There are many documented sex differences in the clinical course, symptom expression profile, and treatment response of Parkinson's disease, creating additional challenges for patient management. Although subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation is an established therapy for Parkinson's disease, the effects of sex on treatment outcome are still unclear. The aim of this retrospective observational study, was to examine sex differences in motor symptoms, non-motor symptoms, and quality of life after subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation. Outcome measures were evaluated at 1 and 12 months post-operation in 90 patients with Parkinson's disease undergoing subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation aged 63.00 ± 8.01 years (55 men and 35 women). Outcomes of clinical evaluations were compared between sexes via a Student's t-test and within sex via a paired-sample t-test, and generalized linear models were established to identify factors associated with treatment efficacy and intensity for each sex. We found that subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation could improve motor symptoms in men but not women in the on-medication condition at 1 and 12 months post-operation. Restless legs syndrome was alleviated to a greater extent in men than in women. Women demonstrated poorer quality of life at baseline and achieved less improvement of quality of life than men after subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation. Furthermore, Hoehn-Yahr stage was positively correlated with the treatment response in men, while levodopa equivalent dose at 12 months post-operation was negatively correlated with motor improvement in women. In conclusion, women received less benefit from subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation than men in terms of motor symptoms, non-motor symptoms, and quality of life. We found sex-specific factors, i.e., Hoehn-Yahr stage and levodopa equivalent dose, that were related to motor improvements. These findings may help to guide subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation patient selection, prognosis, and stimulation programming for optimal therapeutic efficacy in Parkinson's disease.
Duck circovirus (DuCV) is one of the most prevalent viruses in the duck breeding industry, and causes persistent infection and severe immunosuppression. Currently, there is a serious lack of prevention and control measures and no commercial vaccine against DuCV. Therefore, effective antiviral drugs are important for treating DuCV infection. Interferon (IFN) is an important component of antiviral innate immunity, but it remains unclear whether duck IFN-α has a clinical effect against DuCV. Antibody therapy is an important way to treat viral infections. The DuCV structural protein (cap) is immunogenic, and it remains to be determined whether an anti-cap protein antibody can effectively block DuCV infection. In this study, the duck IFN-α gene and the DuCV structural protein cap gene were cloned, expressed and purified in Escherichia coli to prepare duck recombinant IFN-α and the cap protein. Then, rabbits were immunized with the recombinant cap protein to prepare a rabbit polyclonal antibody. This study investigated the antiviral effect of duck recombinant IFN-α and the anti-cap protein antibody and their combined effect on Cherry Valley ducks infected with DuCV. The results showed that the treatment significantly alleviated the clinical symptoms of immune organ atrophy and immunosuppression compared with the control. The histopathological damage of the target organs was alleviated, and replication of DuCV in the immune organs was significantly inhibited. The treatment also reduced the damage caused by DuCV to the liver and immune function, and increased the level of the DuCV antibody in the blood, thereby improving antiviral activity. Notably, the combination of duck IFN-α and the polyclonal antibody completely blocked DuCV infection after 13 days under the experimental conditions, showing a better inhibitory effect on DuCV infection than single treatments. These results showed that duck recombinant IFN-α and the anti-cap protein antibody can be used as antiviral drugs to clinically treat and control DuCV infection, particularly the vertical transmission of the virus in breeding ducks.
Colon cancer is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths all around the world. LncRNA methylation has been verified to participate in some kinds of malignancies. The aim of this study was to investigate the function of NEAT1 in colon cancer and further explore the potential mechanism between NEAT1 and ALKBH5. Differential expression of lncRNAs between colon cancer tissues and normal tissues was identified using ArrayStar lncRNA microarrays. The levels of NEAT1 and ALKBH5 expression in colon cancer tissues and cells were measured using qRT-PCR. MTT, transwell migration assays and qRT-PCR were performed to detect cell proliferation and migration. Flow cytometry and qRT-PCR was used for apoptosis analysis. Then, m6A RNA immunoprecipitation was performed to detect methylated NEAT1 in colon cancer cells. The results showed NEAT1 was remarkably enhanced in colon cancer tissues and correlated with poor prognosis. Knockdown of NEAT1 inhibited cell proliferation and migration, induced cell apoptosis in colon cancer cell lines. Besides, ALKBH5 could upregulate NEAT1 expression by demethylation. In addition, ALKBH5 knockdown suppressed malignant behavior of colon cancer partially through NEAT1 in vitro and vivo. In a word, we observed NEAT1 expression level was up-regulated in colon cancer tissues and cells. ALKBH5 knockdown suppressed malignant behavior of colon cancer partially through NEAT1 by demethylation in vitro and vivo, suggesting that ALKBH5-NEAT1 axis maybe potential therapeutic target for colon cancer treatment.
We compared the clinical outcomes of patients who underwent coronary artery intervention by the transulnar and transradial artery approaches. In this 1 year, single-center study, patients were randomized to either a radial artery (RA) or ulnar artery (UA) group. Of 538 patients, the primary outcome, arterial occlusion of a forearm artery, occurred in 21 of 225 patients in the RA group compared to 6 of 220 patients in the UA group (9.3% vs 2.7%, P = .007). The rate of arterial occlusion was significantly lower following ulnar access compared to radial (odds ratio [OR] = 3.85, P = .006). A higher risk of occlusion was associated with repeated procedures rather than a single procedure (OR = 5.14, P = .003), smoking (OR = 2.39, P = .04), and arterial to sheath diameter ratio of ≤1 (OR = 2.62, P = .03). However, the disadvantage of UA was an increase of incidence of hematomas (13.2% vs 5.8%, P = .01) and symptoms of discomfort (15.5% vs 5.8%, P = .002). In conclusion, the transulnar strategy proved to be noninferior to the transradial approach for coronary procedures ( ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT01979627).
Abstract Background The spleen plays an important role in systemic antitumor immune response, but whether spleen imaging features have predictive effect for prognosis and immune status was unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate computed tomography (CT)‐based spleen radiomics to predict the prognosis of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) underwent definitive radiotherapy (dRT) and to try to find its association with systemic immunity. Methods This retrospective study included 201 ESCC patients who received dRT. Patients were randomly divided into training ( n = 142) and validation ( n = 59) groups. The pre‐ and delta‐radiomic features were extracted from enhanced CT images. LASSO‐Cox regression was used to select the radiomics signatures most associated with progression‐free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). Independent prognostic factors were identified by univariate and multivariate Cox analyses. The ROC curve and C‐index were used to evaluate the predictive performance. Finally, the correlation between spleen radiomics and immune‐related hematological parameters was analyzed by spearman correlation analysis. Results Independent prognostic factors involved TNM stage, treatment regimen, tumor location, pre‐ or delta‐Rad‐score. The AUC of the delta‐radiomics combined model was better than other models in the training and validation groups in predicting PFS (0.829 and 0.875, respectively) and OS (0.857 and 0.835, respectively). Furthermore, some spleen delta‐radiomic features are significantly correlated with delta‐ALC (absolute lymphocyte count) and delta‐NLR (neutrophil‐to‐lymphocyte ratio). Conclusions Spleen radiomics is expected to be a useful noninvasive tool for predicting the prognosis and evaluating systemic immune status for ESCC patients underwent dRT.
Myocardial viability includes the stunned myocardium,hibernating myocardium and maimed myocardium.Different from infarction,the systolic function of the viable myocardium can completely or partially resume after recanalization.Whether the ischemic areas of patients with ischemic heart disease still have viable myocardium or not is an important indicator for revascularization.At present,how to accurately assess the myocardial viability has attracted more attention in non-invasive imaging resecarch.The concept and different imaging assessment of viable myocardium were reviewed in this article.
Objective To assess the clinic value of Meyer method of pulmonary perfusion imaging in evaluation of the therapeutic effect of pulmonary embolism.Methods Thirty patients who were diagnosed as pulmonary embolism and received anticoagulant or thrombolytic therapy.All patients received pulmonary ventilation/perfusion imaging before treatment within 1 to 2 days and received pulmonary perfusion imaging again after treatment within 1 to 2 weeks.The two images obtained in each patient were scored together.Meyer method of semi-quantitative visual evaluations were used.Results Thirty patients after therapy,among 15 patients obviously improve of pulmonary peffusion,8 patients lightly improve,5 patients no change and 2 patients aggravation.By Meyer method,the 23 patients of improvement group,the score of before treatment(0.45±0.14),the score of after treatment(0.22±0.11),the score was significant ehange(t=11.627,P＜0.05).the 7 patients of no change group,the score of before treatment(0.23±0.15),the score of after treatment(0.23±0.17),the score was not signifieant change(t=0.143,P＞0.05).the improvement rate of two groups were significant change(t=2.410,P＜0.05).Conclusion The Meyer method could effectively evaluate the pulmonary perfusion change after the treatment of pulmonary embolism,and there was clinic value in evaluation of the therapeutic effect of pulmonary embolism.
Key words:
Pulmonary embolism; Pulmonary perfusion imaging; Meyer method
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