Super-pulse thulium fiber laser (hereinafter referred to as thulium laser) has shown broad application prospects in medical research, especially in the treatment of urinary tract stones.Thulium laser has a thin fiber diameter, which reduces the occupation of the working channel and increases the irrigation water flow.Currently, the peak power reaches up to 500 W, the single pulse energy to 6 J, and the frequency to 2000 Hz.The stone-breaking mechanism of thulium laser is photothermal and photomechanical.Different combinations of energy and frequency will significantly affect the volume of stone fragments. "High energy and low frequency" is more suitable for "fragmentation" stone breaking, while "low energy and high frequency" is more suitable for "powderization" stone breaking.Some in vitro experiments have confirmed that thulium laser has higher stone-breaking efficiency, less stone displacement, and more obvious thermal effects compared to holmium laser.Clinically, thulium laser has been applied to ureteroscopic lithotripsy and percutaneous nephrolithotomy., and the stone free rate and safety are relatively high.This article reviews the stone-breaking principles, in vitro experiments, and clinical applications of thulium laser, aiming to provide better theoretical support and practical experience for the development and application of super-pulse thulium fiber laser in the future.

Based on the "Qi-blood-meridians" system， it is proposed that recurrence after radiofrequency ablation （RFA） for arrhythmia originates from damage to the heart and injury to the meridians caused by thermal burns. Disorder of qi movement， blood obstruction and heat constraint are the prerequisites for recurrence， while internal consumption of deficient qi， yin damage and scarce blood are key factors in frequent episodes. Latent pathogen of both phlegm and stasis， along with condensation of pathogenic yin， is the main cause of disease progression. Accordingly， self-made Tong Xin Beverage （通心饮） with 18 herbs is used throughout the postoperative intervention process to nourish the heart， unblock the meridians， restore vessels in balance of yin and yang. Self-made Qingxin Dingji Decoction （清心定悸汤） can be used to promote qi movement， diffuse stagnation， relieve heat and activate blood circulation so as to facilitate early recovery. Self-made Peiben Yangxin Decoction （培本养心汤） can boost qi and nourish yin， harmonize the ying （营） level and nourish blood， thereby improving long-term prognosis. In addition， Shiwei Wendan Decoction combined （十味温胆汤） with Taoren Honghua Decoction （桃仁红花煎） resolves phlegm， dissipates masses， removes stasis， and softens hardness， which can be used to prevent disease aggravation. These approaches aim to provide ideas and references for clinical practice.

Under the background of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, together with 15 national ministries and commissions, has formulated the Implementation Plan on Establishing a Carbon Footprint Management System, and it is urgent for traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) pharmaceutical enterprises to carry out research on carbon footprint accounting methods of related products. Based on the life cycle assessment(LCA) theory, taking mulberry leaf extract produced by a certain enterprise as an example, this study analyzed the carbon footprint of TCM extracts during the life cycle. The results show that for every 1 kg of product produced, the carbon emissions from the stages of raw material acquisition, transportation, and extract production are-20.569, 1.205, and 173.577 kgCO_2eq(CO_2 equivalent), respectively. The carbon footprint of the product is 154.213 kgCO_2eq·kg~(-1). In addition, the carbon emission is the highest in the production stage, in which the consumption of ethanol solvents makes the greatest contribution to the carbon footprint, accounting for 25.71%, more than one-fourth of the total carbon footprint. The second contribution was from the treatment process of TCM residues, accounting for 19.67%, closely followed by wastewater treatment(17.71%), the consumption of hot steam(17.43%), and drinking water(16.90%). The consumption of electric power and packaging materials has a smaller carbon emission of 2.58%. In particular, the carbon emission caused by the consumption of packaging materials is only 0.04%, which is negligible. The results of the study are expected to provide a reference for TCM enterprises to carry out research on the carbon footprint of products, offer ideas for collaborative innovation in reducing pollution and carbon emissions throughout the entire industry chain of TCM, and develop new quality productivity of modern TCM industry based on green and low-carbon manufacturing.
Morus/chemistry* ; Plant Leaves/chemistry* ; Carbon Footprint ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal/chemistry* ; Plant Extracts/analysis* ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional

In order to realize the quantitative assessment of muscle strength in hand function rehabilitation and then formulate scientific and effective rehabilitation training strategies, this paper constructs a multi-scale convolutional neural network (MSCNN) - convolutional block attention module (CBAM) - bidirectional long short-term memory network (BiLSTM) muscle strength prediction model to fully explore the spatial and temporal features of the data and simultaneously suppress useless features, and finally achieve the improvement of the accuracy of the muscle strength prediction model. To verify the effectiveness of the model proposed in this paper, the model in this paper is compared with traditional models such as support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), convolutional neural network (CNN), CNN - squeeze excitation network (SENet), MSCNN-CBAM and MSCNN-BiLSTM, and the effect of muscle strength prediction by each model is investigated when the hand force application changes from 40% of the maximum voluntary contraction force (MVC) to 60% of the MVC. The research results show that as the hand force application increases, the effect of the muscle strength prediction model becomes worse. Then the ablation experiment is used to analyze the influence degree of each module on the muscle strength prediction result, and it is found that the CBAM module plays a key role in the model. Therefore, by using the model in this article, the accuracy of muscle strength prediction can be effectively improved, and the characteristics and laws of hand muscle activities can be deeply understood, providing assistance for further exploring the mechanism of hand functions .
Neural Networks, Computer ; Humans ; Hand Strength/physiology* ; Support Vector Machine ; Muscle Strength/physiology* ; Hand/physiology* ; Convolutional Neural Networks

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) acts as a damage-associated molecular pattern to activate the stimulator of interferon genes (STING) signaling in macrophages, promoting tissue inflammation. However, its role in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) remains unclear. Macrophage-specific Sting1 knockout mice were used to validate STING's pathological role in AMI. Cardiac and liver mtDNA were used to activate macrophages in co-culture systems with cardiomyocytes to assess fibrosis and hypertrophy. Panaxatriol saponin (PTS) was tested for its ability to block mtDNA-driven macrophage activation and subsequent cardiomyocyte damage. STING-PTS binding ability was analyzed. AMI rats received PTS to evaluate its effects on myocardial inflammation and ventricular remodeling. In vivo, macrophage-specific Sting1 knockout reduced myocardial inflammation and injury after AMI. In vitro, mtDNA-activated macrophages induced cardiomyocyte fibrosis and hypertrophy through STING signaling. PTS suppressed mtDNA-driven macrophage activation by directly binding STING, thereby blocking inflammatory cascades. In AMI rats, PTS treatment attenuated acute inflammation and reversed ventricular remodeling. These findings establish the mtDNA-STING axis in macrophages as a critical driver of post-AMI inflammation and identify pharmacological STING inhibition with PTS as a promising therapeutic strategy. The study bridges genetic validation with translational applications, highlighting macrophage STING as a novel target for ischemic heart disease management.

Objective To analyze the influencing factors of death in the elderly with coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19).Methods The case data of death caused by COVID-19 in West China Fourth Hospital from January 1 to July 8,2023 were collected,and surviving cases from the West China Elderly Health Cohort infected with COVID-19 during the same period were selected as the control.LASSO-Logistic regression was adopted to analyze the data after propensity score matching and the validity of the model was verified by drawing the receiver operating characteristic curve.Results A total of 3 239 COVID-19 survivors and 142 deaths with COVID-19 were included.The results of LASSO-Logistic regression showed that smoking(OR=3.33,95%CI=1.46-7.59,P=0.004),stroke(OR=3.55,95%CI=1.15-10.30,P=0.022),malignant tumors(OR=19.93, 95%CI=8.52-49.23, P<0.001),coronary heart disease(OR=7.68, 95%CI=3.52-17.07, P<0.001),fever(OR=0.51, 95%CI=0.26-0.96, P=0.042),difficulty breathing or asthma symptoms(OR=21.48, 95%CI=9.44-51.95, P<0.001),and vomiting(OR=8.19,95%CI=2.87-23.58, P<0.001)increased the risk of death with COVID-19.The prediction model constructed based on the influencing factors achieved an area under the curve of 0.889 in the test set.Conclusions Smoking,stroke,malignant tumors,coronary heart disease,fever,breathing difficulty or asthma symptoms,and vomiting were identified as key factors influencing the death risk in COVID-19.
Humans ; COVID-19/mortality* ; Aged ; Propensity Score ; China/epidemiology* ; Risk Factors ; Logistic Models ; Smoking ; SARS-CoV-2 ; Male ; Female ; Stroke ; Neoplasms

Hepatic fibrosis is the common key pathological link of various chronic liver diseases and can progress to malignant diseases such as liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma； however， there is still a lack of effective targeted therapeutic drugs at present. Traditional Chinese medicine （TCM） has a marked clinical effect in the prevention and treatment of hepatic fibrosis， yet its precise clinical application and global promotion are greatly limited by the complex components of compound prescriptions and unclear mechanism of action. In recent years， multimodal high-throughput omics technology has achieved rapid development， providing strong technical support for elaborating on the scientific connotation of TCM in the treatment of complex diseases due to its advantages of systematic profiling， big-data analytics， and precise target prediction. In particular， integrated transcriptomic， proteomic， and metabolomic strategies comprehensively elucidate key signaling networks， cellular phenotypic transitions， and extracellular matrix metabolic homeostasis modulated by TCM compounds and monomers and assist in the screening and assessment of effective component groups and novel biomarkers. This article systematically reviews the advances in basic research on TCM prevention and treatment of hepatic fibrosis based on multi-omics technologies in the past five years， summarizes the “drug-target-pathway-phenotype” regulatory network， and elaborates on the core mechanisms of TCM in regulating hepatic stellate cell activation and reversing hepatic fibrosis. Future studies should further delve into the interdisciplinary integration and dynamic analytical methodologies of multi-omics technologies， precisely identify the core regulatory target networks modulated by TCM， and systematically unravel the scientific connotation of compatibility rule in compound prescriptions， in order to provide a theoretical basis for developing efficient targeted drugs for hepatic fibrosis and individualized diagnosis and treatment strategies.

Objective To investigate the effect of recombinant human lactoferrin(rhLF)on fracture healing in rat models with femur fracture and the proliferation of rat primary osteoblasts.Methods Male rats were randomly di-vided into 3 groups:simple fracture group(SF group),collagen film-treated group(CF group)and rhLF-com-pound collagen lamination film-treated group(CLF group).The fracture healing was observed by X-ray image and histological microscopy with HE and Masson staining.The newborn SD rats with osteoblasts were treated with differ-ent concentrations of rhLF,and osteoblast proliferation was detected by MTT method.Results The bone scabs in the CLF group were significantly larger than those in the SF and CF groups at 1,2,and 3 weeks postoperatively(P＜0.05).There was no difference in the comparison between the groups at 4th week.The proliferation of cartilag-inous and sclerotic bone scabs in the CLF group was more pronounced and showed the appearance of mature trabec-ulae and lamellar bone with a high degree of maturation of the bone scabs.The groups with 100 mg/L and 500 mg/L rhLF showed a significant decrease in A value for rat primary osteoblasts cultured in vitro as compared with the control group(P＜0.05).The A value increased significantly at the first day(P＜0.05).The concentration of rhLF increased at the fifth and tenth days.Conclusions rhLF has an accelerating effect on fracture healing which is manifested by fast scab formation,large volume and high maturity.The rhLF can promote the proliferation of os-teoblasts cultured in vitro,and the effect is mainly manifested in the rapid proliferation stage of osteoblasts.

Objective:To study the variational trend in disease characteristics of patients with hepatitis B-related primary liver cancer (HBV-HCC) in the past five years.Method:A single-center retrospective cross-sectional analysis was performed to compare patients diagnosed with HBV-HCC from January 2012 to December 2016 (control group) and from January 2017 to December 2021 (observation group). The data of the study variables were extracted from the electronic medical record system of the hospital information system of the Second Hospital of Lanzhou University. The 1:2 propensity score matching was used to adjust potential confounding factors such as gender and age. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to study the factors affecting changes in disease characteristics of the HBV-HCC population in the observation group. GraphPad Prism 8.0 software was used to draw forest plots to intuitively display the effect size of the study variables in the logistic regression analysis.The t-test was used to compare normally distributed data between groups. The χ2 test was used for inter-group comparison. Results:A total of 1 717 eligible cases were collected, including 510 in the control group and 1 207 in the observation group. Compared with the control group, the number of newly diagnosed cases in the observation group increased by 2.36 times, and males were still the main onset population (83.3% vs. 82.7%). The median age of onset increased (51.9 vs. 53.5 years, P<0.001). 79.4% of HBV-HCC patients had not received antiviral therapy, and the proportion of HBeAg-negative patients increased (56.4%). The factors affecting HBV-HCC patients included family history of HBV ( OR=1.626, 95% CI: 1.181-2.238), family history of hepatocellular carcinoma ( OR=1.388, 95% CI: 1.013-1.901), hypoviremia ( OR=1.322, 95% CI: 1.046-1.671), abnormal alanine aminotransferase ( OR=1.545, 95% CI: 1.231-1.940), liver fibrosis ( OR=1.478, 95% CI: 1.153-1.894), liver cirrhosis ( OR=1.431, 95% CI: 1.128-1.815), and metabolic-related fatty liver disease ( OR=1.438, 95% CI: 1.116-1.815) after propensity score matching adjustment. The factors affecting HBeAg-positive patients were decreased ( OR=0.390, 95% CI: 0.389-0.617); however, the number of early HBV-HCC diagnoses was increased (12.7% vs. 19.3%, P=0.001). Conclusion:The characteristics of patient disease and occurrence of HBV-HCC are changing over the past five years. The risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma in middle- to older male patients with chronic hepatitis B is increasing with familial history of HBV and hepatocellular carcinoma, HBeAg negativity, hypoviremia, abnormal alanine aminotransferase, liver fibrosis, cirrhosis, and metabolic-related fatty liver disease.