Objective To investigate the associations of variants in signal transducer and activator of transcription 4 (STAT4) in Chinese Han population with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Methods The study was performed in 228 RA cases and 228 controls. Haplotypes from the HapMap database Chinese population were used to select tag-single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (r2=0.9) in STAT4 gene. Twenty-three SNPs located in STAT4 gene were examined by multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS). The Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium (HWE) was tested by a chi-square and Fisherˊs analysis. Differences in genotypes of the STAT4 polymorphism variants were evaluated using a Chi-square test. All statistical analyses were done with Haploview 4.1 software. Results Significant difference was detected in three SNPs (rs11685878, rs129888 and rs16833437) in allele frequencies analysis (χ2=6.014 8, 4.024 8, 5.539 1, P<0.05). Association was detected for three SNPs (rs11685878, rs16833437 and rs12988825) in genotype analysis ( χ2=6.814 9, 6.098 7, 6.691 7, P<0.05). Conclusion STAT4 may associate with susceptibility in Chinese Han population.

Objective To investigate the effect of KRAS gene mutation and clinical factors on postopera-tive prognosis of rectal cancer patients and to explore their value in prognosis. Methods A total of 130 cases of rectal cancer patients from January to December 2010 were collected in the study. The tumor tissues sample was used to detect the KRAS gene mutation and 5-year follow-up was conducted. The correlation between KRAS gene mutation and clinical pathological features was analyzed.The clinic pathological factors that may affect the progno-sis were analyzed by survival analysis. Results Forty-five patients had mutations in No.2 expressed region of KRAS,with a mutation rate of 34.6%.KRAS gene mutation and stronger positive expression of EGFR(P<0.05), and multiple metastasis of tumor(P<0.05)were strongly coupled.The average survival of patients with wild-type KRAS gene was 57.5 months and that of patients with KRAS gene mutation 58.9 months but no significant differ-ence was observed(P>0.05).The TNM by high staging,multiple metastasis,lung metastasis and liver metasta-sis of cancer cells was closely related with poor postoperative prognosis of patients(P<0.05).The average surviv-al of postoperative patients in stage Ⅳ was 49months. Conclusions KRAS gene mutation in patients with rectal cancer after surgery is related with stronger positive expression of EGFR and multiple metastasis of cancer.TNM by high staging and metastatic sites affects the prognosis. The survival of rectal cancer after surgery in patients with stage Ⅳ are prolonged but the relation between KRAS genovariation and patients′ postoperative prognosis can not be determined.

Objective:To investigate the short-term clinical efficacy of Kamikawa anasto-mosis and jejunal interposed double channel anastomosis in laparoscopic proximal gastrectomy.Methods:The retrospective cohort study was conducted. The clinicopathological data of 68 patients with esophagogastric junctional tumors and upper gastric tumors who underwent laparoscopic proximal gastrectomy in two medical centers, including 63 cases in the Changzhi People's Hospital Affiliated to Changzhi Medical College and 5 cases in the Heji Hospital Affiliated to Changzhi Medical College, from March 2018 to December 2020 were collected. There were 57 males and 11 females, aged 62(range, 39?78)years. Of 68 patients, 35 patients undergoing Kamikawa anastomosis in laparoscopic proximal gastrectomy were allocated into Kamikawa group, and 33 patients under-going jejunal interposed double channel anastomosis in laparoscopic proximal gastrectomy were allocated into double channel group. Observation indicators: (1) intraoperative situations; (2) post-operative situations; (3) follow-up. The patients were followed up by outpatient examinations and telephone interview to detect the postoperative score of chew-wun wu special symptoms, post-operative reflux anastomotic esophagitis and anastomotic stenosis up to December 2021. Measure-ment data with normal distri-bution were represented as Mean±SD, and comparison between groups was performed by the t test. Measurement data with skewed distribution were represented as M(range), and comparison between groups was conducted by Mann-Whitney U test. Comparison of ordinal data was performed by nonparametric rank sum test. Count data were expressed as absolute numbers, and comparison between groups was conducted using the chi-square test or Fisher exact probability method. Results:(1) Intraoperative situations. All the 68 patients successfully under-went laparoscopic proximal gastrectomy combined with D 1+ lymph node dissection. The operation time and volume of intraoperative blood loss of the Kamikawa group were (5.15±0.31)hours and (89±11)mL, versus (4.21±0.11)hours and (142±20)mL of the double channel group, respectively, showing significant differences between the two groups ( t=2.81, ?2.34, P<0.05). The digestive tract reconstruction time and the number of lymph node dissection were (1.95±0.13)hours and 30.4±2.4 of the Kamikawa group, versus (1.69±0.76)hours and 28.0±2.4 of the double channel group, respectively, showing no significant difference between the two groups ( t=1.79, 0.73, P>0.05). (2) Postoperative situations. The time to postoperative first flatus, duration of drainage tube placement, duration of postoperative hospital stay were (3.03±0.12)days, (5.46±0.22)days, (13.00±0.50)days of the Kamikawa group, versus (4.42±0.21)days, (9.97±0.76)days, (16.46±0.92)days of the double channel group, showing significant differences in the above indicators between the two groups ( t=?5.80,?5.58, 3.40, P<0.05). Cases with or without drainage tube placement were 32 and 3 of the Kamikawa group, versus 33 and 0 of the double channel group, respectively, showing no significant difference between the two groups ( P>0.05). Cases with grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, grade 4 complica-tions of Clavien-Dindo classification were 31, 0, 4, 0 of the Kamikawa group, versus 27, 3, 1, 2 of the double channel group, respectively, showing a significant difference between the two groups ( Z=?6.28, P<0.05). Postoperative anastomotic stenous, reflux symptoms, anastomotic fistula, pancreatic fistula, pulmonary infection were found in 4, 2, 0, 0, 0 case of the Kamikawa group and 0, 1, 3, 1, 2 cases of the double channel group, respectively. There was no significant difference in the above indicators between the two groups ( P>0.05). There was no complication of incisional infection, abdominal hemorrhage, lymphatic fistula or gastroparesis in either group. Of the 4 patients with perioperative anastomotic stenosis in the Kamikawa group, 2 cases were improved after once gastroscopic balloon dilatation, 2 cases were improved after 4 times of gastro-scopic balloon dilatation. (3) Follow-up. All the 68 patients were followed up at postoperative 3, 6, 12 months. The scores of chew-wun wu special symptoms scale at postopertaive 12 months of the Kamikawa group and double channel group were 16.8±0.7 and 14.6±0.7, respectively, showing a significant difference between the two groups ( t=2.20, P<0.05). There were 2 cases of grade B reflux esophagitis and 1 case of grade B reflux esophagitis, respectively, showing no significant difference between the two groups ( P>0.05). There was no anastomotic stenosis occurred in either group. Conclusions:Laparos-copic proximal gastrectomy with Kamikawa anastomosis or jejunal interposed double channel anastomosis is safe and feasible for esophagogastric junction tumors and upper gastric tumors. The Kamikawa anastomosis has less volume of intraoperative blood loss, shorter time to postoperative first flatus, duration of drainage tube placement and postoperative hospital stay, higher quality of postoperative lfe.

BACKGROUND: The efficacy of entecavir (ETV) add-on peg-interferon therapy compared with ETV monotherapy in treatment-naïve hepatitis B virus (HBV) patients remains controversial. We investigated whether adding peg-interferon to ongoing ETV treatment leads to a better curative effect or not. METHODS: All patients have been recruited between August 2013 and January 2015 from the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center and Zhongshan Hospital (China). Eligible HBV patients (n = 144) were randomly divided (1:1) to receive either ETV monotherapy (n = 70) or peg-interferon add-on therapy from week 26 to 52 (n = 74). Patients were followed-up for at least 2 years. Indexes including hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg) seroconversion rate, sustained virologic response, transient elastography value, and histological scores were evaluated every 3 months until the end of the study. The rate of patients with HBsAg loss was defined as the primary endpoint criteria. RESULTS: At week 26, no patient achieved HBsAg seroconversion in either group. At week 52, one patient in the monotherapy group was HBsAg-negative but there was none in the combination therapy group. The monotherapy group showed significantly better liver function recovery results than the combination therapy group. At week 78, one patient in the combination group had HBsAg seroconverted. At week 104, only three patients in the combination therapy group were HBsAg-negative compared with one patient in monotherapy. The mean alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase levels and transient elastography values decreased significantly compared with baseline. Both groups showed a favorable decrease in alpha-fetoprotein (monotherapy: 4.5 [2.8, 7.1] vs. 2.2 [1.8, 3.1] ng/mL, P < 0.001; combination therapy: 5.7 [3.0, 18.8] vs. 3.2 [2.0, 4.3] ng/mL, P < 0.001) and an improved result of liver biopsy examination scores. The combination group showed a better improvement in histology compared with the monotherapy group (mean transient elastography value 6.6 [4.9, 9.8] vs. 7.8 [5.4, 11.1] kPa, P = 0.028). But there was no significant difference in HBsAg conversion rate (1.8% [1/56] vs. 4.1% [3/73], P = 0.809) and HBeAg conversion rate (12.5% [7/56] vs. 11.0% [8/73], P = 0.787), as well as HBV-DNA, sustained virologic response (93.2% vs. 98.5%, P = 0.150) between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Both therapies supported liver function recovery and histology improvement. Combination therapy did not show better anti-viral efficacy in HBsAg or HBeAg seroconversion compared with monotherapy. However, combination therapy played a more positive role in reversing hepatic fibrosis compared with monotherapy. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02849132; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02849132.

Currently, titanium alloys are widely used in the field of stomatology; however, owing to long-term exposure to a complex microbial environment, dental plaques easily form on the surface of the materials, affecting the use efficiency and the service life of the materials. The antibacterial titanium alloy is a new kind of titanium alloy with antimicrobials added through surface modification or overall modification. Based on the location of antibacterial agents in titanium alloy materials, antibacterial titanium alloys can be divided into coating and alloy types. The antibacterial effect of coated antibacterial titanium alloy is good, but the disadvantage is that most of the coatings are not wear-resistant. The widely-used antibacterial agent of the alloy type is metal elements, which can be evenly distributed in the alloy, and the antibacterial properties are stable and long-lasting. Based on whether antibacterial agents can be released, antibacterial titanium alloys can be further divided into active antibacterial and passive antibacterial types. Active antibacterial type titanium alloys can release loaded antibacterial agents, and the antibacterial effect is more obvious, but the release duration of antibacterial agents is relatively short. Passive antibacterial titanium alloys exhibit an antibacterial effect by contact sterilization or inhibition of bacterial adhesion instead of releasing antibacterial agents. The antibacterial titanium alloy can inhibit the adhesion of bacteria on the surface of the material and prolong the service life of oral orthodontic appliances, implants and titanium plates. Moreover, the mechanical properties of the titanium alloy after antibacterial modification are not significantly affected, and the addition of antibacterial agents such as hydroxyapatite can increase the osteogenic function of the material. Therefore, the alloy has good application prospects in the fields of dental implant, orthodontic treatment and oral and maxillofacial surgery. However, most of the current studies on antibacterial titanium alloys are in vitro experiments, and their long-term clinical effects and antibacterial mechanisms are still unclear and need further study.

Objective: Comparing the benefit of Abidor, lopinavir/ritonavir and recombinant interferon α-2b triple combination antiviral therapy and lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon dual combination antiviral therapy to hospitalized novel coronavirus pneumonia 2019 in Zhejiang province. Methods: A multi-center prospective study was carried out to compare the effect of triple combination antiviral therapy with dual combination antiviral therapy in 15 medical institutions of Zhejiang Province. All patients were treated with recombinant interferon α-2b (5 million U, 2 times/d) aerosol inhalation. 196 patients were treated with abidol (200 mg, 3 times/d) + lopinavir / ritonavir (2 tablets, 1 time/12 h) as the triple combination antiviral treatment group. 41 patients were treated with lopinavir / ritonavir (2 tablets, 1 time/12 h) as the dual combination antiviral treatment group. The patients who received triple combination antiviral therapy were divided into three groups: within 48 hours, 3-5 days and > 5 days after the symptom onset. To explore the therapeutic effects of triple combination antiviral drugs and dual combination antiviral drugs, as well as triple combination antiviral drugs with different antiviral initiate time. SPSS17.0 software was used to analyze the data. Results: The time of virus nucleic acid turning negative was (12.2 ± 4.7) days in the triple combination antiviral drug group, which was shorter than that in the dual combination antiviral drug group [(15.0 ± 5.0) days] (t = 6.159, P < 0.01 ). The length of hospital stay [12 (9, 17) d] in the triple combination antiviral drug group was also shorter than that in the dual combination antiviral drug group [15 (10, 18) d] (H = 2.073, P < 0.05). Comparing the antiviral treatment which was started within 48 hours, 3-5 days and > 5 days after the symptom onset of triple combination antiviral drug group, the time from the symptom onset to the negative of viral shedding was 13 (10,16.8), 17 (13,22) and 21 (18-24) days respectively (Z = 32.983, P < 0.01), and the time from antiviral therapy to the negative of viral shedding was (11.8±3.9) , (13.5±5.1) and (11.2±4.3) d. The differences among the three groups were statistically significant (Z=32.983 and 6.722, P<0.01 or<0.05). Conclusions The triple combination antiviral therapy of Abidor, Lopinavir/Litonavir and recombinant interferon α-2b showed shorter viral shedding time and hospitalization time compared with the dual combination antiviral therapy. The earlier the time to initiate triple antiviral treatment, the shorter the time of virus shedding.