Giant Solitary Fibrous Tumor of the Pleura: An Analysis of Five Patients

Ó The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Background Solitary fibrous tumor of the pleura (SFTP) represents a clinical entity rarely encountered, especially in giant forms. Complete surgical resection for giant tumor of pleura is a challenge. The aim of this article is to present five new cases of giant SFTP, and to discuss their clinical characteristics and the treatment strategy of such neoplasms. Methods We performed a retrospective review of the clinical records of five patients who underwent surgery for a huge SFTP ([18 cm in diameter) between 2007 and 2009. Results Four patients were symptomatic. All five patients underwent angiography and embolization of the tumorsupplying vessels within 24 h of surgery. All giant tumors were removed completely by extended postlateral thoracotomy with moderate intraoperative bleeding. Two wedge resections and one lobectomy were performed in three cases where the parenchyma had been encroached. Tumors in three patients were pathologically benign; those in the other two were malignant. The symptoms disappeared in all cases after surgery. Conclusions Complete resection remains the mainstay of cure for giant SFTP. We recommend preoperative angiography and embolization for giant SFTP which can reduce the risk of hemorrhage and can contribute to piecemeal removal for radical excision

Effect of external beam radiation therapy versus transcatheter arterial chemoembolization for non-diffuse hepatocellular carcinoma (≥ 5 cm): a multicenter experience over a ten-year period

BackgroundThe optimal local treatment for HCC with tumor diameter ≥ 5 cm is not well established. This research evaluated the effectiveness of external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) versus transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) for HCC with tumor diameter ≥ 5 cm.MethodsA total of 1210 HCC patients were enrolled in this study, including 302 and 908 patients that received EBRT and TACE, respectively. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to identify patient pairs with similar baseline characteristics. Overall survival (OS) was the primary study endpoint.ResultsWe identified 428 patients using 1:1 PSM for survival comparison. Compared with the TACE group, the EBRT group had a significantly longer median OS (mOS) before (14.9 vs. 12.3 months, p = 0.0085) and after (16.8 vs. 11.4 months, p = 0.0026) matching. In the subgroup analysis, compared with the TACE group, the EBRT group had a significantly longer mOS for HCC with tumor diameters of 5-7 cm (34.1 vs. 14.3 months, p = 0.04) and 7-10 cm (34.4 vs. 10 months, p = 0.00065), whereas for HCC with tumor diameters ≥ 10 cm, no significant difference in mOS was observed (11.2 vs. 11.2 months, p = 0.83). In addition, the multivariable Cox analysis showed that Child-A, alkaline phosphatase < 125 U/L, and EBRT were independent prognostic indicators for longer survival.ConclusionEBRT is more effective than TACE as the primary local treatment for HCC with tumor diameter ≥ 5 cm, especially for HCC with tumor diameter of 5-10 cm

Clinical Analysis of Lung Cancer Patients Younger Than 30 Years

Background and objective It is common recognized that young patients of lung cancer have poor prognosis due to relatively higher malignancy and more invasive growth. In the past most studies on young patients of lung cancer selected patients younger than 40 or 45 years old, and there were few clinical materials for younger patients under 30 years. This study retrospectively described the the disease history, stage, treatment and pathology features of lung cancer patients younger than 30 years and aimed to provide references for these patients. Methods Those patients younger than 30 years, once admitted in the General Hospital of the People's Liberation Army for lung cancer from 1993 to date, were sought in medical record system, and 53 patients were found in total. In this group, there were 34 non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients and 19 small cell lung cacer (SCLC) patients. The male/female ratio was 1.5:1. In the NSCLC patients, there were 27 adenocarcinomas, 6 squamous carcinomas and 1 adenosquamous carcinoma, with no large cell carcinoma involved. In these patients, 12 patients received operations while 38 patients got chemo- and/or radiotherapy and 3 quited any treatment. Results There was no death in hospital, however, in the 12 patients who got operation, only 8 patients got complete resection while 4 patients got palliative resection. Conclusion Lung cancer patients younger than 30 years had a high fraction of adenocarcinoma and small cell type pathologically and most of them were in late stage when presenting with symptoms in hospital and would have a dismal prognosis. The routine health examination and early diagnosis should be emphasized to improve the prognosis of these patients

Self-Floating Carbon Nanotube Membrane on Macroporous Silica Substrate for Highly Efficient Solar-Driven Interfacial Water Evaporation

Given the emerging energy and water challenges facing mankind, solar-driven water evaporation has been gaining renewed research attention from both academia and industry as an energy-efficient means of wastewater treatment and clean water production. In this project, a bilayered material, consisting of a top self-floating hydrophobic CNT membrane and a bottom hydrophilic macroporous silica substrate, was logically designed and fabricated for highly energy-efficient solar-driven water evaporation based on the concept of interfacial heating. The top thin CNT membrane with excellent light adsorption capability acted as photothermal component, which harvested and converted almost the entire incident light to heat for exclusive heating of interfacial water. On the other hand, the macroporous silica substrate provided multifunctions toward further improvement of operation stability and water evaporation performance of the material, including water pumping, mechanical support, and heat barriers. The silica substrate was conducive in forming the rough surface structures of the CNT top layers during vacuum filtration and thus indirectly contributed to high light adsorption by the top CNT layers. With optimized thicknesses of the CNT top layer and silica substrate, a solar thermal conversion efficiency of 82% was achieved in this study. The bilayered material also showed great performance toward water evaporation from seawater and contaminated water, realizing the separation of water from pollutants and indicating its application versatilit

Electronic spectra of heteroatom-containing isoelectronic carbon chains C2nS and C2nCl+ (n=1-5)

Structures and stabilities of carbon chains C2nS and C2nCl+ (n=1-5) in their ground states have been investigated by the density functional theory and the coupled cluster approach using single and double substitutions. The complete active space self-consistent-field method has been used for geometry optimization of selected excited states in both series. Calculations show that both C2nS (n=1-5) and C2nCl+ (n=3-5) have linear structures in the triplet ground state (3)Sigma(-), while C2Cl+ and C4Cl+ have nonlinear structures in the ground state (3)A('). The vertical transition energies and emission energies by the multiconfigurational second-order perturbation theory in linear clusters C2nS and C2nCl+ exhibit similar size dependences. In comparison with the available experimental observations, the predicted excitation energies for the allowed 2 (3)Sigma(-)<- X (3)Sigma(-) transitions have an accuracy of no more than 0.24 eV. Spin-orbit coupling configuration interaction calculations indicate that the spin-forbidden 2 (1)Sigma(+)<- X (3)Sigma(-) transition in these species has an oscillator strength with the magnitude of 10(-4)-10(-5), and they may be observable experimentally