• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.377-384
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• 2009

The ultrasonic hyperthermia for oncology has been developed and studied. The HIFU(high intensity focused ultrasound) is the most recent method to treat the tumor by using ultrasound. In this study, an insertion-type transducer for treating a prostate cancer, which can focus the ultrasonic beam mechanically and electrically, was designed and developed. The developed transducer was composed of three arrays, and each array has 32 elements. For the purpose of the mechanical focusing, both side arrays are slanted to the center array by $15^{\circ}$. With this structure, NFL(near field length) was set up as 30 mm. The PZT-4 and two matching layers were used, and the backing layer was excepted to prevent energy losses. The acoustic field analysis and the heating test were performed to evaluate the performance of developed transducer. The shape of an acoustic field, peak pressure, and acoustic pressure distribution were compared with numerical simulation. The NFL was 32 mm, the beam width was 5 mm, focal area was $40\;mm^2$, and peak pressure was 5.5 MPa. With heating by using developed transducer, the temperature increased up to $33^{\circ}C$ at focal zone. As a result of this study, the usefulness of suggested transducer for prostate cancer hyperthermia was confirmed by the acoustic field analysis and the heating test with TMM(tissue mimicking) phantom.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.3197-3203
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• 2013

Background: microRNAs (miRNAs) that regulate proliferation, invasion and metastasis are considered to be the principal molecular basis of tumor heterogeneity. Breast cancer is not a homogeneous tissue. Thus, it is very important to perform microarray-based miRNA screening of tumors at different sites. Methods: Breast tissue samples from the centers and edges of tumors of 30 patients were classified into 5 clinicopathological subtypes. In each group, 6 specimens were examined by microRNA array. All differential miRNAs were analyzed between the edges and centers of the tumors. Results: Seventeen kinds of miRNAs were heterogeneously distributed in the tumors from different clinicopathological subtypes that included 1 kind of miRNA in Luminal A and Luminal B Her2+ subtypes, 4 kinds in Luminal A and Her2 overexpression subtypes, 6 kinds in Luminal B Ki67+ and Luminal B Her2+ subtypes, 2 kinds between Luminal B Ki67+ and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) subtypes, 2 kinds between Luminal B Her2+ and TNBC subtypes, and 2 kinds between Luminal B Ki67+, Luminal B Her2+, and TNBC subtypes. Twenty kinds of miRNAs were homogenously distributed in the tumors from different clinicopathological subtypes that included 6 kinds of miRNAs in Luminal B Ki67+ and Luminal B Her2+ subtypes, 1 kind in Luminal B Ki67+ and Her2 overexpression subtypes, 10 kinds between Luminal B Ki67+ and TNBC subtypes, 2 kinds in Luminal B Her2+ and TNBC subtypes, and 1 kind between Luminal B Ki67+, Luminal B Her2+, and TNBC subtypes. Conclusions: A total of 37 miRNAs were significantly distributed in tumors from the centers to edges, and in all clinicopathological subtypes.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.539-547
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• 2022

Objective: To investigate the association between functional tumor burden of peritoneal carcinomatosis (PC) derived from diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and overall survival in patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma (OC). Materials and Methods: This prospective study was approved by the local research ethics committee, and informed consent was obtained. Fifty patients (mean age ± standard deviation, 57 ± 12 years) with stage III-IV OC scheduled for primary or interval debulking surgery (IDS) were recruited between June 2016 and December 2021. DWI (b values: 0, 400, and 800 s/mm²) was acquired with a 16-channel phased-array torso coil. The functional PC burden on DWI was derived based on K-means clustering to discard fat, air, and normal tissue. A score similar to the surgical peritoneal cancer index was assigned to each abdominopelvic region, with additional scores assigned to the involvement of critical sites, denoted as the functional peritoneal cancer index (fPCI). The apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of the largest lesion was calculated. Patients were dichotomized by immediate surgical outcome into high- and low-risk groups (with and without residual disease, respectively) with subsequent survival analysis using the Kaplan-Meier curve and log-rank test. Multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression was used to evaluate the association between DWI-derived results and overall survival. Results: Fifteen (30.0%) patients underwent primary debulking surgery, and 35 (70.0%) patients received neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by IDS. Complete tumor debulking was achieved in 32 patients. Patients with residual disease after debulking surgery had reduced overall survival (p = 0.043). The fPCI/ADC was negatively associated with overall survival when accounted for clinicopathological information with a hazard ratio of 1.254 for high fPCI/ADC (95% confidence interval, 1.007-1.560; p = 0.043). Conclusion: A high DWI-derived functional tumor burden was associated with decreased overall survival in patients with advanced OC.

• Korean Journal of Bronchoesophagology
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.36-43
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• 2003

Background and objectives; Esophageal cancer is one of the most malignant tumors and has a poor prognosis. Many clinical studies have been tried for improving prognosis of esophageal cancer. Some clinical studies used molecular markers as the predictor of prognosis & the indicator for the choice of multimodality treatments. We investigated the relationship between some molecular markers, including p53 mutation, expression of bc12, Ki67 index, expression of E-Cadherin and the prognosis of esophageal cancer, Materials and Method; The materials used in this study were the tumor specimens from 72 esophageal cancer patients who underwent esophagectomy from 1987 to 2002 in our institute. The mutation of p53, expression of bc12, Ki67 index, and expression of E-cadherin were examined by using the tissue array and immunohistochemical staining method. The patients were subgrouped into higher Ki67 index group if the index was higher than 30. The patients were also subgrouped into grade 1(>90%), grade 2(50∼90%), grade 3 (10∼50%), and grade 4(<10%) according to the rate of E-Cadherin expression. We studied the relationship between the rates of immunohistochemical staining and the survival rate. Results: Seventy two tumor specimens from 72 patients were studied. (mean age ; 59.6 years, male female = 69 : 3) The histologic type of the specimens was all squamous cell carcinoma. The patient's number of stage IIA, IIB, and Ⅳ was 30, 37, and 7 respectively, Thirty patients were alive and overall 5 year-survival rate was 28%. The mutation of p53 was shown in 54.2% of the patients. Five year survival rates of negative and positive groups were 29% and 28% respectively.(p=0.4) Expression of bc12 gene was found in 13.9% of the specimens. Five year survival rates of negative and positive groups were 30% and 21%.(p=0.3) Higher Ki67 index was correlated to poorer differentiation.(p=0.05) Five year survival rates of higher and lower groups of Ki67 index were 47% and 30%.(p=0.15) Higher expression rate of E-Cadherin showed better differentiation.(p=0.04). However we couldn't find any survival differences between these 4 groups.(p=0.23) Conclusion; We could not find any molecular markers meaningful in the prognosis of esophageal cancer patients. We just found the tumor markers correlated to the differentiation of esophageal cancer. However, we knew that we need further study with some more samples to stratify other important prognostic factors of esophageal cancer.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.13-19
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• 2006

Purpose: To evaluate whether modified MUPIT applicator can effectively eradicate recurrent tumor in uterine cervix cancer and reduce rectal complication after complete radiation treatment. Materials and Methods: Modified MUPIT applicator basically consists of an acrylic cylinder with flexible brain applicator, an acrylic template with a predrilled array of holes that serve as guides for interstitial needles and interstitial needles. CT scan was peformed to determine tumor volume and the position of interstitial needles. Modified MUPIT applicator was applied to patient in operation room and the accuracy for position of interstitial needles in tumor volume was confirmed by CTscan. Brachytherapy was delivered using modified MUPIT applicator and RALS(192-lr HDR) after calculated computer planning by orthogonal film. The daily dose was 600cGy and the total dose was delivered 3,000 cGy in tumor volume by BID. Rectal dose was measured by TLD at 5 points so that evaluated the risk of rectal complication. Results: The application of modified MUPIT applicator improved dramatically dose distributions in tumor volume and follow-up of 3 month for this patient was clinically partial response without normal tissue complication, Rectal dose was measured 34.1 cGy, 57.1 cGy, 103.8 cGy, 162.7 cGy, 165.7 cGy at each points, especially the rectal dose including previous EBRT and ICR was 34.1 cGy, 57.1 cGy. Conclusion: Patients with locally recurrent tumor in uterine cervix cancel treated with modified MUPIT applicator can expect reasonable rates of local control. The advantages of the system are the fixed geometry provided by the template and cylinders. and improved dose distributions in irregular tumor volume without rectal complication.

• Bioinformatics and Biosystems
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.67-72
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• 2006

The aim of this paper is to discuss the effect of missing values in detecting differentially expressed genes in a cDNA microarray experiment in the context of a one sample problem. We conducted a cDNA micro array experiment to detect differentially expressed genes for the metastasis of colorectal cancer based on twenty patients who underwent liver resection due to liver metastasis from colorectal cancer. Total RNAs from metastatic liver tumor and adjacent normal liver tissue from a single patient were labeled with cy5 and cy3, respectively, and competitively hybridized to a cDNA microarray with 7775 human genes. We used $M=log_2(R/G)$ for the signal evaluation, where Rand G denoted the fluorescent intensities of Cy5 and Cy3 dyes, respectively. The statistical problem comprises a one sample test of testing E(M)=0 for each gene and involves multiple tests. The twenty cDNA microarray data would comprise a matrix of dimension 7775 by 20, if there were no missing values. However, missing values occur for various reasons. For each gene, the no missing proportion (NMP) was defined to be the proportion of non-missing values out of twenty. In detecting differentially expressed (DE) genes, we used the genes whose NMP is greater than or equal to 0.4 and then sequentially increased NMP by 0.1 for investigating its effect on the detection of DE genes. For each fixed NMP, we imputed the missing values with K-nearest neighbor method (K=10) and applied the nonparametric t-test of Dudoit et al. (2002), SAM by Tusher et al. (2001) and empirical Bayes procedure by $L\ddot{o}nnstedt$ and Speed (2002) to find out the effect of missing values in the final outcome. These three procedures yielded substantially agreeable result in detecting DE genes. Of these three procedures we used SAM for exploring the acceptable NMP level. The result showed that the optimum no missing proportion (NMP) found in this data set turned out to be 80%. It is more desirable to find the optimum level of NMP for each data set by applying the method described in this note, when the plot of (NMP, Number of overlapping genes) shows a turning point.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.37 no.1
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• pp.17-23
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• 2014

We already had reported that Bcl-w promotes invasion or migration in gastric cancer cells and glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) by activating matrix metalloproteinase-2 (MMP-2) via specificity protein 1 (Sp1) or ${\beta}$-cateinin, respectively. High expression of Bcl-w also has been reported in GBM which is the most common malignant brain tumor and exhibits aggressive and invasive behavior. These reports propose that Bcl-w-induced signaling is strongly associated with aggressive characteristic of GBM. We demonstrated that Sp1 protein or mRNA expression is induced by Bcl-w using Western blotting or RT-PCR, respectively, and markedly elevated in high-grade glioma specimens compared with low-grade glioma tissues using tissue array. However, relationship between Bcl-w-related signaling and aggressive characteristic of GBM is poorly characterized. This study suggested that Bcl-w-induced Sp1 activation promoted expression of glioma stem-like cell markers, such as Musashi, Nanog, Oct4 and sox-2, as well as neurosphere formation and invasiveness, using western blotting, neurosphere formation assay, or invasion assay, culminating in their aggressive behavior. Therefore, Bcl-w-induced Sp1 activation is proposed as a putative marker for aggressiveness of GBM.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.3773-3778
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• 2014

Background: The study was aimed to evaluate the prevalence and genotype distribution of HPV infection in vulvar squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in northern Thailand and the clinicopathological difference with regard to HPV infection status. Materials and Methods: Formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue samples of vulvar SCC diagnosed between January 2006 and December 2012 were collected. HPV infection was detected by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with primers MY09/11 and GP5+/6+. HPV genotyping was performed using the Linear Array Genotyping Test, followed by type-specific PCR targeting the E6/E7 region of HPV16/18/52 if the Linear Array test was negative. The histologic slides of vulvar lesions and the medical records were reviewed. Results: There were 47 cases of vulvar SCC included in the study (mean patient age $57.9{\pm}13.2$ years). HPV infection was detected in 29 cases (62%), all of which had single HPV infections. HPV16 accounted for 23 (49%). The patients with HPV-positive SCC had a significantly younger mean age than those with HPV-negative tumors (52.7 years vs 66.2 years, p<0.001). There was no significant difference in tumor stage distribution with regard to the status of HPV infection. The presence of vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN) of usual type (basaloid or warty) was significantly more frequent in HPV-positive cases compared with HPV-negative cases (62% vs 6%, p<0.001), whereas differentiated-type VIN was more common in HPV-negative cases (24% vs 0%, p=0.019). Conclusions: HPV infection was detected in 62% of vulvar SCC in northern Thailand. HPV16 was the predominant genotype similar to the data reported from other regions. HPV-positive SCC occurred in younger patients compared with HPV-negative SCC, and was associated with usual-type VIN. Vaccination against HPV16/18 may potentially prevent almost one half of vulvar SCC in northern Thailand.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.87-99
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• 2016

Purpose : This study will evaluate the clinical utility by applying clinical schematic that uses monoenergy or dual energy as according to the location of tumors to the stereotactic radiotherapy to compare the change in actual dose given to the real tumor and the dose that locates adjacent to the tumor. Materials and Methods : CT images from a total of 10 patients were obtained and the clinical planning were planned based on the volumetric modulated arc therapy on monoenergy and dual energy. To analyze the change factor in the tumor, Comformity Index(CI) and Homogeneity Index(HI) and maximum dose quantity were each calculated and comparing the dose distribution on normal tissues, $V_{10}$ and $V_5$, first ~ fourth ribs closest to the tumor ($1^{st}{\sim}4^{th}$ Rib), Spinal Cord, Esophagus and Trachea were selected. Also, in order to confirm the accuracy on which the planned dose distribution is really measured, the 2-dimensional ion chamber array was used to measure the dose distribution. Results : As of the tumor factor, CI and HI showed a number close to 1 when the two energies were used. As of the maximum dose, the front chest wall showed 2% and the dorsal tumor showed equivalent value. As of normal tissue, the front chest wall tumors were reduced by 4%, 5% when both energies were used in the adjacent rib and as of trachea, reduced by 11%, 17%. As of the dose in the lung, as of $V_{10}$, it reduced by 1.5%, $V_5$ by 1%. As of the rear chest wall, when both energies were used, the ribs adjacent to the tumors showed 6%, 1%, 4%, 12% reduction, and in the lung dose distribution, $V_{10}$ reduced by 3%, and $V_5$ reduced by 3.1%. The dose measurement in all energies were in accordance to the results of Gamma Index 3mm/3%. Conclusion : It is considered that rather than using monoenergy, utilizing double energy in the clinical setting can be more effectively applied to the superficial tumors.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.441-452
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• 2002

Background : Anti-apoptotic proteins may be involved in tumor development, progression and the response to treatment, Bcl-2 is by far the most studied anti-apoptotic protein. A novel inhibitor of apoptosis, designated survivin, and the heat shock proteins (HSPs) have recently been found in many human cancers. Immunohistochemical methods were used to determine the expression level of survivin, HSP70 and bcl-2 in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to evaluate their clinical significance. Materials and Methods : Tissue array slides were obtained from 99 surgically resected NSCLCs. Immunohistochemical staining was performed by an immuno-peroxidase technique using an avidin-biotinylated horseradish peroxidase complex. Anti-survivin rabbit polyclonal antibodies, anti-HSP70 mouse monoclonal antibodies and anti-bcl-2 mouse monoclonal antibodies were used as the primary antibodies. Results : Positive staining of survivin was detected in 33.3% of the cases. Survivin positivity is associated with to females and recurrence. A nonstatistically significant trend toward increased survivin expression was observed in non-smokers, and its expression inversely correlated with the number of cigarettes smoked in smokers. HSP70 was detected in 84.8% but this did not correlated with the clinicopathologic characteristics. Bcl-2 was detected in 18.2% and its expression correlated to tumor recurrence. No significant difference in the median survival time was noted in a comparison of all cases with survivin expression and those without. There was no association between HSP70 or bcl-2 expression and survival. Conclusion : Survivin expression was significantly associated with females and tumor recurrence. In addition its expression was inversely associated with the number of cigarettes smoked. However, HSP70 and bcl-2 expression were not associated with the clinical parameters or survival. This suggests that measuring the survivin levels may be useful in identifying patients at high risk for disease recurrence. Therefore, survivin might be a new diagnostic/therapeutic target in cancer.