Background: Nuss procedure is rarely used in young children. The application of subcutaneous sternal suspension (SSS) in low-collar children solves this embarrassment. This study aims to compare the safety and feasibility of subcutaneous sternal suspension and Nuss operation in the treatment of pectus excavatum. Methods: 69 patients with pectus excavatum surgery from 2013 to 2022 were included. The patients were divided into two groups according to surgical method: SSS group and Nuss group. Comparing basic information and perioperative complications to evaluate the feasibility and safety of two groups. Results: 44 patients in Nuss group had removed steel bars and 4 patients in SSS group. The average age of the SSS group was significantly lower than that of the Nuss group (P=0.0001). There were no significant differences in other baseline information such as gender, Haller index, symmetry and comorbidities. The SSS group was better than the Nuss group in the comparison of blood loss(P=0.22), postoperative hospital stays(P=0.003), operation time(P=0.0001). There was no significant difference in the complications between the two groups. Conclusions: SSS surgery is more suitable for low-collar patients (3years old and above) because of the advantages fast recovery. Thus, this method requires longer follow-up to observe its long-term therapeutic effect.

Background Searching for immunotherapy- related markers is an important research content to screen for target populations suitable for immunotherapy. Prognosis-related genes in early stage lung cancer may also affect the tumor immune microenvironment, which in turn affects immunotherapy. Results We analyzed the differential genes affecting lung cancer patients receiving immunotherapy through the Cancer Treatment Response gene signature DataBase (CTR-DB), and set a threshold to obtain a total of 176 differential genes between response and non-response to immunotherapy. Functional enrichment analysis found that these differential genes were mainly involved in immune regulation-related pathways. The early-stage lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) prognostic model was constructed through the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) database, and three target genes (MMP12, NFE2, HOXC8) were screened to calculate the risk score of early-stage LUAD. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve indicated that the model had good prognostic value, and the validation set (GSE50081) from the gene expression omnibus (GEO) analysis indicated that the model had good stability, and the risk score was correlated with immune infiltrations to varying degrees. Multi-type survival analysis and immune infiltration analysis revealed that the transcriptome, methylation and the copy number variation (CNV) levels of the three genes were correlated with patient prognosis and some tumor microenvironment (TME) components. Drug sensitivity analysis found that the three genes may affect some anti-tumor drugs. The mRNA expression of immune checkpoint-related genes showed significant differences between the high and low group of the three genes, and there may be a mutual regulatory network between immune checkpoint-related genes and target genes. Tumor immune dysfunction and exclusion (TIDE) analysis found that three genes were associated with immunotherapy response and maybe the potential predictors to immunotherapy, consistent with the CTR-DB database analysis. Conclusions From the perspective of data mining, this study suggests that MMP12, NFE2, and HOXC8 may be involved in tumor immune regulation and affect immunotherapy. They are expected to become markers of immunotherapy and are worthy of further experimental research.

Background: The expression and functions of pyrroline‐5‐carboxylate reductase 1 (PYCR1) in oesophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC) are obscure. Here, we aimed to investigate the role of PYCR1 in ESCC.Methods: Immunohistochemistry with a human oesophageal cancer tissue microarray was used to assessPYCR1 levels in ESCC tissues and RT-qPCR was used to measure PYCR1 in ESCC cell lines. PYCR1 was knocked down in ESCC cells by lentivirus transduction. Cell viability was measured by MTT assays, proliferation by the multiplication of green fluorescent protein-labelled cells, and migration and invasion of cells using wound-healing and Transwell assays, respectively, with and without extracellular matrix. Caspase 7/3 assays were used to assess apoptosis. In vivo functions of PYCR1 were investigated in xenograft mouse models and potential protein interactors were identified by mass spectrometry, bioinformatics, and coimmunoprecipitation (Co-IP), and the results were verified by rescue experiments.Results: PYCR1 was strongly expressed in both ESCC cells and tissues and downregulation was confirmed after its knockdown. Knockdown led to reduced cellular proliferation, migration, and invasion, together with increased apoptosis. Knockdown also inhibited the growth of xenograft tumours. PYCR1 was found to coimmunoprecipitate with EGFR and rescue experiments showed that EGRF overexpression counteracted the effects of PYCR1 knockdown.Conclusions: Upregulation of PYCR1 was observed in ESCC tissues and PYCR1 knockdown reduced tumour growth by preventing the PYCR1-EGFR interaction. This suggests that PYCR1 has oncogenic functions and may be a potential target for ESCC treatment.

BackgroundThoracoscopic‐assisted and robot‐assisted Mckeown esophagectomy are currently two common surgical methods, but there is no clear statement on the advantages and disadvantages of the two.MethodsThis study conducted a single‐centre retrospective analysis of esophageal cancer patients diagnosed and treated at Lanzhou University Second Hospital from 1 February 2020 to 31 July 2022. According to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 126 patients were finally included in the RAM group and 169 patients in the TAM group.ResultsThere was no significant difference between the RAM and TAM groups in the number of lymph node dissections, operative time, the length of stay in the intensive care unit after surgery, the incidence of hoarseness, postoperative pulmonary complications, surgery‐related complications, use of opioids after surgery, the length of postoperative hospital stay, and 30‐day mortality.ConclusionsRAM is a minimally invasive alternative to TAM and has similar short‐term oncological efficacy.