BACKGROUND: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a common cardiac arrhythmia in the elderly. This study aimed to evaluate urban-rural disparities in its prevalence and management in elderly Chinese. METHODS: Consecutive participants aged ≥ 65 years attending outpatient clinics were enrolled for AF screening using handheld single-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) from April 2017 to December 2022. Each ECG rhythm strip was reviewed from the research team. AF or uninterpretable single-lead ECGs were referred for 12-lead ECG. Primary study outcome comparison was between rural and urban areas for the prevalence of AF. The Student's t-test was used to compare mean values of clinical characteristics between rural and urban participants, while the Pearson's chi-square test was used to compare between-group proportions. Multivariate stepwise logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate the association between AF and various patient characteristics. RESULTS: The 29,166 study participants included 13,253 men (45.4%) and had a mean age of 72.2 years. The 7073 rural participants differed significantly (P ≤ 0.02) from the 22,093 urban participants in several major characteristics, such as older age, greater body mass index, and so on. The overall prevalence of AF was 4.6% (n = 1347). AF was more prevalent in 7073 rural participants than 22,093 urban participants (5.6% vs. 4.3%, P < 0.01), before and after adjustment for age, body mass index, blood pressure, pulse rate, cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption and prior medical history. Multivariate logistic regression analysis identified overweight/obesity (OR = 1.35, 95% CI: 1.17-1.54) in urban areas and cigarette smoking (OR = 1.62, 95% CI: 1.20-2.17) and alcohol consumption (OR = 1.42, 95% CI: 1.04-1.93) in rural areas as specific risk factors for prevalent AF. In patients with known AF in urban areas (n = 781) and rural areas (n = 338), 60.6% and 45.9%, respectively, received AF treatment (P < 0.01), and only 22.4% and 17.2%, respectively, received anticoagulation therapy (P = 0.05). CONCLUSIONS In China, there are urban-rural disparities in AF in the elderly, with a higher prevalence and worse management in rural areas than urban areas. Our study findings provide insight for health policymakers to consider urban-rural disparity in the prevention and treatment of AF.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the potential effects and mechanisms of Liang-Ge-San (LGS) for the treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) through network pharmacology analysis and to verify LGS activity through biological experiments. METHODS: The key ingredients of LGS and related targets were obtained from the Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology Database and Analysis Platform. ARDS-related targets were selected from GeneCards and DisGeNET databases. Gene Ontology and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes enrichment analyses were performed using the Metascape Database. Molecular docking analysis was used to confirm the binding affinity of the core compounds with key therapeutic targets. Finally, the effects of LGS on key signaling pathways and biological processes were determined by in vitro and in vivo experiments. RESULTS: A total of LGS-related targets and 496 ARDS-related targets were obtained from the databases. Network pharmacological analysis suggested that LGS could treat ARDS based on the following information: LGS ingredients luteolin, wogonin, and baicalein may be potential candidate agents. Mitogen-activated protein kinase 14 (MAPK14), recombinant V-Rel reticuloendotheliosis viral oncogene homolog A (RELA), and tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) may be potential therapeutic targets. Reactive oxygen species metabolic process and the apoptotic signaling pathway were the main biological processes. The p38MAPK/NF-κ B signaling pathway might be the key signaling pathway activated by LGS against ARDS. Moreover, molecular docking demonstrated that luteolin, wogonin, and baicalein had a good binding affinity with MAPK14, RELA, and TNF α. In vitro experiments, LGS inhibited the expression and entry of p38 and p65 into the nucleation in human bronchial epithelial cells (HBE) cells induced by LPS, inhibited the inflammatory response and oxidative stress response, and inhibited HBE cell apoptosis (P<0.05 or P<0.01). In vivo experiments, LGS improved lung injury caused by ligation and puncture, reduced inflammatory responses, and inhibited the activation of p38MAPK and p65 (P<0.05 or P<0.01). CONCLUSION LGS could reduce reactive oxygen species and inflammatory cytokine production by inhibiting p38MAPK/NF-κ B signaling pathway, thus reducing apoptosis and attenuating ARDS.
Drugs, Chinese Herbal/pharmacology* ; Respiratory Distress Syndrome/enzymology* ; p38 Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases/metabolism* ; NF-kappa B/metabolism* ; Animals ; Signal Transduction/drug effects* ; Molecular Docking Simulation ; Humans ; Male ; Network Pharmacology ; Apoptosis/drug effects* ; Mice

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the anti-inflammatory effect of rutaecarpine (RUT) on monosodium urate crystal (MSU)-induced murine peritonitis in mice and further explored the underlying mechanism of RUT in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)/MSU-induced gout model in vitro. METHODS: In MSU-induced mice, 36 male C57BL/6 mice were randomly divided into 6 groups of 8 mice each group, including the control group, model group, RUT low-, medium-, and high-doses groups, and prednisone acetate group. The mice in each group were orally administered the corresponding drugs or vehicle once a day for 7 consecutive days. The gout inflammation model was established by intraperitoneal injection of MSU to evaluate the anti-gout inflammatory effects of RUT. Then the proinflammatory cytokines were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and the proportions of infiltrating neutrophils cytokines were detected by flow cytometry. In LPS/MSU-treated or untreated THP-1 macrophages, cell viability was observed by cell counting kit 8 and proinflammatory cytokines were measured by ELISA. The percentage of pyroptotic cells were detected by flow cytometry. Respectively, the mRNA and protein levels were measured by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) and Western blot, the nuclear translocation of nuclear factor κB (NF-κB) p65 was observed by laser confocal imaging. Additionally, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and molecular docking were applied to validate the binding ability of RUT components to tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) targets. RESULTS: RUT reduced the levels of infiltrating neutrophils and monocytes and decreased the levels of the proinflammatory cytokines interleukin 1β (IL-1β) and interleukin 6 (IL-6, all P<0.01). In vitro, RUT reduced the production of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α. In addition, RT-PCR revealed the inhibitory effects of RUT on the mRNA levels of IL-1β, IL-6, cyclooxygenase-2 and TNF-α (P<0.05 or P<0.01). Mechanistically, RUT markedly reduced protein expressions of tumor necrosis factor receptor (TNFR), phospho-mitogen-activated protein kinase (p-MAPK), phospho-extracellular signal-regulated kinase, phospho-c-Jun N-terminal kinase, phospho-NF-κB, phospho-kinase α/β, NOD-like receptor thermal protein domain associated protein 3 (NLRPS), cleaved-cysteinyl aspartate specific proteinase-1 and cleaved-gasdermin D in macrophages (P<0.05 or P<0.01). Molecularly, SPR revealed that RUT bound to TNF-α with a calculated equilibrium dissociation constant of 31.7 µmol/L. Molecular docking further confirmed that RUT could interact directly with the TNF-α protein via hydrogen bonding, van der Waals interactions, and carbon-hydrogen bonding. CONCLUSION RUT alleviated MSU-induced peritonitis and inhibited the TNFR1-MAPK/NF-κB and NLRP3 inflammasome signaling pathway to attenuate gouty inflammation induced by LPS/MSU in THP-1 macrophages, suggesting that RUT could be a potential therapeutic candidate for gout.
Animals ; NF-kappa B/metabolism* ; Male ; Indole Alkaloids/therapeutic use* ; Signal Transduction/drug effects* ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Inflammation/complications* ; Uric Acid ; Quinazolines/therapeutic use* ; NLR Family, Pyrin Domain-Containing 3 Protein/metabolism* ; Humans ; Gout/chemically induced* ; Inflammasomes/metabolism* ; Cytokines/metabolism* ; THP-1 Cells ; Mitogen-Activated Protein Kinases/metabolism* ; Mice ; Molecular Docking Simulation ; Lipopolysaccharides ; Quinazolinones

Objective To introduce the concepts and principles of the win ratio method and to analyze it in the context of a case study of a clinical trial in cerebrovascular disease.Methods Based on the study of clopidogrel with aspirin in high risk patients with acute non disabling cerebrovascular events 2,and key prognostic factors,the outcome events were defined sequentially as ① time to death within 90 d,② time to recurrence of ischemic stroke within 90 d,③ time to moderate-to-severe hemorrhage within 90 d.Using clopidogrel combined with aspirin as the reference group,the winning ratio(Rw)of ticagrelor combined with aspirin was analyzed by the win ratio method,and the 95% confidence interval(CI)of Rw was estimated by the Bootstrap method and compared with the hazard ratio(HR)calculated by the competing risk model.Results When only fatal events were considered,the win ratio method suggested that the ticagrelor group was significantly better than the clopidogrel group,Rw=2.00(95% CI:1.52-2.47),and after stepwise inclusion of ischemic stroke and moderate-to-severe hemorrhage recurrence,the win ratio method yielded a value of 1.29(95% CI:1.25-1.57),and the HR value from Fine and Gray competing risk regression was 0.78(95% CI:0.65-0.95),both of which indicated that the efficacy of the ticagrelor group was superior to that of the clopidogrel group.Conclusion The win ratio method can be used to analyze clinical trials with composite endpoints after prioritizing multiple outcome variables,showing the advantages of win ratio and its promising application in cerebrovascular disease research.

BACKGROUND: Disease-modifying therapies have been approved for the treatment of relapsing multiple sclerosis (RMS). The present study aims to examine the safety of teriflunomide in Chinese patients with RMS. METHODS: This non-randomized, multi-center, 24-week, prospective study enrolled RMS patients with variant (c.421C>A) or wild type ABCG2 who received once-daily oral teriflunomide 14 mg. The primary endpoint was the relationship between ABCG2 polymorphisms and teriflunomide exposure over 24 weeks. Safety was assessed over the 24-week treatment with teriflunomide. RESULTS: Eighty-two patients were assigned to variant ( n  = 42) and wild type groups ( n  = 40), respectively. Geometric mean and geometric standard deviation (SD) of pre-dose concentration (variant, 54.9 [38.0] μg/mL; wild type, 49.1 [32.0] μg/mL) and area under plasma concentration-time curve over a dosing interval (AUC tau ) (variant, 1731.3 [769.0] μg∙h/mL; wild type, 1564.5 [1053.0] μg∙h/mL) values at steady state were approximately similar between the two groups. Safety profile was similar and well tolerated across variant and wild type groups in terms of rates of treatment emergent adverse events (TEAE), treatment-related TEAE, grade ≥3 TEAE, and serious adverse events (AEs). No new specific safety concerns or deaths were reported in the study. CONCLUSION: ABCG2 polymorphisms did not affect the steady-state exposure of teriflunomide, suggesting a similar efficacy and safety profile between variant and wild type RMS patients. REGISTRATION NCT04410965, https://clinicaltrials.gov .
Humans ; Crotonates/adverse effects* ; Toluidines/adverse effects* ; Nitriles ; Hydroxybutyrates ; Female ; Male ; Adult ; ATP Binding Cassette Transporter, Subfamily G, Member 2/genetics* ; Middle Aged ; Multiple Sclerosis, Relapsing-Remitting/genetics* ; Prospective Studies ; Young Adult ; Neoplasm Proteins/genetics* ; East Asian People

Purpose This study aims to investigate the clinicopathological features of diffuse pulmonary menin-gotheliomatosis(DPM).Methods The clinical data of 10 patients with DPM undergoing video-assisted thoracic sur-gery(VATS)were collected,and their clinical and pathological characteristics were analyzed using immunohistochem-istry.Results The detection rate of DPM was 1.19‰,with 90％of the patients being female.DPM predominantly occurred in the age range of 40-60 years,with an average age at diagnosis of 50.7 years.Most patients had no smok-ing history.Pathological diagnosis combined with imaging findings was the main method for diagnosing DPM.80％of the patients were prone to concurrent early-stage invasive pulmonary adenocarcinoma.Laboratory indicators,including pulmonary function,were generally normal.Chest CT showed diffuse multiple ground-glass opacity or cystic nodules in both lungs,with the number of nodules in both lungs ranging from dozens to hundreds,and the maximum diameter of the nodules was 2-6 mm.The median volume and CT value of the pulmonary nodules were 35.32 mm3 and-566 HU,respectively.Pathological features mainly included multiple meningothelial-like nodules observed under the micro-scope.Immunophenotypically,CD56,EMA,PR,and vimentin were often positive.Conclusion DPM is a rare lung disease with no obvious clinical symptoms,and is more common in middle-aged and elderly women.Diffuse multiple nodules in both lungs are its main imaging features.Most DPM patients are complicated with lung adenocarcinoma,and regular follow-up is recommended.

Objective:This study applies an integrated SWOT-CLPV framework combined with stakeholder analysis to systematically assess the strengths,weaknesses,opportunities,and threats of China's disease control inspector system,while identifying its control factors,leverage points,key problems,and vulnerabilities.Methods:Drawing on literature review,policy document analysis,and expert interviews with seven public health professionals,we extracted and categorized SWOT elements.A CLPV interaction analysis was conducted alongside stakeholder mapping to evaluate internal dynamics and systemic risks.Results:The inspector system demonstrates strengths in policy innovation and medical-public health integration,with external opportunities stemming from rising public health awareness and digital health advancements.However,the system faces weak endogenous momentum,limited leverage,and prominent control constraints and problem-prone areas,especially among grassroots institutions and inspectors themselves.Cross-sectoral coordination barriers and uneven local implementation contribute to significant institutional vulnerabilities.Conclusion:To enhance implementation and resilience,the system requires capacity building for key actors,improved governance structures,incentive and evaluation reforms,and strengthened coordination mechanisms to support the sustained and adaptive development of public health supervision.

A multi-layer feature attention enhanced network is proposed to further improve the diagnostic accuracy of the severity of diabetic retinopathy.To address the inconsistent expression of global and local features when processing diabetic retinopathy images,a dual-branch parallel model combining ResNet-50 and DeiT-S is employed as the backbone architecture,and a feature fusion module is designed at the end of the network.Concurrently,a multi-scale location awareness enhancement module is developed to extract multi-scale information through dilated convolution with positional attention mechanism for enhancing the feature representation of lesions in fundus images,and a local feature enhancement module is constructed to strengthen the model's capability in extracting local information,thus improving model's capability to identify small lesions and minor changes.The experimental results show that the proposed multi-layer feature attention enhanced network achieves an accuracy of 87.61%,exhibiting excellent classification performance.This advancement provides a strong support for further development of diabetic retinopathy detection technology.

Purpose This study aims to investigate the clinicopathological features of diffuse pulmonary menin-gotheliomatosis(DPM).Methods The clinical data of 10 patients with DPM undergoing video-assisted thoracic sur-gery(VATS)were collected,and their clinical and pathological characteristics were analyzed using immunohistochem-istry.Results The detection rate of DPM was 1.19‰,with 90％of the patients being female.DPM predominantly occurred in the age range of 40-60 years,with an average age at diagnosis of 50.7 years.Most patients had no smok-ing history.Pathological diagnosis combined with imaging findings was the main method for diagnosing DPM.80％of the patients were prone to concurrent early-stage invasive pulmonary adenocarcinoma.Laboratory indicators,including pulmonary function,were generally normal.Chest CT showed diffuse multiple ground-glass opacity or cystic nodules in both lungs,with the number of nodules in both lungs ranging from dozens to hundreds,and the maximum diameter of the nodules was 2-6 mm.The median volume and CT value of the pulmonary nodules were 35.32 mm3 and-566 HU,respectively.Pathological features mainly included multiple meningothelial-like nodules observed under the micro-scope.Immunophenotypically,CD56,EMA,PR,and vimentin were often positive.Conclusion DPM is a rare lung disease with no obvious clinical symptoms,and is more common in middle-aged and elderly women.Diffuse multiple nodules in both lungs are its main imaging features.Most DPM patients are complicated with lung adenocarcinoma,and regular follow-up is recommended.

Objective To introduce the concepts and principles of the win ratio method and to analyze it in the context of a case study of a clinical trial in cerebrovascular disease.Methods Based on the study of clopidogrel with aspirin in high risk patients with acute non disabling cerebrovascular events 2,and key prognostic factors,the outcome events were defined sequentially as ① time to death within 90 d,② time to recurrence of ischemic stroke within 90 d,③ time to moderate-to-severe hemorrhage within 90 d.Using clopidogrel combined with aspirin as the reference group,the winning ratio(Rw)of ticagrelor combined with aspirin was analyzed by the win ratio method,and the 95% confidence interval(CI)of Rw was estimated by the Bootstrap method and compared with the hazard ratio(HR)calculated by the competing risk model.Results When only fatal events were considered,the win ratio method suggested that the ticagrelor group was significantly better than the clopidogrel group,Rw=2.00(95% CI:1.52-2.47),and after stepwise inclusion of ischemic stroke and moderate-to-severe hemorrhage recurrence,the win ratio method yielded a value of 1.29(95% CI:1.25-1.57),and the HR value from Fine and Gray competing risk regression was 0.78(95% CI:0.65-0.95),both of which indicated that the efficacy of the ticagrelor group was superior to that of the clopidogrel group.Conclusion The win ratio method can be used to analyze clinical trials with composite endpoints after prioritizing multiple outcome variables,showing the advantages of win ratio and its promising application in cerebrovascular disease research.