Objective:This study aimed to evaluate18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography-computed tomography (18F-FDG PET-CT) for diagnosis, targeted biopsy and therapy of relapsing polychondritis (RP).Methods:The literature pertaining to the use of 18F-FDG PET-CT in patients with RP was retrieved from the Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, CNKI and Wanfang databases until July 2015. Clinical characteristics, auxiliary examination results, chest CT findings, tracheoscopy and biopsy findings, high metabolic activity lesions, maximum standardized uptake values (SUVmax), 18F-FDG PET-CT-guided biopsy site, pathologic results of biopsy samples, and alteration in high 18F-FDG-uptake lesions after treatment were retrospectively analyzed.Results:Eighteen publications with 26 cases were enrolled. The 5 most common symptoms of RP patients diagnosed with 18F-FDG PET-CT were cough, fever, chest tightness, sore throat, and arthralgia. Of the 26 patients, 23 had multiple and symmetric cartilage lesions with high metabo...

Interleukin-17 (IL-17) plays an important role in cancer progression. Previous studies remained controversial regarding the correlation between IL-17 expression and lung cancer (LC) prognosis. To comprehensively and quantitatively summarize the prognostic value of IL-17 expression in LC patients, a systematic review and meta-analysis were performed. We identified the relevant literatures by searching the PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, SinoMed, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Wanfang Data databases, up until April 1, 2017. Overall survival (OS), disease free survival (DFS) and clinicopathological characteristics were collected from relevant studies. Pooled hazard ratios (HR) and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated to estimate the effective value of IL-17 expression on clinical outcomes. Six studies containing 479 Chinese LC patients were involved in this meta-analysis. The results indicated high IL-17 expression was independently correlated with poorer OS (HR = 1.82, 95% CI 1.44–2.29, P < 0.00001) and shorter DFS (HR = 2.41, 95% CI 1.42–4.08, P = 0.001) in LC patients. Further, when stratified by LC histological type (non-small cell lung cancer and small cell lung cancer), tumor stage (Ⅰ-Ⅲ,Ⅰ-Ⅳ and Ⅳ), detection specimen (serum, intratumoral tissue and pleural effusion), test method (immunological histological chemistry and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay), and HR estimated method (reported and estimated), all of the results were statistically significant. These data indicated that elevated IL-17 expression is correlated with poor clinical outcomes in LC. The meta-analysis did not show heterogeneity or publication bias. The present meta-analysis revealed that high IL-17 expression was an indicator of poor prognosis for Chinese patients with LC. It could potentially help to assess patients’ prognosis and estimate treatment efficacy in therapeutic interventions.