Background/Aims: Hypergastrinemia secondary to low acid secretion is associated with gastric carcinoid formation in Mastomys. We investigated the effect of gastrin on oxyntic epithelial apoptosis and proliferation in this model. Methods: Hypergastrinemia and mucosal hyperplasia were induced by irreversible H₂ receptor blockade with loxtidine. Gastrin levels were normalised in some animals by 10 days’ loxtidine withdrawal. Serum gastrin was determined by radioimmunoassay, proliferative, enterochromaffin-like cells and Bcl-2 protein family expression by immunohistochemisty, and apoptotic cells by terminal deoxyuridine nucleotide nick end labeling (TUNEL). Results: Proliferating cells were increased 4-fold in loxtidine-treated animals, and returned to normal upon loxtidine withdrawal. Enterochromaffin-like cell number increased 2-fold with loxtidine, and did not decrease after withdrawal. Apoptotic epithelial cells were located at the luminal surface and increased 1.8-fold with loxtidine, returning to control levels upon withdrawal. The ratio of proliferative to apoptotic cells was lower in the control and withdrawn groups than in the loxtidine group (0.26 ± 0.05 and 0.26 ± 0.08 vs. 0.77 ± 0.12). With hypergastrinemia, the expression of Bcl-2 and Bak was increased and Bax decreased in the middle of the gland. Conclusion: Hypergastrinemia is associated with alterations in both proliferation and apoptosis in Mastomys gastric mucosa. This may contribute to the pathogenesis of mucosal hyperplasia in this model.

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Peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) has been a well-accepted and effective therapeutic modality for inoperable or metastatic gastroenteropancreatic, bronchopulmonary and other neuroendocrine tumors for almost 2 decades. In general, PRRT is well tolerated with moderate toxicity in the majority of patients if the necessary precautions, appropriate dosage and coadministration of amino acids are undertaken. The two most commonly used radiopeptides, (90)Y-octreotide and (177)Lu-octreotate, produce significant objective response rates, with impact on progression-free survival and overall survival. In addition, biochemical and symptomatic responses are commonly observed. A key issue is the need to establish randomized controlled trials to standardize the treatment and facilitate comparison with other therapeutic strategies available.

Since the outbreak of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in December 2019, the spread of SARS-CoV2 infection has been escalating rapidly around the world. In order to provide more timely access to medical intervention, including diagnostic tests and medical treatment, the FDA authorized multiple test protocols for diagnostic tests from nasopharyngeal swab, saliva, urine, bronchoalveolar lavage and fecal samples. The traditional diagnostic tests for this novel coronavirus 2019 require standard processes of viral RNA isolation, reverse transcription of RNA to cDNA, then real-time quantitative PCR with the RNA templates extracted from the patient samples. Recently, many reports have demonstrated a direct detection of SARS-Co-V2 genomic material from saliva samples without any RNA isolation step. To make the rapid detection of SARS-Co-V2 infection more accessible, a point-of-care type device was developed for SARS-CoV-2 detection. Herein, we report a portable microfluidic-based integrated detection-analysis system for SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acids detection directly from saliva samples. The saliva cartridge is self-contained and capable of microfluidic evaluation of saliva, from heating, mixing with the primers to multiplex real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction, detecting SARS-CoV-2 with different primer sets and internal control. The approach has a detection sensitivity of 1000 copies/mL of SARS-CoV-2 RNA or virus, with consistency and automation, from saliva sample-in to result-out.