x. d. liang

The presence of tertiary lymphoid structures (TLS) is related with good prognosis of various cancers including bladder cancer. The majority of bladder tumors are identified as non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) when they are discovered in their early stages. We aimed to evaluate the prognostic value and clinical relevance of TLS in NMIBC.

This cohort included 130 NMIBC samples, with 39 (30%) having TLS, as confirmed by hematoxylin and eosin and immunohistochemistry staining. The chi-square test was utilized to examine the relationship between TLS and the biomarkers and clinicopathologic characteristics of NMIBC.

It was found that TLS has significant association with pT stage, Ki-67 expression, and COX-2 expression. Using Kaplan-Meier analysis and Gehan-Breslow-Wilcoxon test, we found that the presence of TLS is associated with longer recurrence-free survival and overall survival of NMIBC patients. Moreover, we used bioinformatics to analyze the association of TLS marker L1CAM and bladder cancer. L1CAM is downregulated in bladder cancer, linked to an advanced stage of the disease, and indicates a poorer prognosis for those who have bladder cancer. In bladder cancer, there is a positive correlation between its expression and B cell infiltration. We also indicated that NMIBC with TLS have a higher level of TLS than that without TLS.

To conclude, the presence of TLS is an important favorable prognostic indicator in NMIBC. A further understanding on TLS can provide new insights to improve immunotherapy for bladder cancer.

In previous studies, researchers established mathematical models for predicting the pressure coefficient in simple cavities and tubed vortex reducers based on the assumptions of incompressibility and adiabatic reversibility. However, these mathematical models are not suitable for engineering design and cannot predict the internal pressure and temperature. In this study, we first derived mathematical equations for predicting the pressure drop and temperature change in a tubed vortex reducer, by considering the irreversible loss at the tube inlet. To compensate for the shortcomings of the incompressibility assumption, we developed an iterative alternating calculation method that revises the density. Subsequently, we established a coupled prediction model based on the aforementioned equations and methods. The verified Reynolds stress model results proved that the coupled prediction model and the single prediction model, which represents the incompressible case, yield similar results in predicting pressure under low-rotating-speed conditions. However, as the rotating speed was increased, the error of the single prediction model gradually increased, whereas the coupled prediction model still had good prediction accuracy. With an increase in the length and number of tubes, the pressure drop showed a decreasing trend, whereas the temperature change did not fluctuate significantly.