements of ${\mathrm{Ti}}_{\mathrm{Sr}}$ defects and the resulting separation between negative and positive charges. The ${\mathrm{Ti}}_{\mathrm{Sr}}$ defects also give rise to highly localized magnetic moments attributed to their unpaired spin-polarized electrons. The defect clustering and the associated multiferroic properties thus lead to atomic-size multiferroics with unusual ferroic orders.

Carinal resection with lung resection is a rare surgical procedure with high risk. In-hospital mortality rates for carinal reconstruction and sleeve pneumonectomy were 6.5% and 16.7%, respectively. Thus, thoracic surgeons need to learn the procedure for patients who need the surgery. This time, we will account for preoperative evaluation, intraoperative advice, and postoperative management in carinal resection with right upper lobectomy presenting 2 cases in our hospital. Case 1 had a high caliber mismatch of bronchial stumps because of partial carinal resection, which was corrected by simple sutures of the anterior cartilage. That allowed us to perform sleeve right upper lobectomy avoiding carinal reconstruction. Case 2 was a case in which lung and bronchial tissue sticking to mediastinum due to obstructive pneumonia prevented us from anastomosing intermediate bronchus to the trachea or left main bronchus. We had to choose sleeve right pneumonectomy, and a fistula on the anastomotic site occurred later resulting in a bad course. We hope our experiences aid future patients who need the carinal resection.

As Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) advances, more and more people will have the opportunities to drive vehicles with autonomous capabilities. This rise in number of semi-autonomous vehicles also gives rise to several challenges with regards on how human factors come into play in interacting with the vehicle’s Automated Driving System (ADS). One important interaction of an ADS with Level 3 Conditional Automated Driving capabilities is Request-to-Intervene (RTI), which alerts drivers to takeover the vehicle during an automated driving session, however, the driver is not necessarily ready to receive the authority. To see whether an ADS can detect the readiness of the user for RTI, in this preliminary study we evaluated the mental states of ADS users in naturalistic driving conditions by comparing them with those of drivers and passengers. The mental states were evaluated by measuring their heart rate and by calculating specific features of Heart Rate Variability (HRV), specifically NN50 and pNN50 indices, during driving events (turning, lane changing, and stopping) and no-events. The results showed the NN50 and pNN50 values of manual driving were significantly different from those of ADS driving and passenger, suggesting that ADS driving has a higher level of relaxed state. In addition, events such as lane-changing in the ADS driving did not induce significantly different NN50 and pNN50 from nonevent situation, which may imply the participants did not pay attention to such events.

Circulating tumor cell (CTC) is a potentially useful surrogate of micro-metastasis, but detection of rare tumor cells contaminated in a vast majority of normal hematologic cells remains technical challenges. To achieve effective detection of a variety of CTCs, we have developed a novel microfluidic system (CTC-chip) in which any antibody to capture CTCs is easily conjugated. In previous studies, we employed an antibody (clone E-1) against podoplanin that was strongly expressed on mesothelioma cells. The CTC-chip coated by the E-1 antibody (E1-chip) provided a modest sensitivity in detection of CTCs in malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM). Here, to achieve a higher sensitivity, we employed a novel anti-podoplanin antibody (clone NZ-1.2). In an experimental model, MPM cells with high podoplanin expression were effectively captured with the CTC-chip coated by the NZ-1.2 antibody (NZ1.2-chip). Next, we evaluated CTCs in the peripheral blood sampled from 22 MPM patients using the NZ1.2-chip and the E1-chip. One or more CTCs were detected in 15 patients (68.2%) with the NZ1.2-chip, whereas only in 10 patients (45.5%) with the E1-chip. Of noted, in most (92.3%, 12/13) patients with epithelioid MPM subtype, CTCs were positive with the NZ1.2-chip. The CTC-count detected with the NZ1.2-chip was significantly higher than that with the E1-chip (p = 0.034). The clinical implications of CTCs detected with the NZ1.2-chip will be examined in a future study.

In patients with lung cancer invading the left atrium, performing complete resection is difficult. In many cases of complete resection, pneumonectomy is performed. We herein report two techniques in which complete resection with negative margins at the intrapericardial pulmonary vein and left atrium was achieved without pneumonectomy. In the first technique, the groove of the pericardium between the right and left atrium was dissected and an atrial cuff was made in a manner that elongated the intrapericardial pulmonary vein. In the second technique, traction was applied to the atrial cuff, and only the middle lobe vein of the elongated pulmonary vein was resected, to perform atrial cuff plasty. The upper lobe vein and inferior pulmonary vein could be preserved. These techniques of PV elongation and atrial cuff plasty are suitable for both achieving complete resection and lung preservation for lung cancer patients with invasion of the left atrium.

A novel method for integrating driving behavior and traffic context through signal symbolization is presented in this paper. This symbolization framework is proposed as a data reduction method for naturalistic driving studies. Continuous sensor signals have been converted and reduced into sequences of symbols (chunks) using a sticky hierarchical Dirichlet process hidden Markov model and a nested Pitman–Yor language model. Then, co-occurrence chunking (COOC), the proposed integration method, has been applied to the driver behavior and the traffic context chunks. After the integration, COOC chunks have been associated with prototype driving scenes by using latent Dirichlet allocation. Finally, the translated sequence of chunks has been clustered into groups. Risky lane change detection experiments have been conducted with the symbolized data for evaluation purposes. A dataset comprised of 988 lane change scenes has been utilized for this process. Co-occurrence chunking with clustering provided the best risky lane change detection.

Reduced-port thoracoscopic surgery for pneumothorax has been well reported. However, the optimum method for preventing postoperative recurrence in reduced-port thoracoscopic bullectomy remains unclear. We investigated ways to improve the covering technique with reduced-port thoracoscopic bullectomy for spontaneous pneumothorax. From April to December 2016, we performed a simple covering technique with reduced-port thoracoscopic bullectomy on six patients and evaluated the surgical results and patient outcomes. All of the patients were successfully treated with the simple covering technique, and none had a postoperative ipsilateral recurrence of pneumothorax. Our method is a simple and easy technique involving the wide reinforcement of the staple line and may be effective in reducing the risk of postoperative recurrence in reduced-port thoracoscopic bullectomy.

We report a rare case of aspiration of a drug in a press‐through package (PTP) treated by not just pulling it but using a unique technique. A 73‐year‐old woman was referred to our department because of a persistent cough resulting from aspiration of a PTP. Flexible bronchoscopy identified the PTP in the trachea immediately above the carina. Just pulling the centre of the PTP edge with biopsy forceps could not move it, and we then rotated it by pulling the corner of the PTP edge to directly below the vocal cord. Passing over the vocal cord was difficult, which made us remove the bronchoscope and urge the patient to cough. These rotation techniques and voluntary coughing successfully removed the foreign body. This unique procedure may aid in the removal of a similar foreign body using a flexible bronchoscope forceps with insufficient grasping force.

Pulmonary neuroendocrine tumors (NET), a subtype of lung cancer, comprises typical carcinoids (TCs), atypical carcinoids (ACs), large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC), and small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC). TCs and ACs are low-to-intermediate malignant tumors, on the other hand LCNEC and SCLC are high-grade carcinomas (1).

Background Fenestration is performed in patients with bronchopleural fistula to avoid a life-threatening situation. However, usually, this procedure is required 9-cm mean length of the incision with rib resection. Case presentation A 73-year-old man underwent right lower lobectomy with lymph node dissection (ND2a-2) for primary lung cancer (cT1cN2M0 Stage IIIA) with combined pulmonary fibrosis and emphysema. He developed a bronchopleural fistula on postoperative day 20, and we performed emergency fenestration without rib resection using a Lap-protector. The patient reported minimal pain postoperatively. As the rapid deterioration of the general condition due to the recurrence of the tumor was observed at the time of his 1-year postoperative follow-up, closing of the thoracic cavity was abandoned. However, using this fenestration, the control of infection in the thoracic cavity could be sufficiently performed without complications such as pain and pneumonia, and his routine activities were unaffected postoperatively. Conclusion Compared with conventional method, fenestration without rib resection using a Lap-protector is a more convenient and painless technique for postoperative bronchopleural fistula.

Background: Although immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have been established as one of standard therapy, the prognostic factors of ICIs remain unclear, aside from the programed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression of tumor cells. The aim of this study was to determine the prognostic factors of ICIs. Methods: We analyzed the clinicopathological data of 44 cases of advanced NSCLC targeted with ICIs in our hospital, between February 2016 and February 2018, in order to determine the prognostic factors of ICIs. We also reviewed the literature regarding ICIs. Result: We retrospectively analyzed the 44 cases (26 nivolumab and 18 pembrolizumab cases). These patients were 38 men and 6 women, comprising 13 cases of adenocarcinoma, 29 squamous cell carcinoma and 2 unclassified types. Seven patients were using first-line therapy and while the others were using second-line therapy or later. Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation and anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) mutations were negative in all the cases. The response rate and disease control rate were 20.5% and 51.3%, respectively. The median progression-free survival time and median survival time were 146 days and 257 days, respectively. We observed five severe adverse effects (AEs) (three cases of interstitial pneumonia, one of liver dysfunction and one of adrenal failure), that were resolved by steroid pulse therapy. In multivariate analyses, the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status (ECOG PS), pathological type, standardized uptake value (SUV) on positron emission tomography (PET), white blood cell (WBC) count, neutrophil, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and albumin were independently prognostic factors. There were no significant differences in the prognosis between nivolumab and pembrolizumab. Conclusions: ICIs were effective in 44 treated NSCLC cases. Our analysis suggests that while ICIs are effective in treating patients, candidates must be carefully selected and cautiously observed.

Background Consolidation treatment with an anti-PD-L1 antibody, durvalumab, following concurrent chemo-radiotherapy (cCRT) has become a new standard of care for locally advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The rationale of PD-L1 blockade after cCRT is based on preclinical evidence suggesting that chemotherapy and radiotherapy up-regulate tumoural PD-L1 expression, which has not been shown in clinical studies. Methods To examine alteration in tumoural PD-L1 expression (tumour proportion score, TPS) and density of stromal CD8-positive tumour-infiltrating lymphocytes (CD8 + TILs) after cCRT, paired NSCLC samples obtained before and after cCRT were reviewed in comparison with those obtained before and after drug therapy. Results PD-L1 expression was significantly up-regulated after cCRT (median TPS, 1.0 at baseline versus 48.0 after cCRT; P

The coexistence of ferroelectricity, conductivity, and magnetism in a single-phase material has attracted considerable attention due to fundamental interest and tremendous technological potential. However, their mutually exclusive mechanisms hinder the discovery of multifunctional conducting multiferroics. Here, we propose a new material design approach for electron engineering to enable these conflicting properties to coexist. We use first principles calculations to demonstrate that appropriate mechanical strain can turn the excess electrons in doped BaTiO3 from a free-carrier configuration to a localized polaronic state by modulating the electron–phonon coupling. The resulting localized spin-polarized electron survives the host ferroelectricity and consequently manifests as a multiferroic polaron. The multiferroic properties coexist with the electronic conductivity arising from the high-hopping mobility of the polaron, which enables the doped epitaxial BaTiO3 to act as a multiferroic conducting material. This mechanical control over the electron configuration is a potential path toward unusual coexisting properties.

Background: Pulmonary neuroendocrine tumor (NET) occurs with 20% of all lung cancers, and there are a limited number of literatures about the molecular aberrations, treatment and prognosis; especially in resected cases, as the operation indication for large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma (LCNEC) and small cell lung carcinoma (SCLC) is rare due to their aggressive behaviors. We investigated the relationship between postoperative survival and molecular expression patterns of pulmonary NET to establish a more effective treatment strategy. Methods: In the present study, the curative surgical resection of pulmonary NET was reviewed retrospectively. A total of 105 patients with pulmonary NET, who underwent complete resection between 1978 and 2016, were subjected to analysis with respect to histological characterization and clinical behaviors of pulmonary NET using immunohistochemistry (IHC) of neuroendocrine markers and programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1). Results: The pathological types included 67 SCLC, 18 LCNEC, 14 typical carcinoids (TCs) and 6 atypical carcinoids (ACs). The ACs had significantly worse prognosis than TCs. PD-L1 expression ratio in SCLC/LCNEC/TC/AC was 26.1%/50%/15.4%/20%, respectively. However, it was not significantly correlated with each prognosis. Therefore, the SCLC patients were analyzed, the overall 5-year survival of SCLC patients was found to be 47.3%. In the univariate analysis of the molecular expression of SCLC, neuroendocrine markers such as chromogranin-A (CGA) and synaptophysin (SYN) showed poor prognosis, albeit without significant differences. Conclusions: The neuroendocrine markers such as CGA and SYN might assist the prediction of prognosis and probably influence the decision for adjuvant chemotherapy or follow-up intervals after surgery in SCLC patients; however additional studies are essential.

Choosing an optimal procedure to stabilize the chest wall for multiple rib fractures can be challenging for surgeons. Stabilization with rib plates or intramedullary devices requires exposure of fractured bones, whereas chest stabilization with intercostal Z-suture and mesh does not, yet it offers the chest wall a sufficient level of stability. Here, we report a case of a flail chest due to multiple rib fractures for which a simple chest wall fixation using intercostal Z-suture and mesh was efficient. This method could be a treatment option for multiple rib fractures.

We thoracic surgeons sometimes face a problem of high-caliber mismatch in sleeve lobectomy. The large size disparity between the proximal and distal stump requires not only an appropriate anastomotic technique but also an appropriate approach to the stumps. We report a case of a simple carinal cartilage suture helping correct high-caliber mismatch in right upper lobe sleeve lobectomy. Sutures on the anterior wall of the carinal cartilage effectively reduced the size disparity of the stumps. This approach could be a complementary option for high-caliber mismatch in right upper lobe sleeve lobectomy.

Anomalies in roads such as obstacles and accidents often cause fatal accidents and should be detected as soon as possible. We formulated the problem of detecting obstacles from driving behaviors as a change-point detection, not an anomaly detection problem, because driving behaviors are too distributed to make a ‘standard driving’ model. To model the distribution of driving states at each location at each time, we employed a nonparametric method due to a wide variety of the distribution and applied a change-point detection method called the maximum mean discrepancy to our synthetic data made using a traffic simulator. As a result, we successfully detected the existence of obstacles with high accuracy.