Cancer is one of the health concerns in modern societies. The application of nanotechnology in medical sciences has created new possibilities for the diagnosis, imaging and the treatment of tumors in humans. The present article reviews the application of marine-based gold nanoparticles in diagnosing and treating cancer. The main data were collected from research article on the application of different marine-based gold nanoparticles in detecting and imaging cancer cells as well as in drug delivery system in treatment of cancer. Chitosan is the most used marine natural compound used to fabricate gold nanocomposites and the most reported application of this type of nano-composites is related to drug delivery system. Despite the excellent anticancer potential of different marine natural products, less studies have been conducted on the use of their compositions with gold nanoparticles in cancer therapy than other materials. Moreover, most reports available in this filed are related to their application as a drug delivery system not anticancer drug. In general, there are still challenges and limitations to the use of nanoparticles in medicine, it is hoped that in the near future nanoparticles will create a dramatic revolution not only in oncology but also in medicine.

As the prevalence of lipoprotein abnormalities in adolescents is increasing dramatically, the identification of relevant risk factors is a major public health challenge. The aim of this study was to investigate whether a family history of diabetes could be a risk factor for lipid abnormalities in healthy individuals. This study is a cross-sectional case control study. 179 men and women were studied in two equal-member groups (with diabetic parents' background and without any diabetic sibling). Both groups matched in body mass index (BMI), age and sex. The serum concentration of oxidized-low density lipoprotein (LDL), Apo B100 and insulin were measured by enzyme linked immunosorbant assay technique and TG, Chol, HDL-C, FBS and GTT by enzymatic methods. The LDL-C level was calculated using the Friedewald formula. The results show that there were no significant variation in the amount of plasma FBS, GTT, Cho, TG, LDL and HDL between the two groups, whereas a significant increase was found in the amount of insulin (P = 0.02), Apo B100 (P = 0.001), OX-LDL (P = 0.001) and HOMA-IR (P = 0.03) in the case group as compared to the control group. We conclude that a family history of diabetic parents can lead to lipid parameters abnormalities and CVD risk factor via aggregation of inherited defected genes.

Free of Acrylamide Sodium Fast Free-of-Acrylamide Clearing Tissue (FACT) is a developed technique using no acrylamide for clearing tissues. As the lipid removal normally is a harmful process and it causes loss of biological molecules such as proteins and on the other hand is crucial for transparency and efficient antibody staining throughout the whole tissue especially for microscopy and imaging, the FACT technique is suitable since it makes chemical bonding of membrane and intracellular proteins with the extracellular matrix creating a massive three-dimensional (3D) matrix and structural support to fortify the tissue during processing. Compared to other acrylamide-based techniques, FACT requires less labor, toxic, and harmful chemicals. Here we describe protocols encompassing every angle and dimension of the FACT protocol for antibody staining and imaging of whole-cleared tissues while preserving the structure and increasing the image quality. The entire protocol includes tissue perfusion, fixation, clearing, antibody staining, Refractive Index Matching (RIM), microscopy, and imaging; this timing varies due to the size, weight, different kind of tissues and the type of immunostaining. This technique has been favorably performed on different types of tissues for molecular interrogation analysis of large tissues.

BackgroundWe decided to evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) with 177-DOTATATE in patients with neuroendocrine tumors (NETs).MethodsSixteen patients with pathologically verified NETs including eight females and eight males were enrolled in this study. Before PRRT for evaluation of somatostatin receptor expressing, the patients underwent 68Ga-DOTATATE PET-CT or 99mTc-octreotide scintigraphy. The treatment response was assessed according to the response evaluation criteria in solid tumors (RECIST) which was classified into complete response (CR), partial response (PR), stable disease (SD) and progressive disease (PD). In addition, for evaluation of toxicity, monthly blood analysis was performed including hematology, renal function (creatinine), liver status. The Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) status performance was applied for estimating the patients’ general condition including 0 (fully active) to 5 (dead). In addition, overall survival (OS) was calculated as the time interval between start of PRRT to death from any reason.ResultsSixteen patients including eight females and eight males with median age of 60.5 years old with range of 24-74 were enrolled in this study. The patients underwent PRRT with median cycles of 3.5 with range of 1-7 and median dose of 20.35 with range of 7.4 to 49.95 GBq. At the end of data collection, 11/16 patients had PR, 2/16 showed CR, 1/16 showed SD and 2/16 showed PD according to the RECIST. 3 patients were expired during and after the PRRT period time. Before PRRT, the medians of ECOG and KPS were 1.5 and 75 which after treatment were, significantly, improved to 1 and 80, respectively (p<0.05). According to the Kaplan-Meier test, the median of OS was obtained 23 months (95%CI:7.90-38.09). According to the CTCAE, 3 patients showed grade I and 3 other showed grade II leucopenia. Furthermore, 3 and 7 patients had grade II and grade I anemia, respectively.ConclusionIt can be concluded that, since PRRT with 177Lu-DOTATATE in NETs has favorable response rate, few adverse effects and leads to improvement in QOL, it can be used as an effective therapeutic option specially in nonoperative, metastatic and progressive NETs.