Objective: To examine the mediating effect of resilience on AIDS-related stress and patient-reported outcome among elderly cases with HIV/AIDS, so as to provide the basis for promoting mental health and improving health outcomes of this population. Methods: From June to July 2024, elderly cases with HIV/AIDS receiving treatment in the infectious diseases department of a tertiary-level hospital in Sichuan Province and undergoing follow-up management at 12 community health service centers in Wuhou District, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, were selected as study participants using convenience sampling method. Data on demographic information, duration since confirmed diagnosis and the most recent CD4+T lymphocyte count were collected through questionnaire surveys. The Chinese versions of the HIV/AIDS Stress Scale, the Chinese versions of the 10-item Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, and the Patient-Reported Outcome Scale for Elderly HIV/AIDS Patients were used to assess AIDS-related stress, resilience, and patient-reported outcome, respectively. Structural equation modeling was performed using Mplus 8.3 software to analyze the mediating effect of resilience on AIDS-related stress and patient-reported outcome. The Bootstrap method was employed to test the significance of the mediating effect. Results: A total of 424 elderly HIV/AIDS cases were included, with a mean age of (62.04±8.73) years. Among them, 315 (74.29%) were males and 109 (25.71%) were females. The median scores were 23.00 (interquartile range, 11.00) points for AIDS-related stress, 30.00 (interquartile range, 7.00) points for resilience, and 363.45 (interquartile range, 53.03) points for the total score of patient-reported outcome. Resultsof the mediation effect analysis revealed that AIDS-related stress had a direct negative effect on patient-reported outcome (β=-0.608, 95%CI: -0.742 to -0.465). It also exerted an indirect negative effect on patient-reported outcome through the mediating role of resilience (β=-0.258, 95%CI: -0.364 to -0.158), with the mediating effect accounting for 29.79% of the total effect. Conclusion AIDS-related stress among elderly cases with HIV/AIDS can directly or indirectly negatively affect patient-reported outcome through resilience.

Objective:To investigate the clinical characteristics and independent risk factors of severe disease in patients with anti-nuclear matrix protein (NXP) 2 antibody-positive juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM).Methods:A retrospective cohort study was conducted, including 219 anti-NXP2 antibody-positive JDM patients admitted to 23 children′s hospitals across China from July 2011 to July 2023. Patients were classified into severe and non-severe groups based on classification criteria for severe dermatomyositis. Demographic characteristics, clinical manifestations, and laboratory parameters were compared between the 2 groups using independent sample t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, or χ2 test. Univariate and multivariate Logistic regression analyses were performed to identify risk factors for severe disease. The receiver operating characteristic curve was employed to calculate optimal cut-off values. Results:Among the 219 patients, 108 were male and 111 were female, with an age at onset of 6.3 (3.5, 9.4) years. The severe group comprised 69 patients, and the non-severe group 150 patients. The severe group had significantly higher rates of fever, heliotrope rash, subcutaneous edema, periorbital edema, anti-Ro52 antibody positivity, as well as elevated levels of ferritin-to-albumin ratio (FAR), creatine kinase (CK), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (all P<0.05). Multivariate analysis identified anti-Ro52 antibody positivity ( OR=13.26, 95% CI 1.37-128.29) and elevated FAR ( OR=1.90, 95% CI 1.09-2.31) as independent risk factors for severe anti-NXP2 antibody-positive JDM (both P<0.05). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed that a FAR cutoff value of 6.82 predicted severe disease with an area under the curve of 0.87 (95% CI 0.81-0.94, P<0.001), sensitivity of 0.85, and specificity of 0.70. All patients received glucocorticoid therapy, and the severe group received higher proportions of steroid pulse therapy, cyclophosphamide, mycophenolate mofetil, intravenous immunoglobulin, biologics, and adjuvant treatments compared to the non-severe group (all P<0.05). In terms of outcomes, 2 patients (2.9%) in the severe group died (due to neurological involvement and intestinal perforation, respectively), while the remaining patients achieved complete clinical response or remission. All patients in the non-severe group achieved remission. Conclusions:The primary clinical features of anti-NXP2 antibody-positive JDM included fever, heliotrope rash, subcutaneous edema, periorbital edema, anti-Ro52 antibody positivity, and elevated levels of CK, AST, LDH, and FAR. Furthermore, anti-Ro52 antibody positivity and a FAR>6.82 were identified as independent risk factors.

Objective To evaluate the role of distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAE) testing in evaluating early hearing loss among noise-exposed workers. Methods A total of 174 noise-exposed workers in a metal shipbuilding enterprise were selected as the research subjects by the convenience sampling method. Pure tone audiometry (PTA), DPOAE and the level of noise exposure were conducted on the workers. The rank correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation between DPOAE amplitude and PTA threshold. The multilevel model was used to analyze the effects of gender, age, noise exposure intensity, cumulative noise exposure (CNE), hearing loss classification and PTA threshold on DPOAE results. Results At the frequencies of 0.50, 1.00, 2.00, 3.00, 4.00, 6.00 and 8.00 kHz, the DPOAE amplitude was negatively correlated with the PTA threshold (rank correlation coefficients were -0.12, -0.48, -0.47, -0.18, -0.23, -0.44, -0.19, respectively, all P<0.01). At the most frequencies, DPOAE amplitude was negatively correlated with age and CNE (all P<0.05). The results of multilevel model analysis showed that there were significant differences in DPOAE amplitudes at certain frequencies across gender, age, noise intensity, CNE, and hearing loss classification (all P<0.05). Significant differences in DPOAE responses were found among different CNE and hearing loss groups (all P<0.01). Conclusion DPOAE testing can objectively reflect the hearing status of noise-exposed workers and could be considered for inclusion in routine hearing monitoring to facilitate early detection of noise-induced hearing loss.

Objective: To investigate the objective characteristics of tongue manifestation in different stages of damp-heat syndrome in diabetic kidney disease (DKD). Methods: A cross-sectional study enrolled 134 patients with DKD G3-5 stages who met the diagnostic criteria for damp-heat syndrome in DKD. The patients were treated at Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, from May 2023 to January 2024. The patients were divided into three groups: DKD G3, DKD G4, and DKD G5 stage, with 53, 33, and 48 patients in each group, respectively. Clinical general data (gender, age, and body mass index) and damp-heat syndrome scores were collected from the patients. The YZAI-02 traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) AI Tongue Image Acquisition Device was used to capture tongue images from these patients. The accompanying AI Open Platform for TCM Tongue Diagnosis of the device was used to analyze and extract tongue manifestation features, including objective data on tongue color, tongue quality, coating color, and coating texture. Clinical data and objective tongue manifestation characteristics were compared among patients with DKD G3-5 based on their DKD damp-heat syndrome status. Results: No statistically significant difference in gender or body mass index was observed among the three patient groups. The DKD G3 stage group had the highest age (P<0.05). The DKD G3 stage group had a lower score for symptoms of poor appetite and anorexia(P<0.05) than the DKD G5 group. No statistically significant difference was observed in damp-heat syndrome scores among the three groups. Compared with the DKD G5 stage group, the DKD G3 stage group showed a decreased proportion of pale color at the tip and edges of the tongue (P<0.05). The DKD G4 stage group exhibited an increased proportion of crimson at the root of the tongue, a decreased proportion of thick white tongue coating at the root, a decreased proportion of pale color at the tip and edges of the tongue, an increased hue value (indicating color tone) of the tongue color in the middle, an increased brightness value (indicating color lightness) of the tongue coating color in the middle, and an increased thickness of the tongue coating (P<0.05). No statistically significant difference was observed in other tongue color proportions, color chroma values, body characteristics, coating color proportions, coating color chroma values, and coating texture characteristics among the three groups. Conclusion Tongue features differ in different stages of DKD damp-heat syndrome in multiple dimensions, enabling the inference that during the DKD G5 stage, the degree of qi and blood deficiency in the kidneys, heart, lungs, liver, gallbladder, spleen, and stomach is prominent. Dampness is more likely to accumulate in the lower jiao, particularly in the kidneys, whereas heat evil in the spleen and stomach is the most severe. These insights provide novel ideas for the clinical treatment of DKD.

In response to the high cost and time consumption of medical image annotation,and issues such as the imprecision of unlabeled data segmentation in semi-supervised medical image segmentation,loss of image edge information,and delayed parameter updates,a semi-supervised medical image segmentation method based on consistency regularization is presented.Firstly,an uncertainty measurement method based on the dual perspectives of entropy and variance is designed to assess the uncertainty of predictions for unlabeled data,jointly evaluating the uncertainty of unlabeled data from the perspectives of entropy and variance.Then,edge-preserving noise based on the Canny operator is used to retain image edge information and important structures,thereby avoiding the potential blurring of organ edges that may result from the addition of random noise.Finally,a semi-supervised residual-driven segmentation method based on the mean teacher framework is developed,with a Frobenius norm regularization term in the exponential moving average scheme to enhance the performance of mean teacher.The proposed method is validated on the publicly available multi-organ segmentation benchmark dataset BTCV and brain tumor segmentation dataset BraTS 2019.In the case of 40%labeled data in the BTCV dataset,Dice similarity coefficient and standardized surface distance are 77.42%and 79.47%,respectively.In the case of 20%labeled data in the BraTS 2019 dataset,the proposed method achieve a Dice similarity coefficient of 83.89%,a Jaccard coefficient of 74.21%,an average surface distance of 2.34 mm,and a 95%Hausdorff distance of 9.08 mm,demonstrating its superiority.

Objective To explore the factors affecting the prognosis of patients with symptomatic severe intracranial artery stenosis after interventional therapy,and to construct a nomogram prediction model accordingly.Methods The clinical data of 121 patients with symptomatic severe intracranial artery stenosis,who received interventional treatment at the First People's Hospital of Zhengzhou from June 1,2021 to October 31,2024,were retrospectively analyzed.The general data,characteristics of vascular lesions,treatment-related factors and prognosis of patients were collected.According to the modified Rankin scale(mRS)score,the patients were divided into good prognosis group(mRS score ≤2 points)and poor prognosis group(mRS score＞2 points).The clinical data were compared between the two groups.Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify and determine independent factors affecting patient's outcomes,to construct a nomogram prediction model and to validate this model.Results Among the 121 patients,31(25.61％)had poor prognosis and 90(74.38％)had good prognosis.The postoperative 3-month mRS score was lower than preoperative mRS score value(P＞0.05).There were significant differences in hypertension history,stenosis site,stenosis degree,collateral circulation state,interventional therapeutic mode,cholesterol level,platelet count,lesion length and preoperative NIHSS score(P＜0.05)between the poor prognosis group and the good prognosis group.Multivariate analysis showed that hypertension history,stenosis degree,collateral circulation status,cholesterol level,platelet count,lesion's length and preoperative NIHSS score were the independent influencing factors for the prognosis of patients with symptomatic severe intracranial artery stenosis.The predicted AUC of the nomogram model was 0.931(95％ CI=0.873-0.989),and the calibration curve showed that the predicted value was in good agreement with the actual value.Conclusion Hypertension history,stenosis degree,collateral circulation status,cholesterol level,platelet count,lesion length and preoperative NIHSS score are the important influencing factors for the prognosis of patients with symptomatic severe intracranial artery stenosis.The nomogram prediction model constructed in this study shows a high accuracy in predicting the prognosis of patients,and it can provide important reference for clinical decision-making.

Objective:To investigate the clinical characteristics and independent risk factors of severe disease in patients with anti-nuclear matrix protein (NXP) 2 antibody-positive juvenile dermatomyositis (JDM).Methods:A retrospective cohort study was conducted, including 219 anti-NXP2 antibody-positive JDM patients admitted to 23 children′s hospitals across China from July 2011 to July 2023. Patients were classified into severe and non-severe groups based on classification criteria for severe dermatomyositis. Demographic characteristics, clinical manifestations, and laboratory parameters were compared between the 2 groups using independent sample t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, or χ2 test. Univariate and multivariate Logistic regression analyses were performed to identify risk factors for severe disease. The receiver operating characteristic curve was employed to calculate optimal cut-off values. Results:Among the 219 patients, 108 were male and 111 were female, with an age at onset of 6.3 (3.5, 9.4) years. The severe group comprised 69 patients, and the non-severe group 150 patients. The severe group had significantly higher rates of fever, heliotrope rash, subcutaneous edema, periorbital edema, anti-Ro52 antibody positivity, as well as elevated levels of ferritin-to-albumin ratio (FAR), creatine kinase (CK), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) (all P<0.05). Multivariate analysis identified anti-Ro52 antibody positivity ( OR=13.26, 95% CI 1.37-128.29) and elevated FAR ( OR=1.90, 95% CI 1.09-2.31) as independent risk factors for severe anti-NXP2 antibody-positive JDM (both P<0.05). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed that a FAR cutoff value of 6.82 predicted severe disease with an area under the curve of 0.87 (95% CI 0.81-0.94, P<0.001), sensitivity of 0.85, and specificity of 0.70. All patients received glucocorticoid therapy, and the severe group received higher proportions of steroid pulse therapy, cyclophosphamide, mycophenolate mofetil, intravenous immunoglobulin, biologics, and adjuvant treatments compared to the non-severe group (all P<0.05). In terms of outcomes, 2 patients (2.9%) in the severe group died (due to neurological involvement and intestinal perforation, respectively), while the remaining patients achieved complete clinical response or remission. All patients in the non-severe group achieved remission. Conclusions:The primary clinical features of anti-NXP2 antibody-positive JDM included fever, heliotrope rash, subcutaneous edema, periorbital edema, anti-Ro52 antibody positivity, and elevated levels of CK, AST, LDH, and FAR. Furthermore, anti-Ro52 antibody positivity and a FAR>6.82 were identified as independent risk factors.

In response to the high cost and time consumption of medical image annotation,and issues such as the imprecision of unlabeled data segmentation in semi-supervised medical image segmentation,loss of image edge information,and delayed parameter updates,a semi-supervised medical image segmentation method based on consistency regularization is presented.Firstly,an uncertainty measurement method based on the dual perspectives of entropy and variance is designed to assess the uncertainty of predictions for unlabeled data,jointly evaluating the uncertainty of unlabeled data from the perspectives of entropy and variance.Then,edge-preserving noise based on the Canny operator is used to retain image edge information and important structures,thereby avoiding the potential blurring of organ edges that may result from the addition of random noise.Finally,a semi-supervised residual-driven segmentation method based on the mean teacher framework is developed,with a Frobenius norm regularization term in the exponential moving average scheme to enhance the performance of mean teacher.The proposed method is validated on the publicly available multi-organ segmentation benchmark dataset BTCV and brain tumor segmentation dataset BraTS 2019.In the case of 40%labeled data in the BTCV dataset,Dice similarity coefficient and standardized surface distance are 77.42%and 79.47%,respectively.In the case of 20%labeled data in the BraTS 2019 dataset,the proposed method achieve a Dice similarity coefficient of 83.89%,a Jaccard coefficient of 74.21%,an average surface distance of 2.34 mm,and a 95%Hausdorff distance of 9.08 mm,demonstrating its superiority.

Objective: Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) involves a variety of visual symptoms that are thought to be partially caused by structural abnormalities of the retina. However, the relationship between retinal structural changes, disease severity, and intracranial alterations remains unknown. We investigated distinct retinal thinning patterns and their relationship with clinical severity and intracranial alterations in a PSP cohort. Methods: We enrolled 19 patients with PSP (38 eyes) and 20 age-matched healthy controls (40 eyes). All of the participants underwent peripapillary and macular optical coherence tomography. Brain 11C-2β-carbomethoxy-3β-(4-fluorophenyl) tropane (11C-CFT) and 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) positron emission tomography imaging were also performed in patients with PSP. We investigated the association between retinal thickness changes and clinical features, striatal dopamine transporter availability, and cerebral glucose metabolism. Results: The peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (pRNFL) and macula were significantly thinner in patients with PSP than in controls. The thickness of the superior sector of the pRNFL demonstrated a significant negative relationship with the Movement Disorder Society-Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale part III and Hoehn and Yahr staging scale scores. A significant negative correlation was found between outer inferior macular thickness and disease duration. Outer temporal macular thickness was positively correlated with Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores. In PSP, lower outer temporal macular thickness was also positively correlated with decreased dopamine transporter binding in the caudate. Conclusion The pRNFL and macular thinning may be candidate markers for monitoring disease severity. Additionally, macular thinning may be an in vivo indicator of nigrostriatal dopaminergic cell degeneration in PSP patients.

Objective To investigate the effect of hemoperfusion combined with sequential hemodiafiltration on pancreatic islet β cell function,nutritional status and inflammatory response in patients with diabetic nephropathy(DN).Methods One hundred patients with DN admitted to Nanyang Central Hospital from February 2022 to February 2023 were selected as the research subjects.They were divided into the control group and the observation group according to the random number table method,with 50 patients in each group.The patients in the control group were treated with sequential hemodiafil-tration,and the patients in the observation group were treated with sequential hemodiafiltration combined with hemoperfusion.The weight and height of patients in the two groups were measured before treatment and after 6-month treatment to calculate body mass index(BMI).The triceps skinfold(TSF)thickness was measured by using a skinfold caliper.The nutritional status of patients were evaluated by subjective global assessment(SCA)scores.Fasting venous blood was collected from patients in the two groups to measure the levels of fasting insulin(FINS)and fasting plasma glucose(FPG)by radioimmunoassay,and the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance(HOMA-IR)and homeostasis model assessment of beta-cell function(HOMA-β)were calculated;the levels of total cholesterol(TC),triglyceride(TG),high-density lipoprotein cholesterol(HDL-C)and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol(LDL-C)were measured by using the fully automatic biochemical analyzer,and the levels of serum C-reactive protein(CRP),tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α)and interleukin-6(IL-6)were measured by using the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.Results There was no significant difference in HOMA-β,FINS and HOMA-IR of patients between the control group and the observation group before treatment(P＞0.05).FINS and HOMA-IR of patients after treatment were significantly lower than those before treatment,while HOMA-β was significantly higher than that before treatment in the two groups(P＜0.05).After treatment,FINS and HOMA-IR of patients in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group,while HOMA-β was significantly higher than that in the control group(P＜0.05).There was no significant difference in BMI,TSF and SGA of patients between the control group and the observation group before treatment(P＞0.05).After treatment,BMI,TSF and SGA of patients in both groups were significantly higher than those before treatment;and BMI,TSF and SGA of patients in the observation group were significantly higher than those in the control group(P＜0.05).There was no significant difference in the levels of TC,TG,LDL-C and HDL-C of patients between the control group and the observation group before treatment(P＞0.05).After treatment,the levels of TC,TG and LDL-C of patients in both groups were significantly lower than those before treatment,while the HDL-C level of patients was significantly higher than that before treatment(P＜0.05).After treatment,the levels of TC,TG and LDL-C of patients in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group,while the HDL-C level of patients was significantly higher than that in the control group(P＜0.05).There was no significant difference in the levels of serum CRP,TNF-α and IL-6 of patients between the control group and the observation group before treatment(P＞0.05).After treatment,the levels of serum CRP,TNF-α and IL-6 of patients in both groups were significantly lower than those before treatment;and the levels of serum CRP,TNF-α and IL-6 of patients in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group(P＜0.05).Conclusion Sequential hemodiafiltration combined with hemoperfusion can significantly improve pancreatic islet βcell function,nutritional status and lipid metabolism in patients with DN and inhibit inflammatory response.