Notice for Apologies

I am terribly sorry to give the notice that the copyright of the article ＂IL-24/MDA-7 Suppressed the Transplantation Tumor in BALB/c Mice＂ belongs to Dr. Xiao-Lian Zhang＇s group, which has been issued by my group on Cell Mol Immunol [Cell Mol Immunol. 2006;3（5）：385-390] without their permission. Now, I express my deepmost apologies to Prof. Zhang＇s group and all readers of Cell Mol Immunol, and announce that this article should be retracted.     

Antigen-specific versus antigen-nonspecific immunotherapeutic approaches for human melanoma: the need for integration for optimal efficacy?

Due to its immunogenecity and evidence of immune responses resulting in tumor regression, metastatic melanoma has been the target for numerous immunotherapeutic approaches. Unfortunately, based on the clinical outcomes, even the successful induction of tumor-specific responses does not correlate with efficacy. Immunotherapies can be divided into antigen-specific approaches, which seek to induce T cells specific to one or several known tumor associated antigens (TAA), or with antigen-nonspecific approaches, which generally activate T cells to become nonspecifically lytic effectors. Here the authors critically review the different immunotherapeutic approaches in melanoma.     

Image Data Sharing for Biomedical Research—Meeting HIPAA Requirements for De-identification

Data sharing is increasingly recognized as critical to cross-disciplinary research and to assuring scientific validity. Despite National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation policies encouraging data sharing by grantees, little data sharing of clinical data has in fact occurred. A principal reason often given is the potential of inadvertent violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy regulations. While regulations specify the components of private health information that should be protected, there are no commonly accepted methods to de-identify clinical data objects such as images. This leads institutions to take conservative risk-averse positions on data sharing. In imaging trials, where images are coded according to the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) standard, the complexity of the data objects and the flexibility of the DICOM standard have made it especially difficult to meet privacy protection objectives. The recent release of DICOM Supplement 142 on image de-identification has removed much of this impediment. This article describes the development of an open-source software suite that implements DICOM Supplement 142 as part of the National Biomedical Imaging Archive (NBIA). It also describes the lessons learned by the authors as NBIA has acquired more than 20 image collections encompassing over 30 million images.     

Immune reaction to breast cancer: for better or for worse?

The infiltration of breast carcinomas with lymphoid cells has often been interpreted as an indication of an active immune response against the tumour and, thus, a favourable prognostic sign. Several studies have, however, cast doubt on this assumption. In situ breast carcinomas are more common than invasive cancers, and it may be speculated that immune surveillance plays a role in preventing some localized cancers from becoming invasive. A secondary type of immune surveillance might be implicated in the long persistence of dormant breast carcinoma cells in the bone marrow. Breast cancer cells can carry tumor-associated antigens, particularly MUC1. These may elicit specific antibody responses, but there is less evidence for a cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) response. There are indications that professional antigen-presenting cells (APC) may be present and active at the edges of breast tumours. Breast cancer cells may also interact directly with macrophages and natural killer (NK) cells. In terms of immune effector mechanisms in breast cancer, the communication with potential effector cells is likely to be often faulty because of altered expression of HLA class I molecules. Pleiotrophic cytokines are frequently present and could have a variety of effects ranging from growth inhibition to stimulated proliferation, loss of cell adhesion and activation of matrix-degrading enzymes. Fas ligand is unlikely to play a role in the immune evasion of breast cancer. There is thus evidence for a variety of immune reactions to breast cancer. It is possible that they mediate some form of surveillance, but growing, invasive tumours have escape routes and may even use cytokines to their advantage.     

Cell therapy for diabetes mellitus: an opportunity for stem cells?

Diabetes is a chronic disease characterized by a deficit in beta cell mass and a failure of glucose homeostasis. Both circumstances result in a variety of severe complications and an overall shortened life expectancy. Thus, diabetes represents an attractive candidate for cell therapy. Reversal of diabetes can be achieved through pancreas and islet transplantation, but shortage of donor organs has prompted an intensive search for alternative sources of beta cells. This achievement has stimulated the search for appropriate stem cell sources. Both embryonic and adult stem cells have been used to generate surrogate beta cells or otherwise restore beta cell functioning. In this regard, several studies have reported the generation of insulin-secreting cells from embryonic and adult stem cells that normalized blood glucose values when transplanted into diabetic animal models. Due to beta cell complexity, insulin-producing cells generated from stem cells do not possess all beta cell attributes. This indicates the need for further development of methods for differentiation and selection of completely functional beta cells. While these problems are overcome, diabetic patients may benefit from therapeutic strategies based on autologous stem cell therapies addressing late diabetic complications. In this article, we discuss the recent progress in the generation of insulin-producing cells from embryonic and adult stem cells, together with the challenges for the clinical use of diabetes stem cell therapy.     

A continuous curriculum for general practice? Proposals for undergraduate-postgraduate collaboration.

The development of a seamless general practice 'spiral' curriculum, in which topics may be revisited at different levels of intensity and complexity during the learning process, has been discussed in the context of undergraduate-postgraduate co-operation. Although the lifelong curriculum for all doctors contains a number of core competencies that aim to produce a 'stem' doctor, concerns remain about the effects of excessive reductionism. It is therefore essential that the content and delivery of the spiral curriculum ensure that intellectual interest is nurtured, by containing both taught theory and training in a hospital context. The opportunity for generalists to teach core competencies such that general practice is at the centre of the undergraduate curriculum--emphasising working within primary health care teams in teaching and training practices--is an ideal area for undergraduate-postgraduate co-operation. The use of the directly observed measures of performance would bring the undergraduate approach to assessment closer to that used in postgraduate general practice. However, supporting the tutors' network is crucial in undergraduate departments where much can be gained by joint working with postgraduate colleagues.     

Is healthy eating for obese children necessarily more costly for families?

Background

During consultations on weight management in childhood obesity clinics, the additional costs incurred by healthy eating are often cited, as an economic barrier to achieving a better nutritional balance.

Aim

To examine whether adopting an improved theoretical, balanced diet compared to current dietary habits in children incurs additional cost.

Design and setting

Children aged 5–16 years (body mass index [BMI] ≥98th percentile) recruited to a randomised trial comparing a hospital-based and primary care childhood obesity clinics provided data for this study.

Method

Three-day dietary diaries collected at baseline were analysed for energy and fat intake and then compared to a theoretical, adjusted healthy-eating diet based on the Food Standards Agency, ‘Eatwell plate’. Both were priced contemporaneously using the appropriate portion size, at a neighbourhood, mid-range supermarket, at a budget supermarket, and on the local high street.

Results

The existing diet purchased at a budget supermarket was cheapest (£2.48/day). The healthier, alternative menu at the same shop cost an additional 33 pence/day (£2.81). The same exercise in a mid-range supermarket, incurred an additional cost of 4 pence per day (£3.40 versus £3.44). Switching from an unhealthy mid-range supermarket menu to the healthier, budget-outlet alternative saved 59 pence per day. The healthier, alternative menu was cheaper than the existing diet if purchased on the high street (£3.58 versus £3.75), although for both menus this was most expensive.

Conclusion

For many obese children, eating healthily would not necessarily incur prohibitive, additional financial cost, although a poor diet at a budget supermarket remains the cheapest of all options. Cost is a possible barrier to healthy eating for the most economically disadvantaged.     

Debate: the argument for. Should every STD clinic patient be considered for type-specific serological screening for HSV?

The arguments against screening for all individuals attending sexually transmitted disease and genitourinary medicine clinics for herpes simplex virus may seem compelling, but an examination of the facts indicate that the case in favour is strong. While no screening test is perfect, testing can confirm the diagnosis, improve management, help to reduce the risk of transmission - including to the newborn - and assist in the development of public health strategies. Not least, patients want to know whether or not they are infected. In this article we look at the arguments in favour of screening.     

Peer-review for selection of oral presentations for conferences: Are we reliable?

IntroductionAlthough peer-review for journal submission, grant-applications and conference submissions has been called ‘a counter- stone of science’, and even ‘the gold standard for evaluating scientific merit’, publications on this topic remain scares.Research that has investigated peer-review reveals several issues and criticisms concerning bias, poor quality review, unreliability and inefficiency. The most important weakness of the peer review process is the inconsistency between reviewers leading to inadequate inter-rater reliability.Aim of the paperTo report the reliability of ratings for a large international conference and to suggest possible solutions to overcome the problem.MethodsIn 2016 during the International Conference on Communication in Healthcare, organized by EACH: International Association for Communication in Healthcare, a calibration exercise was proposed and feedback was reported back to the participants of the exercise.ResultsMost abstracts, as well as most peer-reviewers, receive and give scores around the median. Contrary to the general assumption that there are high and low scorers, in this group only 3 peer-reviewers could be identified with a high mean, while 7 has a low mean score. Only 2 reviewers gave only high ratings (4 and 5). Of the eight abstracts included in this exercise, only one abstract received a high mean score and one a low mean score. Nevertheless, both these abstracts received both low and high scores; all other abstracts received all possible scores.DiscussionPeer-review of submissions for conferences are, in accordance with the literature, unreliable. New and creative methods will be needed to give the participants of a conference what they really deserve: a more reliable selection of the best abstracts.Practice implicationsMore raters per abstract improves the inter-rater reliability; training of reviewers could be helpful; providing feedback to reviewers can lead to less inter-rater disagreement; fostering negative peer-review (rejecting the inappropriate submissions) rather than a positive (accepting the best) could be fruitful for selecting abstracts for conferences.