Second Peoples Hospital of Shaanxi Province

Albuminuria is strongly associated with the development and progression of cardiovascular disease. We aimed to investigate the association between Life's Essential 8 (LE8) and albuminuria. The cross-sectional study enrolled 8,648 adults and excluded individuals with incomplete LE8 index data, missing serum creatinine or albumin/creatinine ratio data, and a diagnosis of chronic kidney disease. Albuminuria was defined as urinary albumin to creatinine ratio (uACR) ≥ 30mg/g. According to the recommendation of the American Heart Association (AHA), the LE8 score was categorized into three groups: high cardiovascular health (CVH), medium CVH, and low CVH. To evaluate the relationship between LE8 and albuminuria, logistic regression and restricted cubic spline models were employed. Of the 8,648 participants, 949 (11.0%) had albuminuria. After adjusting for potential confounding factors, compared with the low CVH group, the moderate CVH group (odds ratio: 0.552; 95% confidence interval: 0.388 to 0.786; P = 0.001) and high CVH group (OR: 0.253; 95%CI: 0.173 to 0.372; P < 0.001) showed a significant lower odds of albuminuria, and a significant linear negative association between LE8 scores and uACR levels was observed, as well as a non-linear connection between LE8 score and albuminuria. The prevalence of albuminuria was greater among female individuals across all CVH groups compared to their male counterparts. The LE8 scores exhibited a negative correlation with albuminuria levels. Adhering to optimal cardiovascular health is associated with better kidney health.

The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of berberine (BBR) on osteogenic differentiation of human periodontal ligament stem cells (hPDLSCs) in inflammatory environments and the mechanisms involved. hPDLSCs were isolated from human periodontal membrane tissues and identified via flow cytometry detection by evaluating cell surface markers. hPDLSCs were intervened by using different concentrations of BBR, followed by assessing the cell activity for screening the optimal concentration of BBR for subsequent experiments. hPDLSCs cultured with or without osteogenic induction medium were induced by TNF-α and the optimal concentration of BBR, respectively, and the cells were grouped into control, TNF-α, BBR, and TNF-α + BBR groups. Cell proliferation, ALP activity, and osteogenic differentiation were assessed. The expression of RUNX2, OPN, FOXO1, and phosphorylated p-FOXO1 was also evaluated. Compared with the control group, the TNF-α group exhibited decreased cell activity, reduced ALP activity, impaired osteogenic differentiation, downregulated osteogenic proteins RUNX2 and OPN, and increased expression of p-FOXO1/FOXO1. Relative to the TNF-α group, the TNF-α + BBR group indicated increased cell activity, enhanced ALP activity, improved osteogenic differentiation, upregulated RUNX2 and OPN expression, and decreased p-FOXO1/FOXO1 expression. BBR enhances osteogenic differentiation of hPDLSCs in the inflammatory microenvironment via the inhibition of FOXO1 phosphorylation level.

Exponential population aging has led to an increased prevalence of cognitive impairment worldwide. Hand grip strength, which may be associated with physical activity, could be a useful predictor of cognitive impairment. However, few studies have reported the association, if any, between hand grip strength and cognitive function. We used data obtained from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2011-2012 and 2013-2014 to investigate the association between hand grip strength and cognitive impairment. Cognitive impairment was assessed using the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD), animal fluency (AF), and digit symbol substitution test (DSST) scores. Cutoff values of CERAD < 5, AF < 14, and DSST < 34 were used to define cognitive impairment. In this cross-sectional study, we used odds ratios to determine the potential usefulness of hand grip strength for the prediction of cognitive impairment. This study included 2,623 participants aged ≥60 years. The DSST results showed that hand grip strength was associated with a low risk of cognitive impairment and that subgroup analysis showed that male sex, 60-69 years of age, and the Non-Hispanic (NH)-White, NH Black, and Asian were associated with a significantly low risk of cognitive impairment. The CERAD test results showed that 70-79 years of age and the NH White were significantly associated with a low risk of cognitive impairment. By following full adjustment, we did not observe statistically significant differences between hand grip strength and cognitive impairment based on the CERAD test. The AF test results showed that >80 years of age, female sex, and the NH White were associated with a significantly low risk of cognitive impairment. The most important finding is that a linear association lies between grip strength and cognitive impairment, as well as a sex-based linear association. Machine learning of the XGBoost model suggests that grip strength is one of the top two most important negative predictor variables. We observed an inverse relationship between hand grip strength and cognitive impairment, which might suggest a shared underlying mechanism that needs to be further investigated using a large-scale prospective clinical trial to validate our findings.

Lung adenocarcinoma (LUAD) is the most common form of lung cancer and with the highest mortality rate. Therefore, the identification and development of effective methods for the treatment of LUAD is of great importance. The present study aimed to investigate the role of thioredoxin domain-containing protein 9 (TXNDC9) and tyrosine 3-monooxygenase/tryptophan 5-monooxygenase activation protein γ (YWHAG; also known as 14-3-3γ) in the progression of LUAD. The expression of TXNDC9 and its association with the survival of patients with LUAD was analyzed using Encyclopedia of RNA Interactomes. Reverse transcription-quantitative PCR and western blot analysis were used to detect TXNDC9 mRNA and protein expression levels, respectively, in in vitro studies. To investigate the role of TXNDC9 in the progression of LUAD, TXNDC9 was silenced using small interfering RNA transfection. Furthermore, the viability, proliferation, migration, invasiveness and apoptosis of TXNDC9-silenced A549 cells were detected using Cell Counting Kit (CCK)-8, colony formation, wound healing, Transwell and TUNEL assays, respectively. The association between TXNDC9 and YWHAG was analyzed using STRING and Gene Expression Profiling Interactive Analysis databases, as well as co-immunoprecipitation assays. Subsequently, YWHAG was overexpressed to similarly determine effects of YWHAG on viability, proliferation, migration, invasiveness and apoptosis of A549 cells. TXNDC9 expression was markedly upregulated in lung cancer cells, particularly A549 cells, and silencing of TXNDC9 expression suppressed the viability of the lung cancer cells. The results also revealed that TXNDC9 silencing exerted inhibitory effects on the viability, proliferation, migration and invasiveness of A549 cells, whereas the apoptotic rate was increased. Similar to TXNDC9, YWHAG expression was also upregulated in the A549 cells. Furthermore, TXNDC9 was demonstrated to bind to YWHAG and was positively associated with YWHAG. YWHAG overexpression reversed the inhibitory effects of TXNDC9 silencing on LUAD, as evidenced by increased viability, proliferation, migration and invasiveness, and decreased apoptosis, of A549 cells. The present study demonstrated that the knockdown of TXNDC9 exerted suppressive effects on LUAD, whereas YWHAG overexpression reversed the inhibitory effects of TXNDC9 silencing on LUAD. Therefore, TXNDC9 silencing may exert protective effects against LUAD by targeting YWHAG.

Abstract Accurate organ at risk (OAR) segmentation is critical to reduce the radiotherapy post-treatment complications. Consensus guidelines recommend a set of more than 40 OARs in the head and neck (H&amp;N) region, however, due to the predictable prohibitive labor-cost of this task, most institutions choose a substantially simplified protocol by delineating a smaller subset of OARs and neglecting the dose distributions associated with other OARs. In this work we propose a novel, automated and highly effective stratified OAR segmentation (SOARS) system using deep learning to precisely delineate a comprehensive set of 42 H&amp;N OARs. SOARS stratifies 42 OARs into anchor, mid-level, and small &amp; hard subcategories, with specifically derived neural network architectures for each category by neural architecture search (NAS) principles. We built SOARS models using 176 training patients in an internal institution and independently evaluated on 1327 external patients across six different institutions. It consistently outperformed other state-of-the-art methods by at least 3-5% in Dice score for each institutional evaluation (up to 36% relative error reduction in other metrics). More importantly, extensive multi-user studies evidently demonstrated that 98% of the SOARS predictions need only very minor or no revisions for direct clinical acceptance (saving 90% radiation oncologists workload), and their segmentation and dosimetric accuracy are within or smaller than the inter-user variation. These findings confirmed the strong clinical applicability of SOARS for the OAR delineation process in H&amp;N cancer radiotherapy workflows, with improved efficiency, comprehensiveness, and quality.

Purpose: To assess the resolution of intracardiac echogenic focus in gestation and to evaluate its association with fetal cardiac structural defects. Materials and Methods: Retrospective data of fetal echocardiography from January 2014 to December 2016 in low-risk pregnancies were collected. The study variables included observation resolution data of fetuses with intracardiac echogenic foci detected in the second-trimester, and follow-up data in the third-trimester. The Chi-square test was used to determine the association between intracardiac echogenic foci and fetal cardiac defects. Additionally, several statistical measures of performance for the foci as predictive markers were calculated. Results: The authors examined 8,120 fetuses. Among 531 fetuses with intracardiac echogenic foci, the overall incidence rate was 6.5% on a sonogram at 22-28 gestational weeks. The left ventricle was the most common site. Significant differences were observed between the locations and features of changes in the foci (χ2 = 18.68, p = 0.0009). No significant associations were found between the foci locations and fetal cardiac structural defects (Pfisher=0.28), or between the foci and cardiac defects [χ2 = 0.91, p = 0.34, OR = 0.72 with 95% confidence interval (0.40, 1.30)]. Conclusions: In most cases, isolated intracardiac echogenic focus was a transient sonographic marker during the gestational period. However, foci in the right ventricle were more stable than in the other locations. Intracardiac echogenic foci were not associated with cardiac defects, despite persistence in the third trimester.

Objective To investigate the effect and recurrence rate of radiofrequency ablation of low temperature plasma knife in the treatment of patients with early glottal carcinoma. Methods A total of 64 cases of early glottic carcinoma in the People's Hospital of Shanxi Province from February 2012 to January 2016 were divided into observation group and control group according to the different treatment schemes, with 32 cases in each group.The observation group was treated with radiofrequency ablation of low temperature plasma knife, and the control group was performed with routine larynx cleft surgery.The surgical related indicators and postoperative complications of the two groups were recorded.The phonetic changes (amplitude perturbation, fundamental frequency perturbation and harmonic noise ratio) before and 6 months after operation of two groups were compared.After 2 years of follow-up, the recovery of vocal mucosa in the two groups after 1 year of operation and the recurrence rate of 6 months, 1 year and 2 years after operation of the two groups were statistically recorded. Results The intraoperative blood loss in the observation group was less than that in the control group(P 0.05). After operation, the amplitude perturbation and the fundamental frequency perturbation in the observation group were lower than those of the control group, and the harmonic noise ratio was higher than that of the control group, the difference were statistically significant (t=18.618, 4.258, 2.579, all P<0.05). In the observation group, the recurrence rates at 6 months, 1 year and 2 years after operation were lower than those in the control group(χ2=4.598, 6.335, 4.730, all P<0.05). Conclusion Radiofrequency ablation of low temperature plasma knife in the treatment of patients with early glottal carcinoma can significantly reduce the intraoperative blood loss, shorten the operation time and observation time of postoperative hospital stay, and significantly reduce the incidence of postoperative complications and recurrence rate.It can also improve the patients' voice, and promote the recovery of vocal cord mucosal smooth.Besides, it has remarkable effect, and it has important significance in clinical treatment. Key words: Laryngeal neoplasms; Glottis; Ablation technigues; Cryosurgery; Larynx dehiscence; Comparative effectiveness research

BackgroundAberrant EVI1 expression is frequently reported in cancer studies; however, its role in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) has not been examined in detail. The aim of the present study is to investigate the involvement of EVI1 in progression and prognosis of NPC.MethodsRT-PCR, immunohistochemistry and western blot assays were used to examine the expression of EVI1 in NPC tissues and cell lines. Fluorescence in situ hybridization assay was used to examine the amplification of EVI1 in NPC tissues. The biological effect of EVI1 was determined by both in vitro and in vivo studies. The dual-luciferase reporter assay was performed to confirm that EVI1 bind at E-cadherin andβ-catenin promoters. The ChIP, EMSA, and coimmunoprecipitation combined with mass spectrometry assays were used to analyze the EVI1 regulated proteins.ResultsEVI1 expression level was up-regulated in NPC tissues and cell lines. EVI1 was amplificated in NPC tissues. We observed that EVI1 down-regulation decreased the cell proliferation and invasive capacity of NPC cells in vitro and in vivo. EVI1, snail, and HDAC1 formed a co-repressor complex to repress E-cadherin expression and ultimately contributed to epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) phenotype in NPC cells. In another way, EVI1 directly bound at β-catenin promoter and activated its expression. β-catenin mediated EVI1’s function on cancer stem cells (CSCs) properties. EVI1 up-regulation predicted unfavorable prognosis and contributed to chemo/radio-resistance in NPC cells. Finally, we constructed arsenic trioxide-loaded nanoparticles (ALNPs) and revealed that ALNPs exerted anti-tumor effect in NPC cells.ConclusionsOur data indicated that EVI1 played an oncogenic role in NPC growth and metastasis and that EVI1 might serve as a novel molecular target for the treatment of NPC.