Distant Nodes Research Articles

Blood lipid profiles associated with metastatic sites in advanced gastric cancer

BackgroundThis study explored the correlation between peripheral blood lipid levels and clinicopathological parameters in patients with advanced gastric cancer (GC), focusing on changes in lipid levels during disease progression.MethodsPathological features and serum lipid profiles of 179 patients with stage III-IV gastric adenocarcinoma were analyzed. Lipid parameters examined included total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), very low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (VLDL-C), apolipoprotein AI (Apo AI), apolipoprotein B (Apo B), lipoprotein(a) (Lp(a)), among others. The total cholesterol-lymphocyte score (TL score) and BMI were also calculated. The association between lipid parameters and clinicopathological characteristics such as age, gender, family history, and metastasis sites was assessed.ResultsIn GC patients, females had higher TG levels than males. Patients with peritoneal metastasis had significantly lower levels of TC, LDL-C, Apo B, and B/A ratio. Those with lung metastasis exhibited higher LDL-C levels and lower levels of VLDL-C. No significant associations were found between lipid levels and metastasis to distant lymph nodes, liver, or bone. Female patients with ovarian metastasis had significantly lower VLDL-C levels. Multivariate analysis revealed low TC as an independent risk factor for peritoneal metastasis, high LDL-C and low VLDL-C levels for lung metastasis, and younger age and low VLDL-C for ovarian metastasis.ConclusionSpecific blood lipid levels are significantly associated with metastatic sites in advanced gastric cancer. Lipid profiles could serve as potential biomarkers for predicting metastatic sites in GC patients.

Response of lymphoid organs to immunization with Fc fragments of IgG carrying epitopes specific to regulatory rheumatoid factor

Previously, we identified a new factor of autoimmunity downregulation, called regulatory rheumatoid factor (regRF). The production of regRF was associated with the resistance of animals to the experimental autoimmune diseases or with the remission in animals that are sensitive to the autoimmune diseases. The action of regulatory rheumatoid factor is based on the killing of activated CD4 T lymphocytes expressing PD-1, which makes it possible to restrain the expansion of lymphocytes, including autoreactive ones. RegRF-specific epitopes (regRF epitopes) can be induced on IgG Fc fragments. Immunization of rats with homologous IgG Fc fragments bearing regRF epitopes suppresses symptoms, lymphocytic infiltration and target tissue damage in several experimental models of autoimmune diseases. An in vitro study of the mechanisms of regRF-producing lymphocytes activation by IgG Fc fragments carrying regRF epitopes showed that IgG Fc fragments carrying regRF epitopes are T cell-independent antigens type 2. The reactions of the immune system, in particular in lymphoid organs, to T cell-independent antigens type 2, especially having a protein nature, are poorly studied. The purpose of this work is to study the reactions of the spleen and lymph nodes of rats to immunization with IgG Fc fragments carrying regRF epitopes. Wistar rats were immunized subcutaneously with 500 μg of homologous IgG Fc fragments carrying regRF epitopes. Control animals received an injection of phosphate-buffered saline. Immunization with IgG Fc fragments carrying regRF epitopes caused a transient increase of regulatory rheumatoid factor blood level with a maximum on day 7 after immunization. It was found that immunization with IgG Fc fragments carrying regRF epitopes does not cause a reaction in the regional and distal lymph nodes of rats, but induces the development of secondary follicles in spleen that exist for at least 28 days. On day 49, the number of follicles with germinal centers in the spleen of rats immunized with IgG Fc fragments carrying regRF epitopes was lower than in control rats. Consequently, the reaction of splenic follicles in rats immunized with IgG Fc fragments carrying regRF epitopes is transient. No changes were detected in the periarteriolar lymphoid sheaths (splenic T cell zone) in rats immunized with IgG Fc fragments carrying regRF epitopes. Thus, IgG Fc fragments carrying regRF epitopes, being a T cell-independent antigens type 2, do not cause a reaction in the lymph nodes, but induce the development of germinal centers in the spleen that exist for several weeks.

Metapopulation model of phage therapy of an acute Pseudomonas aeruginosa lung infection.

Phage therapy is increasingly employed as a compassionate treatment for severe infections caused by multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria. However, the mixed outcomes observed in larger clinical studies highlight a gap in understanding when phage therapy succeeds or fails. Previous research from our team, using in vivo experiments and single-compartment mathematical models, demonstrated the synergistic clearance of acute P. aeruginosa pneumonia by phage and neutrophils despite the emergence of phage-resistant bacteria. In fact, the lung environment is highly structured, prompting the question of whether immunophage synergy explains the curative treatment of P. aeruginosa when incorporating realistic physical connectivity. To address this, we developed a metapopulation network model mimicking the lung branching structure to assess phage therapy efficacy for MDR P. aeruginosa pneumonia. The model predicts the synergistic elimination of P. aeruginosa by phage and neutrophils but emphasizes potential challenges in spatially structured environments, suggesting that higher innate immune levels may be required for successful bacterial clearance. Model simulations reveal a spatial pattern in pathogen clearance where P. aeruginosa are cleared faster at distal nodes of the bronchial tree than in primary nodes. Interestingly, image analysis of infected mice reveals a concordant and statistically significant pattern: infection intensity clears in the bottom before the top of the lungs. The combined use of modeling and image analysis supports the application of phage therapy for acute P. aeruginosa pneumonia while emphasizing potential challenges to curative success in spatially structured in vivo environments, including impaired innate immune responses and reduced phage efficacy.

Discordance of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-low status between breast primary and distant metastases with clinical-pathological correlation.

Breast cancer with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) immunohistochemistry (IHC) 1+ or 2+ with negative in-situ hybridisation (ISH) (HER2-low) can now be targeted by HER2 antibody drug conjugates. We set out to compare HER2 status between matched primary invasive breast carcinoma (IBC) and distant metastases (DM) with clinical-pathological correlation, with specific interest in HER2-low. Biomarker studies and clinical-pathological features of primary IBC with matched DM diagnosed between 2021 and 2022 were retrospectively analysed. HER2 status was assessed per 2023 American Society of Clinical Oncology/College of American Pathologists (ASCO/CAP) guidelines for IHC (4B5) and ISH (IQFISH pharmDX). Bilateral breast primaries were excluded. HER2 IHC 0 to 1+ were reassessed. One hundred and forty-seven cases of primary IBC with matched DM were identified. Biomarkers were performed on core biopsy (n = 74) and resection (n = 73). One hundred and twenty-six (86%) were initially classified as 'HER2-negative'; of these, 67 (46%) were reclassified as HER2-low. Patients with HER2-positive primaries were younger (P = 0.01) and had an increased incidence of micropapillary carcinoma (P = 0.02). HER2-low primaries also had an increased incidence of micropapillary carcinoma (P = 0.02) and oestrogen receptor (ER) positivity (P = 0.02) compared to HER2 0. One hundred and sixty-nine matched DM cases excluding bone metastasis were identified (range = one to seven metastases per IBC). The most common sites of metastases were liver (50 of 169, 30%), lung (36 of 169; 21%), distant lymph node (26 of 169, 15%); 138 DM cases (82%) were previously classified as 'HER2-negative', and 62 (37%) were reclassified as HER2-low. Like HER2-low primaries, HER2-low metastases were frequently ER-positive (52 of 62; 84%) (P = 0.02). Brain metastases were more frequently HER2-positive (five of 32; 16%) (P = 0.04). Comparing HER2 status in matched primaries and DM, HER2 status was discordant in 62 cases (37%). Most changes occurred from HER2-low to HER2 0 (33 of 169, 20%), HER2 0 to HER2-low (17 of 169, 10%) and HER2-low to positive (10 of 169, 6%). All HER2-low to HER2 0 changes were HER2 1+ to 0. In 30 patients with multiple DM sites (47 cases), HER2 status among different DM samples was discordant in 16 patients (53%), mainly from HER2-low to HER2 0 (16 of 47, 34%). A significant proportion of previous 'HER2-negative' primaries and DM cases were reclassified as HER2-low. Discordant HER2 status between IBC primary and metastasis and between different DM sites demonstrated tumour heterogeneity and highlights the need for HER2 retesting in distant metastasis.

Chain-aware graph neural networks for molecular property prediction.

Predicting the properties of molecules is a fundamental problem in drug design and discovery, while how to learn effective feature representations lies at the core of modern deep-learning-based prediction methods. Recent progress shows expressive power of graph neural networks (GNNs) in capturing structural information for molecular graphs. However, we find that most molecular graphs exhibit low clustering along with dominating chains. Such topological characteristics can induce feature squashing during message passing and thus impair the expressivity of conventional GNNs. Aiming at improving node features' expressiveness, we develop a novel chain-aware graph neural network model, wherein the chain structures are captured by learning the representation of the center node along the shortest paths starting from it, and the redundancy between layers are mitigated via initial residual difference connection (IRDC). Then the molecular graph is represented by attentive pooling of all node representations. Compared to standard graph convolution, our chain-aware learning scheme offers a more straightforward feature interaction between distant nodes, thus it is able to capture the information about long-range dependency. We provide extensive empirical analysis on real-world datasets to show the outperformance of the proposed method. The MolPath code is publicly available at https://github.com/Assassinswhh/Molpath.

Prognostic Impact of HER2 Low Status in Male Breast Cancer: Prospective Cohort Analysis.

Male breast cancer (MBC) is a rare disease, and the potential influence of low expression of human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2 low) remains unexplored. In this prospective cohort study, we evaluated 870 patients treated for MBC between May 2009 and June 2023 to assess HER2 low status and its prognostic implications. With a median follow-up of 43 months (range 1-175 months), 659 eligible patients were categorized into three groups based on HER2 status: 501 (76%) HER2 low, 81 (12.3%) HER2 zero, and 77 (11.7%) HER2 positive. HER2 positivity correlated with younger age, higher proliferation index, non-specific type histology, lymphovascular invasion (LVSI), and low differentiation grade. Notably, all these parameters were equally distributed between the HER2 zero and HER2 low groups. Additionally, HER2 positivity was significantly associated with increased occurrences of regional and distant lymph nodes and pulmonary metastases. However, no statistically significant difference was observed between HER2 zero and HER2 low. Disease-free and overall survival showed no significant disparities between the groups. Our findings suggest that HER2 low status is frequently detected in MBC. Despite this, HER2 low did not correlate with clinical and pathological parameters, nor did it impact patients' survival.

8061 Factors Affecting Survival of Metastatic Medullary Thyroid Cancer: A Population-Based Study From Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program

Abstract Disclosure: A. Abdelhameed: None. H. Ibrahim: None. M. Mortagy: None. Introduction: Medullary thyroid cancer (MTC) arises from parafollicular cells of the thyroid. 43% of patients with MTC have metastasis. It was shown that the overall 5-year survival of patients with MTC is 40.4%. The clinical course of MTC is highly variable. The Aim is to identify factors affecting survival of the metastatic MTC sub-population. Understanding these factors is important in treating these patients. Methods 340 patients: with metastatic MTC who were diagnosed from 1975 to 2020 were extracted from SEER after removing duplicates and those not diagnosed by positive histology or cytology. Survival analysis was conducted, and Kaplan-Meier graph was generated. Univariate Cox regression was performed for all variables and respective hazard ratios (HR) were produced. Multivariable cox regression was performed for statistically significant variables. Results: The cohort were 59% males with a median age of 60 years. Median survival for the cohort was 20 months with survival of 63%, 41% and 31% at 1, 3, and 5 years respectively. Univariate Cox regression was statistically significant for age (HR 1.02), brain metastasis (HR 2.70), liver metastasis (1.65), lung metastasis (1.42), not performing total thyroidectomy (HR 2.77), lymph node ratio (HR 2.45), and systemic therapy after surgery (HR 0.34). Univariate Cox regression was not statistically significant for sex, grade, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, treatment delay, bone metastasis, distant lymph node metastasis, multifocal cancer, total number of benign and malignant tumors, race/ethnicity, income, tumor size and living in rural areas. Multivariable cox regression was done after inclusion of all significant variables from univariate Cox regression. It was only significant for age (HR 1.04), presence of lung metastasis (HR 1.91), and systemic therapy before surgery (HR 14.41). Conclusion: Increasing age, presence of lung metastasis and systemic therapy before surgery lead to worse prognosis in metastatic MTC. Gender, grade, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, treatment delay, bone or brain or liver metastasis, presence of multifocal cancer, race, tumor size and surgery don't affect survival according to multivariable cox regression. Future research is needed to study this group of patients. Presentation: 6/2/2024

Short-term results of a multicenter study based on a modified N7 induction regimen combined with arsenic trioxide in the treatment of children with high-risk neuroblastoma

Objective: To analyze the short-term clinical efficacy and safety of arsenic trioxide (ATO) combined with a modified N7 induction regimen in the treatment of children with high-risk neuroblastoma (NB). Methods: This study was a prospective, single-arm, multicenter phase Ⅱ clinical study. Sixty-seven high-risk NB children from eight units of Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Wuhan Children's Hospital of Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangxi Medical University, Hainan General Hospital, Affiliated Hospital of Guangdong Medical University, Kunming Children's Hospital, Tongji Hospital of Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Guangdong Provincial Agricultural Reclamation Center Hospital were enrolled from January 2019 to August 2023 and were treated with ATO combined with a modified N7 induction regimen. The efficacy and adverse effects at the end of induction chemotherapy were assessed and analyzed, and the differences in the clinical characteristics were further compared between the treatment-responsive and treatment-unresponsive groups by using the Fisher's exact test. Results: Among 67 high-risk NB children, there were 40 males (60%) and 27 females (40%), with the age of disease onset of 3.5 (2.6, 4.8) years. Primary NB sites were mostly in retroperitoneum (including adrenal gland) (56/67, 84%) and the common metastases sites at initial diagnosis were distant lymph node in 25 cases (37%),bone in 48 cases (72%),bone marrow in 56 cases (84%) and intracalvarium in 3 cases (4%). MYCN gene amplification were detected in 28 cases (42%). At the end of induction, 33 cases (49%) achieved complete remission, 29 cases (43%) achieved partial remission, 1 case (1%) with stable disease, and 4 cases (6%) were assessed as progressive disease (PD). The objective remission rate was 93% (62/67) and the disease control rate was 94% (63/67). The percentage of central system metastases at the initial diagnosis was higher in the treatment-unresponsive group than in the treatment-responsive group (2/5 vs. 2% (1/62), P=0.013), whereas the difference in MYCN gene amplification was not statistically significant between two groups (3/5 vs.40% (25/62), P=0.786). Grade Ⅲ or higher adverse reactions during the induction chemotherapy period were myelosuppression occurred in 60 cases (90%), gastrointestinal symptoms occurred in 33 cases (49%), infections occurred in 20 cases (30%), hepatotoxicity occurred in 4 cases (6%), and cardiovascular toxicity occurred in 1 case (2%). There were no chemotherapy-related deaths. Conclusion: ATO combined with N7-modified induction regimen had a superiority in efficacy and safety, which deserved further promotion in clinical practice.

Screening of prognostic factors and survival analysis based on histological type for perimenopausal endometrial carcinoma treated with hysterectomy

PurposeThis study aimed to explore the prognostic factors and survival patterns based on the histological type for the perimenopausal endometrial carcinoma (PIPEC) patients treated with hysterectomy.MethodsThe PIPEC patients were selected from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Methods of random survival forest (RSF) and Cox regression were used to identify the possible prognostic factors of PIPEC patients. Then overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) of PIPEC data were analyzed by histological types with regional lymph nodes status and SEER-stage to investigate the survival patterns of the PIPEC patients.ResultsA total of 14,178 PIPEC patients were included in the study. We found tumor size, grade, histology, SEER-stage, AJCC-stage, AJCC-T stage, metastasis to distant organs and regional lymph nodes status had a significant survival outcome for PIPEC both for OS and CSS (all p < 0.05). Regardless of regional lymph nodes status and SEER-stage for OS and CSS, the low-grade endometrioid carcinoma had the best prognosis outcome, followed by the mix cell adenocarcinoma and high-grade endometrioid carcinoma, while the carcinosarcoma and undifferentiated carcinoma had relatively poor prognosis outcome. And the survival patterns of different histological types of PIPEC were diverse and changed along with the time.ConclusionWe identified the possible prognostic factors of PIPEC patients treated with hysterectomy. And survival analysis based on the regional lymph nodes status and SEER-stage revealed the different histological types of PIPEC had diverse survival patterns, which will be helpful for guiding clinical practice.

LGTCN: A Spatial–Temporal Traffic Flow Prediction Model Based on Local–Global Feature Fusion Temporal Convolutional Network

High-precision traffic flow prediction facilitates intelligent traffic control and refined management decisions. Previous research has built a variety of exquisite models with good prediction results. However, they ignore the reality that traffic flows can propagate backwards on road networks when modeling spatial relationships, as well as associations between distant nodes. In addition, more effective model components for modeling temporal relationships remain to be developed. To address the above challenges, we propose a local–global features fusion temporal convolutional network (LGTCN) for spatio-temporal traffic flow prediction, which incorporates a bidirectional graph convolutional network, probabilistic sparse self-attention, and a multichannel temporal convolutional network. To extract the bidirectional propagation relationship of traffic flow on the road network, we improve the traditional graph convolutional network so that information can be propagated in multiple directions. In addition, in spatial global dimensions, we propose probabilistic sparse self-attention to effectively perceive global data correlations and reduce the computational complexity caused by the finite perspective graph. Furthermore, we develop a multichannel temporal convolutional network. It not only retains the temporal learning capability of temporal convolutional networks, but also corresponds each channel to a node, and it realizes the interaction of node features through output interoperation. Extensive experiments on four open access benchmark traffic flow datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of our model.

Supraclavicular lymph node metastasis should not be defined as regional lymph node metastasis in cervical and upper thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.

The importance of supraclavicular lymph node (SCLN) metastasis in cervical and upper thoracic esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) has not been determined. The aim of the present study was to provide a detailed definition of the range of SCLN regions and to explore whether SCLNs should be considered as a regional lymph nodes for patients with cervical and upper thoracic ESCC. A retrospective analysis was performed on 230 patients with locally advanced cervical or upper thoracic ESCC who underwent radical radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The range of SCLN regions was defined in detail on contrast enhanced computed tomography images of the neck. According to whether the patient had lymph node metastasis in the supraclavicular region, the included patients were divided into two groups, and the survival differences and reasons for treatment failure between the two groups were analyzed. Of the 230 patients with ESCC, 71 (30.87%) exhibited lymph node metastases in the supraclavicular region. The median overall survival time of ESCC patients with and without SCLN metastasis was 17 and 30 months, respectively (P<0.001). After propensity score matching (PSM), the median overall survival time of ESCC patients with and without SCLN metastasis was 17 and 28 months, respectively (P<0.001). During the follow-up period, there were a total of 101 cases of failure of treatment in the irradiation field, 6 cases had esophageal metastasis in the non-irradiated field and 27 cases had regional lymph node metastasis in the non-irradiated field. In addition, there were 33 cases of metastasis to the distant lymph nodes or organs. There was no significant difference in the local treatment failure rate between the groups with or without SCLN metastasis in both the irradiation field and the non-irradiation field, but the probability of distant metastasis in the SCLN metastasis group was significantly higher than that in the group without SCLN metastasis (P=0.025). In conclusion, patients with cervical and upper thoracic ESCC with SCLN metastasis have a poor prognosis and the median overall survival time is closer to that of metastatic ESCC than ESCC with regional lymph node metastasis; therefore, SCLNs should not be defined as regional lymph nodes in patients with cervical and upper thoracic ESCC.

Research on Graph Multi-Attention Neural Network for Power System Transient Stability Assessment

Abstract Diagnosing the stability of power grids based on artificial intelligence technology is a research trend. The existing artificial intelligence stability analysis methods rely on a large number of fault case data, while the graph neural network method ignores the correlation characteristics of nodes themselves and the correlation of long-distance nodes. In order to solve the problems, the graph multi-attention neural network (GMANN) was proposed. The self-attention, which characterizes the correlation between different state quantities of a single node, is proposed, firstly. Then, long-distance association attention, which represents the correlation of distant nodes in the power grid, was proposed. The long-distance correlation attention and the adjacent correlation attention in graph attention network are fused to form a global attention that reflects the global importance of the power grid. The channel attention that characterizes the importance of different pooling methods of graph convolutional network is extracted and used to obtain the importance of different convolution operations. Finally, based on the multi-source attention fusion strategy, global attention and channel attention are embedded in the graph attention neural network to form a multi-level evaluation model to achieve power grid stability evaluation efficiently guided by multiple attentions. The proposed GMANN is verified based on simulated fault cases obtained from the 10-machine 39-node system in New England. The results show that the accuracy of the GMANN can reach 97.34%, which is better than other methods. And the missed judgment rate of important indicators is significantly better than other methods.

Domination based graph neural networks

Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) have emerged as a widely used and effective method across various domains for learning from graph data. Despite the abundance of GNN variants, many struggle with effectively propagating messages over long distances. This paper introduces a novel hierarchical message passing framework for graph learning, specifically designed to address the challenge of long-distance message propagation in graphs. By constructing smaller graphs from the main graph using the concept of domination, a fundamental principle in graph theory, we facilitate more efficient message passing within each subgraph. Subsequently, we employ a Graph Attention Network (GAT) to aggregate these features and propagate them to distant nodes across the graph. Experimental results on standard node classification datasets validate that the proposed architecture achieves performance comparable to or better than conventional GNNs. Additionally, our model consistently performs better on graphs with missing edges.

Clinical significance of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) to the distant metastatic lymph nodes for metastatic cervical cancer

ObjectiveTo retrospectively explore the clinical significance of radiotherapy to the distant metastatic lymph nodes (cervical/ clavicular/ mediastinal et al.) in metastatic cervical cancer. Hereinto, these cervicothoracic lymph nodes were metastasized from IB1-IVA (initial stage at first treatment), and IVB initially had metastatic disease in these areas at diagnosis.MethodsMetastatic cervical cancer only with the distant cervicothoracic metastatic lymph nodes (cervical/ clavicular/ mediastinal et al.), without distant parenchymal organs metastasis such as lung, liver, bone, and peritoneum, were enrolled in the analysis. These patients were classified into IB1-IVA and IVB based on their initial stage of first treatment. All patients received IMRT for the distant metastatic lymph nodes. The progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were analyzed using the Kaplan–Meier method.ResultsOverall, the median PFS was 9 months, and the median OS was 27 months. The subgroup analysis showed that for IB1-IVA, the median PFS was 11 months, and the median OS was 30.5 months. For IVB, the median PFS was 8 months, and the median OS was 16 months.ConclusionRadiotherapy is beneficial to the distant metastatic lymph nodes (cervical/ clavicular/ mediastinal et al.), and could effectively bring the longer PFS and OS for metastatic cervical cancer.

Clinical Value of Dual Tracer PET Imaging With 68Ga-PSMA and 18F-FDG in Patients With Metastatic Prostate Cancer

In this study, we retrospectively analyzed the imaging characteristics of dual-tracer 68Ga-prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA) and 18F-flurodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) in metastatic prostate cancer (mPCa) patients. We analyzed the uptake modes of the dual tracers, explored clinical pathological parameters affecting the 18F-FDG uptake in the lesions, and evaluated their prognostic implications for prostate specific antigen progression-free survival (PSA-PFS). A total of 41 mPCa patients who underwent dual-tracer PET/CT (68Ga-PSMA and 18F-FDG) scans between September 2021 and January 2024 were retrospectively enrolled. One patient had negative uptake of both PSMA and FDG. According to the uptake patterns of the 2 tracers, the other patients, 40 in total, were categorized in 2 groups, including group A consisting of 33 cases who showed PSMA and FDG dual and those who showed FDG only avidity, and group B consisting of 7 cases who showed PSMA avidity only. Comparative analyses of clinical pathological characteristics between group A and group B were conducted. The relationship between various parameters and PSA-PFS was analyzed by the Kaplan-Meier method. A total of 26 patients (63.4%) were diagnosed with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC), and 38 cases (92.7%) had a Gleason score of 8-9. Bone metastasis, the predominant type of distant metastasis, occurred in 36 cases (87.8%). The skeletal and distant lymph node metastases mostly showed a dual positive uptake pattern for both PSMA and FDG (85.7% [24/28] and 81.8% [9/11]). 37.5% (3/8) of the metastases to organs showed FDG only positive uptake pattern. The serum levels of prostate specific antigen (PSA) in group A were significantly higher than those in group B (P=0.013). A total of 13 patients of special pathological classification (intraductal carcinoma and neuroendocrine differentiation) were all found to be in group A. Among the 41 cases, 16 were lost to follow-up. Of the 25 patients who completed follow-up, 9 patients, with a median PSA value of 104 ng/mL, experienced PSA progression, while the 16 other patients, with a median PSA of 0.34 ng/mL, did not incur any PSA progression. There was significant difference in the median PSA between patients showing PSA progression and those who did not show PSA progression (P<0.001). Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that the median PSA-PFS of patients of specific pathological classifications was 7 months, which was shorter than the 16 months of the patients with typical prostate cancer, with the difference between the two groups being statistically meaningful (P=0.043). The median PSA-PFS for group A was 30 months. With more than half of the patients in the group not experiencing any PSA progression, group B did not reach the median PSA-PFS (P=0.645). Dual-tracer PET/CT imaging with 68Ga-PSMA and 18F-FDG commonly exhibits avidity for both tracers in mPCa. Serum PSA level is a reliable biomarker for predicting FDG-positive lesions. mPCa presented with intraductal carcinoma and neuroendocrine differentiation tends to exhibit FDG avidity and is more susceptible to PSA progression.

Real-world outcomes of stage II and III colorectal cancers treated by postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy based on the mismatch repair status.

In Japan, immunohistochemistry for mismatch repair (MMR) proteins targeted at stage II and III colorectal cancers (CRCs) has been covered by national insurance since October, 2022. This study aimed to clarify the long-term outcomes of patients with stage II and III CRCs receiving postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy based on their MMR status. The outcomes of 640 patients who underwent radical surgery for stage II and III CRCs were analyzed retrospectively. Deficient MMR (dMMR) was diagnosed in 41 (13.3%) patients with stage II and 28 (9.1%) patients with stage III CRC. The overall survival and recurrence rates were not significantly different between the patients with stage II and those with stage III CRC. The risk factors for recurrence among those with stage II CRC were tumors on the left side, T4 disease, and the presence of BRAF wild type. The recurrence rates were lower in the stage II CRC patients with sporadic dMMR than in those with suspected Lynch syndrome (LS). The first site of recurrence was more frequently the peritoneum or distant lymph node in patients with dMMR. Stage IICRC patients with sporadic dMMR were found to have a very good prognosis. On the other hand, peritoneal dissemination or distant lymph node metastasis tended to develop in patients with dMMR.

In vivo spatiotemporal characterizing diverse body transportation of optical labeled high immunity aluminium adjuvants with photoacoustic tomography

Vaccine development requires high-resolution, in situ, and visual adjuvant technology. To address this need, this work proposed a novel adjuvant labeling that involved indocyanine green (ICG) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) with self-assembled aluminium adjuvant (Alum), which was called BSA@ICG@Alum. This compound exhibited excellent photoacoustic properties and has been confirmed its safety, biocompatibility, high antigen binding efficiency, and superior induction of immune response. Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) tracked the distribution of Alum in lymph nodes (LNs) and lymphatic vessels in real time after diverse injection modalities. The non-invasive imaging approach revealed that BSA@ICG@Alum was transported to the draining LNs 60 min after intramuscular injection and to distal LNs within 30 min after lymph node injection. In conclusion, PAT enabled real-time three-dimensional and quantitative visualization, thus offering a powerful tool for advancing vaccine design by providing critical insights into adjuvant transport and immune system activation.

Entanglement buffering with two quantum memories

Quantum networks crucially rely on the availability of high-quality entangled pairs of qubits, known as entangled links, distributed across distant nodes. Maintaining the quality of these links is a challenging task due to the presence of time-dependent noise, also known as decoherence. Entanglement purification protocols offer a solution by converting multiple low-quality entangled states into a smaller number of higher-quality ones. In this work, we introduce a framework to analyse the performance of entanglement buffering setups that combine entanglement consumption, decoherence, and entanglement purification. We propose two key metrics: the availability, which is the steady-state probability that an entangled link is present, and the average consumed fidelity, which quantifies the steady-state quality of consumed links. We then investigate a two-node system, where each node possesses two quantum memories: one for long-term entanglement storage, and another for entanglement generation. We model this setup as a continuous-time stochastic process and derive analytical expressions for the performance metrics. Our findings unveil a trade-off between the availability and the average consumed fidelity. We also bound these performance metrics for a buffering system that employs the well-known bilocal Clifford purification protocols. Importantly, our analysis demonstrates that, in the presence of noise, consistently purifying the buffered entanglement increases the average consumed fidelity, even when some buffered entanglement is discarded due to purification failures.

NLA-GNN: Non-local information aggregated graph neural network for heterogeneous graph embedding

Heterogeneous graphs are ubiquitous in the real world. Recent methods aim to obtain meaningful low-dimensional node embeddings from heterogeneous graphs to facilitate downstream applications. However, most existing methods tend to consider the local information but ignore the non-local information. This paper proposes a novel Non-Local Information Aggregated Graph Neural Network (NLA-GNN) that aggregate not only the local information from neighbor nodes but also non-local information from distant nodes. Specifically, Local aggregation modules in NLA-GNN utilize the attention mechanism to generate potentially valuable metapaths and use them to aggregate local information. In contrast, non-local aggregation modules adopt a two-step approach, and each step uses an attention-guided method to sort nodes into node sequences and aggregate information with the methods designed for sequential data. Experiment results on three heterogeneous graph datasets demonstrate the performance of NLA-GNN over state-of-the-arts and the necessity of non-local aggregation in heterogeneous graphs.

779. IMMUNE CHECKPOINT INHIBITOR WITH CHEMOTHERAPY (CISPLATIN+5FU) FOR ADVANCED ESOPHAGEAL CANCER

Abstract Background First-line chemotherapy for advanced esophageal carcinoma results in poor outcomes. Compared with placebo plus chemotherapy, pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy improved overall survival in patients with previously untreated, advanced oesophageal squamous cell carcinoma according to the KEYNOTE-590. We studied 17patients for the unresectable esophageal cancer and gastroesophageal junction adenocarcinoma cases treated with pembrolizumab and chemotherapy at our hospital between November 2023 and May 2024. Methods 17 patients with advanced carcinoma of the thoracic esophagus having either T4 tumor or distant lymph node metastasis were enrolled in this study. pembrolizumab 200mg/m2 and CDDP 80 mg/m2 was administered on days 1 and 5-FU 800 mg/m2 was administered on days 1-5 intravenously 3corse in 3-week cycles. Results Back ground: Averaged Age 76 (55-86), male: female =16:1, location (Ce: Ut: mt: Lt: Jz =1:1:6:6:3), strength 71mm (30-120), Stage (IVA: IVB= 7:10), Pathology (SCC: AD= 16:1), Times (3 courses completed: uncompleted: ongoing=9:3:5), Response PR:SD:PD: unknown=6:1:2:8, Toxicity: iRAE: liver dysfunction: Febrile neutropenia=4:2:6, The incidence of Grade 3 or higher adverse events was 3/15. One toxicity-related death occurred. We performed conversive esophagectomy for 2 patients. After chemotherapy: operation: radiation: observation: death:=2:2:10:3 Conclusion and discussion Due to the small number of cases, it is unclear whether the treatment was safe in a single center. I would like to consider increasing the number of cases. We will show one toxicity-related death and two conversive operation.