More effective and earlier smoking cessation interventions are required for particularly disadvantaged groups.”
“Background: C-X-C chemokine receptor type 4 (CXCR4) has been implicated in the invasiveness and metastasis of diverse cancers. However, the published data remain controversial on the correlation between CXCR4 expression level, as well
as its subcellular selleck chemical distribution in tumor cells, and the clinical outcome of patients with breast cancer. Methods: To identify the precise role of CXCR4 in the clinical outcome of breast cancer, we performed a meta-analysis including 15 published studies. Original data included the hazard ratios (HRs) of overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) in breast cancer with high CXCR4 expression versus low expression. We
pooled hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) to estimate the hazard. Results: A total of 15 published studies (including 3104 patients) were eligible. Overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) of breast cancer were found to be significantly related to CXCR4 expression level, with the HR being 1.65 (95% CI: 1.34-2.03; P < 0.00001) and 1.94 (95% CI: 1.42-2.65; P < 0.00001) respectively. Stratified analysis according to subcellular distribution of CXCR4 showed that high expression in whole selleck chemicals llc cells, cytoplasm and nucleus could predict unfavorable OS, with the HR of 2.02 (95% CI: 1.43-2.85; P < 0.0001), 1.57 (95% CI: 1.13-2.18; P = 0.007), and 1.47 (95% CI: 1.19-1.81; P = 0.0004) respectively. As for DFS, elevated expression level of CXCR4 both in whole cells and cytoplasm predicted a poor outcome,
with the HR being 2.23 (95% CI: 1.48-3.37; P = 0.0001) and 1.76 (95% CI: 1.11-2.80; P = 0.02), while high expression in the nucleus had no statistical significance, with HR 1.15 (95% CI: 0.52-2.55; P = 0.73). Conclusions: Increased CXCR4 expression, especially in whole cells and cytoplasm, may serve as a poor prognostic PRIMA-1MET indicator in patients with breast cancer. Future studies are warranted to investigate the relationship between CXCR4 expression and survival of patients with breast carcinoma, which could help predict the clinical outcome and guide clinical decision-making for therapy. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.”
“In this article, Monte Carlo method is used to study the characteristics of gallium nitride (GaN). Impact ionization is treated as an additional scattering mechanism, which is described by the Keldysh formula with the parameters determined by fitting the simulated results to the numerical calculation results. Based on simplified model, results of velocity overshoot and impact ionization rate of both carriers are calculated and analyzed. In addition, we get the device characteristics associated with impact ionization, i.e., gain, noise, and bandwidth (both electron- and hole-injected cases), which is compared to the reported experimental data and conventional theories.