Background and Objectives: The Fractional Flow Reserve and Intravascular UltrasoundGuided Intervention Strategy for Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Intermediate Stenosis (FLAVOUR) trial demonstrated non-inferiority of fractional flow reserve (FFR)-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI. We sought to investigate the cost-effectiveness of FFR-guided PCI compared to IVUS-guided PCI in Korea. Methods: A 2-part cost-effectiveness model, composed of a short-term decision tree model and a long-term Markov model, was developed for patients who underwent PCI to treat intermediate stenosis (40% to 70% stenosis by visual estimation on coronary angiography).The lifetime healthcare costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were estimated from the healthcare system perspective. Transition probabilities were mainly referred from the FLAVOUR trial, and healthcare costs were mainly obtained through analysis of Korean National Health Insurance claims data. Health utilities were mainly obtained from the Seattle Angina Questionnaire responses of FLAVOUR trial participants mapped to EQ-5D. Results: From the Korean healthcare system perspective, the base-case analysis showed that FFR-guided PCI was 2,451 U.S. dollar lower in lifetime healthcare costs and 0.178 higher in QALYs compared to IVUS-guided PCI. FFR-guided PCI remained more likely to be cost-effective over a wide range of willingness-to-pay thresholds in the probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Conclusions Based on the results from the FLAVOUR trial, FFR-guided PCI is projected to decrease lifetime healthcare costs and increase QALYs compared with IVUS-guided PCI in intermediate coronary lesion, and it is a dominant strategy in Korea.

Background and Objectives: The Fractional Flow Reserve and Intravascular UltrasoundGuided Intervention Strategy for Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Intermediate Stenosis (FLAVOUR) trial demonstrated non-inferiority of fractional flow reserve (FFR)-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI. We sought to investigate the cost-effectiveness of FFR-guided PCI compared to IVUS-guided PCI in Korea. Methods: A 2-part cost-effectiveness model, composed of a short-term decision tree model and a long-term Markov model, was developed for patients who underwent PCI to treat intermediate stenosis (40% to 70% stenosis by visual estimation on coronary angiography).The lifetime healthcare costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were estimated from the healthcare system perspective. Transition probabilities were mainly referred from the FLAVOUR trial, and healthcare costs were mainly obtained through analysis of Korean National Health Insurance claims data. Health utilities were mainly obtained from the Seattle Angina Questionnaire responses of FLAVOUR trial participants mapped to EQ-5D. Results: From the Korean healthcare system perspective, the base-case analysis showed that FFR-guided PCI was 2,451 U.S. dollar lower in lifetime healthcare costs and 0.178 higher in QALYs compared to IVUS-guided PCI. FFR-guided PCI remained more likely to be cost-effective over a wide range of willingness-to-pay thresholds in the probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Conclusions Based on the results from the FLAVOUR trial, FFR-guided PCI is projected to decrease lifetime healthcare costs and increase QALYs compared with IVUS-guided PCI in intermediate coronary lesion, and it is a dominant strategy in Korea.

Background and Objectives: The Fractional Flow Reserve and Intravascular UltrasoundGuided Intervention Strategy for Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Intermediate Stenosis (FLAVOUR) trial demonstrated non-inferiority of fractional flow reserve (FFR)-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI. We sought to investigate the cost-effectiveness of FFR-guided PCI compared to IVUS-guided PCI in Korea. Methods: A 2-part cost-effectiveness model, composed of a short-term decision tree model and a long-term Markov model, was developed for patients who underwent PCI to treat intermediate stenosis (40% to 70% stenosis by visual estimation on coronary angiography).The lifetime healthcare costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were estimated from the healthcare system perspective. Transition probabilities were mainly referred from the FLAVOUR trial, and healthcare costs were mainly obtained through analysis of Korean National Health Insurance claims data. Health utilities were mainly obtained from the Seattle Angina Questionnaire responses of FLAVOUR trial participants mapped to EQ-5D. Results: From the Korean healthcare system perspective, the base-case analysis showed that FFR-guided PCI was 2,451 U.S. dollar lower in lifetime healthcare costs and 0.178 higher in QALYs compared to IVUS-guided PCI. FFR-guided PCI remained more likely to be cost-effective over a wide range of willingness-to-pay thresholds in the probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Conclusions Based on the results from the FLAVOUR trial, FFR-guided PCI is projected to decrease lifetime healthcare costs and increase QALYs compared with IVUS-guided PCI in intermediate coronary lesion, and it is a dominant strategy in Korea.

Background and Objectives: The Fractional Flow Reserve and Intravascular UltrasoundGuided Intervention Strategy for Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Intermediate Stenosis (FLAVOUR) trial demonstrated non-inferiority of fractional flow reserve (FFR)-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI. We sought to investigate the cost-effectiveness of FFR-guided PCI compared to IVUS-guided PCI in Korea. Methods: A 2-part cost-effectiveness model, composed of a short-term decision tree model and a long-term Markov model, was developed for patients who underwent PCI to treat intermediate stenosis (40% to 70% stenosis by visual estimation on coronary angiography).The lifetime healthcare costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were estimated from the healthcare system perspective. Transition probabilities were mainly referred from the FLAVOUR trial, and healthcare costs were mainly obtained through analysis of Korean National Health Insurance claims data. Health utilities were mainly obtained from the Seattle Angina Questionnaire responses of FLAVOUR trial participants mapped to EQ-5D. Results: From the Korean healthcare system perspective, the base-case analysis showed that FFR-guided PCI was 2,451 U.S. dollar lower in lifetime healthcare costs and 0.178 higher in QALYs compared to IVUS-guided PCI. FFR-guided PCI remained more likely to be cost-effective over a wide range of willingness-to-pay thresholds in the probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Conclusions Based on the results from the FLAVOUR trial, FFR-guided PCI is projected to decrease lifetime healthcare costs and increase QALYs compared with IVUS-guided PCI in intermediate coronary lesion, and it is a dominant strategy in Korea.

Azvudine and nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (Paxlovid) are recommended for COVID-19 treatment in China, but their safety and efficacy in the elderly population are not fully known. In this multicenter, retrospective, cohort study, we identified 5131 elderly hospitalized COVID-19 patients from 32,864 COVID-19 patients admitted to nine hospitals in Henan Province, China, from December 5, 2022, to January 31, 2023. The primary outcome was all-cause death, and the secondary outcome was composite disease progression. Propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to control for confounding factors, including demographics, vaccination status, comorbidities, and laboratory tests. After 2:1 PSM, 1786 elderly patients receiving azvudine and 893 elderly patients receiving Paxlovid were included. Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses revealed that compared with Paxlovid group, azvudine could significantly reduce the risk of all-cause death (log-rank P = 0.002; HR: 0.71, 95% CI: 0.573-0.883, P = 0.002), but there was no difference in composite disease progression (log-rank P = 0.52; HR: 1.05, 95% CI: 0.877-1.260, P = 0.588). Four sensitivity analyses verified the robustness of above results. Subgroup analysis suggested that a greater benefit of azvudine over Paxlovid was observed in elderly patients with primary malignant tumors (P for interaction = 0.005, HR: 0.32, 95% CI: 0.18-0.57) compared to patients without primary malignant tumors. Safety analysis revealed that azvudine treatment had a lower incidence of adverse events and higher lymphocyte levels than Paxlovid treatment. In conclusion, azvudine treatment is not inferior to Paxlovid treatment in terms of all-cause death, composite disease progression and adverse events in elderly hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

Liquid chip technology is based on liquid carrier. Comparing to the traditional detection methods, it has unique characteristics such as multiple detection ability, high throughput, high sensitivity, good repeatability, less sample and fast analysis. It can analyse proteins, nucleic acids and other biological molecules in liquid. At present, it has been widely used in the laboratory diagnosis of tumors, autoimmune diseases, allergic diseases, cytokines related diseases, as well as infectious diseases. This article discussed the principles, detection performances, clinical applications and future prospects of liquid chip technology.

Objective:To retrospectively analyze the changes in the proportion of refined lymphocyte subsets in peripheral blood of patients with Graves disease (GD), and their correlation with the clinical characteristics and efficacy of GD, and to explore the immunological pathogenesis of Graves disease for seeking new therapeutic targets.Methods:A total of 97 newly diagnosed GD patients (GD group), 27 patients after treatment (treatment group), and 31 healthy individuals (control group) who visited the Fifth Medical Center of the PLA General Hospital from 2018 to 2021 were included in this study. The data of refined lymphocyte subsets, thyroid function, blood routine and clinical treatment of the three groups were compared and analyzed. The t-test and rank sum test were used to compare the proportions of lymphocyte subsets among different groups, and Pearson correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation between the proportions of lymphocyte subsets and thyroid function indicators.Results:The proportion of B cells in GD group was higher than that in the control group [16.2%(11.8%, 21.8%) vs 10.2%(8.1%,13.6%)], while the proportion of natural killer (NK) cells was lower [9.4%(4.9%, 13.6%) vs 14.6%(12.1%,18.8%)], and the differences were statistically significant ( P<0.05). Abnormal T cell differentiation: the proportions of functional cells, including activated T cells, memory T cells, clustering antigen(CD)4+memory T cells, Th1 cells, and Tc1 cells, were lower than that in the control group [3.2%(2.1%, 5.7%) vs 5.8%(3.0%, 9.3%), P<0.05; 36.7% (29.9%, 48.1%) vs 48.0%(39.2%,57.7%), P<0.05; 23.1%(17.4%, 30.1%) vs 28.9%(23.3%,34.6%), P<0.05; 16.4% (11.8%, 23.6%) vs 24.3%(16.9%,28.5%), P<0.05; 28.5% (14.7%, 39.2%) vs 46.3%(21.6%,69.2%), P<0.05]. The proportion of activated T cells in the treatment group was higher than that in the GD group [6.5% (4.6%, 13.6%) vs 3.2% (2.1%, 5.7%), P<0.05]. The total triiodothyronine results showed positive correlations with B cells ( r=0.356, P<0.01) and negative correlations with NK cells ( r=?0.416, P<0.01), while the total thyroxine values showed negative correlations with NK cells and activated T cells ( r=?0.318,?0.335; P<0.01). Thyroid stimulating hormone and CD8+initial T cells were positively correlated ( r=0.382, P<0.01). The proportion of B cells, cytotoxic T cells and suppressor T cells in CD8+cells of patients with complications [such as Graves orbitopathy (GO), thyroid toxic cardiomyopathy, etc.] was significantly different from that of the simple GD patients [18.3% (14.1%, 27.1%) vs 14.6% (10.8%, 21.4%), Z=2.54, P<0.05; 73.4%(65.6%,83.6%)vs 65.0%(50.3%,79.3%), Z=2.93, P<0.05; 26.6%(16.4%, 37.5%)vs 35.0%(20.7%,49.7%), Z=?2.74, P<0.05]. The proportion of suppressor T cells in GO patients was lower than that in non-GO patients [6.1% (3.4%, 8.1%) vs 8.5% (4.9%, 13.6%), Z=?3.20 P<0.05]. Conclusion:There are significant alterations in the circulating immune cells of GD patients, suggesting that immunological abnormalities play a crucial role in the onset and progression of the disease.

Liquid chip technology is based on liquid carrier. Comparing to the traditional detection methods, it has unique characteristics such as multiple detection ability, high throughput, high sensitivity, good repeatability, less sample and fast analysis. It can analyse proteins, nucleic acids and other biological molecules in liquid. At present, it has been widely used in the laboratory diagnosis of tumors, autoimmune diseases, allergic diseases, cytokines related diseases, as well as infectious diseases. This article discussed the principles, detection performances, clinical applications and future prospects of liquid chip technology.

Objective:To retrospectively analyze the changes in the proportion of refined lymphocyte subsets in peripheral blood of patients with Graves disease (GD), and their correlation with the clinical characteristics and efficacy of GD, and to explore the immunological pathogenesis of Graves disease for seeking new therapeutic targets.Methods:A total of 97 newly diagnosed GD patients (GD group), 27 patients after treatment (treatment group), and 31 healthy individuals (control group) who visited the Fifth Medical Center of the PLA General Hospital from 2018 to 2021 were included in this study. The data of refined lymphocyte subsets, thyroid function, blood routine and clinical treatment of the three groups were compared and analyzed. The t-test and rank sum test were used to compare the proportions of lymphocyte subsets among different groups, and Pearson correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation between the proportions of lymphocyte subsets and thyroid function indicators.Results:The proportion of B cells in GD group was higher than that in the control group [16.2%(11.8%, 21.8%) vs 10.2%(8.1%,13.6%)], while the proportion of natural killer (NK) cells was lower [9.4%(4.9%, 13.6%) vs 14.6%(12.1%,18.8%)], and the differences were statistically significant ( P<0.05). Abnormal T cell differentiation: the proportions of functional cells, including activated T cells, memory T cells, clustering antigen(CD)4+memory T cells, Th1 cells, and Tc1 cells, were lower than that in the control group [3.2%(2.1%, 5.7%) vs 5.8%(3.0%, 9.3%), P<0.05; 36.7% (29.9%, 48.1%) vs 48.0%(39.2%,57.7%), P<0.05; 23.1%(17.4%, 30.1%) vs 28.9%(23.3%,34.6%), P<0.05; 16.4% (11.8%, 23.6%) vs 24.3%(16.9%,28.5%), P<0.05; 28.5% (14.7%, 39.2%) vs 46.3%(21.6%,69.2%), P<0.05]. The proportion of activated T cells in the treatment group was higher than that in the GD group [6.5% (4.6%, 13.6%) vs 3.2% (2.1%, 5.7%), P<0.05]. The total triiodothyronine results showed positive correlations with B cells ( r=0.356, P<0.01) and negative correlations with NK cells ( r=?0.416, P<0.01), while the total thyroxine values showed negative correlations with NK cells and activated T cells ( r=?0.318,?0.335; P<0.01). Thyroid stimulating hormone and CD8+initial T cells were positively correlated ( r=0.382, P<0.01). The proportion of B cells, cytotoxic T cells and suppressor T cells in CD8+cells of patients with complications [such as Graves orbitopathy (GO), thyroid toxic cardiomyopathy, etc.] was significantly different from that of the simple GD patients [18.3% (14.1%, 27.1%) vs 14.6% (10.8%, 21.4%), Z=2.54, P<0.05; 73.4%(65.6%,83.6%)vs 65.0%(50.3%,79.3%), Z=2.93, P<0.05; 26.6%(16.4%, 37.5%)vs 35.0%(20.7%,49.7%), Z=?2.74, P<0.05]. The proportion of suppressor T cells in GO patients was lower than that in non-GO patients [6.1% (3.4%, 8.1%) vs 8.5% (4.9%, 13.6%), Z=?3.20 P<0.05]. Conclusion:There are significant alterations in the circulating immune cells of GD patients, suggesting that immunological abnormalities play a crucial role in the onset and progression of the disease.

BACKGROUND:As the incidence of spinal cord injury increases with the years and axon regeneration after spinal cord injury was very difficult.How to promote the recovery from spinal cord injury and improve the transplantation efficiency of stem cells and other therapeutic cells after spinal cord injury has been the focus of clinical and scientific research. OBJECTIVE:To establish the efficient transplantation and replacement of mouse spinal cord microglia in the spinal cord injury model. METHODS:CX3CR1 creER-/+::LSL-BDNF-/+-tdTomato mice,CX3CR1+/GFP mice,β-actin GFP mice and C57 BL/6J wild-type mice at 8-10 weeks of age were selected.According to the requirements of the experiment,they were randomly divided into six groups.(1)Sham operation group:eight C57 BL/6J wild-type mice were used when only the lamina was removed without injury.(2)Spinal cord contusion injury group:eight C57 BL/6J wild-type mice were used.(3)Spinal cord crush injury group:eight C57 BL/6J wild-type mice were used.(4)Conjoined symbiotic spinal cord strike injury group:β-actin GFP mice with green fluorescent blood were surgically stitched together with C57 BL/6J wild-type mice,using eight β-actin GFP mice and eight C57 BL/6J wild-type mice.(5)Mr BMT-X Ray group(using PLX5622 to eliminate the spinal microglia and bone marrow transplantation with X-ray radiation):Bone marrow cells from four CX3CR1 creER-/+::LSL-BDNF-/+-tdTomato mice were extracted and transplanted into eight C57 BL/6J wild-type mice for spinal cord injury modeling.(6)Mr BMT-Busulfan group(using PLX5622 to eliminate the spinal microglia and bone marrow transplantation with Busulfan):Bone marrow cells from four CX3CR1+/GFP mice were transplanted into eight C57 BL/6J wild-type mice.The percentage of cell transplantation replacement in this group was observed,and the spinal cord injury model was not established in this group.The sham operation group,spinal cord contusion injury group and spinal cord crush injury group were sampled by perfusion on day 14 after spinal cord injury.The conjoined symbiotic spinal cord strike injury group was sampled by perfusion on day 7 after spinal cord injury.Mr BMT-X Ray group was sampled by perfusion on day 28 after spinal cord injury.Mr BMT-Busulfan group was sampled by perfusion on day 28 after transplantation.The sampling site was a 1.2 cm long spinal cord with the T10 segment as the center.In the Mr BMT-X Ray group and Mr BMT-Busulfan group,additional mouse brain tissue was retained to see if it would lead to brain transplantation and replacement.The number and proportion of transplanted and replaced cells in the damaged area were measured using transgenic mice,symbiosis and immunofluorescence. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Compared with the traditional peripheral blood transplantation(9.8%)of mice in the conjoined symbiotic spinal cord strike injury group,the new transplantation methods,Mr BMT-X Ray and Mr BMT-Busulfan,could greatly improve the proportion of spinal microglia transplantation and replacement,which could reach 84.8%and 95.6%,respectively.The difference was significant(P<0.05).The results showed that Mr BMT-X Ray and Mr BMT-Busulfan could achieve efficient replacement of spinal microglia cells,and could improve the problems of low cell transplantation efficiency,few survival numbers and unclear differentiation of the traditional cell transplantation methods.In addition,Mr BMT-X Ray can only replace the microglia in the spinal cord,while Mr BMT-Busulfan could avoid brain inflammation and injury caused by X-ray radiation transplantation.