Objective: To investigate the correlation between color parameters (L^*, a^*, b^*, Eab^*) and the contents of reducing sugars, total polysaccharides, total oligosaccharides, as well as four saccharides (fructose, glucose, sucrose, and kestose) during the nine cycles of steaming and sun-drying processing of Polygonatum kingianum, and to preliminarily explore the optimal processing duration.
Methods: The color changes were objectively evaluated using a colorimeter. The anthrone-sulfuric acid method was employed to determine total polysaccharides and oligosaccharides. The 3,5-dinitrosalicylic acid (DNS) colorimetric method was used to measure total reducing sugar content. High-performance liquid chromatography coupled with charged aerosol detection (HPLC-CAD) was applied for quantitative analysis of fructose, glucose, sucrose, and kestose. Multivariate statistical analysis was conducted to assess samples from different processing stages.
Results: Significant variations in color and component contents were observed across processing stages. The herbal pieces progressively darkened with increased processing cycles: brightness (L^*) and total color difference (Eab^*) initially decreased then stabilized, while a^* (red-green) and b^* (yellow-blue) values first increased then declined. Total polysaccharides and oligosaccharides showed overall decreasing trends, whereas reducing sugars initially increased before stabilizing. Fructose and glucose levels rose continuously, while sucrose and kestose decreased progressively, becoming undetectable after five cycles.
Conclusion: The chromatic alteration and saccharide composition of P. kingianum showed significant correlation with processing duration. Both total color difference (Eab^*) and reducing sugar content stabilized after four processing cycles (12 hours), suggesting that four cycles of steaming and sun-drying may represent the optimal processing duration.

OBJECTIVE: In Pakistan, traditional medicines are an important component of the medical system, with numerous varieties and great demands. However, due to the scattered resources and the lack of systematic collection and collation, adulteration of traditional Pakistani medicine (TPM) is common, which severely affects the safety of their medicinal use and the import and export trades. Therefore, it is urgent to systematically organize and unify the management of TPM and establish a set of standards and operable methods for the identification of TPM. METHODS: We collected and organized the information on 128 TPMs with regard to their medicinal parts, efficacy, usage, and genetic material, based on Pakistan Hamdard Pharmacopoeia of Eastern Medicine: Pharmaceutical Codex. The genetic information of TPM is summarized from national center for biotechnology information (NCBI) and global pharmacopoeia genome database (GPGD). Furthermore, we utilized bioinformatics technology to supplement the chloroplast genome (cp-genome) data of 12 TPMs. To build the web server, we used the Linux + Apache + MySQL + PHP (LAMP) system and constructed the webpage on a PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) model view controller (MVC) framework. RESULTS: We constructed a new genomic database, the traditional Pakistani medicine genomic database (TPMGD). This database comprises five entries, namely homepage, medicinal species, species identification, basic local alignment search tool (BLAST), and download. Currently, TPMGD contains basic profiles of 128 TPMs and genetic information of 102 TPMs, including 140 cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences and 119 mitochondrial genome sequences from Bombyx mori, 1 396 internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) sequences and 1 074 intergenic region (psbA-trnH) sequences specific to 92 and 83 plant species, respectively. Additionally, TPMGD includes 199 cp-genome sequences of 82 TPMs. CONCLUSION TPMGD is a multifunctional database that integrates species description, functional information inquiry, genetic information storage, molecular identification of TPM, etc. The database not only provides convenience for TPM information queries but also establishes the scientific basis for the medication safety, species identification, and resource protection of TPM.

Objective:To evaluate the impact of postoperative radiotherapy (RT) and associated risk factors on the prognosis of patients undergoing postmastectomy breast reconstruction (PMBR) for breast cancer.Methods:A retrospective analysis was conducted on 1593 breast cancer patients who underwent PMBR at Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute & Hospital between January 2010 and October 2023. Patients were divided into an RT group ( n = 351) and a non-RT group ( n =1242) based on whether postoperative radiotherapy was administered. The primary endpoints were overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), and the secondary endpoint was the incidence of revision surgery. Propensity score matching (PSM) and inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) were used for pairing. Continuous variables were compared between the two groups using the independent samples t-tests, while categorical variables were compared using chi-square tests, and survival analysis was performed using the Kaplan-Meier method. Cox proportional hazards model was used to analyze survival influencing factors, and include propensity factors with P<0.2 in univariate analysis into multivariate analysis. Results:In the RT group, there were 3 deaths (0.9%) and 21 cases of disease progression (6.0%); in the non-RT group, 7 patients died (0.56%) and 40 experienced disease progression (3.22%). The median OS was 20.1 months (range: 0.1-164.9), and the median PFS was 19.5 months (range: 0.1-160.9). Pregnancy-associated breast cancer and higher N stage were identified as significant risk factors for OS, while neoadjuvant therapy, absence of adjuvant chemotherapy or endocrine therapy, and higher T stage were significant risk factors affecting patients' PFS. Radiotherapy significantly reduced the survival risk for PMBR patients with pregnancy-associated breast cancer or those receiving neoadjuvant therapy ( P=0.019, 0.027). Compared with other reconstruction methods, implant-based reconstruction was associated with a lower incidence of postmastectomy revision surgery(10.5% vs. 17.0%, P<0.001). Even after radiotherapy, the revision surgery incidence for implant-based reconstruction remained lower than that of other methods (12.2% vs. 14.2%, P=0.591). Compared with other reconstruction types, expander-based reconstruction was associated with an increased incidence of revision surgery (31.9% vs. 10.9%, P<0.001). Conclusions:Postmastectomy radiotherapy can reduce survival risk in PMBR patients with pregnancy-associated breast cancer or who received neoadjuvant therapy, showing positive effects on OS and PFS in high-risk patients. Pregnancy, higher T/N stage, and specific treatment strategies are critical factors influencing the prognosis of PMBR patients. Implant-based reconstruction is associated with a lower incidence of revision surgery, which remains low even after RT, whereas expander-based reconstruction may increase the long-term risk of revision surgery.

Objective:To evaluate the impact of postoperative radiotherapy (RT) and associated risk factors on the prognosis of patients undergoing postmastectomy breast reconstruction (PMBR) for breast cancer.Methods:A retrospective analysis was conducted on 1593 breast cancer patients who underwent PMBR at Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute & Hospital between January 2010 and October 2023. Patients were divided into an RT group ( n = 351) and a non-RT group ( n =1242) based on whether postoperative radiotherapy was administered. The primary endpoints were overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), and the secondary endpoint was the incidence of revision surgery. Propensity score matching (PSM) and inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) were used for pairing. Continuous variables were compared between the two groups using the independent samples t-tests, while categorical variables were compared using chi-square tests, and survival analysis was performed using the Kaplan-Meier method. Cox proportional hazards model was used to analyze survival influencing factors, and include propensity factors with P<0.2 in univariate analysis into multivariate analysis. Results:In the RT group, there were 3 deaths (0.9%) and 21 cases of disease progression (6.0%); in the non-RT group, 7 patients died (0.56%) and 40 experienced disease progression (3.22%). The median OS was 20.1 months (range: 0.1-164.9), and the median PFS was 19.5 months (range: 0.1-160.9). Pregnancy-associated breast cancer and higher N stage were identified as significant risk factors for OS, while neoadjuvant therapy, absence of adjuvant chemotherapy or endocrine therapy, and higher T stage were significant risk factors affecting patients' PFS. Radiotherapy significantly reduced the survival risk for PMBR patients with pregnancy-associated breast cancer or those receiving neoadjuvant therapy ( P=0.019, 0.027). Compared with other reconstruction methods, implant-based reconstruction was associated with a lower incidence of postmastectomy revision surgery(10.5% vs. 17.0%, P<0.001). Even after radiotherapy, the revision surgery incidence for implant-based reconstruction remained lower than that of other methods (12.2% vs. 14.2%, P=0.591). Compared with other reconstruction types, expander-based reconstruction was associated with an increased incidence of revision surgery (31.9% vs. 10.9%, P<0.001). Conclusions:Postmastectomy radiotherapy can reduce survival risk in PMBR patients with pregnancy-associated breast cancer or who received neoadjuvant therapy, showing positive effects on OS and PFS in high-risk patients. Pregnancy, higher T/N stage, and specific treatment strategies are critical factors influencing the prognosis of PMBR patients. Implant-based reconstruction is associated with a lower incidence of revision surgery, which remains low even after RT, whereas expander-based reconstruction may increase the long-term risk of revision surgery.

Objective:To determine the predictive value of serum neurofilament light chain (NfL) on neurologic function in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) patients.Methods:The clinical data of 96 OHCA patients admitted to Cangzhou Central Hospital from January 2018 to March 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. According to the Glasgow-Pittsburgh cerebral performance category (CPC) upon hospital discharge, the patients were divided into the favorable neurologic function (grade 1-2) and poor neurologic function (grade 3-5) groups. The difference of serum NfL was compared between the two groups, and the relationship between serum NfL and neurologic function was assessed using correlation analysis and logistic regression analysis. The area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity of serum Nfl were calculated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Hanley & McNeil method test was used to compare the difference of AUCs between serum NfL and neuron specific enolase (NSE).Results:Twenty-six percent (25/96) patients were discharged with favorable neurologic function. Serum NfL in the favorable neurological function group was significantly lower than that in the poor neurologic function group (47.6 pg/mL vs. 261.4 pg/mL, P<0.001). Correlation analysis showed that serum NfL was positively correlated with neurologic function ( r=0.69, P<0.001). Logistic regression analysis showed that serum NfL was independently associated with neurological function ( OR=0.92, 95% CI: 0.86-0.98; P=0.010). ROC curve indicated that the AUC of serum NfL in predicting poor neurologic function was 0.95 (95% CI: 0.92-0.99), with a sensitivity of 84.5% and a specificity of 100% at the cutoff value of 80.0 pg/mL. The AUC of serum NSE in predicting poor neurologic function was 0.79 (95% CI: 0.69-0.89), with a sensitivity of 67.6% and a specificity of 80.0% at the cutoff value of 45.1 ng/mL. A pairwise comparison using Hanley & McNeil method showed that the AUC of serum NfL in predicting poor neurologic function was higher than that of NSE ( Z=3.22, P=0.001). Conclusions:Serum NfL is helpful for clinician to predict neurologic function in OHCA patients.

ObjectiveTo observe the clinical efficacy and safety of traditional Chinese medicine （TCM） external therapeutic protocol of enriching pus for tissue growth （EPTG） in the treatment of Wagner 2-3 diabetic foot ulcer. MethodThe randomized controlled trial （RCT） design was adopted. Patients receiving basic treatment were divided into the EPTG group and the control group （debridement and change of nano-silver medical antibacterial dressing）. Ulcer healing rate， ulcer area， ulcer depth， TCM symptom score， visual analogue scale（VAS）， transcutaneous partial pressure of oxygen， wound blood flow， inflammatory factors ［C-reactive protein （CRP）， interleukin-6 （IL-6）， and tumor necrosis factor-α （TNF-α）］， growth factors ［vascular endothelial growth factor （VEGF）， transforming growth factor-β₁ （TGF-β₁）， and fibroblast growth factor-β （FGF-β）］， adverse events， and outcome events of the two groups before and after treatment were observed. ResultCompared with the conditions before treatment， the ulcer healing rate， ulcer area， ulcer depth， TCM symptom score， VAS score， transcutaneous partial pressure of oxygen， wound blood flow， CRP， IL-6， TNF-α， VEGF， TGF-β₁， and FGF-β were significantly improved （P<0.01）. In terms of the improvement in the ulcer healing rate， ulcer area， ulcer depth， VAS score， transcutaneous partial pressure of oxygen， wound blood flow， CRP， IL-6， TNF-α， VEGF， TGF-β₁， and FGF-β， the EPTG group was superior to the control group （P<0.01）. There were no statistically significant differences in adverse events and outcome events between the two groups. ConclusionThe TCM external therapeutic protocol of EPTG is safe and effective in the treatment of Wagner 2-3 diabetic foot ulcer. It can greatly reduce the area and depth of diabetic foot ulcer， improve the ulcer healing rate and TCM symptom score， relieve the pain of patients， and improve the microcirculatory blood supply in the local ulcer. Its mechanism of action may be related to the reduction of the local inflammatory response of the wound and the improvement of the proliferation of fibroblasts and vascular endothelial cells.

Multiple plant lineages have independently evolved sex chromosomes and variable kary-otypes to maintain their sessile lifestyles through constant biological innovation.Morus notabilis,a dioecious mulberry species,has the fewest chromosomes among Morus spp.,but the genetic basis of sex determination and karyotype evolution in this species has not been identified.In this study,three high-quality genome assemblies were generated for Morus spp.[including dioecious M.notabilis(male and female)and Morus yunnanensis(female)]with genome sizes of 301-329 Mb and were grouped into six pseudochromosomes.Using a combination of genomic approaches,we found that the putative ancestral karyotype of Morus species was close to 14 protochromosomes,and that sev-eral chromosome fusion events resulted in descending dysploidy(2n=2x=12).We also charac-terized a～6.2-Mb sex-determining region on chromosome 3.Four potential male-specific genes,a partially duplicated DNA helicase gene(named MSDH)and three Ty3_Gypsy long terminal repeat retrotransposons(named MSTG1/2/3),were identified in the Y-linked area and considered to be strong candidate genes for sex determination or differentiation.Population genomic analysis showed that Guangdong accessions in China were genetically similar to Japanese accessions of mul-berry.In addition,genomic areas containing selective sweeps that distinguish domesticated mul-berry from wild populations in terms of flowering and disease resistance were identified.Our study provides an important genetic resource for sex identification research and molecular breeding in mulberry.

Objective: To understand the economic burden caused by hand-foot-mouth disease (HFMD) in Xi’an, in order to provide scientific basis for government departments to allocate health resources rationally. Methods: New cases of HFMD were selected randomly from designated hospitals in city and district level in Xi’an, 2018, Direct and indirect economic costs of patients caused by HFMD were collected using a questionnaire survey, hospital charging system inquiry as well as follow-up survey. Factors affecting the economic burden of HFMD were analyzed. Results: A total of 438 mild as well as 60 severe cases were surveyed, with the overall medical insurance participation rate of 89.76%(447/498). The median of per capita direct economic burden of mild and severe cases were 635 and 7 972 yuan respectively, and the median of per capita indirect economic burden of mild and severe cases were 130 and 233 yuan respectively, in Xi’an. The overall economic burden attributable to HFMD was 23.1 million yuan in Xi’an 2018, in which the direct economic burden was 19.3 million yuan, indirect economic burden was 3.8 million yuan. Multiple Logistic regression analysis showed that the approach of diagnosis, type of cases, days of treatment and type of pathogen had significant influence on the economic burden of HFMD(P<0.05). Conclusion The economic burden of HFMD was heavy in Xi’an. Controling and reducing the incidence rate, as well as increasing the medical insurance coverage and reimbursement rate would lighten the economic burden caused by HFMD effectively.

Objective:To report our experience in treatment of patients with orthopaedic trauma during COVID-19 epidemic.Methods:We retrospectively analyzed the 67 patients with orthopedic trauma who had been treated at Department of Orthopaedics, Peking Union Medical College Hospital from February 1 to March 31, 2020. After screening for COVID-19 infection was performed under strict protection, the patients were diagnosed and assigned to outpatient emergency treatment or hospitalization according to their specific condition. Twenty-six patients were treated at the outpatient emergency department. They were 8 males and 18 females with an average age of 69.5 years. Of them, 6 with vertebral compression fracture were placed on bed brakes, 14 with limb fracture immobilized after close reduction, 2 with skin laceration treated with debridement and suture, and 4 with hip fracture immobilized in bed. In the 41 hospitalized patients, there were 14 males and 27 females with an average age of 68.5 years. In them, hemiarthroplasty was performed for 7 femoral neck fractures, kyphoplasty for 5 vertebral compression fractures, total elbow arthroplasty for one humeral intercondylar fracture, exploration and suture for one case of Achilles tendon rupture, and internal fixation surgery for the remaining 27 cases.Results:Most of the patients had osteoporotic fractures which accounted for 61.5% (16/26) of the outpatients and 68.3% (28/41) of the inpatients, respectively. The duration from injury to surgery averaged 2.3 days and the length of hospitalization 4.5 days for the 41 hospitalized patients, decreased compared with the corresponding data (3.1 days and 11.5 days) for the similar inpatients in the same period last year. In the 41 inpatients, fever was observed upon hospitalization in 4 cases and after operation in 26 cases, and related to their primary injury or surgical trauma in all. Acute pulmonary embolism happened during operation in one patient with femoral shaft fracture.Conclusions:The prevention and control of COVID-19 should be continued. The awareness and behavior of health care providers are expected to be enhanced by strict screening protocol, protection and supervision. The proportion of elderly patients with osteoporotic fracture increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shortage of blood was the major problem affecting the treatment. Timely surgical treatment should be indicated for the patients with orthopedic trauma, especially those with lower extremity fracture.

Objective:To investigate the correlation between radiation dose of the pelvic bone marrow of different anatomical bony sites and the incidence of neutrophil toxicity during the three-dimensional radiotherapy concurrent chemotherapy for cervical cancer.Methods:Clinical data of 117 cervical cancer patients who received three-dimensional radiotherapy concurrent chemotherapy from 2016 to 2018 were retrospectively analyzed. The dosimetric parameters included D mean, V 5Gy, V 10Gy, V 20Gy, V 30Gy, V 40Gy and V 50Gy. The correlation between the dosimetric parameters and the lowest neutrophil count was analyzed by linear regression analysis. Clinicopathological features and dosimetric parameters were included into the multivariate regression analysis model. Results:The incidence rates of neutrophil toxicity (grade 1-4) were 10.3%, 27.4%, 11.1% and 10.3%, respectively. The linear regression analysis showed that the D mean and V 50Gy of lumbosacral vertebrae (LS), the D mean, V 5Gy, V 10Gy, V 20Gy, V 30Gy, V 40Gy and V 50Gy of the ilium were significantly correlated with the grade 2-4 neutrophil toxicity ( P=0.035、<0.001、<0.001、=0.001、=0.003、=0.001、<0.001、<0.001、<0.001). Multivariate analysis demonstrated that the V 20Gy, V 30Gy and V 50Gy of the LS, the D mean, V 5Gy, V 10Gy, V 20Gy and V 30Gy of the ilium were significantly correlated with the grade 2-4 neutrophil toxicity ( P=0.046、0.038、0.049、0.041、0.039、0.029、0.036、0.029). Conclusion:During the process of three-dimensional radiotherapy concurrent chemotherapy for cervical cancer, the volume of medium-and high-dose of LS and the volume of low-and medium-dose of ilium are significantly correlated with the risk of neutrophil toxicity.