MTOR and cholesteatoma: Because the Akt/mTOR pathway is an upstream negative regulator of autophagy, p-Akt/p-mTOR expression was investigated in 15 pairs of samples for possible upregulation in cholesteatomas, but no clear increasing trend in the expression of p-Akt or p-mTOR was detected, possibly indicating that the Akt/mTOR pathway is not involved in the observed down-regulation of autophagy.