When an electric field with various strengths is applied to two adjacent conducting droplets, the droplets may completely coalesce, partially coalesce, or bounce off one another. To reveal an atom-scale mechanism of coalescence or non-coalescence, dynamic behaviors of two conducting nanodroplets at a homogeneous electric field are studied via molecular dynamics simulations in this work. The results show that there is a critical field strength and a critical cone angle above which the two droplets partially coalesce or bounce off. Charge transfer between the two droplets is observed when the droplets are brought into contact. The partial coalescence and the bounce-off of the two droplets at strong field strengths are found to be due to the high charge transfer rate, which leads to the breakup of the coalescing droplet at different locations.

Background: Preoperative chemotherapy or chemoradiotherapy is the standard treatment for resectable esophageal cancer (EC); however, it is associated with increased postoperative complications and mortality.Recently, Immune Checkpoint inhibitors have been incorporated in the treatment of advanced EC. Its role in the preoperative setting has not been established yet. In this multicenter, single-arm study, we evaluated the efficacy and safety of neoadjuvant therapy with sintilimab in combination with chemotherapy in treating EC.Methods: Patients received neoadjuvant therapy with 3 cycles of sintilimab 200 mg Q3W in combination with platinum-based chemotherapy. Surgery was performed within 4-6 weeks after neoadjuvant therapy. The primary endpoints of the trial were pathological complete response (pCR) and safety.Results: A total of 23 patients (21 men and 2 women) were enrolled. Surgery was completed in 17 participants, with 16 achieving R0 resection and 1 had R1 resection, 5 participants refused surgery. One patient progressed prior to surgery. Twenty one patients (91%) had significant improvement in their dysphagia following treatment as assessed by Stooler's criteria. The majority of patients who underwent resection have a good pathological response and downstaging rate was 76.5% (13/17). A pCR was achieved in 6 cases (6/17, 35.3%) and major pathological response (MPR) in 9 cases (9/17, 52.9%). The main preoperative adverse events (AEs) were vomiting (13/23, 56.5%), leukopenia (12/23, 52.2%), neutropenia (9/23, 39.1%), and malaise (8/23, 34.8%). Immune-related AEs were mild and included hypothyroidism (2/23, 8.7%) and rash (4/23, 17.4%). The incidence of ≥ grade 3 treatment related AEs was 30.4% (7/23). There were no ≥ grade 4 AEs.Conclusions: Sintilimab in combination with chemotherapy in the neoadjuvant treatment of EC is safe and lead to a high pCR. Therefore, further testing is warranted.

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Background: Neoadjuvant therapy has significantly improved the 5-year overall survival (OS)of patients with resectable non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). The CheckMate 159 trial showed that neoadjuvant therapy with a single-drug programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) inhibitor (nivolumab) achieved major pathological response (MPR) and pathological complete response (pCR) in 45% and 15%of participants, respectively. We conducted an open-label single-arm study to evaluate the safety and efficacy of neoadjuvant PD-1 inhibitors in combination with chemotherapy in the treatment of resectable NSCLC.Methods: This study was conducted in a total of 2 hospitals in the Chinese cities of Xi'an and Chongqing, and included eligible patients over 18 years of age with clinically staged IIA-IIIB NSCLC. All patients were scheduled to receive surgery within 4-6 weeks after neoadjuvant treatment (3-4 cycles) consisting of PD-1 inhibitors combined with a conventional chemotherapy regimen on day 1 of each 21-day cycle.Results: Twenty-three patients, 22 males, and 1 female with just one of them with no smoking habits) were diagnosed with NSCL C in a stage IIA (3 cases), IIB (3 cases), IIIA (8 cases), and IIIB (9cases) and no druggable driver mutations/translocations were addressed to receive neoadjuvant treatment between June 2018 and June 2020. The treatment was well tolerated with just 3 typical immune-related adverse events (hyperthyroidism, hyperglycemia, and rash) recorded. There was a partial response (PR) and stable disease (SD) in 17 (73.9%) and 6 (26.1%) patients, with an overall response rate (ORR) of 73.9% according to the Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST v.1.1). Six of these patients resulted in pCR (30%) while ten of them showed a MPR (50%). Twenty patients underwent surgical resection after treatment, while further 3 refused surgery. Surgical procedure included video-assisted thoracoscopic resection (10 cases), Vinci Robot surgery (4 cases), and thoracotomy in 4 cases while there were secondary compliance-related thoracotomy in two cases. The pathology analysis revealed a R0 in 19 cases (19/20, 95%). Conclusions:Our results suggest that the neoadjuvant approach with chemotherapy and PD-1 blocking mAbs is safe and active in patients with resectable NSCLC where is associated with a promising high ORR, MPR and pCR.

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