Objective: To explore the association between serum nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3), NIMA-related kinase 7 (NEK7) and pulmonary fibrosis among patients with coal workers' pneumoconiosis, so as to provide a basis for the assessment of the degree of pulmonary fibrosis. Methods: Coal workers with pneumoconiosis hospitalized in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University from July 2022 to July 2023 were selected by simple random sampling. Data such as age, stage of pneumoconiosis, and dust-exposure duration were collected through the hospital's electronic medical record management system. Venous blood was collected to detect the levels of serum NLRP3 and NEK7. High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) image data of the chest were obtained through the hospital's imaging reporting system. The left and right lungs were divided into 6 pulmonary regions according to the upper, middle, and lower parts. The pulmonary fibrosis score was quantified according to the proportion of the pulmonary area occupied by HRCT manifestations of pulmonary fibrosis, including reticular shadows, pleural and interlobular septal thickening, traction bronchiectasis, and honeycombing. The association between the levels of serum NLRP3, NEK7, and pulmonary fibrosis was analyzed using a multiple linear regression model. Results: A total of 81 patients with coal workers' pneumoconiosis were included, all of whom were male, with a mean age of (71.46±11.69) years. There were 48, 28, and 5 cases in stage Ⅰ, stage Ⅱ, and stage Ⅲ of pneumoconiosis pathological staging, accounting for 59.26%, 34.57%, and 6.17%, respectively. There were 45 cases of tunneling and coal mining, accounting for 55.56%. There were 41 cases with dust exposure years of ≥30 years, accounting for 50.62%. The median serum NLRP3 and NEK7 in patients with coal workers' pneumoconiosis were 2.01 (interquartile range, 2.33) ng/mL and 0.98 (interquartile range, 0.83) ng/mL. The median score of pulmonary fibrosis was 5.00 (interquartile range, 5.50) points. After adjusting for age, stage of pneumoconiosis, type of work and dust-exposure duration, multiple linear regression analysis showed that serum NLRP3 (β'=0.649) and NEK7 (β'=0.346) were positively correlated with the pulmonary fibrosis score. Conclusion The increase in the levels of serum NLRP3 and NEK7 in patients with coal workers' pneumoconiosis is related to the increase in the degree of pulmonary fibrosis.

Objective:To analyze the predictive factors of autogenous arteriovenous fistula (AVF) maturation and tentatively discuss the intervention timing of assisted maturation.Methods:It was a retrospective study. The data of patients with newly established AVF and regular follow-up in Haidian Hospital, the Third Hospital of Peking University from August 1, 2018 to March 31, 2022 were analyzed. The patients were divided into mature group and immature group based on whether they met clinical maturity or ultrasonic maturity criteria 3 months after AVF establishment.The general data, preoperative laboratory examination and postoperative ultrasonic examination parameters were compared between the two groups. Logistic regression analysis model was used to analyze the related factors of AVF maturation, and receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC curve) was drawn to evaluate the predictive value of each factor for AVF maturation and intervention timing.Results:A total of 568 patients were included, with age of (56.86±13.82) years old, 339 males (59.68%), and 229 females (40.32%). There were 380 patients in the maturation group and 188 patients in the immature group. The total rate of AVF maturation was 66.90% (380/568). The anastomosis diameter ( t=9.732, P < 0.001), ln(anastomosis artery diameter)( t=10.116, P < 0.001), anastomosis vein diameter ( t=13.961, P < 0.001), ln(brachial artery diameter)( t=9.362, P < 0.001) and brachial artery blood flow ( t=16.542, P < 0.001) of postoperation one month, and anastomosis diameter ( t=7.356, P < 0.001), anastomosis artery diameter ( t=11.117, P < 0.001), anastomosis vein diameter ( t=12.332, P < 0.001), ln(brachial artery diameter) ( t=7.956, P < 0.001) and brachial artery blood flow ( t=13.803, P < 0.001) of postoperation three months in the mature group were significantly higher than those in the immature group. Logistic regression analysis models showed anastomosis vein diameter at 1 month after surgery ( OR=0.577, 95% CI 0.342-0.975, P=0.040), brachial arterial blood flow at 1 month after surgery ( OR=0.988, 95% CI 0.996-1.000, P=0.043) and brachial arterial blood flow at 3 months after surgery ( OR=0.997, 95% CI 0.995-0.999, P=0.002) were the independent relevant factors of AVF maturation. When the anastomosis vein diameter ≥ 3.90 mm at 1 month after AVF surgery ( AUC=0.842, 95% CI 0.809-0.871, P < 0.001), the blood flow of brachial artery ≥ 446.90 ml/min at 1 month after AVF surgery ( AUC=0.880, 95% CI 0.850-0.906, P < 0.001), the critical value of the combined index of anastomotic vein diameter and blood flow of brachial artery at 1 month after fitting ≥ 0.44 ( AUC=0.889, 95% CI 0.860-0.914, P < 0.001) and brachial arterial blood flow ≥ 595.00 ml/min ( AUC=0.857, 95% CI 0.822-0.888, P < 0.001), the unassisted maturation of AVF could be predicted. Conclusions:The anastomosis vein diameter ≥ 3.90 mm at 1 month after AVF surgery, and the blood flow of brachial artery ≥ 446.90 ml/min at 3 months after AVF surgery, or the critical value of combined index of both after fitting ≥ 0.44 can predict the unassisted maturation of AVF, and one month after surgery may be the opportunity for early intervention to promote maturation.

Objective:To explore the consistency of MRI-based ovarian-adnexal report and data system (O-RADS) score and its diagnostic value for ovarian adnexal masses.Methods:The MRI data of 309 patients with ovarian adnexal masses confirmed by pathology were retrospectively collected from January 2017 to August 2021 in the Second Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University, including 327 lesions consisted of 250 benign lesions, 21 borderline lesions, and 56 malignant lesions confirmed by pathology. Borderline and malignant lesions were classified into the malignant group ( n=77) and benign lesions were classified as benign group ( n=250). Two radiologists scored all lesions according to the MRI-based O-RADS, and scored again after 6 months. The proportion of borderline/malignant lesions in each MRI-based O-RADS score was calculated. The weighted Kappa test was used to assess the intra-reader and inter-reader consistency of the image interpretation results. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of MRI-based O-RADS classification for distinguishing benign and malignant ovarian adnexal masses. Results:The weighted Kappa value of the MRI-based O-RADS score between the two radiologists was 0.810 (95%CI 0.764-0.855), and the weighted Kappa values of the two radiologists′ scores at different times were 0.848 (95%CI 0.806-0.889) and 0.875 (95%CI 0.835-0.914), respectively. The borderline/malignant lesions accounted for 0/16, 0.8% (1/127), 10.1% (10/99), 76.0% (57/75), 9/10 and 0/17, 0 (0/122), 8.0% (8/100), 76.2% (48/63), and 84.0% (21/25) of the lesions in the two radiologists based on the MRI O-RADS score of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. When adopting O-RADS score>3 as a cut-off value, the area under the ROC curve of the two radiologists for distinguishing benign and malignant ovarian adnexal masses was 0.928 (95%CI 0.895-0.954) and 0.942 (95%CI 0.911-0.965), respectively. The sensitivity was 0.857 and 0.896, the specificity was 0.924 and 0.924, and the accuracy was 0.908 and 0.917 respectively.Conclusion:The MRI-based O-RADS yields high diagnostic efficiency in the evaluation of benign and malignant ovarian adnexal masses, and the intra-reader and inter-reader consistency of the image interpretation is strong.

Silicotic nodules and pulmonary fibrosis are histopathological appearance in silicosis patients after long-term inhalation of crystalline silica particles, and are difficult to reverse and recover. Research on the pathogenesis and treatment strategies of silicosis has significantly lagged behind medical progress and clinical needs, resulting in the disease remaining a thorny clinical problem. Traditional Chinese medicine extracts or compound preparations have become a hot issue in exploring silicosis treatment strategies in recent years. This paper described the main pathological processes of pulmonary fibrosis caused by silicosis, followed by introducing its main pathogenesis mechanisms, including transforming growth factor-β1 (TGF-β1)/Smad signaling pathway, oxidative stress reaction, apoptosis, and autophagy. In addition, it briefly described the research progress, targets, and intervention effects of selected traditional Chinese medicine extracts, which provides a scientific basis for the theoretical and clinical research of traditional Chinese medicine extracts in inhibiting pulmonary fibrosis. To change the clinical status quo of silicosis fibrosis which is difficult to control and reverse, the paper proposed that we can further explore the pathogenesis and progression mechanisms of silicosis and drug treatment strategy, and focus on the transformation of basic research into clinical practice.

Objective To compare the effect and safety of stenting versus directional atherectomy (DA) in the treatment of TASCⅡ A and B superficial femoral artery lesions.Methods 100 patients with TASC Ⅱ A and B lesions were divided into percutaneous transluminal stenting(PTS) group (n =50) and DA group (n =50).Patients were compared in terms of technical success rate,treatment success rate,first operation cost,postoperative ankle brachial index (ABI),limb salvage rate,survival,and patency.Results The technical success rate in both PTS and DA group was 100％.The treatment success rate was 98％ vs.86％,P＞0.05.Postoperative ABI:0.82 ±0.19 vs.0.80 ±0.27,P＞0.05.First operation cost:(34 820 ± 1 051) yuan vs.(45 635 ± 1 358) yuan,P ＜0.001;All patients were followed-up for up to 2-year,the cumulative patency rate was 81.6％ vs.72.9％ (P＞0.05).Limb salvage rate was 97.9％ vs.93.8 ％,P ＞ 0.05.Conclusion There were no significant differences in the effect and safety of PTS versus DA in the treatment of TASCⅡ A and B superficial femoral artery lesions.

Objective To analyze the multimodal imaging findings of nonspecific granulomatous prostatitis (NSGP)and improve our understanding of the disease.Methods 1 427 patients underwent transrectal ultrasoundGguided prostate biopsies in our department,then 1 3 nodules in 11 patients were proven NSGP by pathology,of which 3 nodules were in inner gland and 10 were in outer gland.The characteristics of these nodules on MRI,transrectal ultrasound elastography (TRE)and contrastGenhanced ultrasonography (CEUS)were retrospectively analyzed. Results MRI:All of the nodules showed similar performances:hypointensity on T1 WI and T2 WI,low ADC and high signal on DWI (highGbGvalue),early enhancement and faded fast or slow,depressed citrate (Cit)and relatively elevated choline (Cho)peak.TRE:The cutGoff point of strain ratio (SR)was determined as 5.97 to diagnose prostate cancer and the SRs of 8 nodules were greater than 5.9 7.CEUS:1 1 nodules showed early enhancement and great intensity,but the rest of nodules showed same performance with normal tissue.Conclusion The multimodal imaging helps to improve the understanding of NSGP and plays a positive role in guiding targeted biopsy.Moreover,the operators could lessen the number of needle punctures properly according to the multimodal imaging findings, which would reduce the risk of puncture complications on patients.

Objective To explore the difference in efficacy between multiparametric MRI (Mp-MRI) based on prostate imaging reporting and data system version 2 (PI-RADS v2) and abbreviated biparametric MRI (Bp-MRI) in detecting prostate cancer (PCa) and clinically significant prostate cancer (csPCa), and to evaluate the consistency of image interpretation between different readers. Methods The imaging, pathological and clinical data of patients with prostatic Mp-MRI in our hospital from February 2015 to June 2018 were retrospectively analyzed. At the beginning, 250 patients were randomly selected. Two radiologists visually evaluated the images of those patients using two 5-point scoring schemes based on Mp-MRI and Bp-MRI. The remaining cases were independently proceeded by one of the radiologists using two schemes respectively. Weighted Kappa test was used to assess the consistency of the results interpreted by the two radiologists. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to evaluate the efficiency of the two scoring schemes in detecting PCa and csPCa, and with Z test to investigate whether there was any difference in detection efficiency between the two schemes. Results Nine hundred and seventy eight patients were eventually enrolled in the study. The results of the consistency assessment showed that there was good agreement between the two radiologists, whether using Mp-MRI or Bp-MRI, with the weighted Kappa coefficient of 0.800 and 0.812, respectively. The ROC curve analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of PCa detected by Mp-MRI and Bp-MRI was 0.873 and 0.879, respectively, and the AUC of csPCa detected was 0.922 and 0.932, respectively. In addition, there was no statistically significant difference between the AUC of PCa and csPCa detected by the two schemes (P>0.05). Conclusion The Bp-MRI scoring scheme has good stability in the evaluation of benign and malignant prostate, and its detection efficiency of PCa or csPCa is not lower than that of standard Mp-MRI based on PI-RADS v2.

Objective To investigate the value and diagnostic efficiency of the quantitative dynamic contrast enhanced-magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) and intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) parameters using three dimention (3D)-histogram analysis for discriminating the Gleason score (GS) of prostate cancer. Methods A total of 53 patients pathologically confirmed as prostate cancer by systemic prostate biopsy who had routine , DCE and DWI-MRI scans were retrospectively analyzed. There were 15 cases for low-risk and 38 cases for intermediate/high-risk prostate cancer. The 3D ROI of all lesions based on T2WI was achieved by image registration to get the quantitative parameters of DCE-MRI and DWI-IVIM. The parameters of DCE-MRI contains: transfer constant (Ktrans), rate constant (Kep) and extracellular-extravascular volume fraction (Ve).The DWI-IVIM related quantitative parameters were ADC, diffusion coefficient (D), diffusion coefficient related to perfusion (D*) and perfusion fraction (f). Then the histogram analysis of these quantitative parameters was performed to get the mean, median, 25th percentile, 75th percentile, Skewness and Kurtosis. Using the Spearman rank correlation analysis to evaluate the correlation of these parameters and GS of prostate cancer. The diagnostic performance of these quantitative histogram parameters related to the GS in identifying low-risk and intermediate/high-risk of prostate cancer was carried by ROC. Results The Kep and Ktrans (mean, median, 25th, 75th) of DCE-MRI were positively correlated with GS (r value was 0.346 to 0.696, P<0.05). The ADC (mean, median, 25th, 75th), D (mean, median, 25th, 75th, Skewness, Kurtosis) and D*(25th) of DWI-IVIM were correlated with GS (r value was-0.544 to 0.428, P<0.05). The DCE-MRI quantitative parameters Kep (25th) had the highest area under curve (AUC, 0.961); The ADC (median) and D (25th) had higher AUC( 0.832, 0.888) in the quantitative parameters of DWI-IVIM, the difference between Kep(25th) and ADC (median) was statistically significant (Z value was 2.212, P value was 0.027). The difference of AUC between Kep (25th) and D (25th), D (25th) and ADC (median) was not statistically significant (Z values were 1.027 and 1.398, P values were 0.162 and 0.304, respectively).Conclusion DCE and IVIM quantitative parameters (Kep, Ktrans, ADC, D) histogram analysis results are correlated with GS, and can be used for distinguishing low-risk from intermediate/high-risk prostate cancer.

Objective To evaluate the diagnostic value of prostate imaging reporting and data system version 1 (PI-RADS V1) and version 2 (PI-RADS V2) for detection of prostate cancer (PCa) in the transition zone (TZ).Methods Seventy-seven patients with suspicious lesions in TZ on mpMRI were scored according to the PI-RADS system (V1 and V2) before MR-TRUS fusion guided biopsy prospectively.In all of the patients with suspicious tumors,respectively at least one lesion with a PI-RADS V1 assessment category of ≥3,was selected for biopsy.Independent sample t test was used to compare scores of PI-RADS V1 and V2 between PCa and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).The diagnostic performance of PI-RADS V 1 and V2 for detection of PCa in the transition zone was compared by analyzing ROC basing on the results of MR-TRUS fusion guided biopsy.Results A cohort of 77 patients was performed including 31 cases of PCa (32 cores) and 46 cases of BPH (51 cores).PCa (V1:1 1.50±2.79;V2:4.28±0.99) had significantly higher scores of both PI-RADS V1 and PI-RADS V2 than BPH(V1:7.51± 1.63;V2∶2.61 ±0.67) (P＜0.05).Using a PI-RADS V1 score cut-off ≥ 11,sensitivity and specificity in group PCa and BPH were calculated,which were 68.8％(22/32) and 96.1％(49/51) with a area under curve of 0.869;using a PI-RADS V2 score cut-off ≥4,which were 75.0％ (24/32) and 90.2％ (46/51) with a area under curve of 0.888,respectively.Conclusions PI-RADS system can indicate the likelihood of PCa of suspicious lesions in TZ on Mp-MRI.PI-RADS V2 perform better than V 1 for the assessment of prostate cancer in TZ.

Objective to explore the role of Beclin 1 in gastric carcinogenesis and subsequent progression. Methods MkN28 cells were trans-fected with Beclin 1-expressing plasmid,and then the proliferation and cell cycle was measured by CCk-8 and PI staining. Beclin 1 expression was examined by immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization on tissue microarrays containing gastric cancers,adjacent non-neoplastic mucosa,and metastatic lymph node. the correlation with the tumorgenesis,clinicopathological and prognostic parameters was analyzed. Results Beclin 1 overex-pression resulted in G2 arrest of MkN28 cells and reduced the proliferation. Beclin 1 mRNA was highly expressed in gastric cancer than matched mu-cosa by ISH(P < 0.05). Beclin 1 was highly expressed in male than female patients with gastric cancer(P < 0.05). the elder patients with gastric cancer had higher Beclin 1 expression than younger ones(P < 0.05). the diffuse-type carcinomas showed less Beclin 1 expression than intestinal and mixed type ones(P < 0.05). kaplan-Meier analysis indicated that Beclin 1 expression was positively correlated to favorable prognosis of the can-cer patients(P < 0.05). Conclusion Beclin 1 expression is closely linked to pathogenesis,metastasis and differentiation of gastric cancer. Beclin 1 might be employed to indicate the favorable prognosis of gastric cancer patients and regarded as a target of gene therapy.