OBJECTIVE To explore the positive rate of intercellular adhesion (ica) operon and its production- polysaccharide intercellular adhesion(PIA) and the relationship between the rate and adhesion of Staphylococcus epidermidis. METHODS Amplifying icaA of ica operon by PCR and then detecting it by agarose electrophoresis, detecting PIA by Congo red agar (CRA) to detect its adhesive ability by infusion set. RESULTS The icaA positive rate of S.epidermidis was 51.5%; the PIA positive rate was 50%; there was significant difference between the clone numbers of PIA positives and negatives (P

Objective:To comprehensively evaluate the clinical value of Elecsys serum abnormal prothrombin (PIVKA-Ⅱ) test reagent for auxiliary diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the Chinese population.Methods:A multicenter case-control design was used in the study. Samples from patients with first-time confirmed, diagnosed, and untreated HCC, benign liver disease and interfering controls were collected continuously. Elecsys PIVKA-II and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) were tested for analysis. Various clinical details of the subjects were collected and analyzed. The efficacy of PIVKA-II (21.29 ng/ml) and AFP (400 ng/ml) for HCC diagnosis was calculated at specific positive cut-off values. Statistical analysis was performed using the Kruskal-Wallis test or receiver operating characteristic curve.Results:A total of 448 subjects were eventually enrolled from five centers, including 185 HCC cases. PIVKA-II had a higher diagnostic sensitivity and accuracy than AFP (84.86% vs. 30.81% and 89.01% vs. 63.66%) when the benign liver disease group was used as the control group, while the specificity was slightly lower. A sensitive analysis showed that PIVKA-II had a sensitivity of >80% at this specific positive cut-off value in the subgroup of AFP-negative subjects, patients with different etiologies, and HCC patients with multiple Barcelona Clinic liver cancer stages (including early-stage HCC). At the same time, the PIVKA-II subject had a slightly higher area under the receiver operating characteristic curve than the AFP (0.920 0 vs. 0.880 9).Conclusion:The clinical efficacy of Elecsys PIVKA-Ⅱ is good and stable in the Chinese population. Additionally, it has the clinical potential to improve the current missed diagnosis status of AFP-negative HCC and HCC monitoring at an early stage, as well as the effectiveness of accuracy promotion for HCC auxiliary diagnosis in China.

Objective: To evaluate the diagnostic efficacies of BRAF^V600E testing and Bethesda system for reporting thyroid cytopathology (BSRTC) in thyroid nodules with thyroid imaging reporting and data system (TIRADS) category 4 and 5. Methods: A total of 187 thyroid nodules in 187 patients underwent the examinations of ultrasound-guided fine needle aspiration cytology (FNAC) and BRAF^V600E mutation were analyzed retrospectively. Receive operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to investigate the diagnostic values of both methods and the clinical application of BRAF^V600E combined with BSRTC was evaluated. SPSS17.0 software was used to analyze the data. Results: Among 187 thyroid nodules, 123 were malignant nodules confirmed with histopathological examination and 64 benign nodules determined by FNAC, histopathological examination, or long-term follow-up. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of BRAF^V600E test were better than those of BSRTC [69.1%, 98.4%, 98.8%, 62.4%(χ²=77.3, P=0.000) vs 62.6%, 93.8%, 95.1%, 56.6%(χ²=54.4, P=0.000)]. While the sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV of the combined test of BRAF^V600E and BSRTC for diagnosis of malignant thyroid nodules were 87.8%, 92.2%, 95.6%, 79.7%(χ²=112.6, P=0.000), respectively. The area under the ROC curve for the combined test was higher than that for each of tests (0.900 vs 0.858 or 0.838). Conclusions The combined test of BRAF^V600E mutation and BSRTC has a higher diagnostic efficacy for malignant thyroid nodules compared with BRAF^V600E mutation or BSRTC alone.