The aim of this study was to investigate the therapeutic efficacy of percutaneous radiofrequency (RF) ablation versus microwave (MW) ablation for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) measuring ≤5 cm in greatest diameter. From January 2006 to December 2006, 78 patients had undergone RF ablation whereas 77 had undergone MW ablation. Complete ablation (CA), local tumour progression (LTP) and distant recurrence (DR) were compared. The overall survival curves were calculated with the Kaplan-Meier technique and compared with the log-rank test. The CA rate was 83.4% (78/93) for RF ablation and 86.7%(91/105 for MW ablation. The LTP rate was 11.8% (11/93) for RF ablation and 10.5% (11/105) for MW ablation. DR was found in 51 (65.4%) in the RF ablation and 62 (80.5%) in the MW ablation. There was no significant difference in the 1-, 3-, and 5-year overall survival rates (P = 0.780) and the 1-, 3-, and 5-year disease-free survival rates (P = 0.123) between RF and MW ablation. At subgroup analyses, for patients with tumors ≤3.0 cm, there was no significant difference in the 1-, 3-, and 5-year overall survival rates (P = 0.067) and the corresponding disease-free survival rates(P = 0.849). For patients with tumor diameters of 3.1–5.0 cm, the 1-, 3-, and 5-year overall survival rates were 87.1%, 61.3%, and 40.1% for RF ablation and 85.4%, 36.6%, and 22% for MW ablation, with no significant difference (P = 0.068). The corresponding disease-free survival rates were 74.2%, 54.8%, and 45.2% for the RF ablation group and 53.3%, 26.8%, and 17.1% for the MW ablation group. The disease-free survival curve for the RF ablation group was significantly better than that for the MW ablation group (P = 0.018). RF ablation and MW ablation are both effective methods in treating hepatocellular carcinomas, with no significant differences in CA, LTP, DR, and overall survival.

With the booming development of nanomedicine, mild photothermal therapy (mPTT, 42– 45°C) has exhibited promising potential in tumor therapy. Compared with traditional PTT (> 50°C), mPTT has less side effects and better biological effects conducive to tumor treatment, such as loosening the dense structure in tumor tissues, enhancing blood perfusion, and improving the immunosuppressive microenvironment. However, such a relatively low temperature cannot allow mPTT to completely eradicate tumors, and therefore, substantial efforts have been conducted to optimize the application of mPTT in tumor therapy. This review extensively summarizes the latest advances of mPTT, including two sections: (1) taking mPTT as a leading role to maximize its effect by blocking the cell defense mechanisms, and (2) regarding mPTT as a supporting role to assist other therapies to achieve synergistic antitumor curative effect. Meanwhile, the special characteristics and imaging capabilities of nanoplatforms applied in various therapies are discussed. At last, this paper puts forward the bottlenecks and challenges in the current research path of mPTT, and possible solutions and research directions in future are proposed correspondingly.

Background: The combination of sonodynamic therapy and oxygenation strategy is widely used in cancer treatment. However, due to the complexity, heterogeneity and irreversible hypoxic environment produced by hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues, oxygen-enhancing sonodynamic therapy (SDT) has failed to achieve the desired results. With the emergence of ferroptosis with reactive oxygen species (ROS) cytotoxicity, this novel cell death method has attracted widespread attention. Methods: In this study, nanobubbles (NBs) were connected with the sonosensitizer Indocyanine green (ICG) to construct a 2-in-1 nanoplatform loaded with RAS-selective lethal (RSL3, ferroptosis promoter) ([email protected] NBs), combined with oxygen-enhanced SDT and potent ferroptosis. In addition, nanobubbles (NBs) combined with low-frequency ultrasound (LFUS) are called ultrasound-targeted nanobubble destruction (UTND) to ensure specific drug release and improve safety. Results: MDA/GSH and other related experimental results show that [email protected] NBs can enhance SDT and ferroptosis. Through RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), the differential expression of LncRNA and mRNA before and after synergistic treatment was identified, and then GO and KEGG pathways were used to enrich and analyze target genes and pathways related ferroptosis sensitivity. We found that they were significantly enriched in the ferroptosis-related pathway MAPK cascade and cell proliferation. Then, we searched for the expression of differentially expressed genes in the TCGA Hepatocellular carcinoma cohort. At the same time, we evaluated the proportion of immune cell infiltration and the identification of co-expression network modules and related prognostic analysis. We found that it was significantly related to the tumor microenvironment of hepatocellular carcinoma. The prognostic risk genes “SLC37A2” and “ITGB7” may represent new hepatocellular carcinoma ferroptosis-inducing markers and have guiding significance for treating hepatocellular carcinoma. Conclusion: The therapeutic effect of the in vitro synergistic treatment has been proven to be significant, revealing the prospect of 2-in-1 nanobubbles combined with SDT and ferroptosis in treating HCC.

Ultrasound-mediated targeted delivery (UMTD), a novel delivery modality of therapeutic materials based on ultrasound, shows great potential in biomedical applications. By coupling ultrasound contrast agents with therapeutic materials, UMTD combines the advantages of ultrasound imaging and carrier, which benefit deep tissue penetration and high concentration aggregation. In this paper we introduced recent advances in ultrasound contrast agents and applications in tumor therapy. Ultrasound contrast agents were categorized by their functions, mainly including thermosensitive, pH-sensitive and photosensitive ultrasound contrast agents. The various applications of UMTD in tumor treatment were summarized as follows: drug therapy, transfection of anti-oncogene, RNA interference, vaccine immunotherapy, monoclonal antibody immunotherapy, adoptive cellular immunotherapy, cytokine immunotherapy, and so on. In the end, we elaborated on the current challenges and provided perspectives of UMTD for clinical applications.

Shear wave elastography combined with the thyroid imaging reporting and data system for malignancy risk stratification in thyroid nodules

The drug resistance of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is considered as a major obstacle for the curative effect of chemotherapy. Long intergenic noncoding RNA 00511 (LINC00511) has been considered as a target gene of drug resistance. A novel theranostic agent loaded with LINC00511‐siRNA to deliver siRNA was structured, and the responses of drug sensitivity in TNBC were detected. Next‐generation high‐throughput RNA sequencing (RNA‐Seq) was performed to accurately analyze the differential expression of mRNAs and lncRNA targets after LINC00511‐siRNA transfection with low‐frequency ultrasound (LFUS). The LINC00511‐siRNA conjugated nanobubble complexes showed appropriate characterization, with a mean diameter of 516.1 ± 24.7 nm and a zeta potential of −38.05 ± 0.24 mV. The transfection efficiency of nanobubble complexes was approximately 50% with LFUS. By RNA‐Seq, the differential expressions of lncRNA transcripts and mRNA transcripts were identified, and then analyzed. The GO and KEGG enrichment analyses revealed the TNBC drug resistance related target genes and pathways. The combination of LFUS irradiation and nanobubble complexes is regarded as an efficient and safe method for siRNA transfection. The TNBC drug resistance occurs as a result of synergistic reactions between a variety of genes and a variety of pathways.