BACKGROUND: Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy followed by radical surgery has been a common practice for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer, but the response rate varies among patients. This study aimed to develop a ResNet-Vision Transformer based magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-endoscopy fusion model to precisely predict treatment response and provide personalized treatment. METHODS: In this multicenter study, 366 eligible patients who had undergone neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy followed by radical surgery at eight Chinese tertiary hospitals between January 2017 and June 2024 were recruited, with 2928 pretreatment colonic endoscopic images and 366 pelvic MRI images. An MRI-endoscopy fusion model was constructed based on the ResNet backbone and Transformer network using pretreatment MRI and endoscopic images. Treatment response was defined as good response or non-good response based on the tumor regression grade. The Delong test and the Hanley-McNeil test were utilized to compare prediction performance among different models and different subgroups, respectively. The predictive performance of the MRI-endoscopy fusion model was comprehensively validated in the test sets and was further compared to that of the single-modal MRI model and single-modal endoscopy model. RESULTS: The MRI-endoscopy fusion model demonstrated favorable prediction performance. In the internal validation set, the area under the curve (AUC) and accuracy were 0.852 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.744-0.940) and 0.737 (95% CI: 0.712-0.844), respectively. Moreover, the AUC and accuracy reached 0.769 (95% CI: 0.678-0.861) and 0.729 (95% CI: 0.628-0.821), respectively, in the external test set. In addition, the MRI-endoscopy fusion model outperformed the single-modal MRI model (AUC: 0.692 [95% CI: 0.609-0.783], accuracy: 0.659 [95% CI: 0.565-0.775]) and the single-modal endoscopy model (AUC: 0.720 [95% CI: 0.617-0.823], accuracy: 0.713 [95% CI: 0.612-0.809]) in the external test set. CONCLUSION The MRI-endoscopy fusion model based on ResNet-Vision Transformer achieved favorable performance in predicting treatment response to neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy and holds tremendous potential for enabling personalized treatment regimens for locally advanced rectal cancer patients.
Humans ; Rectal Neoplasms/diagnostic imaging* ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods* ; Male ; Female ; Middle Aged ; Neoadjuvant Therapy/methods* ; Aged ; Adult ; Chemoradiotherapy/methods* ; Endoscopy/methods* ; Treatment Outcome

Microbial induced calcium carbonate precipitation (MICP) refers to the natural biological process of calcium carbonate precipitation induced by microbial metabolism in its surrounding environment. Based on the principles of MICP, microbial cement has been developed and has received widespread attention in the field of biology, civil engineering, and environment owing to the merits of environmental friendliness and economic competence. Urease and carbonic anhydrase are the key enzymes closely related to microbial cement. This review summarizes the genes, protein structures, regulatory mechanisms, engineering strains and mutual synergistic relationship of these two enzymes. The application of bioinformatics and synthetic biology is expected to develop biocement with a wide range of environmental adaptability and high performance, and will bring the MICP research to a new height.
Calcium Carbonate/metabolism* ; Chemical Precipitation ; Urease/metabolism*

Background:CT portography(CTP)permits comprehensive evaluation of portal vein and its collateral pathways. It is widely used for assessment of portal hypertension in clinical practice. Aims:To assess the value of CTP in esophagogastric varices in cirrhotic patients. Methods:A retrospective cohort study was performed in 143 cirrhotic patients admitted from Jan. 2013 to Sep. 2015 at the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University. All patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria and underwent CTP and gastroscopy within 7 days after admission. According to the occurrence of gastrointestinal bleeding at admission,patients were allocated into two groups:bleeding group( n = 70 ) and non-bleeding group( n = 73 ). Consistency of the results of CTP and gastroscopy was analyzed by kappa coefficient;the accuracy of CTP parameters, including diameters of main portal vein(MPV),splenic vein(SPV)and left gastric vein(LGV)for prediction of variceal bleeding was evaluated by ROC curve. Results:CTP and gastroscopy had a good consistency in typing and grading of esophagogastric varices,with the kappa value of 0. 793 and 0. 775,respectively. The diameters of MPV,SPV and LGV were significantly higher in bleeding group than in non-bleeding group(P < 0. 01),and their area under the ROC curve (AUC)in predicting variceal bleeding was 0. 741,0. 627 and 0. 816,respectively. The accuracy of diameter of LGV was superior to that of MPV and SPV. With the cutoff value of 6. 1 mm,the sensitivity and specificity of diameter of LGV were 65. 71% and 84. 93% ,respectively. With the cutoff value of 16. 3 mm,the sensitivity of diameter of MPV was 75. 71% , which was higher than that of LGV and SPV. Conclusions:CTP can be used in clinical diagnosis of esophagogastric varices in cirrhotic patients,and two CTP parameters,the diameters of LGV and MPV,might be helpful for prediction of variceal bleeding.

Objective To observe the effect of CYP4F2(rs2108622)polymorphism on the dose of warfarin in old patients(65 to 75 years old)who were treated with atrial fibrillation.Methods Sixty cases of old patients with atrial fibrillation were enrolled in the study.All the subjects had taken warfarin for 3 months,and the international normalized ratio(INR)maintained between 1.6 and 2.5.And the CYP4F2(rs2108622)variant were detected by PCR.Results The patients with CYP4F2(rs2108622)allele C/C scored significantly lower warfarin dose than patients with variant allele C/T and T/T (P < 0.05 ).Conclusion CYP4F2 (rs2108622)gene polymorphism have been related with warfarin dose in old patients.