AIM: To investigate the relationship between microvascular density in macular area and anti-vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF)response in patients with diabetic macular edema(DME). METHODS: Retrospective case-control study. Clinical data of DME patients who received anti-VEGF treatment in the hospital from January 2021 to August 2025 were collected. All patients received intravitreal anti-VEGF treatment once a month for a total of 3 times. The patients were divided into the good response group and the poor response group based on the anti-VEGF treatment response. The vascular density of superficial capillary plexus(SCP)and deep capillary plexus(DCP)were compared between the two groups before treatment. Multivariate logistic regression models were used to analyze the factors affecting the anti-VEGF treatment response in DME patients. The receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve was drawn to analyze the predictive value of SCP and DCP vascular density for anti-VEGF treatment response in DME patients. RESULTS: The study included a total of 315 DME patients 315 eyes, including 172 males and 143 females with the mean age of 62.06±7.38 y. After completing three treatments, there were 211 cases 211 eyes in the good response group, including 114 males and 97 females with the mean age of 61.92±7.52 y. There were 104 cases in the poor response group, including 58 males and 46 females with the mean age of 62.35±7.10 y. The course of diabetes in the poor response group was longer than that in the good response group, the central retinal thickness before treatment was greater than that in the good response group, the level of glycosylated hemoglobin(HbA1c)before treatment was higher than that in the good response group, and the proportion of patients with serous retinal detachment was higher than that in the good response group. Before treatment, the vascular density of SCP and DCP in the poor response group was lower than that in the good response group(all P<0.01). Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that SCP and DCP vascular density were both influencing factors of anti-VEGF treatment response in DME patients(both P<0.05). ROC curves showed that the area under the curve(AUC)of the pre-treatment SCP vascular density, pre-treatment DCP vascular density alone, and their combined model for predicting poor response to anti-VEGF therapy in DME patients were 0.812, 0.797 and 0.901, respectively, indicating high predictive value.CONCLUSION: The microvascular density in the macular area is closely related to the anti-VEGF treatment response in DME patients. The vascular density of SCP and DCP before treatment can be used as important indicators to predict treatment response, and targeted preventive and therapeutic interventions can be adopted in clinical practice.

Accurately predicting the risk of mediastinal lymph node metastasis before surgery is of great significance for tumor staging, treatment plan decision, and prognosis evaluation in patients with non-small cell lung cancer(NSCLC). Traditional imaging methods such as CT, MRI and PET/CT are currently the most commonly used clinical methods in clinical evaluation of lymph node status. However, it is subjective to judge lymph node metastasis only by the change of image morphological characteristics, and inflammatory lymphadenopathy will also lead to a high false positive rate. The clinicopathological characteristics obtained by analyzing the clinical data of patients with NSCLC can improve the accuracy of lymph node metastasis prediction to a certain extent. The clinical prediction model based on medical images combined with the clinical characteristics of patients can provide more intuitive and rational information for doctors and patients, but the performance and applicability of the model will inevitably decrease due to changes in disease risk factors and treatment measures. In recent years, with the significant improvement of image analysis technology and computing ability, radiomics models based on medical images can deeply dig into the data in radiological images for quantitative analysis, providing new ideas for predicting mediastinal lymph node metastasis in NSCLC patients, which has attracted extensive attention at home and abroad. This article reviews the progress and makes prospects of the above methods in the prediction of mediastinal lymph node metastasis in NSCLC.

Lung cancer is the most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer-related death in China. Early screening of lung cancer proves to be effective in improving its prognosis. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has updated and released version 2, 2022 NCCN clinical practice guidelines for lung cancer screening in July, 2022. Based on high-quality clinical evidence and the latest research progress, the guidelines have developed and updated criteria for lung cancer screening which have been widely recognized by clinicians around the world. Compared with Chinese lung cancer screening guidelines, this article will interpret the updated content of the brand new 2022 NCCN screening guidelines, providing some reference for the current lung cancer screening practice in our country.

Objective To explore the prevalence and analyze the related risk factors for post-stroke depression among middle-aged and elderly stroke patients of Mongolia and Han nationality in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.Methods A stratified multistage random cluster sampling method was used to investigate the prevalence of stroke in the population aged ≥45 years in different areas of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.A total of 11 088 people were investigated and 498 were stroke patients among them.A set of scale assessment and the general situation were used to investigate stroke patients and 443 patients completed the whole survey.Results The total prevalence of post-stroke depression (PSD) was 41.08％ in 443 stroke patients,among which the prevalence rate was 40.57％ for Mongolian population and 41.85％ for Han population,and no significant difference was found between Mongolian and Han nationality(x2=1.372,P=0.504).There were significant differences in the types of stroke between the Mongolian and Han nationality (x2 =7.347,P=0.025).The age (t=4.321,P=0.000),educational level (x2 =27.036,P=0.001) and economic burden (x2=27.877,P=0.000) were statistically significant between Mongolian and Han nationality.The differences of frequency of stroke (x2 =6.545,P=0.011),economic burden (x2 =16.148,P=0.001),cognitive dysfunction (x2 =9.065,P=0.003),daily living ability (x2 =34.466,P =0.000),alcohol consumption history(x2=4.516,P=0.034)were statistically significant.Logistic regression analysis showed that alcohol consumption history,economic burden,the frequency of stroke,and cognitive dysfunction were the influencing factors of PSD.Conclusion PSD is one of the important factors affecting the post-stroke psychological burden in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.There is no national difference in the prevalence of PSD among Mongolian and Han people,which provides a theoretical basis for the treatment and intervention of PSD.