Objective    To study the effect of Tangeretin on non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and the tumor stemness, and to find the molecular mechanism of its effect. Methods    We used cell counting and cell cloning experiments to study the effect of Tangeretin on the proliferation of NSCLC cells in vitro. The effect of Tangeretin on the invasion of NSCLC cells was detected by transwell assay. We detected the effect of Tangeretin on the proliferation of NSCLC cells in vivo by nude mouse tumor-bearing experiment. The effect of Tangeretin on tumor stemness of NSCLC cells was detected by self-renew assay, and CD133 and Nanog protein expressions. The expressions of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway-related proteins were detected by Western blotting (WB). Results    Tangeretin had a good inhibitory effect on the proliferation of NSCLC cells in vivo and in vitro. Cell counting experiment, clonal formation experiment and nude mouse tumor-bearing experiment showed that Tangeretin could inhibit the proliferation activity, clonal formation ability, and tumor size of NSCLC cells in vivo. Self-renew experiments showed that Tangeretin could inhibit the self-renew ability of NSCLC cells. WB experiments showed that Tangeretin inhibited the expressions of tumor stemness markers CD133 and Nanog in NSCLC cells. Tangeretin could inhibit the activation of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway-related proteins in NSCLC cells, and the activation of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway could partially remit the inhibitory  effect of Tangeretin on tumor stemness of NSCLC cells. Conclusion    Tangeretin can inhibit the tumor stemness of NSCLC cells, which may be related to the regulation of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway.

The shortage of medical resources promotes medical treatment reform, and smart healthcare is a promising strategy to solve this problem. With the development of Internet, real-time health status is expected to be monitored at home by using flexible healthcare systems, which puts forward new demands on flexible substrates for sensors. Currently, the flexible substrates are mainly traditional petroleum-based polymers, which are not renewable. As a natural polymer, cellulose, owing to its wide range of sources, convenient processing, biodegradability and so on, is an ideal alternative. In this review, the application progress of nanocellulose in flexible sensors is summarized. The structure and the modification methods of cellulose and nanocellulose are introduced at first, and then the application of nanocellulose flexible sensors in real-time medical monitoring is summarized. Finally, the advantages and future challenges of nanocellulose in the field of flexible sensors are discussed.
Cellulose/chemistry* ; Hydrogels/chemistry* ; Polymers

This study aims to investigate whether displacement force on stents can accurately represents the displacement of the stent after endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) by comparing the measured stent displacement with the displacement forces calculated by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). And the effect of cross-limb and parallel-limb EVAR on stent displacements is further studied. Based on our objective, in this study, ten cross-limb EVAR patients and ten parallel-limb EVAR patients in West China Hospital of Sichuan University were enrolled. Patient-specific models were first reconstructed based on the computed tomography angiography images, then the stent displacements were measured, and the displacement forces acting on the stents were calculated by CFD. Finally, the cosα value of the angle between the displacement force and the displacement vector was used to analyze the matching degree between the displacement and the displacement force. The results showed that the displacement forces on cross-limb stents and parallel-limb stents were (2.67 ± 2.14) N and (1.36 ± 0.48) N, respectively. Displacements of stent gravity center, stent displacements relative to vessel, and vessel displacements of cross-limb and parallel-limb stents were (4.43 ± 2.81) mm and (6.39 ± 2.62) mm, (0.88 ± 0.67) mm and (1.11 ± 0.71) mm, (3.55 ± 2.88) mm and (5.28 ± 2.52) mm, respectively. The mean cosα for cross-limb and parallel-limb stents were 0.02 ± 0.66 and - 0.10 ± 0.73, respectively. This study indicates that the displacement force on the stent can't accurately represent the displacement of the stent after EVAR. In addition, the cross-limb EVAR is probably safer and more stable than the parallel-limb EVAR.
Aortic Aneurysm, Abdominal/surgery* ; Blood Vessel Prosthesis ; Blood Vessel Prosthesis Implantation ; Endovascular Procedures/methods* ; Humans ; Prosthesis Design ; Retrospective Studies ; Stents ; Treatment Outcome

Objective    To investigate the changes of fibrinogen and classical markers of collagen metabolism [carboxy-terminal propeptide of type Ⅰ procollagen (PICP) and carboxy-terminal cross-linked peptide of type Ⅰ collagen (ICTP)] in peripheral blood and pericardial drainage after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and/or heart valve replacement (VR), and to evaluate their relationship with postoperative atrial fibrillation (POAF) after cardiac surgery. Methods    Patients who underwent CABG and/or VR in the Heart Center of Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital from March to June 2021 were included. Peripheral blood and pericardial drainage fluid samples were collected before surgery and at 0 h, 6 h, 24 h and 48 h after surgery to detect PICP, ICTP and fibrinogen levels, and preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative confounding factors were also collected. PICP, ICTP and fibrinogen levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Results    A total of 26 patients with 125 blood samples and 78 drainage samples were collected. There were 18 males and 8 females with an average age of 64.04±7.27 years. The incidence rate of POAF was 34.6%. Among the factors, the fibrinogen level in pericardial drainage showed two peaks within 48 h after operation (0 h and 24 h after operation) in the POAF group, while it showed a continuous downward trend in the sinus rhythm (SR) group, and the change trend of fibrinogen in pericardial drainage was significantly different over time between the two groups (P=0.022). Fibrinogen in blood, PICP and ICTP in blood and drainage showed an overall decreasing trend, and their trends over time were not significantly different between the two groups of patients (P>0.05). Univariate analysis showed that fibrinogen at 24 h and 48 h after pericardial drainage, fibrinogen in preoperative blood, PICP immediately after surgery and right atrial long axis diameter were significantly higher or longer in the POAF group than those in the SR group. Multiple regression showed that fibrinogen≥11.47 ng/mL in pericardial drainage 24 h after surgery (OR=14.911, 95%CI 1.371-162.122, P=0.026), right atrial long axis diameter≥46 mm (OR=10.801, 95%CI 1.011-115.391, P=0.049) were independent predictors of POAF. Conclusion    This study finds the regularity of changes in fibrinogen and collagen metabolic markers after CABG and/or VR surgery, and to find that fibrinogen in pericardial drainage 24 h after surgery is a potential novel and predictive factor for POAF. The results provide a new idea for exploring the mechanism of POAF, and provide a research basis for the accurate prediction and prevention of clinical POAF.

OBJECTIVE: To summarize the clinical features, surgical methods, and prognosis of bucket-handle meniscal tears (BHMTs), and provide guidance for clinical treatment. METHODS: The clinical data of 91 BHMTs patients (91 knees), who met the selection criteria and were admitted between January 2015 and January 2021, was retrospectively analyzed. There were 68 males and 23 females. Age ranged from 16 to 58 years with an average of 34.4 years. The injury was caused by sports in 68 cases, traffic accident in 15 cases, and falls or sprains in 8 cases. There were 49 cases of left knee injury and 42 cases of right knee injury. The time from the onset of symptoms to the admission ranged from 1 day to 13 months (median, 18 days), including >1 month in 35 cases and ≤1 month in 56 cases. Medial BHMTs occurred in 52 cases and lateral BHMTs in 39 cases. There were 36 cases with ACL rupture and 12 cases with discoid meniscus. The knee extension was limited more than 10° in 55 cases. According to the condition of meniscus injury, the meniscus suture with Inside-out combined with All-inside techniques (54 cases) or meniscoplasty (37 cases) under arthroscopy were selected. ACL reconstruction was performed in all patients with ACL rupture with autogenous hamstring tendon. Postoperative complications were observed. International Knee Documentation Committee (IKDC) score, Lysholm score, and Tegner score were used to evaluate knee function, and clinical failure was recorded. RESULTS: Two patients developed intermuscular venous thrombosis, which improved after oral anticoagulant therapy. No vascular injury, postoperative infection, joint stiffness, or other complications occurred in all patients. All patients were followed up 24-95 months, with a median of 64 months. A total of 12 cases (13.19%) failed the operation and were re-operated or given oral anti-inflammatory analgesics and rehabilitation therapy. At last follow-up, IKDC score and Lysholm score of 91 patients significantly increased when compared with those before operation ( P<0.05), while Tegner score significantly decreased ( P<0.05). The above indexes of patients treated with meniscus suture and meniscoplasty were also significantly different from those before operation ( P<0.05). CONCLUSION BHMTs occurs mostly in young men and is one of the important reasons for the limitation of knee extension after trauma. Arthroscopic meniscus suture and meniscoplasty can obtain good effectiveness according to individual conditions of patients. But the latter can better preserve the shape and function of meniscus, and theoretically can obtain better long-term outcomes, which needs to be confirmed by further research with larger sample size.
Male ; Female ; Humans ; Adolescent ; Young Adult ; Adult ; Middle Aged ; Treatment Outcome ; Retrospective Studies ; Meniscus ; Knee Joint/surgery* ; Menisci, Tibial/surgery* ; Knee Injuries/diagnosis* ; Rupture ; Tibial Meniscus Injuries/surgery* ; Arthroscopy/methods* ; Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injuries/surgery*

OBJECTIVE: To review the research progress in the construction strategy and application of bone/cartilage immunomodulating hydrogels. METHODS: The literature related to bone/cartilage immunomodulating hydrogels at home and abroad in recent years was reviewed and summarized from the immune response mechanism of different immune cells, the construction strategy of immunomodulating hydrogels, and their practical applications. RESULTS: According to the immune response mechanism of different immune cells, the biological materials with immunoregulatory effect is designed, which can regulate the immune response of the body and thus promote the regeneration of bone/cartilage tissue. Immunomodulating hydrogels have good biocompatibility, adjustability, and multifunctionality. By regulating the physical and chemical properties of hydrogel and loading factors or cells, the immune system of the body can be purposively regulated, thus forming an immune microenvironment conducive to osteochondral regeneration. CONCLUSION Immunomodulating hydrogels can promote osteochondral repair by affecting the immunomodulation process of host organs or cells. It has shown a wide application prospect in the repair of osteochondral defects. However, more data support from basic and clinical experiments is needed for this material to further advance its clinical translation process.
Hydrogels ; Cartilage ; Bone and Bones ; Tissue Engineering/methods*

There is a shared problem in current optical imaging technologies of how to obtain the optical parameters of biological tissues with complex profiles. In this work, an imaging system for obtaining the optical parameters of biological tissues with complex profile was presented. Firstly, Fourier transformation profilometry was used for obtaining the profile information of biological tissues, and then the difference of incident light intensity at different positions on biological tissue surface was corrected with the laws of illumination, and lastly the optical parameters of biological tissues were achieved with the spatial frequency domain imaging technique. Experimental results indicated the proposed imaging system could obtain the profile information and the optical parameters of biological tissues accurately and quickly. For the slab phantoms with height variation less than 30 mm and angle variation less than 40º, the maximum relative errors of the profile uncorrected optical parameters were 46.27% and 72.18%, while the maximum relative errors of the profile corrected optical parameters were 6.89% and 10.26%. Imaging experiments of a face-like phantom and a human's prefrontal lobe were performed respectively, which demonstrated the proposed imaging system possesses clinical application value for the achievement of the optical parameters of biological tissues with complex profiles. Besides, the proposed profile corrected method can be used to combine with the current optical imaging technologies to reduce the influence of the profile information of biological tissues on imaging quality.
Diagnostic Imaging ; Humans ; Light ; Optical Imaging ; Phantoms, Imaging

Remarkable results have been realized by the U-Net network in the task of medical image segmentation. In recent years, many scholars have been researching the network and expanding its structure, such as improvement of encoder and decoder and improvement of skip connection. Based on the optimization of U-Net structure and its medical image segmentation techniques, this paper elucidates in the following: First, the paper elaborates on the application of U-Net in the field of medical image segmentation; Then, the paper summarizes the seven improvement mechanism of U-Net: dense connection mechanism, residual connection mechanism, multi-scale mechanism, ensemble mechanism, dilated mechanism, attention mechanism, and transformer mechanism; Finally, the paper states the ideas and methods on the U-Net structure improvement in a bid to provide a reference for later researches, which plays a significant part in advancing U-Net.
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/methods*

Radiopharmaceutical dynamic imaging typically necessitates intravenous injection via the bolus method. However, manual bolus injection carries the risk of handling errors as well as radiological injuries. Hence, there is potential for automated injection devices to replace manual injection methods. In this study, the effect of micro-bolus pulse injection technology was compared and verified by radioactive experiments using a programmable injection pump, and the overall bubble recognition experiment and rat tail vein simulation injection verification were performed using the piezoelectric sensor preloading method. The results showed that at the same injection peak speed, the effective flushing volume of micro-bolus pulse flushing (about 83 μL/pulse) was 49.65% lower than that of uniform injection and 25.77% lower than that of manual flushing. In order to avoid the dilution effect of long pipe on the volume of liquid, the use of piezoelectric sensor for sealing preloading detection could accurately predict the bubbles of more than 100 μL in the syringe. In the simulated injection experiment of rat tail vein, when the needle was placed in different tissues by preloading 100 μL normal saline, the piezoelectric sensor fed back a large difference in pressure attenuation rate within one second, which was 2.78% in muscle, 17.28% in subcutaneous and 54.71% in vein. Micro-bolus pulse injection method and piezoelectric sensor sealing preloading method have application potential in improving the safety of radiopharmaceutical automatic bolus injection.
Animals ; Rats ; Radiopharmaceuticals/administration & dosage*

bjective    To use machine learning technology to predict the recurrence of atrial fibrillation (AF) after radiofrequency ablation, and try to find the risk factors affecting postoperative recurrence. Methods    A total of 300 patients with valvular AF who underwent radiofrequency ablation in West China Hospital and its branch (Shangjin Hospital) from January 2017 to January 2021 were enrolled, including 129 males and 171 females with a mean age of 52.56 years. We built 5 machine learning models to predict AF recurrence, combined the 3 best performing models into a voting classifier, and made prediction again. Finally, risk factor analysis was performed using the SHApley Additive exPlanations method. Results    The voting classifier yielded a prediction accuracy rate of 75.0%, a recall rate of 61.0%, and an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.79. In addition, factors such as left atrial diameter, ejection fraction, and right atrial diameter were found to have an influence on postoperative recurrence. Conclusion    Machine learning-based prediction of recurrence of valvular AF after radiofrequency ablation can provide a certain reference for the clinical diagnosis of AF, and reduce the risk to patients due to ineffective ablation. According to the risk factors found in the study, it can provide patients with more personalized treatment.