1.Reconceptualizing Critical Illness in Cancer Through the Lens of Host Unregulated Response
Yun CHU ; Shiyi GONG ; Xin DING ; Hua ZHAO ; Huan CHEN ; Qing ZHANG ; Xiaoting WANG
Medical Journal of Peking Union Medical College Hospital 2026;17(1):1-9
Onco-critical care has emerged as an important subspecialty at the intersection of critical care medicine and oncology, attracting increasing attention in recent years. With continuous innovations in cancer therapies, patient survival has improved significantly; however, the incidence of associated critical complications has also increased. The reasons for cancer patients requiring intensive care unit admission are diverse and can be broadly categorized into three groups: progression of the underlying malignancy, treatment-related complications, and coexisting classical critical illnesses. Traditional critical care concepts and practices face limitations in addressing the multidimensional and heterogeneous challenges of onco-critical care. Based on the core mechanism of critical illness development—host/organ unregulated response (HOUR)—this article systematically elaborates on how this framework advances understanding and clinical practice into onco-critical care, with emphasis on its manifestations in neuroendocrine, immune-inflammatory, and coagulation-metabolic pathways. The review summarizes recent advances in clinical assessment and phenotyping systems for onco-critical illness and discusses a multidisciplinary, integrated management strategy centered on the "Disease Control, Host Response Modulation, Organ Support" triad. Finally, major challenges and future directions in this field are outlined. By integrating existing evidence and theoretical insights, this review aims to provide new perspectives and a theoretical foundation for the clinical management of onco-critical illness, thereby promoting its evolution toward precision and standardization.
2.Standards for the Application of Hemodynamic Monitoring Technology in Critical Care
Hua ZHAO ; Hongmin ZHANG ; Xin DING ; Huan CHEN ; Jun DUAN ; Wei DU ; Bo TANG ; Yuankai ZHOU ; Dongkai LI ; Xinchen WANG ; Cui WANG ; Gaosheng ZHOU ; Xiaoting WANG
Medical Journal of Peking Union Medical College Hospital 2026;17(1):73-85
With the rapid advancement of hemodynamic indices and monitoring technologies, their classification methods and application processes have become increasingly complex. Currently, no unified standard hasbeen established, making it difficult to fully meet the clinical requirements for hemodynamic management. To assist in hemodynamic monitoring assessment and therapeutic decision-making in critically ill patients, the Critical Hemodynamic Therapy Collaborative Group, in conjunction with the Critical Ultrasound Study Group, has jointly developed the Standard for the Application of Hemodynamic Monitoring Techniques in Critical Care. The first part of this standard systematically categorizes hemodynamic indicators into flow indicators, pressure and its derivative indicators, and tissue perfusion indicators, while elaborating on the clinical application of each. The second part establishes a standardized clinical implementation pathway for hemodynamic monitoring. It proposes a tiered monitoring strategy-comprising basic, advanced, indication-specific, and special scenario monitoring-tailored to different clinical settings. It emphasizes the central role of critical care ultrasound across all levels of monitoring and establishes hemodynamic assessment standards for organs such as the brain, kidneys, and gastrointestinal tract. This standard aims to provide a unified framework for clinical practice, teaching, training, and research in critical care medicine, thereby promoting standardized development within the discipline.
3.Psychological Stress-induced Immune Dysregulation: The Key Factor Undermining Aerobic Exercise’s Antagonism Against Tumor Progression
Xin ZHOU ; Hua ZHANG ; Jing-Jing LIU ; Hui-Xin PAN ; Jing ZHANG ; Qing-Lu WANG
Progress in Biochemistry and Biophysics 2026;53(6):1656-1671
Cancer is one of the most lethal and burdensome diseases worldwide. Its progression not only causes irreversible damage to the body, but also imposes a substantial psychological burden on patients due to its complex prognosis. Immune imbalance, a hallmark of the tumor microenvironment (TME), accelerates tumor invasion and metastasis by impairing the function of effector immune cells, promoting the abnormal infiltration of immunosuppressive cells, and disrupting cytokine homeostasis, thereby constituting a major barrier to the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy. Compared with conventional chemotherapy and radiotherapy, aerobic exercise has shown considerable potential in antagonizing tumor progression through relatively mild but effective immunomodulatory mechanisms. On the one hand, regular aerobic exercise enhances the number and activity of key effector immune cells, such as CD8+ T cells, thereby strengthening their ability to recognize and eliminate tumor cells and alleviate immune imbalance. On the other hand, aerobic exercise promotes tumor vascular normalization, improves vascular maturity, and stimulates the secretion of irisin and other anti-inflammatory myokines, thereby remodeling the TME and relieving its immunosuppressive state to delay tumor progression. However, psychological stress following a cancer diagnosis can not only act as an independent disruptive factor that exacerbates immune imbalance within the TME, but also amplify the effects of other detrimental factors, such as reduced treatment adherence, thereby further weakening the antagonistic effect of aerobic exercise on tumor growth. Psychological stress, as a chronic stressor, promotes the excessive secretion of emotion-related hormones, including glucocorticoids (GCs) and norepinephrine (NE), which further suppress the activation and effector functions of antitumor immune cells such as CD8+ T cells and natural killer (NK) cells, while facilitating the recruitment of protumor immune cells such as regulatory T cells (Tregs). These changes ultimately disrupt immune homeostasis in the TME, promote tumor immune evasion, accelerate tumor invasion and metastasis, and offset the beneficial effects of aerobic exercise on tumor control. In addition, psychological stress induces hyperactivation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and abnormal excitation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), thereby maintaining elevated levels of GCs, NE, and related stress hormones, suppressing inflammatory chemokine expression and immune cell recruitment, and further disturbing immune homeostasis in the TME, which accelerates tumor progression. More importantly, prolonged psychological stress can also disrupt the homeostasis of central neurotransmitters, such as 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) and glutamate (Glu). This not only directly inhibits the activation and effector functions of antitumor immune cells and promotes the establishment of an immunosuppressive microenvironment, but also impairs cellular energy metabolism and continuously provides energy for tumor cells through metabolic reprogramming, thereby sustaining rapid tumor growth and adaptation to a hostile TME. Ultimately, these alterations contribute to the dysregulation of “neuro-endocrine-immune” axis and weaken the protective effect of aerobic exercise against tumor progression. Therefore, this review focuses on the interaction between psychological stress and the “neuro-endocrine-immune” axis, with particular emphasis on the mechanisms by which psychological stress induces immune imbalance and weakens the antagonistic effect of aerobic exercise on tumor progression. We further highlight the important role of psychological stress in tumor progression and propose that combining psychotropic interventions, aerobic exercise, and clinical antitumor immunotherapy may help restore the tumor-killing capacity of the immune system. Such a multimodal strategy may exert synergistic effects at multiple levels, including psychological stress relief, neuroendocrine regulation, and reconstruction of immune homeostasis, thereby providing new perspectives for identifying therapeutic targets in solid tumors, enhancing the efficacy of cancer immunotherapy, and improving patient prognosis.
4.Network pharmacology-based mechanism of combined leech and bear bile on hepatobiliary diseases
Chen GAO ; Yu-shi GUO ; Xin-yi GUO ; Ling-zhi ZHANG ; Guo-hua YANG ; Yu-sheng YANG ; Tao MA ; Hua SUN
Acta Pharmaceutica Sinica 2025;60(1):105-116
In order to explore the possible role and molecular mechanism of the combined action of leech and bear bile in liver and gallbladder diseases, this study first used network pharmacology methods to screen the components and targets of leech and bear bile, as well as the related target genes of liver and gallbladder diseases. The selected key genes were subjected to interaction network and GO/KEGG enrichment analysis. Then, using sodium oleate induced HepG2 cell lipid deposition model and
5.Effects of esketamine-mediated opioid-free anesthesia on delirium in elderly patients after hip replacement
Hao HUA ; Teng HE ; Xin LI ; Xiaodong CHEN ; Zhenqing LIU ; Kun LIU ; Qi ZHANG ; Lin JIANG ; Cunming LIU ; Meng WANG ; Chun YANG
Chinese Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics 2025;30(1):78-84
AIM:To observe the effect of opioid-free anesthesia with esketamine on delirium after hip replacement surgery in elderly patients.METH-ODS:One hundred and fourteen elderly patients who underwent hip replacement were randomly di-vided into two groups:opioid-free anesthesia(OFA)group and opioid anesthesia(OA)group(n=57).During anesthesia induction and maintenance,es-ketamine was administered in OFA group,and that fentanyl and remifentanil were administered in OA group.Delirium was mainly recorded within 3 days after the surgeries,and the patients'delirium sta-tus was evaluated using the Chinese Revised Deliri-um Diagnostic Scale(CAM-CR).RESULTS:The pa-tients in OFA group had lower CAM-CR scores and delirium incidence compared to those in the OA group at 2 days after surgery.CONCLUSION:Opioid-free anesthesia based on esketamine can effective-ly reduce delirium after hip replacement in elderly patients.
6.Long-chain acylcoenzyme A synthase 4 regulates effects of fatty acid synthase on malignant biological behavior of esophageal cancer cells and resistance of gefitinib
Qian-hua ZHOU ; Lei JIANG ; Zhang-gui WANG ; Chao RUI ; Yi-min SHI ; Yan-xin FANG ; Qiu-shui JIN
Chinese Pharmacological Bulletin 2025;41(6):1108-1115
Aim To investigate the effect of ACSL4 on the malignant biological behavior of esophageal cancer cells and gefitinib resistance by regulating FASN,and to explore the related mechanism.Methods Thirty-five fresh esophageal cancer tissues and adjacent nor-mal tissues,and 30 esophageal cancer tissues with ge-fitinib resistance were collected.The expressions of ACSL4 and FASN were detected by qRT-PCR and im-munohistochemistry.The expression levels of ACSL4 and FASN in human normal esophageal cells HET-1 A,esophageal cancer cell lines ECA109,EC9706,TE-1 and TE-1/GR were detected by qRT-PCR.Cells in each group were constructed by liposome transfection technique,and the drug resistance and proliferation a-bility of cells were detected by cloning and CCK-8 as-say,cell apoptosis was detected by flow cytometry,cell invasion ability was detected by Transwell,and EMT pathway protein expression was detected by Western blot.Results Compared with adjacent normal tis-sues,the expression of ACSL4 and FASN genes in cancer tissues increased,and there was a positive corre-lation.The expression of ACSL4 significantly increased in ECA109,EC9706 and TE-1 cells compared with HET-1 A cells.With the increase of gefitinib concen-tration,the expression of ACSL4 in TE-1 cells gradually increased,and the expression of ACSL4 in TE-1/GR cells was higher than that of TE-1.Compared with the control group and the si-NC group,the cell proliferation and invasion ability of si-ACSL4 group decreased,the number of apoptosis increased,the expression of E-Cadherin increased,and the expression of N-Cadherin,Vimentin and β-catenin decreased.The response ex-periment showed that compared with the si-ACSL4 group and the si-ACSL4+oe-NC group,the cells in the si-ACSL4+oe-FASN group increased drug resistance,increased proliferation and invasion ability,decreased apoptosis number and decreased expression of E-Cad-herin.The expressions of N-Cadherin,Vimentin and β-catenin increased.Conclusions By down-regulating the expression of FASN,ACSL4 reverses the resistance of esophageal cancer TE-1/GR cells to gefitinib and in-hibits the proliferation,invasion and accelerates apopto-sis of TE-1/GR cells,which may be related to the regu-lation of EMT signaling pathway.
7.Dynamic electrical impedance tomography imaging algorithm based on complementary information fusion network
Xin-yi WANG ; Tao ZHANG ; Xiang TIAN ; Ning YANG ; Jun-jie DU ; Xue-chao LIU ; Feng FU ; Xue-tao SHI ; Can-hua XU
Chinese Medical Equipment Journal 2025;46(6):1-6
Objective To propose a dynamic electrical impedance tomography imaging algorithm based on complementary information fusion network(CIFN)to enhance image quality of dynamic electrical impedance imaging.Methods There were three modules for initialization,multi-frame complementary information extraction and information fusion involved in the CIFN.Firstly,multi-frame dynamic conductivity distribution images were obtained by the initialization module;secondly,spatial complementary information was extracted from the images by using the multi-frame complementary information extraction module;finally,the fusion of lesion target distribution information and target re-reconstruction were realized by the information fusion module to aquire high-quality EIT images.With a 16-electrode multilayer cranial simulation model,the CIFN-based imaging method was compared with Tikhonov regularization algorithm,spectral constraint algorithm and U-Net algorithm in terms of imaging results of types of lesions to verify its performance.Results Compared with the Tikhonov regularization algorithm,spectral constraint algorithm and U-Net algorithm,the proposed CIFN-based algorithm exhibited the lowest mean absolute error(MAE)and the highest structural similarity(SSIM)when used to image different lesion targets,which accurately reconstructed the distribution of lesion targets and gained high imaging stability under common noise levels.Conclusion The proposed CIFN-based imaging algorithm obtains high imaging quality on a cranial simulation model and reconstruction results close to the real model distribution,which provides algorithmic support for subsequent clinical studies on electrical impedance imaging.[Chinese Medical Equipment Journal,2025,46(6):1-6]
8.Maintenance of Bausch&Lomb BL11110 phacoemulsification system:Three case reports
An-hai WEI ; Rui NIE ; Li-dong FAN ; Ke-xin PAN ; Zhen-zhen CAO ; Qing-hui REN ; He-hua ZHANG
Chinese Medical Equipment Journal 2025;46(4):118-120
The working principle of Bausch&Lomb BL11110 phacoemulsification system was described.Three cases of typical faults of the phacoemulsification system were introduced,and the causes were analyzed,then the maintenance measures were given accordingly.References were provided for diagnosing and eliminating the faults of the phacoemulsification system.[Chinese Medical Equipment Journal,2025,46(4):118-120]
9.Clinical characteristics and prognostic risk factors of patients with atrial fibrillation related to septic shock
Jiading XIA ; Liwei HUA ; Min XU ; Guobin LI ; Xin ZHENG ; Kun ZHANG
Journal of China Medical University 2025;54(7):631-637
Objective To analyze the clinical characteristics and prognostic risk factors of patients with atrial fibrillation(AF)related to septic shock admitted to the intensive care unit(ICU).Methods This retrospective cohort study included 152 patients with septic shock who were admitted to the ICU between January 2020 and December 2023.Patients were categorized into AF(n=48)and non-AF(n=104)groups based on the occurrence of AF.Clinical parameters were compared between the two groups,and variables with statistically significant differences(P<0.05)were entered into a multivariate logistic regression analysis to identify clinical features associated with AF.Patients were also stratified into survival(n=103)and death(n=49)groups based on 28-day outcomes.Variables showing signifi-cant intergroup differences(P<0.05)were further included in a multivariate model to identify independent risk factors for mortality.Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was performed using AF as a binary variable,and log-rank tests were applied to compare survival curves.Results The incidence of AF was 31.58%among patients with septic shock.Compared with the non-AF group,the AF group was older,received higher cumulative doses of vasoactive agents,and had elevated levels of lactate(Lac),N-terminal brain natriuretic peptide precursor(NT-proBNP),troponin I(cTnI),tumor necrosis factorα(TNF-α),and C-reactive protein(CRP).The AF group also had higher E/e'ratios,left ventricular ejection fraction(LVEF),Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation-Ⅱ(APACHEⅡ)scores,Sequen-tial Organ Failure Assessment(SOFA)scores,and 28-day mortality rates(all P<0.05).Multivariate logistic regression identified age(odds ratio[OR]=1.060,P=0.015),SOFA score(OR=1.525,P=0.001),TNF-α(OR=1.009,P=0.026),CRP(OR=1.008,P=0.002),and E/e'(OR=1.363,P=0.023)as independent risk factors for AF.The 28-day mortality rate was 32.24%.Compared with survivors,non-survivors had significantly higher Lac,cTnI,E/e',LVEF,and TNF-α levels,higher APACHEⅡand SOFA scores,longer ICU stays,and a higher incidence of AF(all P<0.05).Multivariate analysis identified SOFA score,cTnI,E/e',and AF as independent predictors of 28-day mortality.Kaplan-Meier analysis revealed significantly poorer survival in patients with AF(χ2=6.747,P=0.009).Conclusion AF is common in ICU patients with septic shock.Advanced age,greater organ dysfunction,elevated inflammatory markers,and diastolic dysfunction are associated with AF occurrence.Organ dysfunction,myocardial injury,diastolic dysfunction,and AF are inde-pendent predictors of mortality in this population.Greater clinical attention is warranted in patients with AF and septic shock due to their elevated risk of poor outcomes.
10.A cross-sectional study of anxiety disorders in adults in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region
Xin WANG ; Lixia CHEN ; Tingting ZHANG ; Ping LYU ; Dongsheng LYU ; Zhaorui LIU ; Jie YAN ; Ruiqi WANG ; Hua DING ; Yinxia BAI ; Yueqin HUANG ; Xiaojie SUI
Chinese Mental Health Journal 2025;39(5):385-391
Objective:To describe the prevalence of anxiety disorders and its distribution in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region,and to explore the relevant factors of anxiety disorders.Methods:From June 2019 to Decem-ber 2019,representative multi-stage disproportionate stratified sampling procedure was used to sample in residents aged 18 and over in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.All respondents were face-to-face interviewed by trained interviewers.Composite International Diagnostic Interview-3.0(CIDI-3.0)was used to diagnose anxiety disorders according to the criteria and definition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,Fourth Edition(DSM-Ⅳ).Chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression analysis were used for statistical anal-ysis.Results:Totally 12 315 people were interviewed in the survey.The weighted 12-mouth prevalence rate of any anxiety disorder was 4.64%,and the lifetime prevalence rate was 6.25%.The weighted 12-month prevalence rate of anxiety disorders was higher in female than that in male(5.38%vs.3.92%).The rate was higher in rural resi-dents than that in urban residents(5.67%vs.3.95%).The rate was higher in people with chronic diseases than that in people without chronic diseases(6.81%vs.2.29%).Logistic regression analysis showed that unmarried(OR=2.32,95%CI:1.31-4.10),separated/divorced(OR=2.49,95%CI:1.33-4.67),in debt(OR=1.55,95%CI:1.04-2.32),chronic disease(OR=2.22,95%CI:1.39-3.53),family history of anxiety disorders(OR=12.05,95%CI:8.78-16.53),poor sleep(OR=2.64,95%CI:1.97-3.54)were risk factors of occurrence of anxiety disorders,while junior high school(OR=0.65,95%CI:0.44-0.96)was protective factor of anxiety disor-ders.Conclusion:Adults with chronic diseases,poor sleep,unmarried or separated/divorced,family history of anxi-ety disorders,and financial debt are at higher risk groups of anxiety disorder in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Re-gion.

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