HIC (South Korea)

Respiratory monitoring is important in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients as progressive respiratory muscle weakness often leads to respiratory failure. We performed single-case feasibility evaluation of long-wave infrared imaging for noncontact respiratory rate estimation in a hospitalized amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patient and compared it with red-green-blue camera-based optical flow analysis and electrocardiogram-derived respiration. Respiratory rate was assessed using four methods: (a) manual counting as the ground truth; (b) long-wave infrared; (c) red-green-blue; and (d) single-lead electrocardiogram under three lighting conditions (regular, dim, and dark) with three 1-min trials per condition. Estimation accuracy was evaluated using mean absolute error relative to manual counting. Long-wave infrared imaging demonstrated the highest accuracy across all lighting conditions, with mean absolute errors of 1.67, 0.33, and 2.33 breaths per min, respectively. Red-green-blue-based estimation performed moderately well under regular and dim lighting but showed reduced accuracy in darkness, including one failed trial. Electrocardiogram-derived respiration showed the lowest accuracy and greatest variability across conditions. The limitations of the present study include its single-case design and absence of objective flow-based respiratory reference signals. However, this study demonstrates the feasibility and illumination robustness of long-wave infrared-based noncontact respiratory rate estimation in a hospital environment and supports further investigation of this approach for respiratory monitoring in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients.

Acinetobacter spp. is an important nosocomial pathogen especially in intensive care settings and is resistant to commonly available antimicrobial agents. Active surveillance is therefore necessary in order to determine appropriate antibiotic for the treatment.

We synthesized gallic acid (GA)‐conjugated chitosan (abbreviated as chitogallate) to study its antitumor activity against CT26 mouse colorectal carcinoma cells. GA was conjugated with chitosan by aid of water‐soluble carbodiimide. Chitogallate nanoparticles were prepared by dialysis method, and these nanoparticles have spherical shapes with sizes ranged about 70–250 nm. Chitogallate nanoparticles have superior antioxidants activities as well as GA itself. At cytotoxicity study, GA showed dose‐dependent cytotoxicities against CCD986sk cells and CT26 cells while chitogallate nanoparticles were not significantly affected to the viability of cells. In Matrigel invasion assay, chitogallate nanoparticles have superior anti‐invasive capacity against cancer cells as well as GA itself, i.e., invasiveness of CT26 cells was decreased according to GA contents in chitogallate nanoparticles. Furthermore, gelatin zymography also showed that chitogallate nanoparticles having higher substitution degree of GA decreased matrix metalloproteinase‐2 activity. Chitogallate nanoparticles efficiently inhibited pulmonary metastasis of CT26 cells in animal pulmonary metastasis model. We prepared chitogallate nanoparticles for application as an anti‐invasive agent. Chitogallate nanoparticles were less toxic than GA itself and have superior anti‐invasive/antimetastatic activity. We suggest that chitogallate nanoparticles are promising candidate for inhibition of tumor invasion/metastasis.