Focal intrahepatic strictures (FIHS) refers to local strictures or stenosis of the intrahepatic bile duct induced by various factors. FIHS is easily leading to misdiagnosis and miss diagnosis. At present, most of the techniques or examinations for making position as well as qualitative diagnosis of FIHS have poor sensitivity. Paying more attention to the medical history and combined applications of various inspection methods might help to improve the diagnostic level of FIHS. In terms of treatment, we suggested for patients with suspected malignant strictures or those who were failure of medical treatment, dilation, drainage and pathological diagnosis of FIHS could be conducted by endoscopy before determining the indications and procedures of surgery based on a new anatomy classification system of FIHS.

Objective: To identify epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations in lung adenocarcinoma based on 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) PET/CT radiomics and clinical features and to distinguish EGFR exon 19 deletion (19 del) and exon 21 L858R missense (21 L858R) mutations using FDG PET/CT radiomics. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 179 patients with lung adenocarcinoma. They were randomly assigned to training (n = 125) and testing (n = 54) cohorts in a 7:3 ratio. A total of 2632 radiomics features were extracted from the tumor region of interest from the PET (1316) and CT (1316) images. Six PET/CT radiomics features that remained after the feature selection step were used to calculate the radiomics model score (rad-score). Subsequently, a combined clinical and radiomics model was constructed based on sex, smoking history, tumor diameter, and rad-score. The performance of the combined model in identifying EGFR mutations was assessed using a receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Furthermore, in a subsample of 99 patients, a PET/CT radiomics model for distinguishing 19 del and 21 L858R EGFR mutational subtypes was established, and its performance was evaluated. Results: The area under the ROC curve (AUROC) and accuracy of the combined clinical and PET/CT radiomics models were 0.882 and 81.6%, respectively, in the training cohort and 0.837 and 74.1%, respectively, in the testing cohort. The AUROC and accuracy of the radiomics model for distinguishing between 19 del and 21 L858R EGFR mutational subtypes were 0.708 and 66.7%, respectively, in the training cohort and 0.652 and 56.7%, respectively, in the testing cohort. Conclusion The combined clinical and PET/CT radiomics model could identify the EGFR mutational status in lung adenocarcinoma with moderate accuracy. However, distinguishing between EGFR 19 del and 21 L858R mutational subtypes was more challenging using PET/CT radiomics.

Acetaminophen (APAP) overdose is one of the most common causes of acute liver failure. The study aimed to investigate the protective effect of carnosic acid (CA) on APAP-induced acute hepatotoxicity and its underlying mechanism in mice. To induce hepatotoxicity, APAP solution (400 mg/kg) was administered into mice by intraperitoneal injection. Histological analysis revealed that CA treatment significantly ameliorated APAP-induced hepatic necrosis. The levels of both alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate transaminase (AST) in serum were reduced by CA treatment. Moreover, CA treatment significantly inhibited APAP-induced hepatocytes necrosis and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) releasing. Western blot analysis showed that CA abrogated APAP-induced cleaved caspase-3, Bax and phosphorylated JNK protein expression. Further results showed that CA treatment markedly inhibited APAP-induced pro-inflammatory cytokines TNF-alpha, IL-1beta, IL-6 and MCP-1 mRNA expression and the levels of phosphorylated IkappaBalpha and p65 protein in the liver. In addition, CA treatment reduced APAP- induced hepatic malondialdehyde (MDA) contents and reactive oxygen species (ROS) accumulation. Conversely, hepatic glutathione (GSH) level was increased by administration of CA in APAP-treated mice. Mechanistically, CA facilitated Nrf2 translocation into nuclear through blocking the interaction between Nrf2 and Keap1, which, in turn, upregulated anti-oxidant genes mRNA expression. Taken together, our results indicate that CA facilitates Nrf2 nuclear translocation, causing induction of Nrf2-dependent genes, which contributes to protection from acetaminophen hepatotoxicity.
Acetaminophen ; Alanine Transaminase ; Animals ; Aspartate Aminotransferases ; Blotting, Western ; Caspase 3 ; Cytokines ; Glutathione ; Hepatocytes ; Injections, Intraperitoneal ; Interleukin-6 ; L-Lactate Dehydrogenase ; Liver ; Liver Failure, Acute ; Malondialdehyde ; Mice* ; Necrosis ; Reactive Oxygen Species ; RNA, Messenger ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha

In this study, we established a rapid and efficient HPLC method to determine the accumulation of Huperzine A and Huperzine B in the fermentation broth of endophytic fungus Colletotrichum gloesporioides from Huperzia serrate. The chloroform extracts of fermentation broth were dissolved in methanol and filtered before injection for HPLC analysis. The analysis was performed on an Agilent Eclipse plus-C18 column (250 mm×4.6 mm, 5 μm) by isocratic elution. The mobile phase was 0.015 mol/L ammonium acetate-methanol (70:30, V/V), the flow rate was 1 mL/min and the detection wavelength was set at 308 nm. Huperzine A and Huperzine B could be well separated within 25 min. Good linearity of Huperzine A was found in the range of 1.50-48.00 μg/mL (r=0.999 5), and that of huperzine B was in 0.25-7.50 μg/mL (r=0.999 7). The average recoveries of Huperzine A and Huperzine B were 106.83% and 108.06%, respectively (RSD=3.34%, 3.60%). The results demonstrate that this method can detect the content of huperzine A and huperzine B in fermentation broth simply, rapidly, accurately and in good reproducibility. Under the optimized conditions, the accumulated content of huperzine A and huperzine B were measured from the sixth to the fifteenth day. Huperzine A and Huperzine B reached the highest (12.417 0 μg/mL and 4.660 3 μg/mL, respectively) at the fourteenth and eighth days. The analysis methodology could contribute to the future study of huperzine A and huperzine B biosynthesis in C. gloeosporioides, consequently facilitate the development of new drug resources.