Objective:To explore the clinical characteristics, diagnosis and treatment strategies, and prognosis of pulmonary embolism (PE) complicating childhood rheumatic diseases.Methods:A retrospective case series study was performed on the demographic data, laboratory indicators, imaging features, treatment regimens, and follow-up data of 8 children with rheumatic diseases complicated by PE who were admitted to the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Capital Center for Children′s Health, Capital Medical University from January 2014 to October 2023.Results:Among the 8 children, there were 4 boys and 4 girls, with an age of 12.0 (7.5, 13.0) years. Among the primary diseases, there were 3 cases of systemic lupus erythematosus, 2 cases of Beh?et′s disease, 2 cases of Takayasu arteritis, and 1 case of antiphospholipid syndrome. All children developed PE during the active phase of the primary disease. PE was detected at the onset of the primary disease in 3 cases, and the median time from the diagnosis of the primary disease to the development of PE was 10.0 (6.0, 25.0) months in the remaining 5 cases. Fever was present in all 8 children, 4 cases were accompanied by chest tightness, dyspnea, etc., and 2 cases only presented with fever. Laboratory examinations revealed the following results: erythrocyte sedimentation rate was 42.0 (17.0, 78.0) mm/1 h, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein was 12.7 (2.6, 78.7) mg/L, white blood cell count was 9.6 (7.2, 18.7)×10 9/L; D-dimer was 2.3 (0.9, 6.2) mg/L; and hemoglobin was (109±16) g/L.Imaging examinations revealed that 5 cases had involvement of the bilateral lower pulmonary arteries, 5 cases had peripheral embolism, and 3 cases had central PE. Complications included 3 cases of deep vein thrombosis, 2 cases of intracranial venous sinus thrombosis, and 1 case of mild pulmonary hypertension.In terms of treatment, 7 cases received anticoagulation with heparin followed by warfarin. Immunomodulation was mainly based on glucocorticoids combined with immunosuppressants, and 4 cases were combined with biological agents. The follow-up time of 4.17 (1.75, 7.17) years, the time for complete absorption of PE was 10.5 (6.0, 18.0) months; all 8 children had no target events, with no recurrence or chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, and the pulmonary artery remodeling was good. Conclusions:PE complicating childhood rheumatic diseases is closely related to the activity of the primary disease. The clinical manifestations are insidious, with fever as the main symptom. Imaging examination is the key to diagnosis.Early adoption of heparin followed by warfarin anticoagulation and glucocorticoids combined with immunosuppressants and (or) biological agents to control the primary disease can achieve a favorable prognosis.

Environmental pollution is a significant public health challenge worldwide, and investigating the causal relationship between environmental exposure and population health outcomes is a key objective of environmental epidemiology research. In recent years, the complexity of environmental exposures has increasingly come to the forefront, making it challenging for observational studies that dominate environmental epidemiology to accurately estimate causal effects. Causal inference methods are particularly advantageous in controlling for confounding factors, thus holding great potential in environmental epidemiology research. Researchers can use appropriate causal inference methods to simulate the process of randomization, providing strong support for revealing the causal relationship between environmental exposure and health outcomes. However, there is a lack of reviews on the application of causal inference methods in environmental epidemiology studies in China. Therefore, this study introduced the basic principles of common causal inference statistical methods in environmental epidemiology, summarized the applicable conditions, advantages and disadvantages of various methods, and provided R software implementation codes for these methods, aiming to offer guidance for optimizing research design and practicing causal inference statistical methods.

To investigate the clinical characteristics and prognosis of extracranial malignant rhabdoid tumor (eMRT) in children, and to provide a reference for the clinical treatment of this disease.

Objective:To explore the clinical characteristics, diagnosis and treatment strategies, and prognosis of pulmonary embolism (PE) complicating childhood rheumatic diseases.Methods:A retrospective case series study was performed on the demographic data, laboratory indicators, imaging features, treatment regimens, and follow-up data of 8 children with rheumatic diseases complicated by PE who were admitted to the Department of Rheumatology and Immunology, Capital Center for Children′s Health, Capital Medical University from January 2014 to October 2023.Results:Among the 8 children, there were 4 boys and 4 girls, with an age of 12.0 (7.5, 13.0) years. Among the primary diseases, there were 3 cases of systemic lupus erythematosus, 2 cases of Beh?et′s disease, 2 cases of Takayasu arteritis, and 1 case of antiphospholipid syndrome. All children developed PE during the active phase of the primary disease. PE was detected at the onset of the primary disease in 3 cases, and the median time from the diagnosis of the primary disease to the development of PE was 10.0 (6.0, 25.0) months in the remaining 5 cases. Fever was present in all 8 children, 4 cases were accompanied by chest tightness, dyspnea, etc., and 2 cases only presented with fever. Laboratory examinations revealed the following results: erythrocyte sedimentation rate was 42.0 (17.0, 78.0) mm/1 h, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein was 12.7 (2.6, 78.7) mg/L, white blood cell count was 9.6 (7.2, 18.7)×10 9/L; D-dimer was 2.3 (0.9, 6.2) mg/L; and hemoglobin was (109±16) g/L.Imaging examinations revealed that 5 cases had involvement of the bilateral lower pulmonary arteries, 5 cases had peripheral embolism, and 3 cases had central PE. Complications included 3 cases of deep vein thrombosis, 2 cases of intracranial venous sinus thrombosis, and 1 case of mild pulmonary hypertension.In terms of treatment, 7 cases received anticoagulation with heparin followed by warfarin. Immunomodulation was mainly based on glucocorticoids combined with immunosuppressants, and 4 cases were combined with biological agents. The follow-up time of 4.17 (1.75, 7.17) years, the time for complete absorption of PE was 10.5 (6.0, 18.0) months; all 8 children had no target events, with no recurrence or chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, and the pulmonary artery remodeling was good. Conclusions:PE complicating childhood rheumatic diseases is closely related to the activity of the primary disease. The clinical manifestations are insidious, with fever as the main symptom. Imaging examination is the key to diagnosis.Early adoption of heparin followed by warfarin anticoagulation and glucocorticoids combined with immunosuppressants and (or) biological agents to control the primary disease can achieve a favorable prognosis.

The functional realization of proteins and other biological macromolecules depends on conformational dynamics and allosteric regulation, and elucidating their molecular mechanisms is an important foundation for understanding life processes. Molecular dynamics simulations are a powerful tool for investigating conformational evolution at the atomic level. However, traditional methods are limited by simulation timescales and high free-energy barriers, making it difficult to effectively capture rare conformations and their transition pathways. As a result, the development of enhanced sampling techniques has become key to overcoming this bottleneck. As a classical enhanced sampling technique, metadynamics suffers from several shortcomings, including strong dependence on collective variables and significant errors caused by bias potential accumulation. This article reviews three major improvement strategies. The first combines stochastic resetting with metadynamics, using trajectory-resetting mechanisms to improve sampling efficiency while avoiding the difficulty of optimizing collective variables. The second, SinkMeta, employs a “sinking” bias effect to enable efficient exploration of specific regions and paths. The third, OPES-based hybrid methods, improve the stability of free-energy estimation by optimizing the target distribution or the way the bias is constructed. These methods provide new ideas for characterizing free-energy landscapes and studying conformational transitions in complex biological systems, while also promoting the continued development of enhanced sampling methodologies.

Aim To explore the mechanism of hispidu-lin in the treatment of cervical cancer by using network pharmacology and molecular docking methods and veri-fy it by in vitro experiments.Methods Cervical canc-er HeLa and SiHa cells were cultivated in vitro,and CCK-8 assay,cloning assay,scratch assay,transwell as-say,and flow cytometry were used to detect the effects of hispidulin on cell proliferation,migration,invasion,and apoptosis.SwissTarget Prediction was used to ob-tain predicted targets for hispidulin.Potential targets for cervical cancer were screened in GeneCards disease database.R software Venn package was used to obtain the intersection target genes of hispidulin and cervical cancer,STRING website and Cytoscape software were used to obtain protein-protein interaction(PPI)net-work,and the core targets were screened.The GEIPA data analysis platform was employed to analyze the dif-ferential gene expression levels of core targets in cervi-cal cancer.Gene Ontology(GO)and Kyoto Encyclo-pedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG)enrichment a-nalysis were performed,and molecular docking was car-ried out on key targets.Western blot was used to detect the regulatory effects of hispidulin on the expression of key proteins PI3K,p-Akt,as well as core target pro-teins MMP9 and RARP1 in the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway.Results Cell experiments showed that after treatment with hispidulin,the proliferation and colony formation abilities of HeLa and SiHa cells significantly decreased in a concentration-and time-dependent man-ner.At the same time,the lateral and longitudinal mi-gration and invasion abilities of HeLa cells decreased,and the level of apoptosis significantly increased.A to-tal of 87 intersection targets between hispidulin and cervical cancer were obtained,and eight core targets,namely,Akt1,EGFR,SRC,ESR1,PTGS2,GSK3β,MMP9,and PARP1,were selected based on the degree values in network topology analysis.KEGG enrichment screening identified PI3K/Akt signaling pathway,canc-er pathway,and other signaling pathways.The molecu-lar docking results showed that hispidulin had strong affinity activity with AktⅠ,P13K,MMP9,and RARP1.Western blot results showed downregulation of PI3K,p-Akt expression,as well as MMP9 and RARP1 expres-sion.Conclusions Hispidulin can inhibit the prolif-eration,migration,invasion,and promote apoptosis of cervical cancer cells by downregulating the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway and the expression of MMP9 and RARP1.

Objective:To explore the safety and short-term efficacy of single-port robotic transanal total mesorectal excision (SPr-taTME).Methods:The retrospective and descriptive study was conducted. The clinicopathological data of six patients who underwent SPr-taTME at Daping Hospital of Army Medical University from October to November 2024 were collected. There were 3 males and 3 females, aged (65±5)years. Observation indicators: (1) intraoperative situations; (2) postoperative situations; (3) follow-up. Measurement data with normal distribution were represen-ted as Mean± SD, measurement data with skewed distribution were represented as M(range). Count data were described as absolute numbers. Results:(1) Intraoperative situations. All patients successfully underwent SPr-taTME without conversion to laparotomy or blood transfusion. There was no intraoperative complication such as accidental hemorrhage or adjacent organ injury. No intra-operative adverse events or mortality occurred. The operation time of the 6 patients was 286(range, 240?400)minutes. The time of transanal platform setup and robotic docking was (21±10)minutes, transanal dissection time was (97±45)minutes, and transabdominal dissection time was (90±35)minutes. The volume of intraoperative blood loss was (47±14)mL. Among the six patients, 1 case underwent synchronous transanal and transabdominal surgery, while 5 cases underwent non-synchronous procedures. Specimens were extracted transanally in 5 cases and via an auxiliary abdominal incision in 1 case. The single-port robotic platform was utilized for the abdominal surgery in 3 cases, while laparoscopy was used in 3 cases. Splenic flexure mobilization was performed in 3 cases and omitted in the other 3 cases. Three patients underwent hand-sewn sigmoid colon-anal anastomosis, 1 case underwent modified Bacon pull-through anastomosis, 1 case received stapled sigmoidorectal anastomosis, 1 case underwent sigmoid colostomy without anastomosis due to significant bowel edema. Two cases didn′t undergo intestinal stoma, 2 cases underwent virtual ileostomy, 1 case underwent ileostomy, and 1 case underwent sigmoid colostomy. (2) Postoperative situations. All patients started water drinking and out‐of‐bed activities on postoperative day 1 and liquid diet intake on postoperative day 2. The time to postoperative first flatus was 1(range, 1?3)days, and duration of postoperative hospital stay was (8±2)days.The total number of lymph nodes dissected was 13±2, with the number of positive lymph nodes as 0(range, 0?3) and the distance of distal resection margin as (23±8)mm. Pathological examination of 6 patients showed 1 case in stage T1N0, 2 cases in stage ypT0N0, 1 case in ypT1N0, 1 case in ypT3N1, and 1 case in ypT0N1. The degree of mesorectal integrity was complete in 5 patients and nearly complete in 1 patient. The surgical specimens of 6 patients showed negative in distal, proximal and circumferential margin. (3) Follow-up. All 6 patients completed the 30-day postoperative follow-up. None of the patients experienced postoperative complication such as bleeding, intestinal obstruction or anastomotic leakage. There was no readmission within 30 days after surgery. Digital rectal examination or colonoscopy on postoperative 30 day confirmed no anastomosis-related complications, including stenosis, dehiscence or anastomotic leakage. All 6 patients survived.Conclusion:The SPr-taTME is safe and feasible, with satisfactory short-term efficacy.

Aim To explore the mechanism of hispidu-lin in the treatment of cervical cancer by using network pharmacology and molecular docking methods and veri-fy it by in vitro experiments.Methods Cervical canc-er HeLa and SiHa cells were cultivated in vitro,and CCK-8 assay,cloning assay,scratch assay,transwell as-say,and flow cytometry were used to detect the effects of hispidulin on cell proliferation,migration,invasion,and apoptosis.SwissTarget Prediction was used to ob-tain predicted targets for hispidulin.Potential targets for cervical cancer were screened in GeneCards disease database.R software Venn package was used to obtain the intersection target genes of hispidulin and cervical cancer,STRING website and Cytoscape software were used to obtain protein-protein interaction(PPI)net-work,and the core targets were screened.The GEIPA data analysis platform was employed to analyze the dif-ferential gene expression levels of core targets in cervi-cal cancer.Gene Ontology(GO)and Kyoto Encyclo-pedia of Genes and Genomes(KEGG)enrichment a-nalysis were performed,and molecular docking was car-ried out on key targets.Western blot was used to detect the regulatory effects of hispidulin on the expression of key proteins PI3K,p-Akt,as well as core target pro-teins MMP9 and RARP1 in the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway.Results Cell experiments showed that after treatment with hispidulin,the proliferation and colony formation abilities of HeLa and SiHa cells significantly decreased in a concentration-and time-dependent man-ner.At the same time,the lateral and longitudinal mi-gration and invasion abilities of HeLa cells decreased,and the level of apoptosis significantly increased.A to-tal of 87 intersection targets between hispidulin and cervical cancer were obtained,and eight core targets,namely,Akt1,EGFR,SRC,ESR1,PTGS2,GSK3β,MMP9,and PARP1,were selected based on the degree values in network topology analysis.KEGG enrichment screening identified PI3K/Akt signaling pathway,canc-er pathway,and other signaling pathways.The molecu-lar docking results showed that hispidulin had strong affinity activity with AktⅠ,P13K,MMP9,and RARP1.Western blot results showed downregulation of PI3K,p-Akt expression,as well as MMP9 and RARP1 expres-sion.Conclusions Hispidulin can inhibit the prolif-eration,migration,invasion,and promote apoptosis of cervical cancer cells by downregulating the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway and the expression of MMP9 and RARP1.

Objective To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of facilitated percutaneous coronary intervention(PCI)with half-dose recombinant staphylokinase(r-SAK)in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction(STEMI)who are expected to undergo PCI within 120 minutes.Methods From October 2021 to August 2022,a total of 200 STEMI patients in eight centers were included and randomly assigned in a 1﹕1 ratio to either r-SAK group or control group.Patients received loading doses of aspirin and ticagrelor and intravenous heparin and were randomized to receive an intravenous bolus of either 5 mg r-SAK or normal saline prior to PCI.The outcomes were set as ST-segment resolution(STR)at 60-90 minutes after PCI,the proportion and transition of pathological Q waves on the 5th day after PCI,and the proportion of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T(hs-cTnT)peaking within 12 hours of onset.The safety outcome was major bleeding events defined as Bleeding Academic Research Consortium(BARC)≥type 3 bleeding during hospitalization.Results Compared with the control group,the r-SAK group had a higher proportion of STR≥70%within 60-90 minutes after PCI(58.3%vs.40.3%,P=0.009);a lower proportion of pathological Q waves(59.1%vs.74.1%,P=0.040);a lower rate of Q wave progression(14.8%vs.43.2%,P＜0.001);a higher rate of Q wave disappearance(12.5%vs.3.7%,P=0.027);and a higher proportion of hs-cTnT peaking within 12 hours of symptom onset[31/40(77.5%)vs.17/33(51.5%),P=0.027].Regarding the safety outcome,no significant difference in BARC≥type 3 bleeding was found between the two groups during hospitalization(P＞0.05).Conclusions For STEMI patients who were expected to undergo primary PCI within 120 minutes of symptom onset,the facilitated PCI with half-dose r-SAK significantly increased the proportion of STR≥70%at 60-90 minutes after PCI,reduced the formation of pathological Q waves,and shortened the time to peak hs-cTnT,without increasing the risk of bleeding,which should be an alternative reperfusion strategy worthy of further study.

Objective To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of facilitated percutaneous coronary intervention(PCI)with half-dose recombinant staphylokinase(r-SAK)in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction(STEMI)who are expected to undergo PCI within 120 minutes.Methods From October 2021 to August 2022,a total of 200 STEMI patients in eight centers were included and randomly assigned in a 1﹕1 ratio to either r-SAK group or control group.Patients received loading doses of aspirin and ticagrelor and intravenous heparin and were randomized to receive an intravenous bolus of either 5 mg r-SAK or normal saline prior to PCI.The outcomes were set as ST-segment resolution(STR)at 60-90 minutes after PCI,the proportion and transition of pathological Q waves on the 5th day after PCI,and the proportion of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin T(hs-cTnT)peaking within 12 hours of onset.The safety outcome was major bleeding events defined as Bleeding Academic Research Consortium(BARC)≥type 3 bleeding during hospitalization.Results Compared with the control group,the r-SAK group had a higher proportion of STR≥70%within 60-90 minutes after PCI(58.3%vs.40.3%,P=0.009);a lower proportion of pathological Q waves(59.1%vs.74.1%,P=0.040);a lower rate of Q wave progression(14.8%vs.43.2%,P＜0.001);a higher rate of Q wave disappearance(12.5%vs.3.7%,P=0.027);and a higher proportion of hs-cTnT peaking within 12 hours of symptom onset[31/40(77.5%)vs.17/33(51.5%),P=0.027].Regarding the safety outcome,no significant difference in BARC≥type 3 bleeding was found between the two groups during hospitalization(P＞0.05).Conclusions For STEMI patients who were expected to undergo primary PCI within 120 minutes of symptom onset,the facilitated PCI with half-dose r-SAK significantly increased the proportion of STR≥70%at 60-90 minutes after PCI,reduced the formation of pathological Q waves,and shortened the time to peak hs-cTnT,without increasing the risk of bleeding,which should be an alternative reperfusion strategy worthy of further study.