Objective To get a controllable acetabulum component inclination angle during the total hip arthroplasty(THA) with the lateral position,a new method using a self-made instrument was introduced.Methods Totally 80 consecutive patients undergoing THA at the lateral position were enrolled.Forty acetabular components were assembled using a new method with a self-made instrument referring to the 42 degrees' angle drawn on the wall(group A),while another 40 acetabular cups were implanted free-handedly(group B).The postoperative inclination angle was evaluated on the anterior-posterior pelvic radiographs.Results The average inclination angle was 43.3° ± 3.7°(34.7°～49.1°) in group A and 40.3 ± 4.5o(32.8°～50.7°) in group B.Moreover,40/40 of group A and 38/40 of group B were in the Lewinnek's inclination safe zone(P＞0.05),without significant differences between the two groups.Conclusion It is practical and reliable to decide the acetabular component orientation using the lateral position instrument and reference angle on the wall.

Objective To compare the consistency of liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry(LC-MS/MS)and fully auto-mated chemiluminescent immunoassay(CLIA)methods in measuring plasma aldosterone concentration(PAC)in the elderly patients in intensive care unit(ICU)and to explore the correlation between the levels of aldosterone(ALD)and blood biomarkers.Methods A total of 41 elderly ICU patients were included.PAC was measured using both LC-MS/MS and CLIA methods,followed by methodolo-gy validation and consistency comparison.Meanwhile,a retrospective analysis of the patients'clinical data was conducted,and the cor-relations between ALD and blood biomarkers were analyzed.Results The linear range of the LC-MS/MS method was 15 to 1 500 pg/mL,with a lower limit of quantification of 15 pg/mL.The inter-day and intra-day precisions were both less than 15％,and the re-covery rate was 94％to 99％,with no significant matrix effect.The PAC results detected by CLIA and LC-MS/MS methods were posi-tively correlated(r=0.762 7,P＜0.01),but the consistency between the two methods was poor.Deming regression analysis yielded the equation Y=0.969 6X-16.71,with a slope of 0.970(95％CI:0.890～1.049)and an intercept of-16.71(95％CI:-25.690 to-7.728).Bland-Altman analysis showed that CLIA overestimated PAC by an average of 21.18 pg/mL(95％CI:-25.89 to 68.26 pg/mL)compared to LC-MS/MS,with a bias of 24.02％.In the correlation analysis between ALD and blood biomarkers,ALD showed a significant positive correlation with myoglobin(Mb)(r=0.303,P＜0.05).Conclusion The LC-MS/MS method demonstrated good methodological performance in measuring PAC in the elderly patients in ICU.The consistency between LC-MS/MS and CLIA methods was poor,and the two methods should not be used interchangeably in clinical practice.There was a positive correlation between ALD and Mb,suggesting that ALD may be associated with myocardial injury.