The potential molecular therapeutic approach in targeting ovarian clear cell carcinoma

EditorialOvarian Clear Cell Carcinoma (OCCC) is a distinctive subtype of Epithelial Ovarian Cancer (EOC). Compared with other subtypes of EOC, CCC has relatively poor in prognosis and bad outcome in current clinical management using maximal cytoreduction and platinum plus paclitaxel–based combined chemotherapy. Therefore, the investigation of molecular therapeutic approaches targeting at signaling pathways associated with chemoresistance is needed. This review describes some recent potential signaling pathway targets and also suggests putative small molecule kinase inhibitors as well as natural anti-cancer agents in combating this disease.published_or_final_versio

The prognostic and therapeutic potential of AMP-activated protein kinase in ovarian cancer

Topics 3 - Translational Research for Ovarian Cancer: no. 3-2Ovarian cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-associated death in women. The high mortality is due to its poor prognosis as most cases are found in late stages. Therefore, searching reliable tumor markers is urgently needed for clinical management of this disease. Altered cellular metabolism is a crucial phenomenon for the development and progression of ovarian cancer. AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) acts as a key intracellular energy sensor and regulator for governing energy balance homeostasis. It also closely links with cancer cell metabolism. Others and we have reported that the activation of AMPK by pharmacological agents shows cytotoxicity to cancer cells, indicating that targeting AMPK could be a promising therapeutic approach. On the other hand, our study also demonstrated that the AMPK activity had an inversely correlation between tumor stage and/or high grade ovarian cancer. Import...postprin

Molecular detection of minimal residual disease for patients with leukemia and lymphoma

Although a complete clinical remission can often be achieved with chemotherapy for patients with leukaemia and lymphoma, relapses still occur. Residual tumour cells probably have survived therapy and account for subsequent disease relapse. The sensitivity of conventioned ways of detecting residual tumour cells, such as morphological studies, immunophenotyping, and cytogenetics, is only about 1% to 5% and may be inadequate. Polymerase chain reaction technology had provided a simple and highly sensitive means for the detection of minimal residual disease. The technology has been successfully applied to study biopsy samples obtained from patients with leukaemia and lymphpma. Its clinical usefulness, however, requires further evaluation by prospective clinical studies.published_or_final_versio

Mechanisms of Chemoresistance in Human Ovarian Cancer at a Glance

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Down-regulation of Sox7 is associated with aberrant activation of Wnt/b-catenin signaling in endometrial cancer

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PITX2 transcription factor is overexpressed and involved in the tumorigenicity of ovarian cancer

Free Paper Session - Biomedicine: abstract no. A2

Activation of AMPK inhibits cervical cancer cell growth through AKT/FOXO3a/FOXM1 signaling cascade

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Word learning deficit among Chinese dyslexic children

The present study examined word learning difficulties in Chinese dyslexic children, readers of a nonalphabetic script. A total of 105 Hong Kong Chinese children were recruited and divided into three groups: Dyslexic (mean age 8;8), CA control (mean age 8;9), and RL control (mean age 6;11). They were given a word learning task and a familiar word writing task. It was found that the Dyslexic group performed less well than the RL group in learning irregular words over trials but not the regular ones. Error analyses showed that the Dyslexic group made more orthographic and word association errors but less intra-wordlist interference errors than the RL control group. The Dyslexic group also performed significantly less well than both control groups in writing familiar words (e.g. their own name). These findings suggest that Chinese dyslexic children have difficulty learning new words, especially irregular ones, and retaining overlearned words in long-term memory. We conclude that Chinese dyslexic children have a specific impairment in word learning like their alphabetic counterparts. © 2006 Cambridge University Press.published_or_final_versio

Screening for Chinese children with dyslexia in Hong Kong: The use of the teachers' behaviour checklist

Primary school teachers rated the frequency of occurrence of 65 reading-related behavioural characteristics in a sample of 251 Grade 1 to Grade 6 Chinese school children in Hong Kong. These behavioural characteristics were in the areas of general performance, reading, dictation, writing, mathematics, language, memory, concentration, sequential ability, motor co-ordination, spatial orientation, and social/emotional adjustment. Of these 12 areas, 10 yielded scale scores that could distinguish children with dyslexia from those without dyslexia, identified on the basis of their performance in five domains of literacy and cognitive skills. Using a summary score derived from the 10 relevant scales, an optimal cut-off score was suggested to arrive at a balance between high sensitivity and an acceptable rate of false positives in screening for children with dyslexia. The need for cross-replication in screening children with dyslexia using the behaviour checklist with different samples of school students is emphasised.published_or_final_versio

Estimating incidence of developmental dyslexia in Hong Kong: What differences do different criteria make?

Based on the data of a school-referred sample of Cantonese-speaking Chinese children who met the Hong Kong criterion of dyslexia, we estimated for developmental dyslexia of Chinese children aged between 6 and 10½ in Hong Kong an incidence rate of 0.66% and a gender ratio of 3.29 boys to 1 girl over a four-year period. We also explored the differences in estimates based on this Hong Kong criterion that emphasizes cognitive markers with more conventional discrepancy-based criteria. In view of the possible biases in self-selection and underreporting in the data of the school-referred sample, we compared the figures with those derived from the sample of the normative study of the Hong Kong Test of Specific Learning Difficulties in Reading and Writing, which yielded an estimate of 9.7% in prevalence rate and boy-girl gender ratio of 2 to 1 over a one-year period. The differences in estimates based on the two samples and implications of the findings are discussed in light of the limitations of the study.postprin