Objective:To investigate the efficacy and prognosis of different surgical approaches in sporadic medullary thyroid carcinoma.Methods:A retrospective analysis was conducted on 101 patients with sporadic medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) who underwent surgical treatment at the Department of Thyroid Surgery, China-Japan Union Hospital of Jilin University, from Feb. 2009 to Nov. 2023. The patients included 36 males and 75 females, with a male-to-female ratio of 1:2.1. The median age of the patients was 47 years old, with an age range of 21 to 72 years old. The study divided participants into two groups based on their surgical methods: an observation group (78 cases) and a control group (23 cases). The observation group received surgical methods in accordance with expert consensus, while the control group did not. The study compared the efficacy and prognosis of the two groups.Results:Statistical differences were found between the two groups in terms of stage II and III in TNM staging, intraoperative frozen pathological findings, number of lymph node resections in the central group, number of lymph node metastases in the central group, number of lymph node resections in the lateral cervical region, postoperative follow-up time, and five-year postoperative serum procalcitonin (Ctn) levels ( P<0.05) .Both groups of patients obtained a significant decrease in Ctn after surgical treatment. In the observation group, Ctn was at the remission level in 57 cases (73.1%), at the stable level in 13 cases (16.7%), and at the progression level in 8 cases (10.2%), while in the control group, Ctn was at the remission level in 20 cases (86.9%), at the progression level in 3 cases (13.1%), and there were no patients at the stable level after the operation.One patient (1.3 per cent) in the observation group had a recurrence after surgery; Two patients (8.7 per cent) in the control group had a recurrence. Conclusions:Standardised and thorough surgery can maximise the clearance of metastatic lymph nodes, effectively reduce the recurrence rate, achieve better efficacy, and improve the long-term prognosis of patients without increasing the risk of surgery and postoperative complications.

In recent years, clinical applications of robotic thyroid surgery have been gradually promoted with the continuous improvement of the da Vinci robotic surgical system. Unlike traditional open surgery, robotic thyroid surgery mainly adopts remote access, which has many advantages, such as magnified high-definition 3D view and hand vibration stabilization. The rates and causes of postoperative complications differ due to different approaches, view angles, and operation sequences. This paper presents the literature on both transoral and bilateral areolar axillary approaches in robotic thyroid surgery, focusing on five common complications under both approaches, including laryngeal recurrent nerve injury and hypoparathyroidism, to provide theoretical support for the standardization of robotic thyroid surgery.

Thyroid cancer is the most common malignant tumor of the endocrine system, and its incidence is increasing year by year showing younger trend. The pathological types of thyroid cancer are papillary carcinoma, follicular carcinoma, medullary carcinoma and undifferentiated carcinoma. Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) and papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) are the two common types of thyroid cancer. Since MTC and PTC have different biological origins, invasiveness and prognosis. Therefore, the occurrence of both medullary carcinoma and papillary carcinoma is very rare and rarely reported in China and abroad and the treatment is challenging. In this paper, we review the pathogenesis, ancillary tests, diagnosis and treatment of this disease, with the aim of providing reference for clinical treatment of patients with medullary thyroid carcinoma complicated by papillary carcinoma.

Objective:To construct an artificial intelligence-assisted diagnosis system to recognize the characteristics of Helicobacter pylori ( HP) infection under endoscopy, and evaluate its performance in real clinical cases. Methods:A total of 1 033 cases who underwent 13C-urea breath test and gastroscopy in the Digestive Endoscopy Center of Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University from January 2020 to March 2021 were collected retrospectively. Patients with positive results of 13C-urea breath test (which were defined as HP infertion) were assigned to the case group ( n=485), and those with negative results to the control group ( n=548). Gastroscopic images of various mucosal features indicating HP positive and negative, as well as the gastroscopic images of HP positive and negative cases were randomly assigned to the training set, validation set and test set with at 8∶1∶1. An artificial intelligence-assisted diagnosis system for identifying HP infection was developed based on convolutional neural network (CNN) and long short-term memory network (LSTM). In the system, CNN can identify and extract mucosal features of endoscopic images of each patient, generate feature vectors, and then LSTM receives feature vectors to comprehensively judge HP infection status. The diagnostic performance of the system was evaluated by sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and area under receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). Results:The diagnostic accuracy of this system for nodularity, atrophy, intestinal metaplasia, xanthoma, diffuse redness + spotty redness, mucosal swelling + enlarged fold + sticky mucus and HP negative features was 87.5% (14/16), 74.1% (83/112), 90.0% (45/50), 88.0% (22/25), 63.3% (38/60), 80.1% (238/297) and 85.7% (36 /42), respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and AUC of the system for predicting HP infection was 89.6% (43/48), 61.8% (34/55), 74.8% (77/103), and 0.757, respectively. The diagnostic accuracy of the system was equivalent to that of endoscopist in diagnosing HP infection under white light (74.8% VS 72.1%, χ2=0.246, P=0.620). Conclusion:The system developed in this study shows noteworthy ability in evaluating HP status, and can be used to assist endoscopists to diagnose HP infection.

Robotic surgical systems are gradually being used in minimally invasive surgery with their advantages of high-definition magnified 3D images, stable surgical field and flexible operation. The change of surgical approach and the narrow operating space in robotic thyroid surgery have made it more difficult to identify and protect the laryngeal nerve, and the application of nerve monitoring has been limited. Many researchers have attempted to improve the monitoring equipment and probe placement to make intraoperative neuromonitoring techniques work well in robotic thyroid surgery. In this paper, we seek effective ways to protect the laryngeal nerve in robotic thyroid surgery, and lay the foundation for a more minimally invasive and standardized development of this technology.

Objective:To investigate the clinical effectiveness of da Vinci robotics in thyroid surgery.Methods:304 cases of robotic thyroid surgery performed by the same experienced surgeon at the Department of Thyroid Surgery, China-Japan Union Hospital of Jilin University during the period from Apr. 3, 2020 to Nov. 5, 2021 were prospectively included, and the operation time, operation type, postoperative drainage, postoperative hospital stay, total number of lymph node dissection and number of positive lymph nodes, operation complications, and postoperative pain level of all patients were counted. The learning curve was plotted by applying the moving average method, divided into the initial stage and the mature stage, and the differences in surgical outcomes and surgical complications between the two stages were compared. SPSS 23.0 was applied for statistical analysis, and t-test and Mann-Whitney U test were used for comparison of measurement data, and χ2 test was used for comparison of count data. Result:All surgeries were completed successfully without conversion to open cases, including 29 males and 275 females, with a mean age of (33.8±8.9) years and a range of 27-41 years. The mean body mass index (BMI) was (22.9±3.6) kg/m 2 and a range of 20.5-25.4 kg/m 2. The median operative time was 140 min, the median postoperative drainage was 52.5 ml, and the median postoperative hospital stay was 3 days. The mean number of lymph nodes cleared was 4.4±3.5, and the mean number of positive lymph nodes was 0.9±1.7. The incidence of postoperative transient laryngeal nerve (RLN) injury was 3.3%, and the incidence of transient hypoparathyroidism was 0.7%. A significant decrease in operative time occurred after the 26th case and subsequently stabilized. Compared with the initial stage of the learning curve, the mature stage had a shorter operative time (146.0±36.5 vs 198.7±56.7 min, P<0.001) , a lower incidence of temporary RLN injury (2.5% vs 11.5%, P<0.05) , and a lower percentage of benign tumor surgery (12.2% vs 26.9%, P<0.05) . Conclusion:The application of robotic technology in thyroid surgery is safe and reliable, and its successful implementation should follow a corresponding learning curve, from easy to difficult, with different surgical approaches selected according to the patient’s condition, wishes, and the operator’s technical level.

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is a rare endocrine tumor characterized by high malignancy, early metastasis and easy recurrence. Sporadic medullary thyroid carcinoma (sMTC) is the main pathological type of MTC, accounting for about 75%. Compared with hMTC which has more clear germline mutations in the RET gene, the pathogenesis of sMTC is still unclear. We mainly retrospectively reviewed the characteristics of gene variants and the associations of their gene variants with tumor risk, including RET gene variants, somatic RAS gene variants, CDKN gene variants and other gene variants, aiming to provide novel directions for the evaluation of patients in terms of etiology.

Objective:To understand the reasons for non-adherence of pulmonary rehabilitation exercise in patients with acute exacerbation of COPD, and in order to provide theoretical and practical basis for improving patient adherence.Methods:Using qualitative phenomenological research methods, eighteen patients of non-adherence with exercise were conducted deeply semi-structured interviews, and the Colaizzi analysis was used for data analysis and extracting themes.Results:Seven themes were extracted: effect of subjective and objective symptoms, limited by comorbidity, negative mood disturbance, lack of perception effect, material environment in ward, cultural environment in ward and inappropriate form of exercise.Conclusions:Health care providers should value these obstacles and implement targeted measures, in order to achieve the goal of improving exercise adherence, so that more patients would complete pulmonary rehabilitation exercise.

Objective:To explore the current situation of understanding of medical and nursing interns on organization culture so as to provide a reference for the comprehensive training and management of trainees.Methods:From July 2019 to November 2019, this study selected full-time nursing or clinical medical interns in the First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University as subjects by purposive sampling. Semi-structured in-depth interview was used to totals of 19 medical and nursing interns with the method of phenomenological research in qualitative research. Giorgi phenomenological analysis method was applied to analysis induction and theme refinement of interview data.Results:A total of two themes of understanding of medical and nursing interns on organization culture were induced. The awareness theme of organization culture involved lack of cognition and understanding, blurry self-orientation and varying degrees of culture perception. The theme of coping with the cultural conflicts consisted of compromise and being in a pickle.Conclusions:Teaching hospitals should pay attention to the management of cognition, psychology and cultural construction, strengthen the information transmission of hospital organization culture, increase the sense of belonging and team of trainees while improving skill levels of trainees so as to help them be competent for the future work and with self-realization.

Medullary thyroid carcinoma (MTC) is an endocrine tumor originating from the parafollicular cells of the thyroid gland.The mutation of RET gene has been considered as the molecular basis of MTC.Different types of MTC have different RET mutation sites,and the corresponding clinical manifestations and prognosis are also very different.RET gene detection is helpful for individual accurate gene diagnosis,molecular risk assessment,individual analysis and early prevention management.Nowadays,targeted therapy for RET gene mutations in MTC has developed rapidly.Some of those drugs,which have been approved for clinical application,bring new hope for advanced MTC.