IN VITRO ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTICANCER ACTIVITIES OF ETHANOLIC FRUITS EXTRACT OF Ziziphus jujube Mill.

Objective: Antioxidant and anticancer studies of the ethanolic fruit extract of Ziziphus jujuba were aimed at detecting the phytochemicals and ascertain the antioxidant and anticancer activities using in vitro experimental models. Materials and Methods: In this study, physiochemical parameters were carried out, and the content of phytoorganic constituents such as total carbohydrates, fats, proteins, crude fibers, and flavonoids was determined. Liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) has been used for detecting the phytochemicals, and 10 different concentrations have been screened for their antioxidant and anticancer activities. Results: Ethanolic fruit extract of Z. jujuba revealed the presence of caffeic acid hexoside dimer, chlorogenic acid, and triterpenoid derivative by LC–MS analysis. The extract exhibited the maximum antioxidant activity of 25.32% at 10 mg/ml in 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl free radical scavenging assays, which are comparable to that of standard butylated hydroxytoluene. High concentration (10 mg/ml) of the extract revealed anticancer efficacy up to 40.36% by MTT assay, which is equivalent to the action of 5-flurouracil. Conclusion: The ethanolic fruit extract of Z. jujuba might possess antioxidant and anticancer activities owing to the occurrence of bioactive compounds

Evaluation of HER-2/neu status in Gastric Carcinoma

INTRODUCTION: Gastric carcinoma is the fourth most commonly diagnosed cancer in the world and is the second leading cause of cancer related death. In the West, the incidence is spontaneously declining for unknown reasons. In Asia it is still one of the commonest cancers accounting to around 13% of all malignancies. In countries like Japan and Korea in Eastern Asia, it accounts for 56% of all malignancies. Early diagnosis is challenging because of absence of symptoms in this stage of disease. More than 50% of patients with gastric cancer present in advanced, unresectable stages, making cure impossible. Two-thirds of these patients who undergo radical surgery will experience. Systemic treatment is the only option for the patients presenting in advanced stages. The median survival after diagnosis of metastatic disease is approximately 10-11 months with currently available therapies. Despite the introduction of multimodality treatment, neoadjuvant chemotherapy, postoperative chemoradiation and new chemotherapeutic regimens, there is only a minimal impact on the relapse free survival and overall survival of these patients. Many single agents and combination chemotherapeutic agents are active in the treatment of metastatic disease. Objective response rates ranging from 10% to 30% for single-agent and 30% to 60% for combination regimens have been reported. Although a large number of chemotherapy regimens are available, there is still no internationally accepted standard of care. Survival of patients presenting with advanced gastric cancer is still only 4%-10% at five years. Newer therapies are urgently needed for their better outcome. Recently, understanding of the molecular basis of cancer has contributed to the development of rationally designed molecular targeted therapies, which interfere with signalling cascades involved in cell differentiation, proliferation, and survival, of which EGFR plays an important role. Trastuzumab is one of the targeted drugs against EGFR2 (commonly known as HER-2/neu) and has recently shown to increase survival in patients with metastatic gastric carcinoma when given along with combination chemotherapy. Recent evidence suggests that patients diagnosed with metastatic gastric cancer should have the HER-2/neu status of their tumors to get benefit from treatment with Trastuzumab in combination with chemotherapy in case of HER-2/neu positivity. We conducted, this study to analyse the prevalence and significance of HER-2/neu over expression in patients with gastric carcinoma. AIM OF THE STUDY: The aim of this study: 1. To assess HER-2/neu overexpression in gastric carcinoma patients. 2. To assess the correlation between HER-2/neu overexpression and clinico-pathologic characteristics. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study is a Prospective study conducted in the Department of Medical Oncology, Madras Medical College and Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital for a period of one year between January 2011 and December 2011. Informed written consent was obtained from all patients prior to the start of the study. Institutional Ethics committee approval was obtained at the start of the study. Inclusion criteria: 1. Patients aged 18-65 years with gastric carcinoma proven by histopathology. 2. Adenocarcinoma by histology. Exclusion criteria: Histologies other than adneocarcinoma. METHODS: All selected patients underwent diagnostic upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. A CT scan of abdomen was done for all patients as staging procedure. The AJCC TNM cancer staging 7th edition was used for staging. Of the 50 samples evaluated, 25 were endoscopic specimens and 25 were post gastrectomy specimens. RESULTS: A total of 50 patients were included in this study. Various clinicopathologic characteristic features like age, sex, histopathological type and grade were analysed for association with Her-2/neu gene overexpression. IHC SCORE: Out of 50 patients, 10 (20%) were 3+, 3 patients (6%) had 2+, 10 patients (20%) had 1+ and 27 patients (54%) had 0 score by IHC. SUMMARY: The study titled “Evaluation of HER-2/neu status in Gastric Carcinoma” was a prospective study of 50 patients with newly diagnosed Gastric Carcinoma, admitted in the Department of Medical Oncology, Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Chennai. Eligible patients underwent clinical examination, endoscopy, CT Abdomen and Surgery if feasible. All patients underwent HER-2/neu status assessed in the histopathological specimen obtained by endoscopic biopsy or post gastrectomy specimen. The correlation between HER-2/neu status overexpression and clinicopathological features was analysed. There was no significant association between HER-2/neu status and clinicopathological features. CONCLUSION: The following conclusions were made from this study 1. Patients in this study presented at younger age than quoted in the western population. 2. The prevalence of HER-2/neu overexpression was 20% in this study population. 3. HER-2/neu overexpression was not associated with any major clinical or pathological features. 4. Since targeting HER-2/neu has shown an overall survival benefit of 2.7 months in literature, it can be recommended that all patients with newly diagnosed gastric cancer should undergo HER-2/neu testing for subsequent treatment with anti HER-2/neu therapy

An analysis of stromal expression of CD10 in invasive ductal carcinoma of breast and its correlation with histological grade

Background: Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers among women in India. Stroma has an important role in the pathogenesis of carcinoma of breast. Stromal marker can be novel marker for assessing the prognosis of breast cancer.Methods: With the representative sections of 30 invasive ductal carcinoma of breast NOS type Hematoxylin and eosin staining was done. Immunohistochemistry was done with CD10. CD10 expression in stroma in cases and control slides were studied and statistically analyzed with histopathological grade.Results: 46% (14 out of 30) of cases showed strong positivity for stromal CD10. Only two cases of strong positivity for CD10 were noted in the adjacent normal breast parenchyma. Stromal expression of CD10 had a statistically significant association with breast carcinoma than in control slides, p value is 0.002. 77% (10 out of 13) of CD10 positive cases were high grade carcinomas. Association of CD10 expression with high grade tumour was statistically significant (p value is 0.04 which is less than 0.05). No association was found with mean age.Conclusions: As the grade of breast carcinoma increases the stromal expression of CD10 is increased. Stromal CD10 expression is directly correlated with higher tumour grade. CD10 could be used as novel prognostic marker and used to develop newer drugs.

Preschool Children’s Processing of Events during Verb Learning: Is the Focus on People (Faces) or Their Actions (Hands)?

Verbs are central to the syntactic structure of sentences, and, thus, important for learning one’s native language. This study examined how children visually inspect events as they hear, and do not hear, a new verb. Specifically, there is evidence that children may focus on the agent of the action or may prioritize attention to the action being performed; to date, little evidence is available. This study used an eye tracker to track 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds’ looking to the agent (i.e., face) vs. action (i.e., hands) while viewing events linked to a new verb as well as distractor events. A Tobii X30 eye tracker recorded children’s fixations to AOIs (head/face and hands) as they watched three target events and two distractor events in different orders during the learning phase, and pointed to one of two events in two test trials. This was repeated for a second novel verb. Pointing results show that children in all age groups were able to learn and extend the new verbs to new events at test. Additionally, across age groups, when viewing target events, children increased their looking to the hands (where the action is taking place) as those trials progressed and decreased their looking to the agents’ face, which is less informative for learning a new verb’s meaning. In contrast, when viewing distractor events, children decreased their looking to hands over trials and maintained their attention to the face. In summary, children’s visual attention to agents’ faces and hands differed depending on whether the events cooccurred with the new verb. These results are important as this is the first study to show this pattern of visual attention during verb learning, and, thus, these results help reveal underlying attentional strategies children may use when learning verbs

Association between Obesity and Histological Tumor Budding in Patients with Nonmetastatic Colon Cancer

Importance: Obesity is associated with increased risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) and a more aggressive disease course. Tumor budding (TB) is an important prognostic factor for CRC, but its association with obesity is unknown. Objective: To evaluate the association of TB with obesity and other prognostic factors in colon cancer. Design, Setting, and Participants: This cohort study involved a histological review of colon cancer specimens obtained during 7 years (January 2008 to December 2015) at the University of Kentucky Medical Center; data analysis was conducted from February 2020 to January 2021. Specimens came from 200 patients with stage I to III colon cancer; patients with stage 0, stage IV, or incomplete data were excluded. Main Outcomes and Measures: TB was defined as 1 to 4 malignant cells at the invasive edge of the tumor, independently assessed by 2 academic pathologists. The primary outcome was the association of TB with obesity (defined as body mass index [BMI] of 30 or greater). Secondary outcomes include the association of TB with clinical features (ie, age, race, sex, TNM stage, tumor location) and pathological features (ie, poorly differentiated tumor clusters [PDCs], Klintrup-Mäkinen inflammatory score, desmoplasia, infiltrative tumor border, tumor necrosis, and tumor-to-stroma ratio). Results: A total of 200 specimens were reviewed. The median (interquartile range) age of patients was 62 (55-72) years, 102 (51.0%) were women, and the mean (SD) BMI was 28.5 (8.4). A total of 57 specimens (28.5%) were from stage I tumors; 74 (37.0%), stage II; and 69 (34.5%), stage III. Of these, 97 (48.5%) had low-grade (\u3c 5 \u3e buds), 36 (18.0%) had intermediate-grade (5-9 buds), and 67 (33.5%) had high-grade (≥ 10 buds) TB. Multivariable analysis adjusting for clinical and histological factors demonstrated that higher TB grade was associated with obesity (odds ratio [OR], 4.25; 95% CI, 1.95-9.26), higher PDC grade (grade 2 vs 1: OR, 9.14; 95% CI, 3.49-23.93; grade 3 vs 1: OR, 5.10; 95% CI, 2.30-11.27), increased infiltrative tumor border (OR, 1.03; 95% CI, 1.01-1.04), cecal location (OR, 2.55; 95% CI, 1.09-5.97), and higher stage (eg, stage III vs stage I for high-grade or intermediate-grade vs low-grade TB: OR, 2.91; 95% CI, 1.00-8.49). Additionally, patients with a higher TB grade had worse overall survival (intermediate vs low TB: hazard ratio, 2.20; 95% CI, 1.11-4.35; log-rank P = .02; high vs low TB: hazard ratio, 2.67; 95% CI, 1.45-4.90; log-rank P \u3c .001). Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study, a novel association between high TB grade and obesity was found. The association could reflect a systemic condition (ie, obesity) locally influencing aggressive growth (ie, high TB) in colon cancer

An Overview on Pashanabedha Medicinal Plants

One of the major kidney diseases that needs a well-targeted therapeutic approach is urolithiasis. For the treatment of lithiasis, a number of medications are available, including diuretics and stone inhibitors, however clinical examination of these medications has revealed a frequency of relapses, adverse effects, and drug interactions. This has served as the justification for the development of new antilithiatic medications, and the hunt for novel molecules has now included herbal medications that provide superior defence and lower relapse rates. Plant-based medications are becoming more popular and are being researched for a variety of illnesses, including lithiasis. A set of medicinal plants known as pashanabheda (literally, ”stonesolving”) are utilised by Ayurvedic doctors in India as anti-urolithiatic medications. The present article reviews the antilithiatic activity of some of the medicinal plants. Here attempt is made to review a few medicinal plants with documented anti-urolithiatic action. In this study, some of the significant plants noted for their antilithiatic effects have been highlighted. Keywords: Urolithiatic; AntiUrolithiatic; Maceration; Turbidimetry; Calcium Oxalat

Evaluation of Mammary Cancer in 7,12-Dimethylbenz(a)anthracene-Induced Wister Rats by Asymmetrical Temperature Distribution Analysis Using Thermography: A Comparison with Serum CEA Levels and Histopathology

Animal surface temperature profile captured using infrared camera is helpful for the assessment of physiological responses associated with the regulation of body temperature. Diagnosing breast cancer in early stage itself has a greater effect on the prognosis. In this work, asymmetrical temperature distribution analysis of chemical carcinogen 7,12-dimethyl benz(a)anthracene-induced in the lower right flank region of Wistar rats (n=6) was carried out to test the potential of thermography in diagnosing mammary cancer and tumor growth over a period of nine weeks in comparison with histopathology results as standard. Temperature difference between the tumor induced lower right and left side of flank region was significant (with P value <0.001), whereas in the abdomen and shoulder there was no significant difference in temperature between right and left sides. Percentage of asymmetrical temperature difference in the tumor induced lower flank region was 0.5 to 2%, whereas in the other regions it was <0.5%. Green pixel distribution in RGB color histogram was asymmetrical in the tumor induced lower flank region. Temperature reduction was observed in the tumor induced region after the seventh day of carcinogen induction. Asymmetrical thermogram analysis is the best method of diagnosing mammary cancer and for studying tumor development