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RESULTS Dispositional mindfulness was significantly and negatively correlated with negative emotions, including anxiety, depression, and PTSD among the BC patients. Structural equation modeling showed that caregiver burden mediated the relation between patients’ dispositional mindfulness and negative emotions. CONCLUSION BC patients with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness showed less negative emotions. The results of the mediation analysis suggested that higher levels of dispositional mindfulness of breast cancer patients could decrease the caregivers’ perceived burden and, in turn, relieve patients’ negative emotions. Dispositional mindfulness was beneficial to breast cancer patients as well as their caregivers, indicating that mindfulness-based interventions targeting distress in patient-caregiver dyads would be more effective than what interventions for patients alone.PURPOSE Previous systematic review suggested a beneficial effect of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. However, poor quality of eligible studies which included in previous systematic review impaired the reliability and validity of findings. The aim of the present systematic review was to further assess the value of PMR in chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. METHODS We assigned two independent investigators to search potential studies in PubMed, Cochrane Controlled Register of Trial (CENTRAL), Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), China Biomedical Literature database (CBM), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang Data database. We used data extraction sheet to extract essential information, and used the Cochrane risk of bias assessment tool to appraise the quality of eligible studies. Finally, we qualitatively summarized the results of all included studies. RESULTS Six studies enrolling 288 patients were included finally. Of these 6 studies, three were labeled as moderate quality and the remaining studies were low quality. SEL120-34A supplier All included studies consistently suggested that PMR has a positive effect on chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, especially on the incidence, frequency, and degree of delayed nausea and vomiting. CONCLUSION Independent studies indicated that PMR was a beneficial approach of preventing and alleviating chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting among cancer patients. However, further studies enrolling other types of primary tumors should be designed in order to increase the generality of PMR because studies which were included in the present systematic review mainly considered patients with lung cancer and breast cancer. Moreover, future studies with high quality and large-scale are also warranted in order to address the limitations in the present systematic review such as poor quality and limited data of eligible studies.OBJECTIVES Diagnosing ampullary and duodenal papillary carcinomas (ADPCs) is challenging. In the present study, we investigated the application value of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) in the preoperative evaluation of these tumours. METHODS 18F-FDG PET/CT images of 58 patients with ADPC and 28 patients with benign disease were retrospectively analysed. Preoperative 18F-FDG PET/CT was compared to contrast-enhanced (CE) CT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in terms of diagnostic efficacy, certainty, staging and impact on treatment decisions. RESULTS 18F-FDG PET/CT showed a high sensitivity (93.1%) and a medium specificity (78.6%) for diagnosing ADPC. Compared to CE CT/MRI, 18F-FDG PET/CT had a higher diagnostic specificity (78.6 vs. 35.7%, p = 0.001) but a similar sensitivity (93.1 vs. 89.6%, p = 0.508). 18F-FDG PET/CT provided a much higher diagnostic certainty than CE CT/MRI (definite reports, 88.4 vs. 50.0%, χ2 = 29.698, p  less then  0.001), especially for small tumours ≤ 1.5 cm, and found distant metastases in five patients. The 18F-FDG PET/CT findings affected the treatment plans of 11 patients and improved the confidence in the diagnoses of 28 patients. CONCLUSIONS The present study demonstrated that 18F-FDG PET/CT can supplement CE CT/MRI to provide a more accurate diagnosis for ADPC, and thus, plays an important role in the decision-making process before complicated pancreaticoduodenectomy procedures. KEY POINTS • It is a challenge for CT and MRI to diagnose ampullary carcinoma, especially at their early stage. • Our study demonstrated that the benefit of PET/CT was improving the diagnostic confidence for ampullary and duodenal papillary carcinomas. •18F-FDG PET/CT can change the treatment decision for ampullary and duodenal papillary carcinomas.OBJECTIVES To identify CT features distinguishing neuroendocrine carcinomas (NECs) of pancreas from well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) according to the World Health Organization 2017 and 2019 classification systems. METHODS This retrospective study included 69 patients with pathologically confirmed pancreatic neuroendocrine neoplasms who underwent dynamic CT (17, 17, 18, and 17 patients for well-differentiated grade 1, 2, 3 NET and NEC, respectively). CT was used to perform qualitative analysis (component, homogeneity, calcification, peripancreatic infiltration, main pancreatic ductal dilatation, bile duct dilatation, intraductal extension, and vascular invasion) and quantitative analysis (interface between tumor and parenchyma [delta], arterial enhancement ratio [AER], portal enhancement ratio [PER], and dynamic enhancement pattern). Uni- and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to identify features indicating NEC. Optimal cutoff values for enhancement ratios were determinedl-differentiated NET. KEY POINTS • Neuroendocrine carcinoma of the pancreas should be distinguished from well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumor in line with the revised grading and staging system. • Neuroendocrine carcinoma of the pancreas can be differentiated from well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumor on dynamic CT based on assessment of the portal enhancement ratio, arterial enhancement ratio, tumor conspicuity, dilatation of the main pancreatic duct or bile duct, and vascular invasion. • Tumor-parenchyma enhancement ratio in portal phase of dynamic CT is a useful feature, which may help to distinguish neuroendocrine carcinoma from well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumor of the pancreas.