Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are major disease burdens with high mortality worldwide. Early prediction of cardiovascular events can reduce the incidence of acute myocardial infarction and decrease the mortality rates of patients with CVDs. The pathological mechanisms and multiple factors involved in CVDs are complex; thus, traditional data analysis is insufficient and inefficient to manage multidimensional data for the risk prediction of CVDs and heart attacks, medical image interpretations, therapeutic decision-making, and disease prognosis prediction. Meanwhile, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been widely used for treating CVDs. TCM offers unique theoretical and practical applications in the diagnosis and treatment of CVDs. Big data have been generated to investigate the scientific basis of TCM diagnostic methods. TCM formulae contain multiple herbal items. Elucidating the complicated interactions between the active compounds and network modulations requires advanced data-analysis capability. Recent progress in artificial intelligence (AI) technology has allowed these challenges to be resolved, which significantly facilitates the development of integrative diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for CVDs and the understanding of the therapeutic principles of TCM formulae. Herein, we briefly introduce the basic concept and current progress of AI and machine learning (ML) technology, and summarize the applications of advanced AI and ML for the diagnosis and treatment of CVDs. Furthermore, we review the progress of AI and ML technology for investigating the scientific basis of TCM diagnosis and treatment for CVDs. We expect the application of AI and ML technology to promote synergy between western medicine and TCM, which can then boost the development of integrative medicine for the diagnosis and treatment of CVDs.

PARP is an important protein in DNA repair pathways especially the base excision repair (BER). BER is involved in DNA repair of single strand breaks (SSBs). If BER is impaired, inhibiting poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP), SSBs accumulate and become double stand breaks (DSBs). The cells with increasing number of DSBs become more dependent on other repair pathways, mainly the homologous recombination (HR) and the nonhomologous end joining. Patients with defective HR, like BRCA-deficient cell lines, are even more susceptible to impairment of the BER pathway. Inhibitors of PARP preferentially kill cancer cells in BRCA-mutation cancer cell lines over normal cells. Also, PARP inhibitors increase cytotoxicity by inhibiting repair in the presence of chemotherapies that induces SSBs. These two principles have been tested clinically. Over the last few years, excitement over this class of agents has escalated due to reported activity as single agent in BRCA1- or BRCA2-associated ovarian or breast cancers, and in combination with chemotherapy in triple negative breast cancer. This review covers the current results of clinical trials testing those two principles. It also evaluates future directions for the field of PARP inhibitor development.
Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols ; therapeutic use ; Benzamides ; administration & dosage ; Benzimidazoles ; administration & dosage ; Breast Neoplasms ; drug therapy ; enzymology ; genetics ; DNA Breaks, Double-Stranded ; DNA Breaks, Single-Stranded ; DNA End-Joining Repair ; DNA Repair ; Enzyme Inhibitors ; therapeutic use ; Female ; Genes, BRCA1 ; Genes, BRCA2 ; Homologous Recombination ; Humans ; Mutation ; Ovarian Neoplasms ; drug therapy ; enzymology ; genetics ; Phthalazines ; administration & dosage ; Piperazines ; administration & dosage ; Poly(ADP-ribose) Polymerase Inhibitors ; Poly(ADP-ribose) Polymerases ; metabolism

High-fidelity patient simulation (HFPS) has been hypothesized as a modality for assessing competency of knowledge and skill in patient simulation, but uniform methods for HFPS performance assessment (PA) have not yet been completely achieved. Anesthesiology as a field founded the HFPS discipline and also leads in its PA. This project reviews the types, quality, and designated purpose of HFPS PA tools in anesthesiology. We used the systematic review method and systematically reviewed anesthesiology literature referenced in PubMed to assess the quality and reliability of available PA tools in HFPS. Of 412 articles identified, 50 met our inclusion criteria. Seventy seven percent of studies have been published since 2000; more recent studies demonstrated higher quality. Investigators reported a variety of test construction and validation methods. The most commonly reported test construction methods included "modified Delphi Techniques" for item selection, reliability measurement using inter-rater agreement, and intra-class correlations between test items or subtests. Modern test theory, in particular generalizability theory, was used in nine (18%) of studies. Test score validity has been addressed in multiple investigations and shown a significant improvement in reporting accuracy. However the assessment of predicative has been low across the majority of studies. Usability and practicality of testing occasions and tools was only anecdotally reported. To more completely comply with the gold standards for PA design, both shared experience of experts and recognition of test construction standards, including reliability and validity measurements, instrument piloting, rater training, and explicit identification of the purpose and proposed use of the assessment tool, are required.
Anesthesiology ; Humans ; Patient Simulation ; Reproducibility of Results ; Research Personnel

INTRODUCTIONCentral venous catheters (CVCs) are becoming more popular for delivery of outpatient courses of intravenous therapy such as chemotherapy and long-term antibiotics. The incidence of non-tunnelled type CVC-related infections in patients with solid tumours receiving chemotherapy in an ambulatory setting has not been well studied. We aimed to determine the baseline data on CVC-related infections in this retrospective study conducted from January 2005 to December 2007.

METHODSData on cancer patients with CVCs inserted as outpatients at National Cancer Centre Singapore over a three-year period were collected and analysed retrospectively. Data retrieved from medical records included patients' demographics, the number of catheter days, cancer type and other medical illnesses. Definitions from the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention for CVC-related infections were used. For data analysis, graphical and quantitative techniques were employed.

RESULTSA total of 88 CVCs were inserted during the study period, with a total of 11,541 catheter days (median 114; range 2-510 days). Infection rate was 0.87 per 1,000 catheter days. The risk of infection was higher when catheters were left in situ for longer periods of time and in patients with solid tumours.

CONCLUSIONThe infection rate for non-tunnelled type CVCs is low in our centre. Hence, its use for chemotherapy on an outpatient basis is relatively safe and convenient in oncologic patients.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Antineoplastic Agents ; administration & dosage ; Catheter-Related Infections ; epidemiology ; Central Venous Catheters ; adverse effects ; Female ; Humans ; Incidence ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neoplasms ; drug therapy ; Retrospective Studies ; Risk Factors ; Singapore ; epidemiology ; Young Adult

Objective:This study compared the prevalence,awareness,treatment and control of hypertension and associated factors in China and the United States(US).Methods:Adult data from nationally representative samples were derived from the Chronic Disease and Risk Factors Surveillance in 2010 and 2013 in China and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2010 and 2013 in the US.Multivariable logistic and Poisson regression analysis were conducted to assess associations of the four outcomes with body weight status and behavioral factors.Results:Age-standardized prevalence rates of hypertension was 35.7％(95％confidence interval[CI]:35.4％to 36.1％)in 2010 and 29.8％(95％CI:29.4％to 30.2％)in 2013 in China,and 35.3％(95％CI:33.6％to 37.1％)in 2010 and 37.9％(95％CI:36.0％to 39.7％)in 2013 in the US.Among hypertensive participants,the age-standardized rates of treatment were 18.4％(95％CI:17.9％to 18.9％)in 2010 and 23.8％(95％CI:23.1％to 24.6％)in 2013 in China and 54.5％(95％CI:50.3％to 58.7％)in 2010 and 50.9％(95％CI:46.5％to 55.3％)in 2013 in the US;the age-standardized hypertension control rates were 3.2％(95％CI:3.0％to 3.5％)and 5.7％(95％CI:5.3％to 6.0％)in 2010 and 2013 in China and 50.6％(95％CI:46.2％to 55.0％)and 55.3％(95％CI:50.3％to 60.3％)in the US.Obesity was significantly associated with prevalence,awareness and control rates in both countries.Different from the US,obesity was negatively associated with hypertension control in China.Conclusion:Hypertension prevalence in China is similar to that in the US,but the control rate in China was significantly lower.Obesity was a critical risk factor for poor hypertension control in China.

Background: and Purpose Recent studies suggested an increased incidence of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We evaluated the volume of CVT hospitalization and in-hospital mortality during the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the preceding year. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional retrospective study of 171 stroke centers from 49 countries. We recorded COVID-19 admission volumes, CVT hospitalization, and CVT in-hospital mortality from January 1, 2019, to May 31, 2021. CVT diagnoses were identified by International Classification of Disease-10 (ICD-10) codes or stroke databases. We additionally sought to compare the same metrics in the first 5 months of 2021 compared to the corresponding months in 2019 and 2020 (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04934020). Results: There were 2,313 CVT admissions across the 1-year pre-pandemic (2019) and pandemic year (2020); no differences in CVT volume or CVT mortality were observed. During the first 5 months of 2021, there was an increase in CVT volumes compared to 2019 (27.5%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 24.2 to 32.0; P<0.0001) and 2020 (41.4%; 95% CI, 37.0 to 46.0; P<0.0001). A COVID-19 diagnosis was present in 7.6% (132/1,738) of CVT hospitalizations. CVT was present in 0.04% (103/292,080) of COVID-19 hospitalizations. During the first pandemic year, CVT mortality was higher in patients who were COVID positive compared to COVID negative patients (8/53 [15.0%] vs. 41/910 [4.5%], P=0.004). There was an increase in CVT mortality during the first 5 months of pandemic years 2020 and 2021 compared to the first 5 months of the pre-pandemic year 2019 (2019 vs. 2020: 2.26% vs. 4.74%, P=0.05; 2019 vs. 2021: 2.26% vs. 4.99%, P=0.03). In the first 5 months of 2021, there were 26 cases of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT), resulting in six deaths. Conclusions During the 1st year of the COVID-19 pandemic, CVT hospitalization volume and CVT in-hospital mortality did not change compared to the prior year. COVID-19 diagnosis was associated with higher CVT in-hospital mortality. During the first 5 months of 2021, there was an increase in CVT hospitalization volume and increase in CVT-related mortality, partially attributable to VITT.