Abnormal liver function tests associated with severe rhabdomyolysis

Rhabdomyolysis is a syndrome of skeletal muscle injury with release of cellular constituents such as potassium,phosphate,urate and intracellular proteins such as myoglobin into the circulation,which may cause complications including acute kidney injury,electrolyte disturbance and cardiac instability.Abnormal liver function tests are frequently observed in cases of severe rhabdomyolysis.Typically,there is an increase in serum aminotransferases,namely aspartate aminotransferase and alanine aminotransferase.This raises the question of liver injury and often triggers a pathway of investigation which may lead to a liver biopsy.However,muscle can also be a source of the increased aminotransferase activity.This review discusses the dilemma of finding abnormal liver function tests in the setting of muscle injury and the potential implications of such an association.It delves into some of the clinical and experimental evidence for correlating muscle injury to raised aminotransferases,and discusses pathophysiological mechanisms such as oxidative stress which may cause actual liver injury.Serum aminotransferases lack tissue specificity to allow clinicians to distinguish primary liver injury from muscle injury.This review also explores potential approaches to improve the accuracy of our diagnostic tools,so that excessive or unnecessary liver investigations can be avoided.     

Patient preferences and predicted relative uptake for targeted therapies in metastatic colorectal cancer: a discrete choice experiment

Abstract

Objective

Ras wild-type metastatic colorectal cancers (mCRC) may be treated with anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) or anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) agents. We aim to estimate patients’ preferences for mCRC treatment and relative importance of cost, efficacy improvement, avoidance of side effects and therapy convenience, and relative uptake between profiles that resemble Bevacizumab (anti-VEGF) and Cetuximab (anti-EGFR), two commonly prescribed mCRC targeted therapies.     

新生血管特异性结合肽GX1二聚体抑制胃癌新生血管生成的实验研究

目的:探讨新生血管特异性结合肽GX1二聚体对胃癌新生血管生成的影响。方法:化学合成GX1二聚体、GX1单体、对照肽二聚体，CCK-8实验、管状结构形成实验、迁移实验研究GX1二聚体对胃癌血管内皮细胞（co-HUVEC）增殖、微管形成、迁移能力的影响，流式细胞学技术分析其对细胞周期分布和凋亡的影响。结果:CCK-8结果显示，GX1二聚体与对照肽二聚体及PBS对照组相比，100~200 μmol/L可抑制co-HUVEC增殖，具有统计学差异（P<0.05），并呈剂量依赖性，GX1二聚体较单体抑制作用增强，并有统计学差异（P<0.05）。管状结构形成实验、细胞损伤迁移实验结果显示，与对照肽二聚体及对照组PBS 相比，GX1二聚体及GX1单体，均可抑制胃癌内皮细胞管状结构的形成及迁移，且二聚体抑制作用强于单体；对照肽二聚体仅有轻微的抑制胃癌内皮细胞管状结构的形成及迁移。流式细胞术分析显示，与对照肽二聚体及PBS对照组相比，GX1二聚体及GX1单体均可诱导细胞凋亡（P<0.05），且GX1二聚体的诱导作用强于GX1单体（P<0.05），而对细胞周期分布则无明显影响。结论:GX1二聚体和GX1单体均可抑制胃癌新生血管内皮细胞增殖、微管形成、迁移能力及诱导凋亡，且GX1二聚体较GX1单体作用增强。GX1二聚体有望代替单体成为胃癌新生血管靶向治疗小肽类药物。