Objective To analyze the clinical characteristics of C-TI-RADS 3 thyroid nodules with a diameter greater than 2 cm and explore their correlation with gender,nodule ingredient,contralateral cancer presence,diffuse echo changes,TPOAB and TGAB.Methods A retrospective analysis was made on the clinical and pathological information of 94 patients with thyroid nodules who were admitted to our department from September 2022 to March 2023.All the patients underwent cytological and/or histopathological examinations.The proportions of TBS I category,benign tumors,low-risk tumors,and malignant tumors were calculated.The proportion of TBS type Ⅰ,benign tumors,low-risk tumors,and malignant tumors was quantified.Subsequently,a comparative analysis was conducted among the benign,low-risk,and malignant groups in terms of clinical characteristics including gender distribution,nodule composition,contralateral cancer occurrence,diffuse echo changes presence,as well as TPOAB and TGAB levels.Results Seven cases in TBS I category were excluded.Among the remaining 87 cases with confirmed pathology results for nodules,there were 72 benign cases(38 cytology cases and 34 histology cases),5 low-risk thyroid tumors(2 cytology cases and 3 histology cases),10 malignant cases(8 PTC cases,1 FTC case,and 1 MTC case).There was a significant difference in nodule ingredient(cystic/solid)between different pathological types(x2=10.369,P=0.006).However,no statistical significance was found in terms of gender,diffuse echo changes,contralateral cancer presence,TPOAB or TGAB(P＞0.05).Further analysis showed that the proportion of solid component was higher in low-risk tumors than in benign nodules(x2=9.571,P=0.002).No statistical significance was found between malignant nodules and low-risk nodules(x2=2.143,P=0.143),or between malignant nodules and benign nodules(x2=2.165,P=0.141).Conclusion Although TI-RADS 3 nodules are generally considered as potentially benign according to various versions of thyroid imaging reporting and data system,malignant nodules still account for a certain proportion.Attention should be paid to thyroid nodules with a typical ultrasonic signs,such as cystic nodules,thyroid follicular tumors and medullary thyroid carcinoma.Ultrasound guided fine needle aspiration cytopathology is necessary for evaluating benign and malignant nodules.It is necessary to pay attention to unsatisfactory or undiagnosable specimens to improve the accuracy of diagnosis.

Objective:To analyze the risk factors for central lymph node metastasis (CLNM) in patients with papillary thyroid cancer (PTC) aged 55 years and above, and to construct a predictive model with columnar graph.Methods:This retrospective study included 406 PTC patients aged 55 and above, treated at the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from Nov. 2019 to Feb. 2022. Data on demographic characteristics, disease features, and laboratory test results were collected. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to identify risk factors for CLNM and develop a clinical prediction model and nomogram.Results:The study involved 406 patients, divided into a modeling group (285 patients) and a validation group (121 patients). The predictive model identified independent risk factors for CLNM. In the modeling group, the model demonstrated a ROC AUC of 0.769, with 82.6% sensitivity, 63.0% specificity, and 67.7% accuracy. The validation group showed 66.7% sensitivity, 74.5% specificity, and 72.7% accuracy, with an AUC of 0.760. Hosmer-Lemeshow tests indicated good fit in both groups. Decision curve analysis confirmed the model's clinical decision-making value, showing better performance than traditional strategies and good generalizability and reliability.Conclusions:Sex, maximum tumor diameter, bilateral involvement of thyroid lobes, clinically evident cervical lymph nodes, and local invasion are independent predictive factors for CLNM in patients over 55 with papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). A clinical risk stratification nomogram model based on these risk factors demonstrates good predictive performance.

Objective To investigate whether cisplatin induces tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α)secretion in human head and neck squamous cell carcinoma(HNSCC)cells to trigger RIP1/RIP3/MLKL-dependent necroptosis of the cells.Methods HNSCC cell lines HN4 and SCC4 treated with cisplatin(CDDP)or the combined treatment with CDDP and z-VAD-fmk(a caspase inhibitor)or Nec-1(a necroptosis inhibitor)for 24 h were examined for changes in cell viability using CCK8 assay and expressions of caspase-8 and necroptosis pathway proteins(RIP1/RIP3/MLKL)using Western blotting.The changes in migration of the cells were assessed with cell scratch assay,and the expressions of epithelial-mesenchymal transition(EMT)marker proteins N-cadherin,vimentin,and E-cadherin as well as the expressions of NF-κB(p65)and TNF-α were detected with Western blotting.Results The IC50 of cisplatin was 10 μg/mL in HN4 cells and 15 μg/mL in SCC4 cells.Cisplatin treatment significantly decreased the expressions of caspase-8,N-cadherin and vimentin and increased the expressions of E-cadherin,the necroptosis pathway proteins(RIP1/RIP3/MLKL),TNF-α,and NF-κB(p65),and these changes were obviously inhibited by treatment with Nec-1.Cisplatin stimulation also significantly lowered migration of the cells,and this inhibitory effect was strongly attenuated by Nec-1 treatment.Conclusion Cisplatin activates nuclear factor-κB signaling in HNSCCs to promote TNF-α autocrine and induce RIP1/RIP3/MLKL-dependent necroptosis,thus leading to inhibition of cell proliferation.

Objective To investigate whether cisplatin induces tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α)secretion in human head and neck squamous cell carcinoma(HNSCC)cells to trigger RIP1/RIP3/MLKL-dependent necroptosis of the cells.Methods HNSCC cell lines HN4 and SCC4 treated with cisplatin(CDDP)or the combined treatment with CDDP and z-VAD-fmk(a caspase inhibitor)or Nec-1(a necroptosis inhibitor)for 24 h were examined for changes in cell viability using CCK8 assay and expressions of caspase-8 and necroptosis pathway proteins(RIP1/RIP3/MLKL)using Western blotting.The changes in migration of the cells were assessed with cell scratch assay,and the expressions of epithelial-mesenchymal transition(EMT)marker proteins N-cadherin,vimentin,and E-cadherin as well as the expressions of NF-κB(p65)and TNF-α were detected with Western blotting.Results The IC50 of cisplatin was 10 μg/mL in HN4 cells and 15 μg/mL in SCC4 cells.Cisplatin treatment significantly decreased the expressions of caspase-8,N-cadherin and vimentin and increased the expressions of E-cadherin,the necroptosis pathway proteins(RIP1/RIP3/MLKL),TNF-α,and NF-κB(p65),and these changes were obviously inhibited by treatment with Nec-1.Cisplatin stimulation also significantly lowered migration of the cells,and this inhibitory effect was strongly attenuated by Nec-1 treatment.Conclusion Cisplatin activates nuclear factor-κB signaling in HNSCCs to promote TNF-α autocrine and induce RIP1/RIP3/MLKL-dependent necroptosis,thus leading to inhibition of cell proliferation.

Objective:To investigate the risk factors of lower extremity deep venous thrombosis (LEDVT) in patients with sepsis during hospitalization in intensive care unit (ICU), and to construct a nomogram prediction model of LEDVT in sepsis patients in the ICU based on the critical care scores combined with inflammatory markers, and to validate its effectiveness in early prediction.Methods:726 sepsis patients admitted to the ICU of the Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical University from January 2015 to December 2021 were retrospectively included as the training set to construct the prediction model. In addition, 213 sepsis patients admitted to the ICU of the Affiliated Hospital of Jining Medical University from January 2022 to June 2023 were retrospectively included as the validation set to verify the performance of the prediction model. Clinical data of patients were collected, such as demographic information, vital signs at the time of admission to the ICU, underlying diseases, past history, various types of scores within 24 hours of admission to the ICU, the first laboratory indexes of admission to the ICU, lower extremity venous ultrasound results, treatment, and prognostic indexes. Lasso regression analysis was used to screen the influencing factors for the occurrence of LEDVT in sepsis patients, and the results of Logistic regression analysis were synthesized to construct a nomogram model. The nomogram model was evaluated by receiver operator characteristic curve (ROC curve), calibration curve, clinical impact curve (CIC) and decision curve analysis (DCA).Results:The incidence of LEDVT after ICU admission was 21.5% (156/726) in the training set of sepsis patients and 21.6% (46/213) in the validation set of sepsis patients. The baseline data of patients in both training and validation sets were comparable. Lasso regression analysis showed that seven independent variables were screened from 67 parameters to be associated with the occurrence of LEDVT in patients with sepsis. Logistic regression analysis showed that the age [odds ratio ( OR) = 1.03, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was 1.01 to 1.04, P < 0.001], body mass index (BMI: OR = 1.05, 95% CI was 1.01 to 1.09, P = 0.009), venous thromboembolism (VTE) score ( OR = 1.20, 95% CI was 1.11 to 1.29, P < 0.001), activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT: OR = 0.98, 95% CI was 0.97 to 0.99, P = 0.009), D-dimer ( OR = 1.03, 95% CI was 1.01 to 1.04, P < 0.001), skin or soft-tissue infection ( OR = 2.53, 95% CI was 1.29 to 4.98, P = 0.007), and femoral venous cannulation ( OR = 3.72, 95% CI was 2.50 to 5.54, P < 0.001) were the independent influences on the occurrence of LEDVT in patients with sepsis. The nomogram model was constructed by combining the above variables, and the ROC curve analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of the nomogram model for predicting the occurrence of LEDVT in patients with sepsis was 0.793 (95% CI was 0.746 to 0.841), and the AUC in the validation set was 0.844 (95% CI was 0.786 to 0.901). The calibration curve showed that its predicted probability was in good agreement with the actual probabilities were in good agreement, and both CIC and DCA curves suggested a favorable net clinical benefit. Conclusion:The nomogram model based on the critical illness scores combined with inflammatory markers can be used for early prediction of LEDVT in ICU sepsis patients, which helps clinicians to identify the risk factors for LEDVT in sepsis patients earlier, so as to achieve early treatment.

Objective:To improve the longevity genetic research study design by applying self-organizing maps to select a control group for longevity study.Methods:This study included the Han population aged 90 years and above or less than 80 years who have died (control group) from the natural population-based cohort formed by the fusion of the Chinese Chronic Diseases and Risk Factors Surveillance in 2013 and the China Death Surveillance System. The subjects who died of injury, infectious diseases, parasitic diseases, and malignant tumors were excluded. The self-organizing maps method, with multiple iterations and self-organizing clustering, was used to select similar factors among the population aged 90 years and above and the control group, including demographic characteristics, diseases, living habits, social behaviors, and mental and psychological factors. The study used PLINK 1.9 software to evaluate the quality of whole genome sequencing and to conduct logistic regression of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and longevity on autosomes. Q-Q plots were used to visualize the P value associated with SNPs and longevity. Results:There were 1 019 samples selected from the baseline of 177 099 survey participants for genome sequencing, including 517 in the longevity group and 502 in the control group. The longevity and the control groups are generally similar in smoking, drinking, diet, sleep duration, blood lipid level, and self-assessment oral health status but differ significantly in socio-economic status, physical activity time, BMI, and self-assessment health status. The whole genome sequencing results were controlled, and 4 618 216 SNPs were involved in association analysis. The Q-Q plot of longevity-related SNPs analysis results showed that the enrichment of P value 1e-4 was significantly lower than the expected P value, and significant signals were also detected among P<1e-7 regions. Conclusions:The self-organizing maps can comprehensively consider the influence of socioeconomic and behavioral risk factors and select longevity control samples among samples with actual age and cause of death in a large-scale natural population cohort to improve the efficiency of longevity genome association analysis. This study provides a methodological reference for nested case-control study sample selection from the large-scale natural population cohort.

Anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC) is a rare malignancy, accounting for 1%-2% of all thyroid cancers, however, ATC accounts for the majority of deaths from thyroid cancer. Currently, the main comprehensive treatments are surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy and immunotherapy. Based on the latest American Thyroid Association guidelines and the related literatures, we summarize the most reasonable and effective therapeutic strategies to improve the survival rate of patients with ATC as well as the quality of life.

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common arrhythmia, which can lead to thrombosis and increase the risk of a stroke or even death. In order to meet the need for a low false-negative rate (FNR) of the screening test in clinical application, a convolutional neural network with a low false-negative rate (LFNR-CNN) was proposed. Regularization coefficients were added to the cross-entropy loss function which could make the cost of positive and negative samples different, and the penalty for false negatives could be increased during network training. The inter-patient clinical database of 21 077 patients (CD-21077) collected from the large general hospital was used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. For the convolutional neural network (CNN) with the same structure, the improved loss function could reduce the FNR from 2.22% to 0.97% compared with the traditional cross-entropy loss function. The selected regularization coefficient could increase the sensitivity (SE) from 97.78% to 98.35%, and the accuracy (ACC) was 96.62%, which was an increase from 96.49%. The proposed algorithm can reduce the FNR without losing ACC, and reduce the possibility of missed diagnosis to avoid missing the best treatment period. Meanwhile, it provides a universal loss function for the clinical auxiliary diagnosis of other diseases.
Algorithms ; Atrial Fibrillation/diagnosis* ; Electrocardiography ; Humans ; Neural Networks, Computer ; Stroke

Objective:To evaluate the potential factors influencing the parathyroid autofluorescence intensity of near-infrared fluorescent (NIRF) and further value of NIRF in identifying the parathyroid during surgery.Methods:The clinical data of 51 patients who underwent thyroid or parathyroid surgery in the Department of Thyroid Surgery, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from April to June 2019 were retrospectively analyzed, including 16 males and 35 females, aged 18 to 74 years.The fluorescence intensity (FI) of the parathyroid glands, thyroid glands and background, and the number of parathyroid glands detected by NIRF and white light were measured. Variance analysis, two independent samples t test and Spearman rank correlation analysis were used to analyze the relationship between standardized parathyroid FI and clinical variables. Chi square test was used to analyze the difference of parathyroid detection rate between NIRF and white light. Results:In the 51 patients, the mean standardized parathyroid FI was greater than the standardized thyroid FI (1.72 ± 0.68 vs. 1.25 ± 0.40, t=6.555, P<0.001). The standardized parathyroid FI was not associated with gender, age, operation type, BMI, preoperative serum Ca 2+, parathyroid hormone and calcitonin (all P>0.05), but it was associated with disease type ( F=2.636, P<0.05). The mean standardized parathyroid FI of SHPT was lower than that of PTC, PTC with nodular goiter or NG(0.70±0.28 vs. 1.86±0.70, 1.69±0.49, 1.64±0.44, t value was 3.023, -1.129,-2.019, respectively, all P<0.05). There was no difference in the standardized parathyroid FI between SHPT and PHPT (1.34±0.18, t=1.218, P>0.05). There was no difference in standardized parathyroid FI between PHPT, PTC, NG, and PTC with NG(all P>0.05). Except for 3 cases of SHPT, 117 parathyroid glands were detected by NIRF and 101 parathyroid glands were detected by white light. The detection rate of parathyroid glands detected by NIRF was higher than that detected by white light (98.32% vs. 84.87%, χ 2=13.974, P<0.001). In SHPT, the detection rate of parathyroid gland by NIRF was 25.00%. Conclusions:Except SHPT, parathyroid FI is not affected by other clinical variables. NIRF can improve the detection rate of parathyroid glands during operation.

Objective To investigate the application effect of glucocorticoids on perioperative period of complicated thyroid cancer surgery.Methods All patients were from Department of Thyroid Surgery,the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University.A total of 373 patients with thyroid surgery longer than 3 hours from Jan.2017 to Dec.2017 were as the control group.386 patients with thyroid surgery longer than 3 hours from Jan.2018 to Dec.2018 were included in the observation group.Patients in the control group were not treated with glucocorticoids during perioperative period,and patients in the observation group were treated with glucocorticoids during perioperative period.Several factors were compared between the two groups,including postoperative drain removal time,postoperative hospitalization time,postoperative complication rate,the incidence of postoperative infection and delayed wound healing.Results The postoperative drain removal time [(2.5±0.42) vs (3.2±0.63),t=25.72,P＜0.001)] and the postoperative hospitalization time [(3.6±0.57) vs (4.8±0.71),t=18.07,P＜0.001)] in the observation group was shorter than in the control group.The incidence of complications in the observation group was lower than that in the control group,such as postoperative coarse respiratory sounds (3.1％ vs 6.7％,x2=4.790,P=0.029),mild to moderate dyspnea (1.0％ vs 3.2％,x2=4.191,P=0.041),cough (8.3％ vs 14.2％,x2=5.366,P=0.021),sore throat (4.9％ vs 9.4％,x2=4.952,P=0.026),headache (8.8％ vs 11.5％,x2=4.392,P=0.036) and nausea (3.6％ vs 8.6％,x2=7.235,P=0.007),however,the incidence of hoarseness between the two groups was statistically significant (1.6％ vs 2.1％,x2=0.352,P=0.553).There was no significant difference in the incidence of postoperative infection (2 cases vs 1 case,x2=0.299,P=0.585) or delayed wound healing (3 cases vs 3 cases,x2=0.002,P=0.964) between the two groups.Conclusion The application of glucocorticoids in patients with complicated thyroid cancer surgery can effectively reduce the incidence of complications and shorten the hospitalization time of patients.