Hsin-An Chen

Taipei Medical University | TMU · Department of General Surgery

Background: Although the effectiveness of robotic hepatectomy (RH) has been evaluated in several studies, the superiority of RH over other approaches has not been definitely established. Therefore, in the present propensity score-matched cohort study, we compared RH and laparoscopic hepatectomy (LH) in terms of perioperative and oncologic outcomes...

Background Colorectal cancer (CRC) is highly prevalent and lethal globally, and its prognosis remains unsatisfactory. Drug resistance is regarded as the main cause of treatment failure leading to tumor recurrence and metastasis. The overexpression of fucosylated epitopes, which are usually modifications of glycoproteins, was reported to occur in va...

Background: Kidney transplantation is the most important treatment for end-stage renal disease. Immunosuppressive therapies can prevent acute rejection for kidney transplant recipients. Tacrolimus is usually administered to prevent graft rejection after transplantation. Previous studies have indicated that once-daily tacrolimus may improve medicat...

Sorafenib, a small-molecule inhibitor targeting several tyrosine kinase pathways, is the standard treatment for advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, not all patients with HCC respond well to sorafenib, and 30% of patients develop resistance to sorafenib after short-term treatment. Galectin-1 modulates cell-cell and cell-matrix interact...

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the deadliest cancers worldwide and long-term survival is not guaranteed in metastatic disease despite current multidisciplinary therapies. A new compound 2,3,5,4'-Tetrahydroxystilbene (TG1), derived from THSG (2,3,5,4'-Tetrahydroxystilbene-2-O-β-D-Glucoside), has been developed, and its anticancer abi...

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most lethal cancers worldwide. Long-term survival is not achieved in metastatic CRC despite the current multidisciplinary therapies. Bromelain, a compound extracted from the pineapple plant, has multiple functions and anticancer properties. Previously, bromelain has been chromatographically separat...

Metastasis in breast cancer usually lead to the majority of deaths on clinical patients. Accordingly, diagnosis of metastasis at the early stage in breast cancer is important to improve the prognosis. We observed that Dicer protein levels are significant decrease in highly invasive breast cancer cells and usually correlated with poor clinical outco...

Background Moorthy checklist (MC) and laparoscopic skill competency assessment tool (LS-CAT) are tools commonly used to evaluate the quality of laparoscopic suturing. The current assessment model is single measurement by multiple raters. Our aim is to examine the reliability of the current assessment model and tools. Methods With IRB approval, par...

Oxaliplatin, a third-generation platinum derivative, has become one of the main chemotherapeutic treatments for esophagus, gastric and colorectal cancer; however, it is still unclear the potential effectiveness for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) with gemcitabine resistance. Here, we observed that PDAC tumors have low level of organic catio...

Distant metastasis is the leading cause of death in patients with breast cancer. Despite considerable treatment advances, the clinical outcomes of patients with metastatic breast cancer remain poor. CSCs can self-renew, enhancing cancer progression and metastasis. Dicer, a microRNA (miRNA) processing-related enzyme, is required for miRNA maturation...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is a common malignancy that shows high cancer-mortality and poor prognosis, in the absence of obvious symptoms and biomarkers for early diagnosis. Gemcitabine is a type of chemotherapy drug which commonly used to treat PDAC, however, the rapid acquisition of resistance to gemcitabine treatment has been observ...

Background Routine use of intraoperative cholangiography (IOC) during laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC) for detecting common bile duct stones remains controversial. The 2016 World Society of Emergency Surgery (WSES) guidelines on acute calculous cholecystitis proposed a risk stratification for choledocholithiasis. Our present study aimed to (1) exa...

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal diseases which lack an early diagnostic marker. We investigated whether serum ferritin (SF) reflects risk for pancreatic cancer and potential genes that may contribute ferritin and pancreatic cancer risks. We performed a meta-analysis of relevant studies on SF and pancreatic cancer risk by searching artic...

Hepatocellular carcinoma is a common type of liver cancer. Resistance to chemotherapeutic agents is a major problem in cancer therapy. MicroRNAs have been reported in cancer development and tumor growth; however, the relationship between chemoresistance and hepatocellular carcinoma needs to be fully investigated. Here, we treated hepatocellular car...

Background/purpose Although laparoscopic liver resection (LLR) is a common surgical procedure for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), its suitability for large HCCs (≥5 cm) remains controversial. This study compared surgical outcomes of open hepatectomy with LLR for large HCCs. Methods A total of 313 patients with HCC who underwent hepatectomy between...

AXL which is a chemosensitizer protein for breast cancer cells in response to epidermal growth factor receptor‐tyrosine kinase inhibitor and suppresses tumor growth. The clinical information show nuclear factor I (NFI)‐C and NFI‐X expression correlate with AXL expression in breast cancer patients. Following, we establish serial deletions of AXL pro...

Gemcitabine has been a commonly used therapeutic agent for treatment of pancreatic cancer. In the clinic, a growing resistance to gemcitabine has been observed in patients with pancreatic cancer, and investigation of the underlying mechanism of gemcitabine resistance is urgently required. The microRNA (miRNA)‐producing enzyme, Dicer, is crucial for...

Background: Breast cancer is one of the most prevalent gynecologic malignancies worldwide. Despite the high sensitivity in response to chemotherapy, drug resistance occurred frequently in clinical treatment. Cryptotanshinone (CTS) is a herbal medicine and has been identified as an anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative drug. Methods: In vitro assa...

Background Laparoscopic liver resection yields improved short-term surgical outcomes, whereas the reports about clinical benefits of single-incision laparoscopic hepatectomy (SILH) are scarce. This retrospective study is to compare the surgical outcomes of SILH with those of multi-incision laparoscopic hepatectomy (MILH). Methods The study include...

Introduction The immunosuppressant agents in kidney transplantation (KT) may lead to various complications such as opportunistic infections and malignancies. BK virus associated nephropathy is a significant complication following KT, and it can result in graft failure. BK virus causes tubulointerstitial nephritis, ureter stenosis, and even graft fa...

Background This retrospective study compared the short- and long-term outcomes of laparoscopic liver resection (LLR) and open liver resection (OLR) and identified patients who might gain more benefits from LLR. Methods The demographic and perioperative data, short-term surgical outcomes, and long-term oncological results of all 313 patients who rec...

Background The pathology change of renal tubulointerstitial fibrosis is a critical feature of chronic kidney disease (CKD), regardless of the primary insults. The infiltration of inflammatory cells and the consecutive secretion of profibrotic factors are frequently and conspicuously observed during the development of renal fibrosis. Icariin, an act...

Background Whether continued oral feeding may have a negative impact on healing of postoperative pancreatic fistula (POPF) is unclear. The aim was to test the hypothesis that oral feeding is non‐inferior to enteral feeding in closure of POPF after pancreatoduodenectomy, and to clarify the effects of oral feeding on the duration and grade of POPF....

Background Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common and most aggressive primary solid malignant bone tumor in children and young adults and has high rates of recurrence and metastasis. The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress pathway is important in regulating the chemo-responsiveness of cancer. However, the role of glucose-regulated protein 94 (GRP94) in...

Introduction Many risk prediction models of diabetes remission after bariatric and metabolic surgery have been proposed. Most models have been created using Roux-en-Y gastric bypass cohorts. However, validation of these models in sleeve gastrectomy (SG) is limited. The objective of our study is to validate the performance of risk prediction models...

Background: Pulmonary complications remain relatively high in morbidities that arise after liver surgery and are associated with increased length of hospital stay and higher cost. Identification of possible risk factors in this retrospective analysis may help reduce operative morbidity and achieve better outcomes. Methods: In all, 363 consecutiv...

The cancer stem cells (CSCs) theory recently became a focus of heightened attention in cancer biology, with the proposition that CSCs may constitute an important therapeutic target for effective anticancer therapy, because of their demonstrated role in tumor initiation, chemo-, and radio-resistance. Liver CSCs are a small subpopulation of poorly- o...

Background: Central neck dissection and total thyroidectomy are standard treatments for patients with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) with clinically involved central nodes. However, prophylactic central neck dissection (pCND) in patients with clinically uninvolved cN0 has been beneficial in some studies but ineffective in others. We conducted a...

Studies on the aberrant control of extracellular matrices (ECMs) have mainly focused on the role of malignant cells but less on that of stromal fibroblasts during cancer development. Herein, by using paired normal and prostate cancer-associated stromal fibroblasts (CAFs) derived from a coculture cell model and clinical patient samples, we demonstra...

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/onc.2015.168.

Background/aims: Cholecystectomy is generally performed to treat patients with gallstone disease (GSD) in clinical practice. The present study aimed to investigate whether type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) may influence the overall survival of GSD patients. Methods: The National Health Insurance Research Database, a population-based registry data...

Angiopoietin-like protein 1 (ANGPTL1) has been shown to act as a tumor suppressor by inhibiting angiogenesis, cancer invasion, and metastasis. However, little is known about the effects of ANGPTL1 on sorafenib resistance and cancer stem cell properties in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and the mechanism underlying these effects. Here, we show that...

End-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients commonly have a higher risk of developing cardiovascular diseases than general population. Chronic kidney disease is an independent risk factor for atrial fibrillation (AF); however, little is known about the AF risk among ESRD patients with various modalities of renal replacement therapy. We used the Taiwan...

Paclitaxel is a standard-of-care chemotherapy for breast cancer, despite the increasing recognition of its poor effectiveness in the treatment of patients with advanced disease. Here we report that adenovirus type 5 E1A-mediated elevation of the microRNA processing enzyme Dicer is sufficient to enhance paclitaxel sensitization and reduce cancer ste...

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) was the tenth leading cause of death in Taiwan. as the fifth stage of progressive CKD. Various therapeutic modalities including hemodialysis (HD),peritoneal dialysis (PD) and renal transplantation (RT) modify the risks of systemic chronic diseases in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients remains unclear. A total of 18...

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small RNAs that suppress gene expression by their interaction with 3'untranslated region of specific target mRNAs. Although the dysregulation of miRNAs has been identified in human cancer, only a few of these miRNAs have been functionally documented in breast cancer. Thus, defining the important miRNA and functional target in...

Proceedings: AACR Annual Meeting 2014; April 5-9, 2014; San Diego, CA Objective Urothelial carcinoma (UC) which is derived from the urothelium of the urinary tract includes cancers of bladder, renal pelvis and ureter. The aim of this study was to compare clinical and demographic features between bladder and upper urinary tract urothelial carcinoma...

Elevated expression of heat shock protein 5 (HSPA5) promotes drug resistance and metastasis and is a marker of poor prognosis in breast cancer patients. Adenovirus type 5 E1A gene therapy has demonstrated antitumor efficacy but the mechanisms of metastasis-inhibition are unclear. Here, we report that E1A interacts with p300 histone acetyltransferas...

Background: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is defined by reduced expression of the estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and HER2. TNBC is an especially aggressive group of breast cancers with poor prognosis. There are currently no validated molecular targets to effectively treat this disease. Thus, it is necessary to identify effective...

Autophagy is a survival mechanism that is activated in response to nutrient deprivation. The link between aberrant autophagy and cancer has been increasingly recognized. Survivin, an anti-apoptotic molecule, and the autophagy pathway are correlated with therapeutic responses to cancer. However, the role of autophagy in cancer progression remains un...

Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 3 (VEGFR-3) supports tumor lymphangiogenesis. It was originally identified as a lymphangiogenic factor expressed in lymphatic endothelial cells. VEGFR-3 was detected in advanced human malignancies and correlated with poor prognosis. Our previous studies show that activation of the VEGF-C/VEGFR-3 axis prom...

Several previous studies have investigated the association between the SULT1A1 Arg213His polymorphism and the risk of bladder cancer in various populations. However, these results remain inconsistent. Therefore, we performed this meta-analysis to evaluate the relationship between the SULT1A1 Arg213His polymorphism and the risk of bladder cancer. An...

Accumulating evidence is revealing an important role of microRNA (miRNA) in tumor progression and chemotherapeutic resistance. Dicer is a cytoplasmic endoribonuclease type III crucial for production of mature miRNAs. The aberrant expression of Dicer has also been reportedly associated with clinical aggressiveness, prognosis, and patient survival in...

Background. Survivin is a member of the inhibitors of apoptosis protein family that plays an important role in carcinogenesis. Here, we examined the association between survivin expression and clinical outcome in urothelial carcinoma of the bladder (UCB). Methods. A total of 56 histopathologically confirmed UCB patients were recruited from the Depa...

The aberrant activation of Wnt/β-catenin signaling plays an important role in the carcinogenesis and progression of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Therefore, the Wnt/β-catenin signaling molecules are attractive candidates for the development of targeted therapies for this disease. The present study showed that destruxin B (DB) inhibits the prolife...

NAD(P)H:quinine oxidoreductase (NQO1) plays an important role in the metabolism of several carcinogens contained in cigarettes. Inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) expression had been detected in urinary bladder tumors. The aim of this study was to investigate the interaction of iNOS and NQO1 on bladder cancer (BC) risk stratified by cigarette s...

Aim: To determine whether replacing Mg2+ in magnesium lithospermate B (Mg-LSB) isolated from danshen (Salvia miltiorrhiza) with other metal ions could affect its potency in inhibition of Na+/K+-ATPase activity. Methods: Eight metal ions (Na+, K+, Mg2+, Cr3+, Mn2+, Co2+, Ni2+, and Zn2+) were used to form complexes with LSB. The activity of Na+/K+-A...

Resveratrol, a phytochemical found in various plants and Chinese herbs, is associated with multiple tumor-suppressing activities, has been tested in clinical trials. However, the molecular mechanisms involved in resveratrol-mediated tumor suppressing activities are not yet completely defined. Here, we showed that treatment with resveratrol inhibite...

Fip-gts, a fungal immunomodulatory protein (Fip) isolated from Ganoderma tsugae (gts), has been reported to possess therapeutic effects in the treatment of cancer and autoimmune disease. To cost-effectively produce Fip-gts and bypass the bottleneck involved in its time-consuming purification from G. tsugae, in this study, we incorporated the SP(bbx...

We reported two primary malignant fibrous histiocytoma (MFH) cases (cases 1 and 2) strikingly simulating hepatocellular carcinoma with immunohistochemical (IHC) stains, and ultrastructural and K-ras mutation analysis. Cases 1 and 2 both included only men, aged 65 and 72 years, respectively. Case 1 presented with abdominal pain, fever, and bilateral...

A 27-year-old Taiwanese man with no significant medical history presented with abdominal distension and pain for 1 week. Physical examination was notable for an ovoid distended abdomen with tenderness and decreased bowel movements. Laboratory tests …

Survivin has multiple functions during the progression of cancer. However, the role of survivin in the progression and metastasis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unknown. Survivin expression in HCC cells (Mahlavu and Hep3B) was assessed using reverse transcription real-time PCR and Western blot analyses. In addition, survivin expression i...

Spontaneous rupture of the short gastric artery is an extremely rare event that can cause abdominal apoplexy or spontaneous hemoperitoneum. For the emergency physician, simultaneous restoration of circulatory volume and a rapid diagnosis remain central to a successful outcome in such critical cases. We reported a 21-year-old man who initially prese...

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the use of laparoscopy for the diagnosis and treatment for hemodynamically stable patients with abdominal stab wounds. We conducted a retrospective cohort study to compare the outcomes of 86 hemodynamically stable patients with suspected intra-abdominal injuries from abdominal stab wounds who underwe...

Acute intra-abdominal abnormalities requiring emergency laparotomy in extremely low-birth-weight (ELBW) infants may increase morbidity and mortality. Focal intestinal perforations (FIPs) not due to necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) are increasingly recognized in ELBW infants. We present an ELBW preterm male infant (24 weeks' gestation) with FIP who u...

Intussusception is the second most common abdominal emergency in children. In contrast, it is rare in adults. Adult intussusception represents only 1%-3% of patients with bowel obstruction. Although 95% of intussusception in children is idiopathic, merely 7% of adult intussusception is considered idiopathic. Owing to vague symptoms and signs, the p...

We developed a new method of mini-invasive surgery using gasless laparoscopy for radical subtotal gastrectomy, which can be safely and effectively applied in patients with early gastric cancer.