Objective To investigate the value of endoscopic retrograde appendicitis therapy ( ERAT) in the diagnosis and treatment of atypical acute appendicitis. Methods All the 48 patients suspected of atypical acute appendicitis in Jiangsu Province Hospital from January 2015 to December 2016 were randomly divided into ERAT group and conservative treatment group according to the treatment method. The final appendectomy rate of the two groups was analyzed. Results Only 17 of the 24 patients in the ERAT group received endoscopic treatment because of complex conditions or personal wishes, and 16 cases were diagnosed as acute appendicitis. Surgical resection was performed in 5 cases because of recurrence of the disease after ERAT, and the appendectomy rate was 31. 2％ ( 5/16 ) . In the conservative treatment group, all 24 patients were treated with antibiotics. Twenty of them underwent surgical resection with appendectomy rate of 83. 3％ ( 20/24) , and 1 of them had appendiceal perforation. The appendectomy rate of the ERAT group was significantly lower than that of the conservative treatment group (χ2=11. 111, P<0. 05) . Conclusion ERAT has a high diagnostic and therapeutic value for atypical acute appendicitis.

Objective: To investigate the correlation between the diversity of biliary bacterial flora and the recurrence of common bile duct stones. Methods: From September 2018 to March 2019, 48 patients underwent endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University were enrolled and divided into primary choledocholithiasis (primary group, 38 patients) and recurrent choledocholithiasis group (recurrent group, 10 patients). The bile of the patients of the two groups was collected and analyzed with high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA. The Chao1 estimator indicated the richness of the biliary bacterial flora, and Shannon index and Simpson index demonstrated the diversity of biliary bacterial flora. The bacterial flora distribution was explored from different levels of phylum, class, order, family, genus and species. Chi-square test and t test were performed for statistical analysis. Results: The Chao1 estimator of the primary group was higher than that of the recurrent group (419.413±118.704 vs. 396.000±70.483), and the difference was statistically significant (t=3.130, P=0.003). At the level of the phylum, the highest abundance of bacteria in the primary group was Firmicute (56.48%), the highest abundance of bacteria in the recurrent group was Proteobacteria (57.79%). The dominant bacteria of the recurrent group was Proteobacteria, which was inconsistent with that of the primary group, and there were significant differences in the distribution of Proteobacteria and Firmicute between two groups (χ²=0.962 and -2.619, both P<0.05). At the genus level, the abundance of Bacillus and Lactococcus of the recurrent group were both lower than those of the primary group (9.75% vs. 20.77%, 10.86% vs. 22.01%, respectively), and the differences were statistically significant (χ²=0.354 and 0.503, both P<0.05). The abundance of Morganella of the recurrent group was higher than that of the primary group (9.00% vs. 0.44%), and the difference was statistically significant (χ²=-2.025, P=0.049). At the species level, the abundance of Bacillus unclassified, Carnobacterium maltaromaticum and Bacillus circulans of the primary group were all higher than those of the recurrent group (17.78% vs. 8.84%, 2.39% vs. 1.11%, 2.59% vs. 0.74%, respectively), and the differences were all statistically significant (χ²=2.540, 2.643 and 2.515, all P<0.05). The abundance of Aeromonas veronii of recurrent group was higher than that of the primary group (2.04% vs. 0.01%), and the difference was statistically significant (χ²=-2.397, P=0.021). The bacteria that had significant effects in the primary group included Lactococcus (P=0.012), Lactobacillus (P=0.033) and Geobacillus (P=0.021), while in the recurrent group, which included Enterobacter (P=0.007), Aeromonadaceae (P=0.001), Actinomycetes (P=0.009), and Aeromonas (P=0.001). Conclusions There are differences in abundance and composition of biliary bacterial flora between the recurrent group and the primary group. It remains to be further studied whether the changes of some bacterial flora correlated with the recurrence of common bile duct stones.