Objective:To evaluate the utility of pulse oximetry-derived parameters—specifically, the pulse oximetry plethysmographic waveform area under the curve (POP AUC) and the peripheral perfusion index (PPI)—in assessing disease severity and predicting prognosis in patients with sepsis. Methods:In this prospective descriptive study, 68 patients with sepsis were categorized based on illness severity into septic shock and non-shock groups, and by 28-day outcome into survival and non-survival groups. POP AUC, PPI, and lactate (Lac) levels were recorded at 0, 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours after admission. APACHEⅡ and SOFA scores were calculated within the first 24 hours. The prognostic value of these parameters was evaluated. Results:Significant differences were observed between the septic shock and non-shock groups in POP AUC, PPI, Lac (all P < 0.05 except at 96 h), APACHEⅡ, and SOFA scores (all P < 0.05). These differences were most pronounced at admission: POP AUC0 (2475.1 ± 899.0) vs. (4260.3 ± 1028.5), PPI 0 (0.78 ± 0.74) vs. (3.13 ± 2.18), Lac 0 (4.95 ± 4.32) vs. (2.07 ± 1.55), APACHE Ⅱ (16.78 ± 5.59) vs. 11.82 ± 4.89), and SOFA (8.89 ± 3.25) vs. (5.06 ± 2.60). Optimal prognostic cut-off values were 2741.43 for POP AUC, 0.97 for PPI, 2.05 for Lac, 12.5 for APACHEⅡ, and 5.5 for SOFA. ROC curve analysis showed that at 24 hours, POP AUC and PPI had significantly larger AUC values than Lac ( P < 0.05), while no significant differences were found among other parameters. Significant differences between non-survivors and survivors were also found in POP AUC, PPI (at 0, 24, and 48 h), APACHE II, and SOFA (all P < 0.05). No significant differences were observed in PPI (72 h and 96 h) or Lac between the two outcome groups. Conclusions:POP AUC and PPI, as derived from pulse oximetry, are non-inferior to Lac, SOFA, and APACHEⅡ scores in evaluating disease severity and predicting 28-day mortality in sepsis patients. These parameters show promise as practical and non-invasive tools for clinical assessment in sepsis.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive memory deficits and cognitive decline. Previous studies of peripheral blood biomarkers in AD have been focused on alterations of β-amyloid (Aβ) and phosphorylated (p)-tau. This article reviews the research progress of new biomarkers, such as inflammatory factors, metabolic indicators, and non-coding RNA, in peripheral blood of AD in recent years, in order to provide references for AD diagnosis.

Objective:Rapid assessment of the outcome after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) is an important clinical issue. In this study, an electrocardiogram (ECG) analysis method based on dynamic learning was proposed.Methods:A total of 203 patients with ACS after successful PCI were enrolled for prospective analysis at the Emergency Department of Qilu Hospital of Shandong University from April 2019 to December 2020. All patients were divided into group without ≥70% postoperative stenosis ( n=72) and group with ≥ 70% postoperative stenosis ( n=131) according to the presence of 70% or more stenosis after PCI. The clinical data of ACS patients were collected and analyzed by χ2 test, t-test, or Mann-Whitney test. ECGs were recorded before and 2 h after PCI, and were dynamically analyzed to generate cardiodynamicsgram (CDG) using dynamic learning. In the group without ≥ 70% postoperative stenosis, the model and CDG index for evaluating myocardial ischemia were obtained by training support vector machine (SVM) using 10 times 10-fold cross-validation. Results:There was no significant difference in clinical data between the two groups. The prediction accuracy and sensitivity of the support vector machine model for myocardial ischemia in group without≥70% postoperative stenosis were 73.61%, and 84.72% respectively. CDG transformed from disorderly to regular after PCI, and CDG index decreased significantly ( P<0.001): 90.28% (65) patients in group without≥70% postoperative stenosis, and 79.39% (104) patients in group with≥70% postoperative stenosis had lower CDG indexes than before PCI. Conclusions:In this study, CDG obtained by dynamic learning can intuitively and effectively evaluate the changes of myocardial ischemia before and after PCI, which is helpful to assist clinicians to formulate the next treatment plan.

Objective:To analyze the expression and relationship of miR-379 and human kinesin family member 4A (KIF4A) in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC).Methods:A total of 52 patients diagnosed with TNBC in breast department at Puji Branch of Dongguan People′s Hospital between January 2016 and November 2019 were retrospectively selected as the study group. Meanwhile, 70 patients with non-triple-negative breast cancer (NTNBC) diagnosed in the same period were selected as the control group. The expression levels of miR-379 and KIF4A in both groups were detected. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn, and the area under the curve (AUC) of miR-379 and KIF4A predicting TNBC was calculated; The relationship between the expression levels of miR-379 and KIF4A and clinicopathological parameters, and the correlation between the expression level of miR-379 and KIF4A were analyzed.Results:The expression level of KIF4A in study group was higher than that in control group [(6.93±0.43) vs (3.75±0.25), P<0.05], and the expression level of miR-379 in study group was lower than that in control group [(0.54±0.17) vs (0.87±0.32), P<0.05]. MiR-379 combined with KIF4A expression had the greatest diagnostic value for TNBC: AUC 0.823 (95% CI: 0.730- 0.917), specificity 0.785, sensitivity 0.950; Univariate analysis showed that there were significant difference in the expression of miR-379 in TNBC patients with different clinical stages, tumor diameter, and lymph node metastasis (all P<0.05); There were significant difference in the expression of KIF4A in TNBC patients with different clinical stages and tumor diameter (all P<0.05). Pearson correlation analysis showed that miR-379 expression was negatively correlated with KIF4A expression in TNBC ( r=-0.349, P<0.05). Conclusions:The expression of miR-379 is down-regulated, while the expression of KIF4A is up-regulated in patients with TNBC. The two are related to poor clinicopathological characteristics, which indicates that they can be used for condition evaluation of the patients.

Objective:To investigate the risk factors for different types of single subcortical infarction (SSI) in middle cerebral artery territory and the risk factors for early neurologic deterioration (END).Methods:Patients with SSI in middle cerebral artery territory admitted to the Department of Neurology, People's Hospital Affiliated to Jiangsu University from January 2020 to April 2021 were enrolled retrospectively. According to the distribution of infarction, the patients were divided into proximal SSI (pSSI) and distal SSI (dSSI). The demographics, vascular risk factors and baseline clinical data were collected. END was defined as new signs and/or symptoms of neurological deficit or aggravation of any neurological deficit within 2 weeks after onset. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the independent risk factors for pSSI and END. Results:Seventy-six patients with acute SSI in the middle cerebral artery territory were included, 41 patients (53.9%) in the pSSI group, 35 (46.1%) in the dSSI group; 13 (17.1%) in the END group, and 63 (82.9%) in the non-END group. There were no significant differences in age, gender, vascular risk factors and baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score between the pSSI group and the dSSI group. The total cholesterol, fasting blood glucose levels and the ratio of pSSI in the END group were significantly higher than those in the non-END group ( P<0.05), while the high-density lipoprotein cholesterol level was significantly lower than that of the non-END group ( P<0.05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that pSSI was an independent risk factor for the occurrence of END in patients with SSI (odds ratio 6.75, 95% confidence interval 1.26-36.23; P=0.026). Conclusion:There was no significant difference in risk factors between pSSI and dSSI, but patients with pSSI were more prone to END.

Pediatric cough is a heterogeneous condition in terms of symptoms and the underlying disease mechanisms. Symptom phenotypes hold complicated interactions between each other to form an intricate network structure. This study aims to investigate whether the network structure of pediatric cough symptoms is associated with the prognosis and outcome of patients. A total of 384 cases were derived from the electronic medical records of a highly experienced traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) physician. The data were divided into two groups according to the therapeutic effect, namely, an invalid group (group A with 40 cases of poor efficacy) and a valid group (group B with 344 cases of good efficacy). Several well-established analysis methods, namely, statistical test, correlation analysis, and complex network analysis, were used to analyze the data. This study reports that symptom networks of patients with pediatric cough are related to the effectiveness of treatment: a dense network of symptoms is associated with great difficulty in treatment. Interventions with the most different symptoms in the symptom network may have improved therapeutic effects.

The clinical pathological data of a patient large cell undifferentiated bladder carcinoma was retrospectively analyzed and understand.The clinical and imaging findings of large cell undifferentiated bladder carcinoma was nonspecific.Diagnosis depended on the pathological and immuno-histochemical staining.The tumor is aggressive with high risk of recurrence.It is mainly treated with radical resection.

Sepsis is currently a major problem and challenge facing the medical community. With rapid development and progress of modern medicine, researchers have put more and more attention on sepsis; meanwhile, the morbidity and mortality of sepsis remains high despite great efforts from experts in various fields. According to updated guidelines, sepsis is defined as life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection. Infection is the initial step of sepsis progression, and development from infection to sepsis is a complex pathophysiological process, including pathogen invasion, cytokine release, capillary leakage, microcirculation dysfunction, etc. which finally leads to organ metabolic disorders and functional failure. According to the latest recommended international guidelines of Sepsis 3.0, the presence of infection and SOFA score ≥ 2 are considered as the diagnostic criteria for sepsis, and the 'rescue' measures mainly focus on reversal of organ dysfunction. However, despite nearly two decades of efforts, the 'Save Sepsis Campaign' has not achieved satisfactory results. Emergency medicine is the frontier subject of acute and severe illness which treats patients with acute infections at the earliest. If at this stage, physicians can predict the possibility of sepsis progression from demographic characteristics, localize the pathogen and infection, detect the inflammatory storms by tests of cytokines and evaluate the severity of the infection with more effective clinical scoring system, and then take effective measures to prevent infection from developing into sepsis in high-risk patients, the morbidity and mortality of sepsis in patients with acute infection will be greatly reduced. Based on this situation, Chinese emergency medicine experts proposed the concept of 'preventing and blocking' sepsis, and launched the nationwide 'Preventing Sepsis Campaign in China (PSCC)' nationwide. The main concept is summarized as 'three early and two reduces' which includes early detection, early diagnosis and early intervention during the 'pre-symptomatic' and 'peri-septic' stage in order to reduce the incidence of sepsis and it proposed a new approach for diagnosis and treatment of acute severe infection. This consensus is jointly advocated, discussed and written by four academic associations in the field of emergency medicine and five scholarly publishing organizations. More than 40 experts from fields of emergency medicine, critical care medicine, infectious diseases, pharmacy and laboratory medicine have participated in several rounds of deliberation and finally reached consensus on the criteria of identifying patients with acute infection, taking anti-infective treatments, screening of high-risk patients with sepsis, detection and treatment of inflammatory storm, protection of vascular endothelial cells and the regulation of coagulation function, as well as strategies of liquid support and organ function protection etc. The consensus summarizes the commonly used clinical diagnosis criteria and treatment measures of sepsis both in Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine for clinicians in order to provide evidence for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease.

A multicenter blinded randomized controlled trial (RCT) was conducted in accordance with international clinical trial standards to evaluate the efficacy and safety of Xuebijing injection in the treatment of severe community-acquired pneumonia (SCAP) under strict quality control condition. This article aims to illustrate key contents of the design ideas and implementation process of the RCT of Xuebijing injection in the treatment of SCAP, including the selection of research objects, design, implementation, and insights, etc., share experience with researchers of the respiratory and critical care, and provide reference for future studies in critical care.