Current practice for gastric cancer treatment in Ukraine

β-Cryptoxanthin induced anti-proliferation and apoptosis by G0/G1 arrest and AMPK signal inactivation in gastric cancer

β-Cryptoxanthin has been associated with reduced-risk of some cancers. However, the mechanisms of β-cryptoxanthin still remain unclearly understood in gastric cancer (GC). In this study, we examined the effect of β-cryptoxanthin on AMPK signal in human gastric cancer cells. AGS and SGC-7901 cells were treated with β-cryptoxanthin (0-40 μM) and AGS cells were injected in BALB/c (nu/nu) mice to analyze the effect of β-cryptoxanthin on GC. We found that β-cryptoxanthin induced inhibitory effect on the cell viability in a time- and concentration-dependent manner. The number of migrated cells and protein levels of matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) -2 and MMP-9 were obviously decreased. β-Cryptoxanthin treatment induced G0/G1 arrest, and reduced the expression of Cyclin E, Cyclin D1, cyclin-dependent kinases (CDK) of CDK4 and CDK6, and increased the expression of p53 and p21 in the two GC cells. Additionally, β-cryptoxanthin induced apoptosis and increased the expression of cleaved caspase-3, -8, -9 as well as cytochrome C (cyt C). β-Cryptoxanthin induced AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) signal inactivation by the down-regulation of protein kinase A (PKA), p-AMPK, eukaryotic elongation factor 2 kinase (eEF2k). Furthermore, β-cryptoxanthin inhibited tumor growth through suppressing the tumor volume and weight, inducing apoptotic cells. Besides, β-cryptoxanthin induced significant reductions of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), epidermal growth factor (EGF), carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and carbohydrate antigen 19-9 (CA19-9). In conclusion, our data provide the novel evidence to understand the mechanism of anti-pcancer of β-cryptoxanthin and indicate that β-cryptoxanthin can serve as a promising chemopreventive agent against gastric cancer.

Value of multi-slice spiral computed tomography in the diagnosis of metastatic lymph nodes and N-stage of gastric cancer

Objective

To establish new diagnostic criteria for improvement of the accuracy of multi-slice spiral computed tomography (MSCT) in diagnosing the N-stage and lymph node (LN) metastasis of gastric cancer (GC).

Methods

MSCT was performed with plain and triphasic dynamic contrast enhancement. Different regions of LN metastasis and N-staging were determined according to the herein-proposed combined diagnostic criteria and were then correlated with the pathological analysis. The Kappa consistency test was used to study the accuracy of MSCT.

Results

The accuracy of MSCT in diagnosing the N-stage as a whole was 86.3%, and that in diagnosing LN metastasis was 79.1% to 98.9%. The Kappa values for stages N0, N1, and N3 ranged from 0.449 to 0.662, indicating good consistency in diagnosing these three stages between MSCT and the postsurgical pathological results. The K_total value was 0.567 between MSCT and the postsurgical pathological results in diagnosing LN metastasis. The risk of LN metastasis increased with the progression of lesion infiltrates.

Conclusions

Application of the combined diagnostic criteria increased the diagnostic performance of MSCT in not only judging the N-stage but also diagnosing LN metastasis. This study will provide valuable reference data for surgical planning for patients with GC in the clinical setting.