Objective To explore the value of monitoring techniques of the external branch of superior laryngeal nerve (EBSLN) in thyroid surgery and to study its protective effects on vocal function after thyroid surgery.Methods We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of 139 patients who underwent primary surgery of papillary thyroid cancer with neurological monitoring from Jun.2017 to Mar.2018 in the General Surgery Department of PLA General Hospital.The tumors of 31 cases were located in the upper pole of the gland and elsewhere in 108 cases.The patients' vocal function was assessed at one week and one month after surgery.The rate of EBSLN identified visually and by the intraoperative nerve monitoring (IONM) were counted.EBSLN recognition efficiency and prevalence of EBSLN damage during the operation of tumor in upper pole of thyroid and in other location were compared.Results In the 139 patients,there were 218 upper poles(218 EBSLN) treated intraoperatively,of which 145 were recognized visually (126(57.8％) confirmed by IONM,and 203(93.1％) were identified by IONM,OR=8.27(x2=59.345,P=0.00).The percentage of EBLSN located in the upper pole accurately identified by the naked eye was 20/46(43.5％) while by IONM was 43/46(93.4％).The percentage of EBSLN at the other position accurately identified visually was 106/172(61.6％),and by IONM was 160/172(93.0％).The number of visually identified cases in different locations showed significantly differences according to the chi-square test (x2=4.901,P=0.027),and no significant difference by IONM identification according to chi-square test (x2=0.012,P=0.914).Five patients had a low voice at one week postoperatively and low voice and vocalization change were not observed after one month.Conclusions IONM can effectively increase the proportion of intraoperative EBSLN identification to ensure the safety of surgery.The difficulty of visual identification of EBSLN during the surgery of tumor in upper pole is greater than that in other locations.IONM can provide more evidences for nerve protection and reduce the risk of injury.

microRNAs (miRNAs) are an extensive class of -22-nucleotide (nt) endogenous noncoding RNAs regulating life activities ofmetazoans through binding to 3'-untranslated regions (3'-UTRs) of their target genes. This work aimed to identify yan gene in the silkworm, reveal its expression profile and confirm if it is one target of bmo-miR-7 and, as such, have potential for contributing to better understanding of the molecular mechanisms involved in the metamorphosis of silkworm. Based on homolog searching and PCR amplification, we cloned the coding sequence (CDS) of Bmyan, which encodes 476 amino acid residues and contains SAM-PNT and ETs domains. Quantitative PCR (q-PCR), RT-PCR and microarray data revealed high expression of Bmyan in the head, body wall and ovary of day-3 fifth instar larval silkworm, low or no expression in other tissues. It was lowly expressed in the early larval stages, but highly expressed from late spinning to day 4 pupa. The 3'-UTR of Bmyan was obtained by rapid-amplification of cDNA ends (3'RACE) and predicted to contain two potential recognition sites of bmo-miR-7. The luciferase reporter vector containing the 3'-UTR of Bmyan was constructed and co-transfected into BmE cell line with the mimic of bmo-miR-7 and the decreased relative activity of luciferase showed that Bmyan is one target of bmo-miR-7. This work helps further functional analysis of bmo-miR-7 and Bmyan in the silkworm.
3' Untranslated Regions ; Animals ; Bombyx ; genetics ; Cell Line ; Cloning, Molecular ; Female ; Genetic Vectors ; Insect Proteins ; genetics ; Larva ; Metamorphosis, Biological ; MicroRNAs ; genetics ; Pupa

AIM:To investigate the impact of palmitate-stimulated macrophages on the invasion and migration of HepG2 cells and to explore the underlying mechanism .METHODS:Human acute monocytic leukemia cell line THP-1 were induced to macrophages by phorbol myristate acetate and were stimulated with palmitate (0.16 mmol/L).The culture supernatants were collected and used to incubate HepG 2 cells.The effect of palmitate on migration of the macrophages was detected by Transwell chamber assay .The mRNA expression of target genes was measured by RT-qPCR.The invasion and migration of the HepG 2 cells were assessed by invasion assay and scratch test .RESULTS:Palmitate promoted the migra-tion of the macrophages and increased the mRNA levels of interleukin -1β( IL-1β) , interleukin-6 ( IL-6 ) , tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α) and monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1) in the macrophages.The invasion and migration of the HepG2 cells incubated with conditioned media from palmitate-stimulated macrophages were greater than those of the HepG 2 cells incubated with conditioned media from macrophages without palmitate .The media of palmitate-stimulated macrophages up-regulated the mRNA expression of cytokines and N-cadherin, and down-regulated the mRNA expression of E-cadherin in the HepG2 cells.CONCLUSION:Palmitate-stimulated macrophages promote the invasion and migration of HepG 2 cells through paracrine/endcrine loop.

Laryngeal nerves injury,including recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) and superior laryngeal nerve,is one of the most terrible complications of thyroid surgery.External branch of superior laryngeal nerve (EBSLN) is adjacent to the upper pole of thyroid gland,which make it vulnerable to be injured during the ligation of the superior thyroid vessels.As a result,patients would have phonating dysfunction,especially the changes in the voice quality alongside the alterations in the high pitched sound production ability.Intraoperative neural monitoring technique applying neural electrophysiology method to detect and protect the nerve and assess its function during the operation decreases the occurrence of EBSLN injury and improves the living quality.This article is going to make a review of the progress of the application.

Objective:To identify the risk factors for survival prognosis of patients with early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) after ultrasound-guided percutaneous microwave ablation (US-PMMA), and to compare the overall survival (OS), cancer specific survival (CSS) and disease-free survival (DFS) between different early-stage HCC patients.Methods:A total of 1 563 patients with early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) who underwent MWA in the interventional ultrasound department of the Chiese PLA General Hospital from January 2002 to December 2017 were retrospectively analyzed. Propensity score matching (PSM) balanced the baseline parameters between the elderly group (≥60 years) and the young group (<60 years). Multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to identify the risk factors of OS, CSS and DFS. OS, CSS and DFS probabilities for different patients stratified by respective predictors were calculated with Kaplan-Meier method and compared using the Log-Rank test.Results:All parameters were balanced except for age after PSM.Tumor diameter(95% CI=1.1-1.4, P<0.001), number of tumors(95% CI=1.2-1.9, P<0.001), γ-GT (95% CI=1.0-1.0, P<0.001) and AFP (HR=1.5, 95% CI=1.2-1.8, P<0.001) were shared predictors for OS, CSS and DFS. Age (95% CI=1.2-1.8, P<0.001) and neutrophile to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) (95% CI=1.0-1.0, P=0.043) were another two predictors for both OS and CSS. Albumin predicted OS only, and sex and cirrhosis just predicted DFS. Over the follow-up period (12-156 months), log-rank tests showed that all predictors significantly affected the corresponding OS, CSS or DFS(all P<0.01). Among them, multiple tumors had the greatest impact on OS, CSS and DFS. Compared with patients with single lesion, OS, CSS and DFS in patients with multiple lesions decreased by 9.2%, 2.5% and 4.1% respectively at the 12 years of follow-up, and the median survival time was shortened by 12.3 months, 25.0 months and 11.3 months, respectively (log-rank P=0.049 for OS; P=0.007 for CSS; P<0.001 for DFS). Conclusions:The prognostic benefits from MWA treating early-stage HCC in patients with different survival risk factors are different. Clinically feasible correction of hypoproteinemia and liver disfunction are of great significance to improve the prognosis of early-stage HCC patients after US-PMMA.

OBJECTIVETo explore the value of Roux-en-Y pancreaticojejunostomy after local pancreatic head resection in treating benign tumors of pancreatic head (BTPH).

METHODSThe clinical data of 12 patients diagnosed as BTPH and treated by Roux-en-Y pancreaticojejunostomy after local pancreatic head resection in Department of General Surgery, Peking University Third Hospital from November 2006 to October 2013 were retrospectively analyzed.Of the 12 cases, 5 patients were male, 7 patients were female, the age of patients ranged from 21 to 64 years(average 42.3 years). Diameter of tumors was 3.0-4.8 cm.Diameter of pancreatic wound after resection was 5.1-7.9 cm, and main pancreatic duct injury happened in 1 case.

RESULTSTwo cases of mucinous cystadenoma, 2 insulinoma, 3 solid pseudopapillary tumor and 4 nonfunctional pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors were confirmed histopathologically.No mortality and pancreatic leakage occurred during the perioperative period.All the 12 patients had no sign of recurrence.Experienced good life quality without occurrence of diabetes during the follow-up period of 24-108 months(more than 60 months in 4 cases).

CONCLUSIONSRoux-en-Y pancreaticojejunostomy after local pancreatic head resection is a reasonable choice for benign tumors of the pancreatic head as long as the patient is properly selected.

Adult ; Anastomosis, Roux-en-Y ; Cystadenoma, Mucinous ; surgery ; Female ; Humans ; Insulinoma ; surgery ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Neoplasm Recurrence, Local ; Pancreas ; surgery ; Pancreatic Neoplasms ; surgery ; Pancreaticojejunostomy ; Retrospective Studies ; Treatment Outcome ; Young Adult

Objective:To evaluate the cardiac function and systolic dyssynchrony of fetuses exposed to maternal autoimmune antibodies (anti-SSA/Ro60, anti-SSA/Ro52 and anti-SSB/La) by using two-dimensional speckle tracking imaging (2D-STI).Methods:A total of 52 pregnant women with singleton pregnancy in the Affiliated Hospital of Inner Mongolia Medical University from July 2018 to November 2020 were selected. Eighteen fetuses of mothers with autoimmune antibodies were enrolled as autoimmune disease (AD) group and 34 fetuses of healthy mothers without antibodies were included as control group. Maternal baseline characteristics, fetoplacental Doppler parameters, and conventional echocardiographic data of two groups were prospectively collected. The systolic global and regional longitudinal strain of left and right ventricles (LV and RV) and the time to peak strain of regional myocardium were measured using 2D-STI. The differences in time to peak strain between the LV free wall and RV free wall (two-chamber dyssynchrony, 2C-DYS) and between the septum and LV free wall (one-chamber dyssynchrony, 1C-DYS) were also calculated.Results:There were no significant differences between the two groups in conventional systolic and diastolic functional parameters for the LV and RV(all P>0.05). The myocardial deformation parameters and 2C-DYS obtained by 2D-STI showed no statistical differences between two groups(all P>0.05). However, 1C-DYS was significantly more prolonged in the AD group than control group[28.50(13.50, 39.25)ms vs 19.50(8.00, 29.25)ms, P=0.042]. Conclusions:LV systolic mechanical dyssynchrony in fetuses of mothers with autoimmune antibodies suggests in-utero subclinical damage of the cardiac conduction system.

Objective:To develop an automated landmark location system applicable to the case of landmark missing.Methods:Four and eighty-one lateral cephalograms, which contained 240 males and 241 females, with an average age of (24.5±5.6) years, taken from January 2015 to January 2021 in the Department of Orthodontics, Capital Medical University School of Stomatology, and met the inclusion criteria were collected. Five postgraduate orthodontic students were the annotators to manually locate 61 possible landmarks in 481 lateral cephalograms. Two assistant professors in the department as reviewers performed calibration. Two professors as arbitrators, made final decision. Data sets were established (341 were used as training set, 40 as validation set, and 100 as test set). In this paper, an automatic landmarks identification and location model based on convolutional neural networks (CNN), CephaNET, was developed. The model was trained by feeding the original image into the feature extraction module and convolutional pose machine (CPM) module to locate landmarks with high accuracy using deep supervision. Training set was enhanced to 1 684 images by histogram equalization, cropping, and adjustment of brightness. The model was trained to compare the Gaussian heat maps output from the network with the set threshold to identify landmark missing cases. Test set of 100 lateral cephalograms was used to test the accuracy of the model. The evaluation criteria used were success detection rate of missing landmark, mean radial error (MRE) and success detection rate (SDR) in the range of 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0 mm.Results:The model identified and located 61 commonly used landmarks in 0.13 seconds on average. It had an average accuracy of 93.5% in identifying missing landmarks. The MRE of our testing set was (1.19±0.91) mm. SDR of 2.0, 2.5, 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0 mm were 85.4%, 90.2%, 93.5%, 95.4%, 97.0% respectively.Conclusions:The model proposed in this paper could adapt to the absence of landmark in lateral cephalograms and locate 61 commonly used landmarks with high accuracy to meet the requirements of different cephalometric analysis methods.

The experiment was designed to investigate the function of SREBP cleavage-activating protein (SCAP) mutant (D443N) by constructing an eukaryotic expressive vector using a smooth muscle specific promoter SM22 (pGL3-SM22-SCAP(D443N)). SM22 promoter (pSM22) was amplified from genome DNA of mice by nested PCR, and then cloned into pMD-T vector. The SM22 promoter fragment released from the vector by Kpn I and Hind III digestion was sub-cloned into pGL3-control-Luc vector, to form pGL3-SM22-Luc. The activity of pSM22 in human vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) was tested using Dual-Luciferase Reporter System. SCAP(D443) mutant amplified from plasmid pTK-HSV-SCAP(D443N) and pSM22 from mice liver were cloned into pGL3-control vector to construct pGL3-SM22-SCAP(D443N) which was transfected into Chinese hamster ovary cells (CHO) to test SCAP(D443) expression by real-time PCR and Western blot. The sequence and construction of pGL3-SM22-SCAP(D443N) were correct. SM22 promoter activity initiated the expression of luciferase in VSMCs and also drove SCAP(D443) expression in transfected CHO cells. The pGL3-SM22-SCAP(D443N) eukaryotic expression vector was successfully constructed and the recombinant vector provides a powerful approach in investigating the function and regulation of SCAP and also in producing vascular smooth muscle specific SCAP transgenic mice.
Animals ; CHO Cells ; Cricetinae ; Cricetulus ; Genetic Vectors ; genetics ; Humans ; Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins ; genetics ; physiology ; Membrane Proteins ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; physiology ; Mice ; Mice, Transgenic ; Microfilament Proteins ; genetics ; Muscle Proteins ; genetics ; Mutant Proteins ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Promoter Regions, Genetic ; genetics ; RNA, Messenger ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Recombinant Proteins ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Transfection

Objective: To compare diary-reported trips and Global Positioning System (GPS) recording trips and identify the reasons for the discrepancies between two methods. Methods: The survey was conducted in Jiangning district in Nanjing city during July to September and November to December, 2015. Both the diary records and GPS method were used to investigate the travel behavior of 33 retired adults for 5 consecutive days. The GPS traces were display in Google Earth and then split into trips to compare with the diary records according to time and location. χ² test was used to analyze the influence of trip characteristics on misreporting rates of each method. Results: A total of 1 087 trips in the survey can be compared between the diary (n=909) and the GPS method (n=912). 7.3% (79/1 087) of the trips were only recorded by GPS method, and 11.8% (128/1 087) were only reported in the diary. Of the remaining 880 trips recorded by the both methods, 86.7% (763/880) matched each other, while 13.3% (117/880) did not. For the matched trips, the difference between the trip durations recorded by diary and GPS method was 2.0 (quartile was 6.0) minutes and the diary method overestimated about 25.0% trip durations when compared with the GPS method. The accuracy rates were 84.8%(903/1 065) and 86.9%(925/1 065) for diary and GPS method, respectively. Both methods were more likely to misreport the trip under 5 minutes. The misreporting rates of diary method for trips under 5 minutes were 6.8 times higher than trips over 30 minutes (21.7% vs 3.2%). The reporting accuracy was also significantly different among trips by different travel mode (P<0.05) for both methods, diary method had the lowest accuracy in reporting vehicles recorders (69.3%, 133/192), while GPS method was more accuracy in both biking (91.9%, 136/148) and vehicles recorders(89.6%, 172/192). The main reasons for misreporting by diary method were forgetting or unwilling to record and failing to record trips according to travel mode, while forgetting to carry GPS device, bad GPS signal and failing to locate the position were the main reasons for misreporting by GPS method. Conclusion The majority of the trips reported in diary and GPS method are well consistent with each other. Both of the methods should be used simultaneously in the survey of time-activity pattern to improve the data quality.