Copyright: Zhang et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0 (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. ABSTRACT Cerebrovascular disease such as stroke is one of the most common diseases in the aging population, and neural stem cells (NSCs) transplantation may provide an alternative therapy for cerebral ischemia. However, a hostile microenvironment in the ischemic brain offers is challenging for the survival of the transplanted cells. Considering the neuroprotective role of basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), the present study investigated whether bFGF gene-modified NSCs could improve the neurological function deficit after transient middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in adult male Sprague-Dawley rats. These rats were intravenously injected with modified NSCs (5×10 6 /200 μL) or vehicle 24 h after MCAO. Histological analysis was performed on days 7 and 28 after tMCAO. The survival, migration, proliferation, and differentiation of the transplanted modified C17.2 cells in the brain were improved. In addition, the intravenous infusion of NSCs and bFGF gene-modified C17.2 cells improved the functional recovery as compared to the control. Furthermore, bFGF promoted the C17.2 cell growth, survival, and differentiation into mature neurons within the infarct region. These data suggested that bFGF gene-modified NSCs have the potential to be a therapeutic agent in brain ischemia. www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget/

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Aims To evaluate the compliance of patients after gastrectomy in taking oral nutritional supplementation and to explore the promoting and hindering factors. Design A mixed‐methods design with an explanatory sequential approach was employed. Methods We conducted a 12‐week longitudinal study to evaluate the oral nutritional supplementation compliance of 122 patients after gastric cancer surgery and the factors that affected their compliance. After the quantitative phase, we selected the interview subjects and developed the interview outline based on the analysis of the quantitative results. In‐depth interviews (n = 15) were conducted to explain and supplement the quantitative phase results. Data were collected from October 2019 to May 2020. Results The average overall compliance rate of oral nutritional supplementation in patients with gastric cancer over 12 weeks was 30.59%. Adverse reactions to oral nutritional supplementation, the identity of the main caregivers and the patient's financial ability were independent factors that affected patient compliance. In subsequent interviews, we extracted four themes: social support plays an important role in patients taking oral nutritional supplementation, adverse reactions discourage patients from continuing to take oral nutritional supplementation, patients' attitudes affect their motivation to take oral nutritional supplementation, and the different needs of patients for oral nutritional supplementation affect patient compliance. Conclusion Patients' compliance with oral nutritional supplementation after gastric cancer surgery is very low. Health education should pay more attention to the management of adverse reactions and the role of patients' peers and family members. Oral nutritional supplementation products should be diversified to provide patients with more choices. Impact This study clarifies the factors that hinder and promote oral nutritional supplementation compliance and provides an important reference for the establishment and revision of health education strategies for patients after gastric cancer surgery.

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