Being an undisputed risk factor of cancer, air pollution is posing a huge threat to the health on human beings. In this article, we introduced the composition of air pollution, and the standards on air quality which was set by both World Health Organization and the Chinese government. We also summarized the most recent research findings on the association between air pollution and the risk of lung, breast, bladder and other major cancers.
Air Pollutants/toxicity* ; Air Pollution/adverse effects* ; Humans ; Neoplasms/epidemiology* ; Prevalence ; Research/trends* ; Risk Factors

Objective: To investigate the clinicopathological features, and molecular genetic alterations of metaplastic thymoma (MT). Methods: A total of ten MT cases, diagnosed from 2011 to 2021, were selected from the Department of Pathology of Jinling Hospital, Nanjing University Medical School, Nanjing, China for clinicopathological and immunohistochemical (IHC) examination and clinical follow-up. Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), next-generation sequencing (NGS), and YAP1 C-terminus (YAP1-CT) IHC were performed to detect YAP1::MAML2 fusions. Results: There were four males and six females, ranging in age from 29 to 60 years (mean 50 years, median 54 years). Microscopically, all tumors showed a typical biphasic morphology consisting of epithelial components and gradually or abruptly transitioning spindle cell components. The two components were present in varying proportions in different cases. Immunophenotypically, the epithelial cells were diffusely positive for CKpan, CK5/6 and p63. The spindle cells were diffusely positive for vimentin and focally positive for EMA. TdT was negative in the background lymphocytes. Ki-67 proliferation index was less than 5%. YAP1 and MAML2 break-apart FISH analyses showed that all ten cases had narrow split signals with a distance of nearly 2 signal diameters and may be considered false-negative. Using YAP1::MAML2 fusion FISH assays, abnormal fusion signals were observed in all the ten cases. NGS demonstrated YAP1::MAML2 fusions in all eight cases with adequate nucleic acids; in two cases the fusions were detected by DNA sequencing and in eight cases by RNA sequencing. All ten cases of MT demonstrated loss of YAP1 C-terminal expression in epithelioid cells. Conclusions: MT is a rare and low-grade thymic tumor characterized by a biphasic pattern and YAP1::MAML2 fusions. Break-apart FISH assays may sometimes show false-negative results due to the proximity of YAP1 and MAML2, while YAP1 C-terminal IHC is a highly sensitive and specific marker for MT. Loss of YAP1 C-terminal expression can also be used to screen YAP1::MAML2 fusions for possible MT cases.
Male ; Female ; Humans ; Adult ; Middle Aged ; Thymoma/genetics* ; In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence ; Transcription Factors/genetics* ; Mutation ; Thymus Neoplasms/genetics*

Objective: To understand the prevalence of drug resistance in treatment-naive injecting drug users (IDUs) infected with HIV-1 in Guangzhou. Methods: HIV-1 RNA were extracted from the serum specimens of the newly confirmed HIV-1 positive IDUs living in Guangzhou, being infected through injecting drug use and receiving no antiretroviral therapy at the time of confirmation during 2008-2015. Full sequence of pol protease (PR) gene and partial sequence of reverse transcriptase (RT) gene were amplified by nested reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (nested-PCR) and sequenced. After that, data were submitted to the HIV resistance database of Stanford University for drug resistance analysis. Results: Among the 518 HIV-1 infected IDUs, HIV-1pol gene segments were successfully obtained from the serum samples of 407 HIV-1 infected IDUs (78.57%) aged 18-64 (37.44±8.14) years. Among them, males accounted for 89.68% (365/407), those of Han ethnic group accounted for 89.93% (366/407), the unmarried accounted for 55.28% (225/407), and those with education level of junior high school or below accounted for 83.78% (341/407). The distribution of subtypes was predominated by CRF07_BC (47.18%, 192/407), followed by CRF01_AE (23.83%, 97/407), CRF08_BC (22.85%, 93/407), and other subtypes (6.14%, 25/407). The overall prevalence of drug resistance was 3.44% (14/407). The prevalence of drug resistance to protease inhibitors, nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors were 1.47%(6/407), 0.25% (1/407) and 1.72% (7/407) respectively. The mutation rate was 12.29% (50/407). No major drug resistance mutation was detected in protease and nucleoside reverse transcriptase regions. Higher rate of V179E mutation in the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase region was detected in other subtypes and subtype CRF07_BC. Mutation seemed to have occurred in all 8 cases of subtype CRF55_01B in other subtypes. The highest mutation rate of E138A was detected in subtype CRF08_BC (3.23%). Two cases were resistant to all four drugs of NNRTIs. Conclusions: The prevalence of drug resistance in treatment-naive HIV-1 positive IDUs remained at a relatively low level during 2008-2015, in Guangzhou. Most infections were sensitive to existing antiviral drugs. However, drug resistance surveillance in IDUs infected with HIV should be strengthened to prevent the prevalence of multi-drug resistance and cross drug resistance.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Child ; Drug Resistance, Viral/genetics* ; Drug Users ; Genes, pol/genetics* ; Genotype ; HIV Infections/psychology* ; HIV-1/isolation & purification* ; Humans ; Male ; Mutation ; Prevalence ; RNA, Viral/genetics* ; Young Adult

Objective: To investigate the association between maternal body height and risk of preterm birth. Methods: A total of 11 311 pregnant women who gave birth of live singletons were recruited from the Healthy Baby Cohort Study in Hubei province, China from September 2012 to October 2014. Finally 11 070 pregnant women were selected as study subjects. Data were collected by using questionnaires, their prenatal care records and medical records. The women were divided into 4 groups according to the quartiles distribution (<158 cm, 158- cm, 160- cm, and >164 cm). Gestational age was estimated according to maternal last menstrual time. Preterm birth was defined as delivering a live singleton infant at 28-37 weeks' gestational age. Logistic regression was used to calculate the odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between body height and preterm birth. Results: Among the 11 070 pregnant women, the incidence of preterm birth was 5.9%. Logistic regression analysis indicated that women in group with body height <158 cm had 46% (OR=1.46, 95%CI: 1.16-1.83) higher risk of giving preterm birth than those in group with body height >164 cm after adjustment for potential confounders. Every 1- cm increase in body height was associated with 3% lower risk of preterm birth (OR=0.97, 95%CI: 0.95-0.99). Conclusion: Shorter body height was a risk factor for preterm birth. It is necessary to strengthen the monitoring in pregnant women with short body height to reduce the risk of preterm birth.
Body Height ; China/epidemiology* ; Cohort Studies ; Female ; Gestational Age ; Humans ; Incidence ; Infant, Newborn ; Odds Ratio ; Pregnancy ; Premature Birth/epidemiology* ; Prenatal Care ; Risk Factors

Objective: To evaluate the effect of health literacy and exercise-focused interventions on glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) in China. Methods: In this cluster randomized controlled trial, a total of 799 T2DM patients with most recent hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) ≥ 7.5% (or fasting plasma glucose level ≥10 mmol/L) were recruited from 8 communities in Minhang and Changning districts of Shanghai, and randomized into a health literacy intervention group, an exercise intervention group, a comprehensive intervention group and a control group. After baseline survey and examination, a one-year intervention and 3 times (at 3(rd), 6(th), and 12(th) month) follow-up surveys were conducted. Results: The follow-up rates for all the subjects were 99.4%, 98.4% and 95.2%, respectively, at 3(rd), 6(th) and 12(th) month. Patients in intervention groups were more likely to achieve a goal HbA1c level (HbA1c <7.0%) than those in control group, with the highest glycemic control rate (25.3%) observed in comprehensive intervention group at 3(rd) month and then in exercise intervention group (25.3% and 34.6%) respectively, at 6(th) month and 12(th) month. The average levels of HbA1c in three intervention groups were lower at each follow-up time point than those at baseline survey. However, the decreases in HbA1c were obvious only at 6(th) month (P<0.001), with ls-mean (95%CI) of -0.48% (-0.71%, -0.25%), -0.33% (-0.55%, -0.11%) and -0.70% (-0.92%, -0.48%), respectively, in comprehensive, health literacy and exercise intervention groups, but it increased slightly by 0.03% (-0.19%, 0.25%) in control group. Compared with control group, the interventions were significantly associated with the decrease of HbA1c level, with the most improvement observed in comprehensive group (β=-0.47, 95% CI: -0.73, -0.20) at 3(rd) month, and in exercise intervention group at 6(th) month (β=-0.73, 95%CI: -0.98, -0.47) and at 12(th) month (β=-0.75, 95%CI: -1.05, -0.45) of follow-up. Stratified analyses showed that patients with lower health literacy level could benefit from any intervention, while those with higher numeracy skill benefited more from exercise intervention. Conclusion: Both health literacy and exercise-focused interventions may decrease HbA1c level in patients with T2DM, which would be helpful in reducing the risks of complications and deaths in diabetes patients.
Blood Glucose/analysis* ; China ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2/therapy* ; Disease Management ; Exercise ; Follow-Up Studies ; Glycated Hemoglobin/analysis* ; Health Literacy ; Humans ; Patient Education as Topic ; Self Care ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Treatment Outcome

The purification of parasite-infected erythrocytes from whole blood containing leucocytes is crucial for many downstream genetic and molecular assays in parasitology. Current methodologies to achieve this are often costly and time consuming. Here, we demonstrate the successful application of a cheap and simple Non-Woven Fabric (NWF) filter for the purification of parasitized red blood cells from whole blood. NWF filtration was applied to the malaria-parasitized blood of three strains of mice, and one strain of rat, and to Babesia gibsoni parasitized dog blood. Before and after filtration, the white blood cell (WBC) removal rates and red blood cell (RBC) recovery rates were measured. After NWF filter treatment of rodent malaria-infected blood, the WBC removal rates and RBC recovery rates were, for Kunming mice: 99.51%±0.30% and 86.12%±8.37%; for BALB/C mice: 99.61%±0.15% and 80.74%±7.11%; for C57 mice: 99.71%±0.12% and 84.87%±3.83%; for Sprague-Dawley rats: 99.93%±0.03% and 83.30%±2.96%. Microscopy showed WBCs were efficiently removed from infected dog blood samples, and there was no obvious morphological change of B. gibsoni parasites. NWF filters efficiently remove leukocytes from malaria parasite-infected mouse and rat blood, and are also suitable for filtration of B. gibsoni-infected dog blood.