Stroke is a global disease that seriously threatens human life. The pathological mechanisms of ischemic stroke include neuroinflammation, oxidative stress, and the destruction of blood vessels at the lesion site. Here, a biocompatible in situ hydrogel platform was designed to target multiple pathogenic mechanisms post-stroke, including anti-inflammation, anti-oxidant, and promotion of angiogenesis. Double-crosslinked responsive multifunctional hydrogels could quickly respond to the pathological microenvironment of the ischemic damage site and mediate the delivery of nitric oxide (NO) and ISO-1 (inhibitor of macrophage migration inhibitory factor, MIF). The hydrogel demonstrated good biocompatibility and could scavenge reactive oxygen species (ROS) and inflammatory cytokines, such as interleukin-6 (IL-6), interleukin-10 (IL-10), and MIF. In a mouse stroke model, hydrogels, when situated within the microenvironment of cerebral infarction characterized by weak acidity and elevated ROS release, would release anti-inflammatory nanoparticles rapidly that exert an anti-inflammatory effect. Concurrently, NO was sustained release to facilitate angiogenesis and provide neuroprotective effects. Neurological function was significantly improved in treated mice as assessed by the modified neurological severity score, rotarod test, and open field test. These findings indicate that the designed hydrogel held promise for sustained delivery of NO and ISO-1 to alleviate cerebral ischemic injury by responding to the brain's pathological microenvironment.

Objective:To analyze the current status of diagnosis and treatment of rosacea in China, and to strengthen the understanding and management of this disease.Methods:A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted, and patients with rosacea were enrolled from 23 tertiary hospitals in 6 provinces or municipalities in northern and southern China. Clinical characteristics, previous diagnosis and treatment status of these patients were collected through questionnaires. Non-normally distributed continuous data were described by M ( Q1, Q3), and compared using Mann-Whitney U test, while categorical data were compared using chi-square test. Results:Among the 593 patients with rosacea, 164 were males and 429 were females, with a male-to-female ratio of 1∶2.6; 205 patients were from southern China, and 388 from northern China; most patients (349 cases, 58.8%) were aged 20 to 40 years, and the patients from northern China were significantly older than those from southern China (median age: 37 years vs. 30 years, P < 0.001). Multiple-site involvement (371 cases, 62.6%) and coexistence of multiple phenotypes (391 cases, 65.9%) were common, the cheeks (429 cases, 72.3%) and nose (393 cases, 66.3%) were mostly affected, and skin lesions mainly manifested as persistent erythema (354 cases, 59.7%), papulopustules (344 cases, 58.0%), and telangiectasia (282 cases, 47.6%). Involvement of the cheeks was more common in the patients from southern China (160 cases, 78.0%) than in those from northern China (269 cases, 69.3%), but the nose and eyes were less involved in the patients from southern China than in those from northern China (nose: 125 cases [61.0%] vs. 268 cases [69.1%]; eyes: 3 cases [1.5%] vs. 23 cases [5.9%]; both P < 0.05). The prevalence of transient erythema and papulopustules was significantly higher in the patients from southern China (38.0% and 65.4%, respectively) than in those from northern China (20.9% and 54.1% respectively, both P < 0.05), while the patients from northern China more frequently presented with persistent erythema compared with those from southern China (64.9% vs. 49.8%, P < 0.05). The disease duration ( M [ Q1, Q3]) was 12 (4, 30) months among the patients with rosacea, and the time from the onset to diagnosis was 10 (3, 24) months. The disease duration was significantly longer (12 [4, 36] months), and the proportion of patients with disease duration > 5 years was significantly higher (16.4% [63 cases]) in the patients from northern China than in those from southern China (12 [3, 24] months, 9.4% [19 cases], respectively; both P < 0.05). The patients with varied subtypes and severity of rosacea were previously mainly treated with topical antimicrobial agents (71.9%) ; 72.7% of the patients with mild rosacea were treated with systemic drugs; poor patient compliance was observed, and only 40.6% of the patients completed more than 4 consecutive weeks of treatment at a time. Conclusions:Rosacea usually occurred in young and middle-aged people in China, mostly involved the cheeks and nose, and mainly manifested as erythema or papulopustules. Delayed diagnosis, non-standard treatment and poor patient compliance existed in clinical practice.

Regular and adequate use of broad-spectrum sunscreen has been proven to offer significant protection against acute Ultraviolet-induced photodamage, photoaging, immunosuppression, and the development of skin tumors. However, concerns regarding the safety and standardized use of sunscreens persist, including potential allergenicity and irritability of certain organic sunscreens, the impact of systemic absorption on the endocrine system, the effect on vitamin D synthesis and absorption, and environmental implications. Special caution is advised when using small molecule organic sunscreens and nanoparticle inorganic sunscreens, especially for infants, pregnant women, and areas with damaged skin.

Regular and adequate use of broad-spectrum sunscreen has been proven to offer significant protection against acute Ultraviolet-induced photodamage, photoaging, immunosuppression, and the development of skin tumors. However, concerns regarding the safety and standardized use of sunscreens persist, including potential allergenicity and irritability of certain organic sunscreens, the impact of systemic absorption on the endocrine system, the effect on vitamin D synthesis and absorption, and environmental implications. Special caution is advised when using small molecule organic sunscreens and nanoparticle inorganic sunscreens, especially for infants, pregnant women, and areas with damaged skin.

Objective:To investigate the relationship between serum glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF) levels and neuroimaging changes and cognitive impairment in patients with cerebral small vascular disease (CSVD).Methods:135 patients with CSVD recruited from the Department of Neurology of the First Affiliated Hospital of Xinxiang Medical University from September 2021 to July 2022 were assessed by cranial multimodal magnetic resonance imaging and Montreal cognitive function assessment (MoCA), and the basic data were analyzed at the same time.The serum GDNF concentration of all patients was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). According to the median GDNF concentration, the patients were divided into low GDNF group and high GDNF group. The baseline data, MoCA score and imaging markers of the two groups were compared by Mann-Whitney U test, chi-square test, logistic regression, Kruskal-Wallis H test and Jonckheere-Terpstra trend test, and the correlation between serum GDNF level and imaging markers and cognitive function of patients with CSVD was analyzed. Results:The median serum GDNF concentration of all CSVD patients was 16.66 pg/mL. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that low serum GDNF level was a risk factor for white matter hyperintensity and total image load in patients with CSVD. Serum GDNF level was a protective factor of cognitive impairment in patients with CSVD in multiple logistic regression analysis. The area under the curve of ROC curve analysis of cognitive impairment after CSVD predicted by serum GDNF level was 0.735, the sensitivity was 66.4%, and the specificity was 71.4%. The level of serum GDNF was positively related with visual space and executive function, attention and computational power, delayed recall and orientation( r=0.267, 0.187, 0.219, 0.215, all P<0.05). Conclusion:The serum GDNF level is related to white matter hyperintensities, total imaging load and cognitive impairment in patients with CSVD. Serum GDNF level may play a predictive role in CSVD and cognitive impairment.

Objective:To explore changes in high-risk sexual behaviors and associated factors in HIV-infected men who have sex with men (MSM) in industrial workers, and provide evidence for designing behavioral interventions for this population.Methods:In this observational study, HIV-infected MSM were recruited in industrial workers using convenient sampling during August to September 2021. The sample size was estimated to be 530. A questionnaire was used and combined with routine follow-up to collect socio-demographic characteristics, high-risk sexual behaviors, partner notification, viral load testing and history of sexually transmitted diseases before and after diagnosis of HIV infection. The χ2 test was used to analyze the changes in high-risk sexual behaviors before and after diagnosis and logistic regression was conducted to identify factors associated with high-risk sexual behaviors. Results:A total of 560 HIV-infected MSM in industrial workers were recruited in this study. Of whom, 32.1% (180/560) had unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) within 12 months after diagnosis . The proportions of those having UAI with casual, commercial and regular same-sex partners significantly decreased from 73.4% (381/519), 75.1% (187/249) and 69.5% (207/298) within 12 months before diagnosis to 36.2% (146/403), 40.2% (86/214) and 34.2% (67/196) within 12 months after diagnosis , respectively. Educational level of college or above (a OR=0.41, 95% CI:0.23-0.71), passive anal sex (a OR=0.40, 95% CI:0.19-0.85), both active and passive anal sex after diagnosis (a OR=0.40, 95% CI:0.20-0.83) and no unprotected oral sex (a OR=0.02, 95% CI:0.01-0.05) were negatively associated with UAI within 12 months after diagnosis. Whereas, not considering necessary to use condom consistently after having repeated undetectable viral load (a OR=3.02, 95% CI:1.37-6.69) was positively associated with UAI within 12 months after diagnosis. Conclusions:Compared with that before diagnosis of HIV infection, although the prevalence of UAI seemed to decrease in HIV-infected MSM in industrial workers after diagnosis, nearly one third of them had high-risk sexual behaviors. Therefore, relevant interventions should be strengthened to reduce high-risk sexual behaviors.

Electrocardiogram (ECG) can visually reflect the physiological electrical activity of human heart, which is important in the field of arrhythmia detection and classification. To address the negative effect of label imbalance in ECG data on arrhythmia classification, this paper proposes a nested long short-term memory network (NLSTM) model for unbalanced ECG signal classification. The NLSTM is built to learn and memorize the temporal characteristics in complex signals, and the focal loss function is used to reduce the weights of easily identifiable samples. Then the residual attention mechanism is used to modify the assigned weights according to the importance of sample characteristic to solve the sample imbalance problem. Then the synthetic minority over-sampling technique is used to perform a simple manual oversampling process on the Massachusetts institute of technology and Beth Israel hospital arrhythmia (MIT-BIH-AR) database to further increase the classification accuracy of the model. Finally, the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database is applied to experimentally verify the above algorithms. The experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively solve the issues of imbalanced samples and unremarkable features in ECG signals, and the overall accuracy of the model reaches 98.34%. It also significantly improves the recognition and classification of minority samples and has provided a new feasible method for ECG-assisted diagnosis, which has practical application significance.
Algorithms ; Arrhythmias, Cardiac/diagnosis* ; Electrocardiography ; Humans ; Memory, Short-Term ; Neural Networks, Computer ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of advanced practice nurse–guided home-based rehabilitation exercise program (HREPro) among patients with lower limb spasticity post-stroke. Methods: This randomized controlled study recruited 121 patients with lower limb spasticity post-stroke. Intervention (n = 59) and control (n = 62) groups underwent 12-month HREPro and conventional rehabilitation, respectively, after discharge. The Fugl–Meyer assessment of spasticity measurement, modified Ashworth scale of motor function, 10-Meter Walk Test of walking ability, and Barthel index of activities of daily living (ADL) were evaluated at 0, 3, 6, and 12 months after discharge. Results: Significant differences were found in spasticity degree, motor function, walking ability, and ADL at 6 and 12 months after discharge between the control and intervention groups. Lower limb spasticity and ADL in the intervention group were significantly improved. Conclusion HREPro is effective for rehabilitation of patients with lower limb spasticity post-stroke and has favorable home application.

Purpose: To evaluate the effectiveness of advanced practice nurse–guided home-based rehabilitation exercise program (HREPro) among patients with lower limb spasticity post-stroke. Methods: This randomized controlled study recruited 121 patients with lower limb spasticity post-stroke. Intervention (n = 59) and control (n = 62) groups underwent 12-month HREPro and conventional rehabilitation, respectively, after discharge. The Fugl–Meyer assessment of spasticity measurement, modified Ashworth scale of motor function, 10-Meter Walk Test of walking ability, and Barthel index of activities of daily living (ADL) were evaluated at 0, 3, 6, and 12 months after discharge. Results: Significant differences were found in spasticity degree, motor function, walking ability, and ADL at 6 and 12 months after discharge between the control and intervention groups. Lower limb spasticity and ADL in the intervention group were significantly improved. Conclusion HREPro is effective for rehabilitation of patients with lower limb spasticity post-stroke and has favorable home application.

PURPOSE: This study aims to investigate the feasibility of contouring target volume according to residual tumor and decreasing the dose to the tumor regression field after induction chemotherapy (IC) in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). MATERIALS AND METHODS: From August 2009 to August 2013, patients with stage III–IVB NPC were treated with IC and concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Gross tumor volume of nasopharynx (GTVnx)–residual and gross tumor volume of cervical lymph node (GTVnd)–residual were contoured according to post-IC residual primary tumor and any N+ disease, respectively. The tumor regression field was included in CTVnx1/CTVnd1 and prescribed a dose of 60 Gy. Outcomes and toxicities of all patients were evaluated. RESULTS: A total of 57 patients were enrolled. At a median follow-up of 68 months, three cases displayed locoregional recurrence and one case showed both distant metastasis and locoregional recurrence. All locoregional recurrences were in the GTVnx-residual/GTVnd-residual and in-field. The 5-year overall, locoregional relapse-free, distant metastasis-free, and progression-free survival rates were 82.2%, 87.7%, 85.8% and 80.3%, respectively. CONCLUSION: After IC, contouring of GTVnx-residual/GTVnd-residual as residual tumor volume and distribution 60 Gy ofradiation dose to the tumorregression field may be feasible and need further investigation.
Chemoradiotherapy ; Disease-Free Survival ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Induction Chemotherapy ; Lymph Nodes ; Nasopharynx ; Neoplasm Metastasis ; Neoplasm, Residual ; Radiotherapy, Intensity-Modulated ; Recurrence ; Tumor Burden