ObjectiveThis study aims to compare the modeling effects of submaxillary gland antigen and salivary gland antigen in the establishment of Sjögren syndrome (SS) mouse models, and to characterize the phenotypic and immunological features of these models in comparison with spontaneous SS-prone non-obese diabetic (NOD)/LtJ mice. MethodsAdult C57BL/6J mice (equal numbers of males and females) were immunized with submaxillary gland antigen or salivary gland antigen, respectively, combined with Freund's adjuvant to induce SS models. Mice immunized with phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) combined with Freund's adjuvant served as the control group. Immunization was induced via multiple subcutaneous injections in the back with antigen combined with Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA) on Days 1 and 7. A booster immunization was administered via multiple subcutaneous injections in the back with antigen combined with Freund's incomplete adjuvant (FIA) on Day 14. Female NOD/LtJ mice were used as the spontaneous SS model group, with ICR mice as the corresponding control strain for comparative analysis. Body weight, water intake, and salivary flow rate of mice were dynamically monitored for 4 weeks. At the end of the experiment, tissue and serum samples were collected, the weights of submaxillary glands, thymus, and spleen were measured, and organ indices (organ-to-body weight ratios) were calculated. Pathological morphological analysis of the submaxillary gland and spleen was performed with hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining. Serum interleukin-17 (IL-17) level was detected using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction was used to detect the mRNA expression levels of SS type A (SSA) and SS type B (SSB) in submaxillary gland tissues. ResultsFemale mice in the submaxillary gland antigen group exhibited significantly increased water intake (P<0.05) and reduced salivary flow rate (P<0.05) compared with the female control group. No statistically significant differences were observed in the submaxillary gland index, thymus index and spleen index (P>0.05). Focal lymphocytic infiltration was observed in the submaxillary glands, and the splenic marginal zone was enlarged. Serum IL-17 levels were significantly increased (P<0.05). There was no significant difference in submaxillary gland SSA/SSB expression levels (P>0.05). Compared with the female control group, female mice in the salivary gland antigen group showed no statistically significant differences in water intake, salivary flow rate, submaxillary gland index, and spleen index (P>0.05), whereas the thymus index was significantly reduced (P<0.01). Mild inflammatory cell infiltration and glandular atrophy were observed in the submaxillary glands, and the splenic white pulp and marginal zone were slightly enlarged. Serum IL-17 levels and submaxillary gland SSB mRNA expression levels were significantly increased (P<0.01), whereas no significant change was observed in submaxillary gland SSA expression levels (P>0.05). Compared with the male control group, mild submaxillary gland atrophy was observed in male mice in the submaxillary gland antigen group, whereas no obvious changes were found in other modeling-related indicators (P>0.05). Compared with the ICR control group, NOD/LtJ model mice exhibited elevated water intake (P<0.05), significantly reduced salivary flow rate (P<0.01), no significant differences in the submaxillary gland index or spleen index (P>0.05), but a significantly increased thymus index (P<0.05). Marked focal infiltration was observed in the submaxillary glands, the splenic marginal zone was obviously enlarged, and serum IL-17 concentrations as well as submaxillary gland SSA/SSB expression levels were significantly increased (P<0.05). ConclusionSubmaxillary gland antigen and salivary gland antigen can induce SS-related features in female C57BL/6J mice. The SS-related phenotype is more pronounced in the submaxillary gland antigen group than in the salivary gland antigen group, but weaker than that in spontaneously SS-prone female NOD/LtJ mice. Immunization of male C57BL/6J mice with submaxillary or salivary gland antigens fails to induce an obvious SS phenotype.

Esophageal cancer is a prevalent malignant tumor of the digestive tract in China, and radical surgery remains the cornerstone of its comprehensive treatment. However, multifactorial challenges such as postoperative gastrointestinal tract reconstruction, traumatic stress, and tumor-related metabolic disturbances render esophageal cancer patients highly susceptible to malnutrition. Perioperative nutritional support therapy plays a crucial role in enhancing surgical safety, improving clinical outcomes, and elevating patients' quality of life by regulating metabolic homeostasis, preserving organ function, and optimizing the immune microenvironment. This article reviews the mechanisms underlying malnutrition in esophageal cancer, methods for nutritional status assessment, and precision intervention pathways based on multi-omics evaluations. The aim is to strengthen clinicians' awareness of standardized perioperative nutritional management for esophageal cancer patients and promote its clinical implementation, thereby facilitating postoperative recovery and improving long-term quality of life.

Objective:To develop and assess a three-class machine learning model for predicting wild-type, 19 del, and 21 L858R mutations of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in lung adenocarcinoma using 18F-FDG PET/CT radiomic features and clinical features. Methods:The retrospective data was collected from 703 patients (346 males, 357 females; age (64.3±9.0) years) with lung adenocarcinoma at the First People′s Hospital of Changzhou from January 2018 to June 2023. Patients were divided into the training set (563 cases) and test set (140 cases) at the ratio of 8∶2. Clinical features were selected using recursive feature elimination (RFE). Radiomic features were extracted from PET and CT images, and the optimal feature sets were selected using minimum redundancy maximum relevance (mRMR) and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) methods. Base models were constructed by using random forest (RF), logistic regression (LR), support vector machine (SVM), K-nearest neighbors (KNN), and multi-layer perceptron (MLP), and the stacking method was applied to establish the CT and PET ensemble models. Delong test was used to compare the AUC differences between the PET/CT combined model and the clinical + PET/CT integrated model.Results:Among 703 patients, 273 were with EGFR wild-type, 202 were with 19 del mutation, and 228 were with 21 L858R mutation. In the single-modal analysis, the AUCs of CT ensemble model in the training and test sets were 0.893 and 0.667, respectively, while the AUCs of PET ensemble model were 0.692 and 0.660. The AUC of PET/CT combined model were 0.897 in training set and 0.672 in test set. The AUC of clinical + PET/CT integrated model showed further improvement, with AUCs of 0.902 and 0.721 in training and test sets, respectively. Notably, the clinical + PET/CT integrated model outperformed PET/CT combined model in predicting wild-type EGFR (test set AUC: 0.784 vs 0.707; Z=3.28, P=0.001). Conclusion:The three-class model (clinical + PET/CT integrated model) based on 18F-FDG PET/CT radiomics and clinical features effectively predicts EGFR mutation subtypes in lung adenocarcinoma.

With the rapid development of generative adversarial networks (GAN), learning the mapping between CT and PET images enables cross-modality generation. This not only integrates anatomical and functional information to improve image quality, but also helps reduce the radiation exposure to some extent. Based on a review of representative GAN architectures such as conditional GAN and CycleGAN, this paper discusses their research progress and limitations in various application scenarios, including initial tumor diagnosis and staging, treatment evaluation and follow-up, as well as methods for reducing PET/CT radiation dose. Additionally, challenges related to small-sample learning, model interpretability, and cross-institutional standardization are highlighted, and the clinical application prospects of GAN-based cross-modality generation technology are explored.

Objective:To develop a treatment-related quality of life scale for Chinese patients with multiple myeloma (MM) and to test its reliability and validity.Methods:The initial scale was constructed through a literature search, Delphi expert correspondence, and cognitive testing. This study conducted a preliminary survey of 379 patients with MM and a formal survey of 865 patients from the hematology departments of 155 hospitals nationwide from February 2024 to March 2024. The final scale was obtained after conducting item analysis and reliability and validity tests on the initial scale.Results:The constructed scale contains 36 items covering six domains: physiological, psychological, social, treatment side effects, general health, and others. In the preliminary survey, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of each item ranged from 0.597 to 0.939, and the test-retest reliability was 0.747 ( P<0.001). Exploratory factor analysis extracted eight common factors with a cumulative variance contribution of 60.058%. In the formal survey, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of each item ranged from 0.484 to 0.930, and the test-retest reliability was 0.835 ( P<0.001). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed a comparative fit index of 0.750, a root-mean-square error of approximation of 0.090, and a root-mean-square residual of 0.067. Conclusion:The treatment-related quality of life scale for Chinese patients with MM designed in this study exhibited good reliability and validity, reflecting the impact of treatment on the quality of life of patients. This scale can provide a reference to clinicians for assessing the disease status of patients.

Objective:To explore the value of 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose ( 18F-FDG) PET-CT dual-modality habitat imaging technology in predicting the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutation status in lung adenocarcinoma. Methods:This study was designed as a cross-sectional study. Clinical and imaging data of 403 patients with lung adenocarcinoma who underwent 18F-FDG PET-CT imaging with definitive EGFR results from January 2018 to April 2022 at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University were retrospectively analyzed.The patients were divided into a development set (282 cases) and a validation set (121 cases) using a stratified random sampling method at a 7∶3 ratio. An adaptive clustering algorithm was used to segment the regions of interest, forming different habitats and obtaining derived parameters. Independent samples t-test or Mann-Whitney U test were used to compare clinical, imaging indicators, and habitat-derived parameters between EGFR mutant and wild-type patient. The clinical, imaging indicators, and habitat-derived parameters that showed statistically significant differences in univariate analysis were included in multivariate logistic regression to construct clinical and clinical-habitat combined models, respectively. The receiver operating characteristic curve and area under the curve (AUC) were used to evaluate the model′s ability to predict EGFR mutations in lung adenocarcinoma. Additionally, the net reclassification index (NRI) was employed to assess the model′s classification improvement capability. Results:There were 249 cases of EGFR mutation and 154 cases of wild type. The optimal number of habitats was two, namely Habitat 1 and Habitat 2. The parameters included in the clinical model were smoking history, bronchial sign, pleural indentation sign, and tumor diameter. The parameters incorporated into the clinical-habitat combined model were smoking history, bronchial sign, pleural indentation sign, Habitat 2, and Habitat 1 voxel count. In the development set, the AUCs for predicting EGFR mutations in lung adenocarcinoma using the clinical model and the clinical-habitat combined model were 0.723 and 0.733, respectively, with no statistically significant difference ( Z=0.60, P=0.549); In the validation set, the AUCs were 0.684 and 0.715, respectively, with no statistically significant difference ( Z=1.32, P=0.186). The accuracy (0.694) and specificity (0.609) of the clinical-habitat combined model in the validation set were slightly higher than those of the clinical model (0.686 and 0.565, respectively). NRI analysis confirmed that the clinical-habitat combined model improved the correct classification of EGFR wild-type lung adenocarcinoma by 10.9% compared to the clinical model ( P=0.018). Conclusion:18F-FDG PET-CT dual-modality habitat imaging technology can be used to analyze the microenvironment of lung adenocarcinoma and has the potential in non-invasively predicting EGFR mutation status, providing an important basis for personalized and accurate treatment of patients with lung adenocarcinoma.

Objective:To investigate the clinical efficacy of combination of a Flow-through anterolateral thigh myocutaneous flap with a contralateral great saphenous vein grafting in reconstruction of Gustilo ⅢC foot and ankle injury in emergency surgery.Methods:This retrospective study analysed the clinical data of 9 patients who were admitted in the Department of Wound Repair Surgery, Suzhou Ruihua Orthopaedic Hospital between September 2021 and October 2023. All patients were diagnosed with Gustilo ⅢC foot and ankle injury and met the predefined inclusion criteria. The average age of the patients was 45 (26-64) years. The mean of Mangled Extremity Severity Score (MESS) was 8.2 points, with a range from 5 to 10 points. The wound area after debridement ranged from 15.5 cm×6.0 cm to 24.5 cm×12.5 cm, with the vascular occlusion or defect at 4.0-20.0 (mean, 6.3) cm in length. The size of the flap was 16.5 cm×7.0 cm-25.5 cm×13.5 cm. During surgery, segments of the great saphenous vein were excised in the length of 5.0-21.0 cm, at an approximately 6.5 cm in length. The Flow-through anterolateral thigh myocutaneous flap was employed to reconstruct the soft tissue defect and to establish vascular connections between the anterior or posterior tibial arteries and veins, with the vessels carried by the flap. Additionally, the contralateral great saphenous vein was taken to bridge the posterior or anterior tibial arteries and veins. Follow-ups were carried out by outpatient visits, telephone calls and WeChat interviews. The flap viability, limb blood circulation, wound healing at both donor and recipient sites, as well as functional recovery of the affected limbs was observed. Sensation recovery of the flap was assessed according to the rating standard established by the British Medical Research Council (BMRC) , while the function recovery of foot and ankle was evaluated using the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society (AOFAS) scale.Results:All flaps successfully survived without vascular complication. Eight affected limbs were effectively cured, while a calf that had an infection and necrosis of a long segment of tibia and fibula was amputated below-the-knee in the stage-II surgery. One of the donor sites of flap was covered with a medium-thickness skin graft from lower abdomen due to the large size of the flap, while the other donor sites were directly sutured and healed at first intention. One patient developed postoperative bone infection, which was successfully treated through re-debridement and antibiotic bone cement filling. Another patient experienced partial necrosis at the distal hallux due to a prolonged limb ischemia, and a stump repair surgery was performed. All patients were entered into the postoperative follow-up for 15.3 (6-24) months. At the final follow-up visit, satisfactory colour and texture were observed on all flaps, although minor oedema was present. Donor sites healed well and the donor limb function was not affected. Sensory evaluation rated S 2 in 5 flaps and S 3 in 3 flaps according to BMRC. Functional assessment of foot and ankle of the affected limb yielded excellent in 2 patients, good in 5 patients and fair in 1 patient according to AOFAS. Conclusion:Flow-through anterolateral thigh myocutaneous flap combined with a contralateral great saphenous vein grafting enables one-stage reconstruction for soft tissue defect and blood circulation of the affected limb. It is a good method in the treatment of Gustilo ⅢC foot and ankle injury in emergency surgery.

To compare and analyze the clinical manifestations,laboratory characteristics,imaging findings,and treatment outcomes of patients with acute and chronic brucellosis,a retrospective analysis was conducted on 258 patients with brucellosis(202 in the acute group and 56 in the chronic group)hospitalized in Xinkang Hospital in Dalad Banner,Ordos City,Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region,from November 2023 to November 2024.General data,epidemiological characteristics,clinical presentations,laboratory test results,imaging findings,treatment outcomes,and prognosis were collected.The incidences of fever(51.5%vs 7.1%),fatigue(30.2%vs 12.5%),joint pain(42.9%vs 16.1%),and muscle pain(9.9%vs.1.8%)were significantly higher in the acute phase group(all P<0.05).The incidence of osteoarthritis complications was higher in the chronic brucellosis group(51.8%vs 8.9%,χ2=75.697,P<0.01).Univariate ANOVA analysisshowed that the Serum Agglutination Tests(SAT),alanine aminotransferase(ALT),aspartate aminotransferase(AST),total bilirubin(TBIL),creatinine(CRE),C-reactive protein(CRP),erythrocyte sedimentation rate(ESR),and bone destructionexhibited statistically significant differences between the acute and chronic phases of brucellosis(all P<0.05).Multivariate logistic regression analysis indicated that abnormal ALT(OR=14.18,95%CI:1.11-181.72;P=0.041)and bone destruction(OR=0.16,95%CI:0.04-0.63;P=0.009)were associated with chronic brucellosis.After treatment,all patients experienced have symptom relief in varying degrees,with 157 patients(60.9%)cured and 101 patients(39.1%)symptomatic improved(P<0.01).In conclusion,the incidences of fever,fatigue,and joint pain in patients during the acute phase is significantly higher than that those in patients during the chronic phase,while the incidence of osteoarthritis complications is higher in chronic phase patients.The incidences of abnormal SAT,ALT,AST,TBIL,CRE,CRP,and ESR,and bone destruction varies at different stages of brucellosis.Of those,abnormal ALT and bone destruction show a stronger association with,which can assist the clinical staging of brucellosis.

Objective:To investigate the causal effects of plasma lipidomics on pancreatitis using Mendelian ran-domization(MR)and evaluate the roles of intra-pancreatic fat deposition(IPFD)and gallstone disease in this relation-ship.Methods:A bidirectional MR analysis was conducted,with 179 plasma lipids as exposures and acute pancreati-tis(AP)and chronic pancreatitis(CP)as outcomes.Data were sourced from genome-wide association studies(GWAS),the UK Biobank,and the FinnGen project.Two-step Mendelian randomization(TSMR)and multivariable Mendelian ran-domization(MVMR)analyses were applied to assess the mediating roles of IPFD and gallstone disease in the associa-tion between plasma lipids and pancreatitis.Results:MR analysis identified two sterols negatively associated with AP(P＜0.05)and seven sterols negatively associated with CP(P＜0.05).One phospholipid showed a positive association with CP(P＜0.05).IPFD was positively associated with both AP and CP.Gallstone disease was confirmed as a risk fac-tor for AP.However,TSMR analysis indicated that neither IPFD nor gallstone disease mediated the relationship be-tween plasma lipids and pancreatitis.Conclusion:The causal relationship exists among plasma lipomics and AP/CP,also between IPFD,cholelithiasis and pancreatitis.These findings highlight novel risk factors and potential biomarkers to support early diagnosis and intervention for pancreatitis.

Aim To explore the key components and mechanisms of Lizhong decoction in treating rats with cold-damp diarrhea based on network pharmacology,molecular docking technology and animal experiments.Methods By literature review and database collec-tion,the components of Lizhong decoction,therapeutic targets,and the mapping with diarrhea disease targets were conducted to construct an intersection target pro-tein-protein interaction network for screening core tar-gets,and GO and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis was performed to build an"active component-target-pathway"network,followed by molecular docking vali-dation.Forty-eight rats were randomly divided into the normal control group(K),model group(DG),Lizhong decoction group(LZDG),and Pulsatilla decoction group(BTDG).Subsequently,a rat cold-damp diar-rhea model was established using Senna combined with low-temperature high-humidity environment,and the rats were intervened with Lizhong decoction and Pul-satilla decoction.HE staining was used to detect path-ological changes in intestinal tissue,ELISA was em-ployed to measure the levels of peripheral blood IL-6,IL-10,IL-1 β,and TNF-α,and western blot was used to determine the expression of colon tight junction pro-teins.Results Network pharmacology initially identi-fied 125 compounds in Lizhong decoction,5 186 drug target components,438 disease targets,and 60"drug-disease"shared targets.GO and KEGG enrichment a-nalysis showed that signaling pathways such as IL-17 and TNF were highly enriched.Molecular docking in-dicated that the core components of the drug had good binding activity with corresponding key targets.Liz-hong decoction could effectively improve the clinical symptoms of rats with cold-damp diarrhea,and com-pared with the DG group,the diarrhea rate,diarrhea in-dex,and other related indicators also gradually de-creased to normal levels.Compared with the DG group,the LZDG group showed reduced inflammation levels and a recovery in energy metabolism levels.Conclusion It can regulate targets such as MMP9 and IL-17 signaling pathways through multi-components like Calycosin and formononetin to exert its therapeutic effect on cold-damp diarrhea.