Objective:To study the clinical manifestations and treatment of neonatal testicular torsion (NTT) and to summarize the experience of diagnosis and treatment.Methods:The clinical data of the patients with NTT admitted to the Department of Pediatric Urology in Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center from January 2015 to January 2021 were analyzed retrospectively. The data included demographic information, testicular torsion duration, clinical presentation, ultrasonography findings, surgical procedures, pathological results, follow-ups, and prognosis.Results:A total of 17 cases were enrolled in this study, and the median age was 5.2 d, ranging from 1 d to 17 d; the weight ranging from 2 800 g to 4 000 g. 11 cases of left testicular torsion and 6 cases of right testicular torsion. The median time from onset to medical attention was 3.8 d, ranging from 10 h to 15 d. The first manifestations being reported were scrotal swelling, color change, or painless mass. Emergency ultrasound revealed that the blood flow signal in the testis was significantly reduced or disappeared, and heterogeneous mass echoes were detected in the scrotum. Surgical exploration was performed in all 17 cases and confirmed to be testicular torsion. There were 15 cases of extravaginal torsion and 2 cases of intravaginal torsion. There were 6 cases of clockwise torsion and 11 cases of anticlockwise torsion. The average degree of twisted testis was 450.8°, ranging from 270° to 720°. The rate of orchiectomy was 88.2% (15/17). All patients were followed up for a minimum of 1 year postoperatively. None of the patients experienced postoperative bleeding or infection at the scrotal incision site. There were no instances of recurrent testicular torsion, and the contralateral testicles showed no abnormalities. In 2 cases where the affected testicle was preserved, ultrasound reevaluation at 6 months postoperatively revealed atrophy of the affected testicle.Conclusions:NTT is rare in clinics and lacks specificity, with a high rate of testis loss. When the newborns exhibit scrotal swelling, color change, or other abnormalities, testicular torsion cannot be ruled out, and early surgical exploration is required.

Owing to incurable castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) ultimately developing after treating with androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), it is vital to devise new therapeutic strategies to treat CRPC. Treatments that target programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1) and programmed death ligand-1 (PD-L1) have been approved for human cancers with clinical benefit. However, many patients, especially prostate cancer, fail to respond to anti-PD-1/PD-L1 treatment, so it is an urgent need to seek a support strategy for improving the traditional PD-1/PD-L1 targeting immunotherapy. In the present study, analyzing the data from our prostate cancer tissue microarray, we found that PD-L1 expression was positively correlated with the expression of heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein L (HnRNP L). Hence, we further investigated the potential role of HnRNP L on the PD-L1 expression, the sensitivity of cancer cells to T-cell killing and the synergistic effect with anti-PD-1 therapy in CRPC. Indeed, HnRNP L knockdown effectively decreased PD-L1 expression and recovered the sensitivity of cancer cells to T-cell killing in vitro and in vivo, on the contrary, HnRNP L overexpression led to the opposite effect in CRPC cells. In addition, consistent with the previous study, we revealed that ferroptosis played a critical role in T-cell-induced cancer cell death, and HnRNP L promoted the cancer immune escape partly through targeting YY1/PD-L1 axis and inhibiting ferroptosis in CRPC cells. Furthermore, HnRNP L knockdown enhanced antitumor immunity by recruiting infiltrating CD8⁺ T cells and synergized with anti-PD-1 therapy in CRPC tumors. This study provided biological evidence that HnRNP L knockdown might be a novel therapeutic agent in PD-L1/PD-1 blockade strategy that enhanced anti-tumor immune response in CRPC.