1.Evaluation and decision-making for liver transplantation in acute-on-chronic liver failure: Evolution, integration, and challenges
Journal of Clinical Hepatology 2026;42(3):535-540
Acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) is a syndrome of acute liver function decompensation in patients with chronic liver disease and is characterized by a high short-term mortality rate. Liver transplantation is an effective radical treatment method for ACLF and can significantly improve the survival rate of patients. However, in the context of a shortage of donor organs globally, how to achieve a balance between saving lives and avoiding futile transplantation while optimizing organ utilization is a critical challenge in clinical decision-making. This article systematically reviews the evolution of the evaluation and decision-making system for liver transplantation in ACLF patients and points out s that the core of this system has shifted from relying solely on the MELD score to a model based on multidimensional prognostic assessment, dynamic evaluation, and multidisciplinary collaboration. In the future, the integration of Eastern and Western criteria, the application of artificial intelligence for precise prediction, and the establishment of a more equitable priority and allocation system will be the key directions for development in this field.
2.Effects of two intermittent fasting strategies on postprandial lipid metabolism in adults
Manman SHAO ; Xiaohui WEI ; Yuanchao LI ; Mingjing XU ; Tao YING ; Gengsheng HE ; Yuwei LIU
Shanghai Journal of Preventive Medicine 2025;37(1):64-71
ObjectiveTo investigate the effects and potential mechanisms of morning and evening fasting on postprandial lipid responses, a post hoc analysis based on a crossover randomized controlled trial was conducted to assess the effects of different fasting strategies on postprandial lipid metabolism in community residents in Shanghai. MethodsA total of 23 participants took part in a randomized crossover trial involving two intervention days: morning fasting and evening fasting, with a washout period of 6 days between intervention days. Two-way analysis of variance was used to test the differences in total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and the relative expression of circadian clock genes before and after the next meal under fasting. Wilcoxon rank sum tests were used to analyze the different metabolites between the two groups. Principal component analysis and Orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis were conducted to evaluate the ability of metabolites to differentiate between morning fasting and evening fasting and identify the important differential metabolites. After adjusting for age, sex, and BMI, a partial correlation analysis was performed to identify metabolites associated with plasma lipids. In addition, important metabolites associated with plasma lipids were computed by pathway enrichment analysis. ResultsAfter evening fasting intervention, fasting TG level [(0.37±0.29) vs (0.27±0.18)] mmol·L-1, fasting and postprandial change values in TC [(2.74±0.47) vs (2.51±0.27)] mmol·L-1 and LDL-C [(1.32±0.38) vs (0.99±0.27)] mmol·L-1 were significantly lower than those after morning fasting (P<0.05). While, change values of fasting LDL-C [(0.89±0.37) vs (1.14±0.37)] mmol·L-1 and TG [(1.14±0.19) vs (1.28±0.17)] mmol·L-1 were significantly higher than those after morning fasting intervention (P<0.05). After fasting intervention, the relative expression of AMPK, CRY1, CLOCK, MTNR1B, AANAT, and ASMT was correlated with the amount of plasma lipid changes (P<0.05). Specifically, CLOCK and AANAT were upregulated following evening fasting and downregulated after morning fasting. Among the 217 important differential metabolites, 111 were correlated with plasma lipids, and which were primarily enriched in the cysteine and methionine metabolism pathways (P<0.05). ConclusionCompared to morning fasting, evening fasting was more effective in improving postprandial lipid responses, indicating that an evening fasting window during intermittent fasting could be conducive to cardiovascular disease prevention in adults. Meanwhile, it is suggested that morning and evening fasting may affect lipid responses through circadian rhythm oscillations and the cysteine and methionine metabolism pathways.
3.Prognostic evaluation of liver transplantation for acute-on-chronic liver failure
Man LAI ; Manman XU ; Xin WANG ; Guangming LI ; Yu CHEN
Organ Transplantation 2025;16(3):482-488
Acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF) is an acute deterioration of liver function occurring on the basis of chronic liver disease, accompanied by failure of the liver and extrahepatic organs, and is associated with a high short-term mortality rate. Liver transplantation is the only curative treatment for patients with ACLF. However, the shortage of donor livers and limitations of the organ allocation system mean that only a minority of patients can receive transplants. The current organ allocation system based on the model for end-stage liver disease (MELD) score may underestimate the urgency of liver transplantation for ACLF patients. Therefore, it is urgent to develop better assessment tools to determine which ACLF patients are most likely to benefit from liver transplantation. This article reviews the current mainstream definitions of ACLF, the selection of candidates for liver transplantation in ACLF, and the prognostic scoring systems for liver transplantation in ACLF, both domestically and internationally, in order to provide a reference for the prognostic assessment of liver transplantation in ACLF patients.
4.Strategies for the Syndrome Differentiation and Treatment of Malignant Tumors Based on the Theory of Stagnant Toxin
Luchang CAO ; Ruike GAO ; Manman XU ; Xiaoyu ZHU ; Guanghui ZHU ; Jie LI
Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine 2025;66(10):1000-1006
"Stagnation" is an important pathological state in the development and progression of malignant tumors. However, its intrinsic connection with different stages of tumor evolution has not been clearly elucidated in previous studies. Drawing on clinical practice, this paper proposes the theory of stagnant toxin, emphasizing stage-specific pathogenesis and differentiated treatment strategies for tumors based on the varying manifestations of stagnation at each phase. The theory interprets the pathogenesis of stagnant toxin across the stages of tumor development through the five elements "wood, fire, earth, metal, and water" corresponding respectively to wood stagnation in the precancerous stage, metal stagnation in the postoperative phase, fire stagnation during adjuvant therapy, earth stagnation in the progressive stage, and water stagnation in the advanced stage. Each type of stagnation reflects a distinct pathogenic mechanism, such as wood stagnation giving rise to disease, metal stagnation inducing residual symptoms, fire stagnation resulting in ulceration, earth stagnation spreading toxin transmission, and water stagnation leading to critical deterioration. Accordingly, the treatment principles include guiding wood stagnation with counterflow, dispersing metal stagnation to harmonize symptoms, venting fire stagnation to regress ulcers, depleting earth stagnation to block progression, and controlling water stagnation to preserve vitality. This theoretical framework offers a traditional Chinese medicine perspective for understanding and treating malignant tumors based on the concept of stagnant toxin.
5.Interpretation of guideline for diagnosis and treatment of acute-on-chronic liver failure (2025 edition)
Manman XU ; Huaibin ZOU ; Zhongping DUAN ; Tao HAN ; Yu CHEN
Journal of Clinical Hepatology 2025;41(5):844-850
In 2025, Severe Liver Disease and Artificial Liver Group and Nutrition and Regeneration in End-Stage Liver Disease Group of Chinese Society of Hepatology, Chinese Medical Association, convened a panel of national experts to jointly develop China’s first guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of acute-on-chronic liver failure (ACLF). Based on the latest research findings and clinical practice in China and globally, this guideline establishes a standardized definition of ACLF and provide recommendations for its diagnosis, treatment, and clinical management. This article gives an interpretation of the key points in the guideline, in order to provide a reference for standardized diagnosis and treatment of ACLF.
6.Engineered bacteria assist CAR-cell immunotherapy.
Tianyu SHAO ; Manman XU ; Jie LI ; Xiao ZHAO
Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica B 2025;15(3):1703-1705
7.Improved DeepSurv model for survival analysis in lung cancer and exploration of influencing factors
Qiyang ZHAO ; Xu ZHAO ; Ying ZHANG ; Manman KUANG ; Qun XI
Chinese Journal of Medical Physics 2025;42(6):832-840
Objective To evaluate the performance of an improved DeepSurv model for survival analysis in lung cancer patients,and investigate key factors affecting the prognosis of lung cancer.Methods The lung cancer data from the SEER database(2018-2021)was used in the study,and the DeepSurv model was optimized by incorporating a self-attention mechanism,a residual network,a LIME module and an entropy regularization term to enhance prediction accuracy and interpretability.Model performance was assessed using C-index and Brier score,and the improved model was utilized to evaluate the effects of various features on the prognosis of lung cancer.Results The improved DeepSurv model achieved a C-index of 0.852 and a Brier score of 0.139.Feature importance analysis identified age as the primary determinant of the survival of lung cancer patients.Conclusion The improved DeepSurv model outperforms both the Cox proportional hazards model and the original DeepSurv model in terms of accuracy,robustness and interpretability,offering a novel methodology for personalized medicine and survival analysis.
8.Research progress on assessment tools for health behavior motivation in patients with cardiovascular diseases
Zhifeng ZHANG ; Lei LIU ; Yikang XU ; Daqiu WANG ; Jiayu WANG ; Yu TIAN ; Kaiwen ZHAN ; Siqi SUN ; Manman LI
Journal of Shenyang Medical College 2025;27(2):198-201
Health behavior motivation significantly affects the quality of life of patients with cardiovascular diseases.Assessing the level of health behavior motivation can measure the health behavior of individuals,help to promote the participation rate of cardiac rehabilitation,reduce the readmission rate of patients,and promote patients'healthy lifestyles.This article reviews the content,characteristics and application of assessment tools for health behavior motivation of patients with cardiovascular diseases at home and abroad,with the aim of providing references for the development and application of such tools in China,and offering a basis for scientifically assessing their health behavior motivation level and formulating effective strategies to promote health behavior motivation.
9.Interpretation of guideline for diagnosis and treatment of acute-on-chronic liver failure(2025 edition)
Manman XU ; Huaibin ZOU ; Zhongping DUAN ; Tao HAN ; Yu CHEN
Journal of Clinical Hepatology 2025;42(5):844-850
In 2025,Severe Liver Disease and Artificial Liver Group and Nutrition and Regeneration in End-Stage Liver Disease Group of Chinese Society of Hepatology,Chinese Medical Association,convened a panel of national experts to jointly develop China's first guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of acute-on-chronic liver failure(ACLF).Based on the latest research findings and clinical practice in China and globally,this guideline establishes a standardized definition of ACLF and provide recommendations for its diagnosis,treatment,and clinical management.This article gives an interpretation of the key points in the guideline,in order to provide a reference for standardized diagnosis and treatment of ACLF.
10.Clinical and genetic analysis of a child with intellectual developmental disorder and seizures associated with variant of AP2M1 gene.
Manman CHU ; Mengyue WANG ; Jiayang XIE ; Xiaoli ZHANG ; Dan XU ; Xiaoli LI ; Junling WANG ; Jialin LI ; Yichao MA ; Tianming JIA
Chinese Journal of Medical Genetics 2025;42(10):1205-1211
OBJECTIVE:
To explore the clinical and genetic characteristics of a child with intellectual development disorder and seizures due to a variant of AP2M1 gene.
METHODS:
Clinical data of a child with intellectual development disorder and epilepsy who was admitted to the Department of Pediatric Neurology of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University in January 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. Peripheral blood samples of the child and his parents were collected for whole exome sequencing. Candidate variant was verified by Sanger sequencing and pathogenicity analysis. The three-dimensional structure of the AP2M1 protein was visualized using Chimera v1.10.1 software. Pathogenicity of candidate variant was classified according to the Standards and Guidelines for the Interpretation of Sequence Variants from the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG). With "AP2M1 gene" "epilepsy" "intellectual disability" as the keywords, relevant cases were searched from CNKI, Wanfang Data knowledge service platform and PubMed databases with the search time spanning from the establishment of the database to September 2024. This study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University (Ethics No.: 2020-57).
RESULTS:
The child was a 8-years-and-6-months-old boy, who could raise his head at 3 months and sit alone at 8 months old. He could not walk alone at 1 year old and underwent 2 months' rehabilitation treatment, and could walk alone and call his parents at 1-and-a-half-years-old. At 4-years-and-10-months-old, he started to have frequent seizures, manifesting as low level of consciousness, body shaking, accompanied by blinking, lasting about a few seconds several times a day and could be relieved. With the treatment of sodium valproate combined with lamotrigine, the convulsions were controlled, but his movement and cognition were lagged behind. DNA sequencing revealed that he has harbored a novel variant of the AP2M1 gene (NM_004068.3) c.508C>T (p.Arg170Trp). Sanger sequencing confirmed that both of his parents were of the wild-type. According to the guidelines from the American College for Medical Genetics and Genomics (ACMG), the variant was rated as pathogenic (PS2+PS4+PM1+PM2+PP2+PP3). The difference between the wild-type and mutant AP2M1 proteins can be clearly viewed through its three-dimensional structure. Two previous reports have included 5 cases due to the same variant. Common manifestations have included seizures (100%, 5/5), motor retardation (100%, 5/5), intellectual impairment (100%, 5/5), autism spectrum disorder (60%, 3/5), ataxia (100%, 5/5), and special facial features (20%, 1/5).
CONCLUSION
The c.508C>T (p.Arg170Trp) variant of the AP2M1 gene may underlie the intellectual retardation and seizure in this child.
Humans
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Male
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Child
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Intellectual Disability/genetics*
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Seizures/genetics*
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Exome Sequencing
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Mutation

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