Surgery-based multidisciplinary comprehensive treatment is the preferred treatment strategy for local advanced esophageal cancer. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy and neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy have been recommended by the Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology (CSCO) guideline. With the advent of immunotherapy, neoadjuvant immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy has received much attention, and the first phase Ⅲ study has also confirmed that neoadjuvant immunotherapy combined chemotherapy is a promising treatment option. This article will review the recent advances and hot spots of neoadjuvant immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy.

Objective:To disclose phylogenetic and antigenic characteristics of hemagglutinin (HA) gene of influenza B virus (Victoria) (BV) in the 2023-2024 influenza surveillance season in Beijing, and understand the matching with influenza vaccine component strain.Methods:Pharyngeal swab specimens from influenza like-illness (ILI) in the 2023-2024 influenza surveillance season were collected from surveillance network labs in Beijing and BV strains were isolated through MDCK or chicken embryo culture. After extracting nucleic acid, HA gene was amplified and sequenced. The nucleotide and amino acid sequence identity were conducted and the maximum likelihood method in Mega 5.0 software was used to construct the phylogenetic tree of HA gene. N-glycosylation sites of HA were performed online. Furthermore, three-dimensional structure of HA was available from SWISS-MODEL homologous modeling. Hemagglutination inhibition (HI) tests were performed to analyze antigenic characteristics of HA of BV strains.Results:Fifty-four BV strains were randomly selected to be analyzed further. Compared with the HA gene of this influenza season vaccine strain (B/Austria/1359417/2021), there are three amino acid mutations among all BV strains, two of which are located in two different antigenic determinants. Furthermore, the phylogenetic tree analysis revealed that only one subgroup of 1A.3a.2 was circulating simultaneously. All BV strains are located in Clade 1A.3a.2 subgroup, and in the same subgroup with that of the vaccine component BV strain in 2023-2024. All BV strains have the same glycosylation sites as that of the vaccine component BV strain in 2023-2024. Antigenic analysis showed that all BV strains were antigenically similar with its vaccine strain.Conclusions:In the 2023-2024 influenza surveillance season, the prevalent BV strains in the population in Beijing city are located in Clade 1A. 3a. 2 subgroup. The antigen matching between BV epidemic strains and vaccine BV components is relatively high during this surveillance season.

Severe acute pancreatitis(SAP)is a critical condition in general surgery settings,characterized by high mortality and poor prognosis.On February 28,2024,the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery at the First Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University admitted a 36-year-old male patient.The patient presented with"upper abdominal pain accompanied by fever for three months and jaundice of the skin and sclera for one week."Physical examination revealed 11 puncture tubes,and a palpable mass measuring 3 cm × 5 cm in the upper abdomen.Enhanced CT and magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography indicated acute pancreatitis.The patient was diagnosed with"SAP,infectious pancreatic necrosis,and biliary stenosis."He had severe abdominal infection and complex postoperative complications,making treatment challenging.Consequently,a multidisciplinary team(MDT)consultation was initiated.After three rounds of MDT consulfation and freating,the patient ultimately recovered successfully and was discharged.This article reviews the MDT treatment process for this patient and summarizes the characteristics of this condition based on relevant literature to provide insights and experience for clinical practice.

Objective:To investigate the correlation between triglyceride-glucose (TyG) index on admission and unfavorable outcomes of patients with moderate-to-severe traumatic brain injury (msTBI) at 6 months postinjury.Methods:A retrospective cohort study was conducted to analyze the clinical data of 277 patients with msTBI admitted to Affiliated Jiangyin Hospital of Nantong University from January 2019 to December 2022, including 208 males and 69 females, aged 18-88 years [(57.0±15.1)years]. Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores on admission were 3-8 points in 168 patients and 9-12 points in 109. According to the Glasgow Outcome Scale-Extended (GOSE) assessment at 6 months after injury, there were 121 patients with unfavorable outcomes (GOSE≤4 points) and 156 with favorable outcomes (GOSE≥5 points). The following indicators of the patients were recorded, including gender, age, history of diabetes, cause of injury, admission GCS, GCS motor score (GCSM), pupillary light reflex, worst Marshall CT classification within the first 24 hours after admission, admission TyG index, Mean Amplitude of Glycemic Excursions (MAGE) within 24 hours after admission, GCSM decline≥2 points within 72 hours after admission, craniotomy or not after admission, and prognosis, etc. TyG index served as the exposure variable focused in this study, which was calculated with fasting triglycerides and fasting blood glucose within 24 hours after admission. The 6-month prognosis of the patients was designated as the outcome variable of the study. After the patients were divided into different groups according to the three quantiles of the TyG index and unfavorable or favorable outcomes, the univariate analysis was conducted on watch variables, and variables with statistically significant differences were included in directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) for further identification of confounding variables. Factors which were found with no statistical significance in the univariate analysis but might affect insulin resistance after injury according to the authors′ previous researches were also included in the DAGs analysis. Three Logistic regression models were designed (Model 1 without correction, Model 2 with core variables of International Mission for Prognosis and Analysis of Clinical Trials in Traumatic Brain Injury (IMPACT) corrected, and Model 3 with confounding variables screened by DAGs corrected) to analyze whether the TyG index was an independent risk factor for the prognosis of msTBI patients. The optimal Logistic regression model was selected and then restricted cubic spline (RCS) was employed to investigate the relationship between the TyG index and the unfavorable outcomes.Results:The univariate analysis suggested that there were significant differences in gender, history of diabetes, MAGE, GCSM decline, and prognosis among the three quantiles of the TyG index ( P<0.05 or 0.01). Significant differences in age, history of diabetes, GCSM, pupillary light reflex, Marshall CT classification, TyG index, MAGE and GCSM decline were observed between unfavorable and favorable outcome groups ( P<0.05 or 0.01). The results of Logistic regression analysis that identified the confounding variables that influenced the correlation between the TyG index and unfavorable prognosis with DAGs suggested that a high TyG index level was significantly correlated with unfavorable outcomes in msTBI patients. Moreover, Model 3 that was corrected with confounding variables screened by DAGs had an optimal goodness-of-fit and adaptability. Model 3-based further RCS analysis indicated that the risk of unfavorable outcomes following msTBI may increase approximately linearly with the increase in TyG index within a certain range (TyG index<9.79). Conclusions:A high TyG index level on admission is the identified as an independent risk factor for unfavorable outcomes of patients with msTBI at 6 months postinjury. As the TyG index level increases, the risk of unfavorable outcomes also rises and may show a linear increasing trend within a certain range (TyG index<9.79).

Background/Aims: The accuracy of endosonographers in diagnosing gastric subepithelial lesions (SELs) using endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) is influenced by experience and subjectivity. Artificial intelligence (AI) has achieved remarkable development in this field. This study aimed to develop an AI-based EUS diagnostic model for the diagnosis of SELs, and evaluated its efficacy with external validation. Methods: We developed the EUS-AI model with ResNeSt50 using EUS images from two hospitals to predict the histopathology of the gastric SELs originating from muscularis propria. The diagnostic performance of the model was also validated using EUS images obtained from four other hospitals. Results: A total of 2,057 images from 367 patients (375 SELs) were chosen to build the models, and 914 images from 106 patients (108 SELs) were chosen for external validation. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy of the model for differentiating gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs) and non-GISTs in the external validation sets by images were 82.01%, 68.22%, 86.77%, 59.86%, and 78.12%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, and accuracy in the external validation set by tumors were 83.75%, 71.43%, 89.33%, 60.61%, and 80.56%, respectively. The EUS-AI model showed better performance (especially specificity) than some endosonographers.The model helped improve the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of certain endosonographers. Conclusions We developed an EUS-AI model to classify gastric SELs originating from muscularis propria into GISTs and non-GISTs with good accuracy. The model may help improve the diagnostic performance of endosonographers. Further work is required to develop a multi-modal EUS-AI system.

Objective:To investigate the phylogenetic and antigenic characteristics of hemagglutinin (HA) gene of influenza B/Victoria lineage (BV) viruses in Beijing during the 2021-2022 influenza surveillance season, and to analyze whether the circulating BV viruses match the vaccine strain.Methods:Pharyngeal swab specimens from influenza like-illness (ILI) cases in the 2021-2022 influenza surveillance season were collected from surveillance network labs in Beijing and cultured in MDCK cells and chicken embryo to isolate BV viruses. Nucleic acids of the viruses were extracted, and the HA gene was amplified and sequenced. The nucleotide and amino acid sequence identity of the HA gene was analyzed using MEGA5.0 software. A phylogenetic tree of HA gene was constructed using the maximum likelihood method. The N-glycosylation sites in HA were predicted online. Three-dimensional structure of HA was constructed using SWISS-MODEL homologous modeling. Hemagglutination inhibition (HI) test was performed to analyze the antigenicity of BV viruses.Results:A total of 402 BV viruses were collected and 58 strains with full-length HA gene sequences were chosen for further analysis. Compared with the HA gene of this year′s vaccine strain (B/Washington/02/2019), there were 27 amino acid mutations, 11 of which were located in four different antigenic determinants. The phylogenetic analysis revealed that three subgroups of 1A.3, 1A.3a1, and 1A.3a2 co-circulated in Beijing with 54 strains (54/58, 93.10%) clustered to the Clade 1A.3a2, two strains (2/58, 3.45%) clustered to the Clade 1A.3a1, and two strains (2/58, 3.45%) in the same subgroup (Clade 1A.3) as the vaccine component BV strain in 2021-2022. Compared with the vaccine strain (B/Washington/02/2019), two BV strains had an additional N-glycosylation site at residue 197, while the other 56 strains showed no change in N-glycosylation sites. Antigenic analysis showed that 35 BV strains (35/58, 60.34%) were antigenically similar to the vaccine strain and 23 strains (23/58, 39.66%) were low-response strains.Conclusions:Three subgroups of BV viruses co-circulated in Beijing during the 2021-2022 influenza surveillance season. The predominant subgroup was Clade 1A.3a2 (93.10%), showing a certain genetic distance with the vaccine strain (B/Washington/02/2019). Nearly 40% (39.66%) of the viruses were low-response strains. This study indicated that continuous monitoring of the variations of influenza epidemic strains and timely providing laboratory basis for screening vaccine component strains were the basic technical guarantee for coping with influenza pandemic.

Objective:To understand the epidemic situation of Redondoviridae in Beijing and analyze its epidemiologic characteristics.Methods:Pharyngeal swab samples of healthy people and patients with acute respiratory infection in Beijing, including influenza like cases and severe acute respiratory infection (SARI) cases in hospitals were collected. Real time PCR was used to detect the nucleic acid of Redondoviridae. The positive samples were amplified and sequenced to analyze their species. The age and sex distribution of patients and species distribution of Redondoviridae were obtained through statistical analysis. Multiplex PCR was used to detect other common respiratory pathogens in the positive samples of Redondoviridae in influenza like cases and SARI cases, and the pathogenicity of Redondoviridae was analyzed.Results:The positive rates of Redondoviridae in healthy people and acute respiratory infection cases were 20.48% (189/923) and 11.23% (43/390), respectively, with a statistically significant difference ( P<0.05). The positive rate of male was higher than that of female in the healthy population, and the positive rate of the elderly group was higher than that of the adult group and the underage group, with a statistically significant difference ( P<0.05). The positive rate of male patients with acute respiratory tract infection was higher than that of female patients, but there was no significant difference. The proportion of Vientovirus in the positive samples of Redondoviridae was higher than that of Brisavirus, and the difference was statistically significant ( P<0.05). Among the throat swabs of respiratory tract infection cases, 43 were positive for Redondoviridae, of whom 24 were not detected for other pathogens. Conclusions:Redondoviridae widely exists in healthy people of all age groups in Beijing, and is also found in acute respiratory infection cases. The positive rate of Redondoviridae is different in different ages and genders. Both Vientovirus and Brisavirus were detected, and the proportion of Vientovirus was significantly higher than Brisavirus.

Objective:To characterize the epidemic of influenza in Beijing from 2022 to 2023 and the variation of gene and antigenicity of hemagglutinin (HA) of influenza A H3N2 virus, so as to provide scientific basis for influenza prevention and control in Beijing.Methods:Statistical analysis was carried out on the result of influenza pathogenic monitoring in Beijing from week 14, 2022 to week 20, 2023, and 79 strains of influenza A H3N2 virus were selected at different time and population sources, and their genetic variation and evolution characteristics were analyzed through HA gene amplification sequencing and antigenicity analysis.Results:From week 14, 2022 to week 20, 2023, 24 244 throat swabs of influenza like cases were collected in Beijing, and 4 987 influenza virus nucleic acid positive cases were detected, including 2 749 influenza A H3N2 positive cases, with a detection rate of 11.34%. Among the 79 strains, 50 strains (63.29%) showed low response, 94.44% of the strains from August to November 2022 had low response, and 54.10% of the strains from February to March 2023 had low response, with a statistically significant difference ( χ2=8.079, P=0.004). Compared with the vaccine strain A/Darwin/9/2021, the HA gene sequence of 79 strains of influenza A H3N2 showed nucleotide similarity of 97.47% to 98.47% and amino acid similarity of 97.05% to 98.17%. Genetic evolution analysis showed that the 18 strains isolated from August to November 2022 were all distributed in the 3C.2a1b.2a.1a.1 branch, while the 61 strains isolated from February to March 2023 all belonged to the 3C.2a1b.2a.3a.1 branch. Compared with the vaccine strain, there were multiple site mutations distributed at multiple antigenic determinants and receptor binding sites in A, B, C, D, and E. All strains had potential glycosylation sites of 8NST, 22NGT, 38NAT, 45NSS, 63NCT, 126NWT, 133NGT, 246NST, 285NGS, 483NET, while one strain missed 165NVT glycosylation sites; 55 strains between February and March 2023 missed 122NES glycosylation sites. Conclusions:The HA gene locus of influenza A H3N2 virus detected in Beijing from week 14, 2022 to week 20, 2023 showed multiple mutations, continuous monitoring of this subtype variation is crucial.

Objective     To explore the causes of conversion to thoracotomy in patients with minimally invasive esophagectomy (MIE) in a surgical team, and to obtain a deeper understanding of the timing of conversion in MIE. Methods     The clinical data of patients who underwent MIE between September 9, 2011 and February 12, 2022 by a single surgical team in the Department of Thoracic Surgery of the Fourth Hospital of Hebei Medical University were retrospectively analyzed. The main influencing factors and perioperative mortality of patients who converted to thoracotomy in this group were analyzed. Results     In the cohort of 791 consecutive patients with MIE, there were 520 males and 271 females, including 29 patients of multiple esophageal cancer, 156 patients of upper thoracic cancer, 524 patients of middle thoracic cancer, and 82 patients of lower thoracic cancer. And 46 patients were converted to thoracotomy for different causes. The main causes for thoracotomy were advanced stage tumor (26 patients), anesthesia-related factors (5 patients), extensive thoracic adhesions (6 patients), and accidental injury of important structures (8 patients). There was a statistical difference in the distribution of tumor locations between patients who converted to thoracotomy and the MIE patients (P<0.05). The proportion of multiple and upper thoracic cancer in patients who converted to thoracotomy was higher than that in the MIE patients, while the proportion of lower thoracic cancer was lower than that in the MIE patients. The perioperative mortality of the thoracotomy patients was not significantly different from that of the MIE patients (P=1.000). Conclusion     In MIE, advanced-stage tumor, anesthesia-related factors,extensive thoracic adhesions, and accidental injury of important structures are the main causes of conversion to thoracotomy. The rate varies at different tumor locations. Intraoperative conversion to thoracotomy does not affect the perioperative mortality of MIE.

Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) is one of the most common causes of drug-resistant epilepsy. Dysmorphic neurons are the major histopathological feature of type II FCD, but their role in seizure genesis in FCD is unclear. Here we performed whole-cell patch-clamp recording and morphological reconstruction of cortical principal neurons in postsurgical brain tissue from drug-resistant epilepsy patients. Quantitative analyses revealed distinct morphological and electrophysiological characteristics of the upper layer dysmorphic neurons in type II FCD, including an enlarged soma, aberrant dendritic arbors, increased current injection for rheobase action potential firing, and reduced action potential firing frequency. Intriguingly, the upper layer dysmorphic neurons received decreased glutamatergic and increased GABAergic synaptic inputs that were coupled with upregulation of the Na⁺-K⁺-Cl^- cotransporter. In addition, we found a depolarizing shift of the GABA reversal potential in the CamKII-cre::PTEN^flox/flox mouse model of drug-resistant epilepsy, suggesting that enhanced GABAergic inputs might depolarize dysmorphic neurons. Thus, imbalance of synaptic excitation and inhibition of dysmorphic neurons may contribute to seizure genesis in type II FCD.
Animals ; Drug Resistant Epilepsy/surgery* ; Epilepsy/pathology* ; Malformations of Cortical Development/pathology* ; Malformations of Cortical Development, Group I ; Mice ; Neurons/pathology* ; Seizures/pathology*