The application of optical absorption spectra in prognostic prediction has hardly been investigated. We developed and evaluated a novel two dimensional absorption spectrum measurement system (TDAS) for use in early diagnosis, evaluating response to chemoradiation, and making prognostic prediction. The absorption spectra of 120 sets of normal and tumor tissues from esophageal cancer patients were analyzed with TDAS ex-vivo. We demonstrated the cancerous tissue, the tissue from patients with a poor concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) response, and the tissue from patients with an early disease progression each had a readily identifiable common spectral signature. Principal component analysis (PCA) classified tissue spectra into distinct groups, demonstrating the feasibility of using absorption spectra in differentiating normal and tumor tissues, and in predicting CCRT response, poor survival and tumor recurrence (efficiencies of 75%, 100% and 85.7% respectively). Multivariate analysis revealed that patients identified as having poor-response, poor-survival and recurrence spectral signatures were correlated with increased risk of poor response to CCRT (P = 0.012), increased risk of death (P = 0.111) and increased risk of recurrence (P = 0.030) respectively. Our findings suggest that optical absorption microscopy has great potential to be a useful tool for pre-operative diagnosis and prognostic prediction of esophageal cancer.

An open, non-comparative, prospective clinical study was conducted to evaluate the antihypertensive efficacy and tolerability of amlodipine, a calcium antagonist, in patients with arterial hypertension (AH) I-II stages, depending on the genotype for the polymorphic marker C3435T of the ABCB1 gene. The study included 100 patients with AH I-II stages, aged from 45 to 58 years. The initial dose of amlodipine was 5 mg, duration of treatment was 12 weeks. General clinical examination methods, office measurement and daily blood pressure monitoring, tolerance evaluation, and genotyping using the ABCB1 polymorphic marker C3435T by the PCR-RFLP method (polymerase chain reaction and restriction fragment length polymorphism) were used. The statistical analysis of results was carried out using the Mann-Whitney U test for quantitative variables, Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for three independent groups of quantitative data. Excellent antihypertensive efficacy with the CC genotype was found in 11.8% patients, with CT – 33.9%, with TT – 43.3%; good – 35.3%, 32.1%, and 33.3% respectively, satisfactory – 52.9%, 34,0% and 23.4% respectively. Six patients with the CT genotype and nine patients with the CC genotype required the increase in the dose to 10 mg. The number of patients with Adverse drug reactions (ADR) were found in 35.3% of patients with the CC genotype, 6.7% with the TT genotype and 11.3% with the CT genotype. The Kruskal-Wallis test revealed significant differences between CC and TT genotypes in the degree of decrease in SBP (p=0.02), antihypertensive efficacy parameter (p=0.02), an increase in dose requirements (p = 0.04) and the incidence of ADR(p=0.05). In AH patients (I-II stage) with the TT genotype of the C3435T gene polymorphism one can expect higher rates of antihypertensive efficacy of amlodipine in combination with a good safety profile and the lowest ADR percentage, while patients with the CC genotype more likely to develop ADR and lower antihypertensive responsiveness.

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