Objective To investigate the effect of on serum and urine MCP -1 secretion in patients with Stage IV Type 2 diabetic nephropathy treated by lipoic acid .Methods We enrolled 76 diabetic nephropathy patients ,who were randomly divided into two groups . Patients in group T (24 males and 14 females) were treated by lipoic acid 0.6 gram per day.Those in group C (22 males and 16 fe-males) were treated by routine drugs.The serum creatinine (Scr), urea nitrogen (BUN), fasting blood sugar(FBS) and 24h urinary pro-tein,serum and urine MCP -1 secretion were measured at the experiment onset and 3 weeks later.Results There was no significant difference in the serum creatinine , urea nitrogen, fasting blood sugar, HbA1c between the two groups neither at the experiment onset nor after 3 weeks.Compared to experiment onset , 24h urine protein (Tp/24h), serum and urine MCP-1 secretion were all significantly de-creased (P<0.05) in group T after 3 weeks.Compared to group C (2.41 ±0.91g/24h, 91.45 ±33.41pg/ml, 114.78 ±36.35pg/ml), all the levers in group T (1.89 ±0.72g/24h, 39.50 ±13.68pg/ml, 63.41 ±19.57pg/ml) was significantly decreased (P<0.05) after 3 weeks.There was a positive correlation between the serum , urine MCP-1 levels and Tp/24h (r=0.572, P<0.05;r=0.697,P<0.05).Conclusion Lipoic acid can reduce urine protein excretion in diabetic nephropathy patients , maybe by decreasing serum and u-rine MCP-1 secretion .

Objective To evaluate the feasibility of the posterior C2 pedicle screw placement (C2 PSP) by MPR techniques of helical CT.Methods Totally 250 patients (500 sides) who underwent head and neck CTA examination were enrolled.The bony parameters and the arterial parameters were measured after MPR.The bony parameters included pedicle diameter (D),isthmus height (T),internal height (H),and the arterial parameters included medial shifting:lateral (L),neutral (N),medial (M);and the degree of riding included below (b),within (w),above (a).The prevalence of narrow pedicles,high-riding vertebral arteries (HRVA) and the subtypes of IAVA in the general population were calculated,and the statistical analysis between narrow pedicles,HRVA,IAVA and C2 vertebral arteries groove (C2 VAG) injury were performed.Results The rate of narrow pedicles and HRVA were 14.40％ (72/500) and 24.60％ (123/500;x2=141.984,P＜0.001).When it came to the simulation of the C2 PSP inserting,the incidence of C2 VAG injuries was 19.40％ (97/500).In narrow pedicle and HRVA patients,the C2 VAG injuries incidence were higher than that of without narrow pedicle and HRVA patients (both P＜0.001).In 58 sides (58/500,11.60 ％),the narrow pedicles and HRVA occurred simultaneously.There were statistical significance differences of narrow pedicles and HRVA and the C2 VAG injuries in different types of IAVA (all P＜0.001),the subtypes of IAVA M-a consisted most common,which account for 55.56％ (40/72),46.34％ (57/123) and 48.45％ (47/97),respectively.Conclusion Most of the C2 VAG injuries happened in narrow pedicles,HRVA or IAVA M-a type patients.MPR can be used to comprehensively evaluate osseous and arterial parameters,which will provide anatomy foundation to the screw placement of C2 pedicles.

Calcium oxalate (CaOx) stone is the main type, and its formation is closely related to the metabolism of oxalic acid and calcium. Gut Microbiome is normal microflora which settled in the human intestinal tract and plays an important role in regulating a variety of metabolism in the body. In the past, Oxalobacter formigenes in gut was a protective factor for the formation of CaOx stones. Recently, it has been found that the bacteria regulating oxalate metabolism were not limited to Oxalobacter formigenes. Gut Microbiome of CaOx stones formers is different from healthy people. It regulates the metabolism of oxalic acid in the body through the gut-kidney axis and affect the formation of CaOx stone. The purpose of this study is to describe the characteristics of intestinal flora in patients with CaOx stones, and to summarize its potential function in the formation of CaOx stones and its possible clinical application in the future.

The aim of this paper is to reveal the change of the brain function for nicotine addicts after smoking cessation, and explore the basis of neural physiology for the nicotine addicts in the process of smoking cessation. Fourteen subjects, who have a strong dependence on nicotine, have agreed to give up smoking and insist on completing the test, and 11 volunteers were recruited as the controls. The resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging and the regional homogeneity (ReHo) algorithm have been used to study the neural activity before and after smoking cessation. A two factors mixed design was used to investigate within-group effects and between-group effects. After 2 weeks' smoking cessation, the increased ReHo value were exhibited in the brain area of supplementary motor area, paracentral lobule, calcarine, cuneus and lingual gyrus. It suggested that the synchronization of neural activity was enhanced in these brain areas. And between-group interaction effects were appeared in supplementary motor area, paracentral lobule, precentral gyrus, postcentral gyrus, and superior frontal gyrus. The results indicate that the brain function in supplementary motor area of smoking addicts would be enhanced significantly after 2 weeks' smoking cessation.

Radiotherapy is an essential part of comprehensive treatment, as well as a radical treatment for head and neck cancer (HNC). The COVID-19 has continued so far, imposing a great impact on cancer care. Since conventional fractionated radiotherapy (CFRT, 2 Gy/F) requires as long as more than six weeks of treatment time, a huge challenge for epidemic control is created for both hospitals and patients. Hypofractionated radiotherapy (Hypo-RT) may be more suitable than CFRT for patients during pandemic by increasing the fraction size, thus reducing fraction number and treatment duration. Early studies have explored the application of Hypo-RT in HNC in palliative setting, which partially proved its safety and effectiveness. Recently, the efforts have been made in definitive treatment using hypofractionated regimen, as well as its combination with systemic treatment and immunotherapy. Indeed, regarding the pandemic of COVID-19, Hypo-RT has been recommended by several expert consensus in the HNC. In this review, relevant research progress was summarized and clinical implication of Hypo-RT in COVID-19 pandemic era was discussed.

Background Dentists are a high-risk population of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs), where the body part with the highest prevalence is the neck. Objective To analyze potential influencing factors of neck pain among dentists, and explore a prediction model of neck pain in dentists. Methods Dentists from different hospitals in Fuzhou were selected as study subjects by stratified cluster sampling according to hospital characteristics (dental hospitals, general hospitals, and dental clinics). The basic information, presentation of WMSDs, and its influencing factors were investigated by using the Chinese version of Musculoskeletal Disorders Questionnaire and the Subjective Workload Assessment Technique. A total of 655 questionnaires were collected, of which 603 were valid, with an effective rate of 92.1%. Multiple logistic regression was used to analyze potential influencing factors of neck pain in dentists. A prediction model of neck pain of dentists was constructed by using neural network model, and the prediction efficiency of the model was evaluated. Results The neck was the body part with the highest prevalence (43.8%, 264/603) of WMSDs among dentists. The results of multiple logistic regression analysis showed that female (OR=2.709, 95%CI: 1.852-3.962, P <0.001), working age of 10-<20 years (versus <10 years, OR=3.836, 95%CI: 2.471-5.957, P<0.001), keeping head up or down for a long time (OR=8.492, 95%CI: 2.203-32.731, P=0.002), holding head sideways for a long time (OR=2.210, 95%CI: 1.376-3.550, P<0.001), maintaining the same sitting spot for a long time (OR=4.336, 95%CI: 2.192-8.579, P<0.001), and psychological load value ≥70 (versus <40, OR=1.901, 95%CI: 1.038-3.480, P=0.037) increased the risk of neck pain in dentists. Sufficient operating space (OR=0.507, 95%CI: 0.302-0.850, P=0.010) and doing some exercise during work break (OR=0.670, 95%CI: 0.453-0.991, P=0.045) reduced the risk of reporting neck pain among dentists. A neural network prediction model of dentists' neck pain was constructed with 1 hidden layer and 6 hidden layer neurons. The percentage of correct prediction of training set was 89.6%, and the percentage of correct prediction of test set was 83.9%. The order of importance of the independent variables included in the model were working age, holding head sideways for a long time, psychological load, etc. The result of neural network model of neck pain among dentists showed that the area under the curve of receiver operator characteristic (ROC) was 0.940 (95%CI: 0.922-0.958, P<0.001). When the maximum diagnostic value was determined by the ROC curve, the sensitivity was 84.8%, the specificity was 91.2%, and the Youden Index was 0.760. Conclusion Neck pain of dentists is affected by many factors, such as individual factors (gender and working age), ergonomic factors (keeping various postures and operations for a long time, operating space, etc.), psychological factors (different levels of psychological load) and so on. The neural network model can be used as a prediction tool to explore the risk of reporting neck pain among dentists.

With the aging of population, the elderly (≥65 years old) cancer patients have become one of the main populations for cancer care. For inoperable locally advanced head and neck squamous carcinomas, cisplatin-based concurrent chemoradiotherapy is the first-line choice. Several large clinical studies have shown that patients under 70 years of age can still benefit from concurrent chemoradiotherapy, while it should be cautious to apply chemotherapy to patients aged 70-80 years. For elderly patients who are intolerant to cisplatin, carboplatin or other regimens with less gastrointestinal and renal toxicity should be considered. Although anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) monoclonal antibodies combined with radiotherapy has been proved to be more effective than radiotherapy alone in total patient population, age-subgroup analysis showed limited benefit in elderly patients. The safety of immune checkpoint inhibitors in elderly patients has been validated and those with high programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) expression may benefit from concurrent or neoadjuvant immunotherapy, however, high-level evidence is still lacking. For patients older than 80 years, radiotherapy alone may be superior to concurrent chemoradiotherapy, and hypofractionated radiotherapy for palliative purposes can be safely used in this population.

Objective:To analyze the efficacy of anterior cervical Hybrid surgery and posterior cervical expansive open-door laminoplasty(EODL)in the treatment of multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy,and to discuss the selection of surgical methods for the patients with multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy.Methods:The retrospective analysis was conducted of 70 patients with multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy who underwent surgery at Affilated Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital of Capital Medical University from July 2017 to July 2020.Based on the different surgical methods,the patients were divided into anterior group(n=35)and posterior group(n=35).The patients in anterior group underwent Hybrid surgery[anterior cervical discectomy and fusion(ACDF)combined with artificial cervical disc replacement(ACDR)],and the patients in posterior group underwent EODL.The hospitalization time,operation time,intraoperative blood loss,and postoperative drainage volume of the patients in two groups were recorded;the efficacy was evaluated by Japanese orthopaedic association(JOA)score,JOA improvement rate,neck disability index(NDI),visual analogue scale(VAS)for pain,and postoperative satisfaction score;the complications of the patients in two groups after surgery were recorded.Results:Compared with posterior group,the intraoperative blood loss,postoperative drainage volume,hospitalization time,and operation time of the patients in anterior group were significantly decreased(P<0.01),and the preoperative score had no significant difference(P>0.05).At the final follow-up after surgery,compared with posterior group,the JOA score and JOA improvement rate of the patients in anterior group were significantly increased(P<0.01),and the NDI score and VAS score were significantly decreased(P<0.01).Compared with before surgery,the JOA scores of the patients in two groups at the final follow-up after surgery were increased(P<0.01),and the NDI and VAS scores were significant decreased(P<0.01).The postoperative satisfaction of the patients in two groups was high based on the postoperative satisfaction score.There was no significant difference in the incidence of postoperative complication of the patients between two groups(P>0.05).Conclusion:Both the anterior cervical Hybrid surgery and EODL achieve the satisfactory results in the treatment of multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy.Hybrid surgery has the advantages of less bleeding and shorter surgery time,and the most suitable surgical method should be chosen clinically based on the actual situation of the patients.

Scutellaria baicalensis (S. baicalensis) and Scutellaria barbata (S. barbata) are common medicinal plants of the Lamiaceae family. Both produce specific flavonoid compounds, including baicalein, scutellarein, norwogonin, and wogonin, as well as their glycosides, which exhibit antioxidant and antitumor activities. Here, we report chromosome-level genome assemblies of S. baicalensis and S. barbata with quantitative chromosomal variation (2n = 18 and 2n = 26, respectively). The divergence of S. baicalensis and S. barbata occurred far earlier than previously reported, and a whole-genome duplication (WGD) event was identified. The insertion of long terminal repeat elements after speciation might be responsible for the observed chromosomal expansion and rearrangement. Comparative genome analysis of the congeneric species revealed the species-specific evolution of chrysin and apigenin biosynthetic genes, such as the S. baicalensis-specific tandem duplication of genes encoding phenylalanine ammonia lyase and chalcone synthase, and the S. barbata-specific duplication of genes encoding 4-CoA ligase. In addition, the paralogous duplication, colinearity, and expression diversity of CYP82D subfamily members revealed the functional divergence of genes encoding flavone hydroxylase between S. baicalensis and S. barbata. Analyzing these Scutellaria genomes reveals the common and species-specific evolution of flavone biosynthetic genes. Thus, these findings would facilitate the development of molecular breeding and studies of biosynthesis and regulation of bioactive compounds.
Evolution, Molecular ; Flavonoids/biosynthesis* ; Genome, Plant ; Plant Extracts/genetics* ; Scutellaria/metabolism* ; Whole Genome Sequencing