A Prospective and Retrospective Clinical Controlled Observation of Chinese Herbal Decoction (SMLJ01) for Type 1 Gastric Neuroendocrine Tumors

Management of type 1 gastric neuroendocrine tumors: an 11-year retrospective single-center study

BACKGROUND

Type 1 gastric neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) are relatively rare to the extent that some physicians have little experience in diagnosing and treating them. The purpose of this study was to increase the understanding of the disease by analyzing and summarizing the management and prognoses of patients with type 1 gastric NETs at our center.

METHODS

The data of 229 patients (59.4% female) with type 1 gastric NETs who were treated at our center during 2011-2022 were retrospectively analyzed.

RESULTS

The average patient age was 50.5 ± 10.8 years. Multiple tumors affected 72.5% of the patients; 66.4% of the tumors were < 1 cm, 69.4% were NET G1, and 2.2% were stage III-IV. A total of 76.9% of the patients had received endoscopic management, 60.7% had received traditional Chinese medicine treatment, 10.5% received somatostatin analogues treatment, and 6.6% underwent surgical resection. Seventy patients (41.2%) experienced the first recurrence after a median follow-up of 31 months (range: 2-122 months), and the median recurrence-free time was 43 months. The 1-, 2-, and 3-year cumulative recurrence-free survival rates were 71.8%, 56.8%, and 50.3%, respectively. During a median follow-up of 39 months (range: 2-132 months), one patient had bilateral pulmonary metastasis, and no disease-related deaths were observed.

CONCLUSION

Type 1 gastric NETs have a high recurrence rate and a long disease course, underscoring the importance of long-term and comprehensive management.

Mechanism of Action of Yin Nourishing and Heat Clearing Prescription in Treating Cough Variant Asthma Based on Network Pharmacology and Molecular Docking Verification

Objective. To explore the mechanism of action of the yin nourishing and heat clearing prescription in treating cough variant asthma (CVA) based on network pharmacology (NP). Methods. The active ingredients and targets of the yin nourishing and heat clearing prescription were screened using the Traditional Chinese Medicine System Pharmacology Analysis Platform (TCMSP); CVA targets were screened by the GeneCards, NCBI gene, and OMIM databases to construct the component-target network and the protein-protein interaction (PPI) network. GO functional enrichment analysis and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway enrichment analysis of the target genes were performed to construct the component-disease-pathway-target biological network. Moreover, CVA-related core target structures with high values were subjected to molecular docking (MD) with the active components. Results. We found 265 eligible targets in the prescription and 1115 CVA-related genes. The medicine targets were intersected with disease targets, which yielded 148 common targets. After topology analysis, 66 key targets were screened. Upon GO functional annotation, 2408 biological processes, 153 molecular functions, and 162 KEGG pathways were enriched. Molecular docking results suggested that the major active ingredients of the prescription showed high affinity to the key targets, among which AKT1 might be the most important target. Conclusions. Active ingredients might act on AKT1, IL-6, VEGFA, IL-1B, and JUN to suppress eosinophil accumulation, decrease histamine release, suppress airway inflammation, regulate the airway immune microenvironment, increase autophagy in lung tissue, inhibit mucus production, and reduce airway resistance and hyperresponsiveness, thus treating CVA. Our findings provide a reference for further research and clinical applications of the prescription.

Circulating miRNA-202-3p is a potential novel biomarker for diagnosis of type 1 gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms

Background

Currently, there are no circulating diagnostic biomarkers for gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms (g-NENs). In previous studies, we found that miRNA-202-3p is overexpressed in the tumour tissue of type 1 g-NEN. We speculated that miRNA-202-3p is also likely to be highly expressed in circulating blood.

Methods

A total of 27 patients with type 1 g-NEN and 27 age- and sex-matched control participants were enrolled in this study. The miRNA-202-3p levels in serum obtained from the participants were measured by qRT‐PCR. The expression level of miRNA-202-3p in the samples was calculated by comparison with a standard curve.

Results

The clinical characteristics of the patients were similar to those of the patient samples in previous reports. Expression of miRNA-202-3p was significantly higher in the patient group (3.84 × 10⁷ copies/nl) than in the control group (0.635 × 10⁷ copies/nl). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.878 (95% CI: 0.788–0.968), and the optimal cut-off point was approximately 1.12 × 10⁷ copies/nl. The sensitivity and specificity were 88.9% and 77.8%, respectively.

Conclusion

This study suggests that miRNA-202-3p is potentially useful as a biomarker of type 1 g-NEN; further investigation and verification should be performed in future research.