This case report describes a 68-year-old male patient diagnosed with primary hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). After receiving Yttrium-90 microsphere selective internal radiation therapy (⁹⁰Y-SIRT), the tumor significantly reduced in size, and tumor markers alpha fetoprotein (AFP) and abnormal prothrombin (PIVKA-Ⅱ) decreased. Postoperative pathological results showed minimal residual tumor cells, indicating that ⁹⁰Y-SIRT has good efficacy and safety in downstaging and conversion of HCC, thereby facilitating subsequent surgical resection.

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the clinical features of children with STAT gene mutations, and to explore corresponding immunotherapy strategies. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed for the clinical data of 10 children with STAT gene mutations who were admitted to the Department of Pediatrics of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, from October 2015 to October 2024. Exploratory immunotherapy was implemented in some refractory cases, and the changes in symptoms, imaging manifestations, and cytokine levels were assessed after treatment. RESULTS: For the 10 children, the main clinical manifestations were recurrent rash since birth (7/10), cough (8/10), wheezing (5/10), expectoration (4/10), and purulent nasal discharge (4/10). Genotyping results showed that there was one child with heterozygous loss-of-function (LOF) mutation in the STAT1 gene, four children with heterozygous LOF mutation in the STAT3 gene, and five children with heterozygous gain-of-function (GOF) mutation in the STAT3 gene. Two children with LOF mutation in the STAT3 gene showed decreased interleukin-6 levels and improved clinical symptoms and imaging findings after omalizumab treatment. Three children with GOF mutation in the STAT3 gene achieved effective disease control after treatment with methylprednisolone (0.5 mg/kg per day). Two children with GOF mutation in the STAT3 gene received treatment with JAK inhibitor and then showed some improvement in symptoms. CONCLUSIONS STAT gene mutation screening should be considered for children with recurrent rash and purulent respiratory tract infections. Targeted immunotherapy may improve prognosis in patients with no response to conventional treatment.
Humans ; Male ; Immunotherapy ; Female ; Child, Preschool ; Child ; Gain of Function Mutation ; Retrospective Studies ; Infant ; Loss of Function Mutation ; STAT Transcription Factors/genetics*

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the predictive value of circulating free DNA (cfDNA) combined with interleukin 10 (IL-10) in predicting central nervous system infiltration (CNSI) in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). METHODS: The clinical data of 63 patients with DLBCL in our hospital from May 2021 to April 2023 were retrospectively analyzed. The 63 patients were divided into CNSI group (15 cases) and non-CNSI group (48 cases) base on whether CNSI occurred. The age, sex, Ann Arbor stage, ECOG score, IPI risk, CNS-IPI risk, number of extranodal sites involved, bone marrow involvement, hypertrophic disease, B symptoms, source cells, glucose quantification, Pandy test, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) chlorine, CSF nucleated cell count, CSF protein, peripheral blood cfDNA, and IL-10 status were compared between the two groups. The correlation between cfDNA, IL-10 in peripheral blood and CSF protein was analyzed by Pearson correlation analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was used to analyze the predictive value of peripheral blood cfDNA and IL-10 on secondary CNSI in DLBCL patients. The last follow-up was on November 30, 2023. Kaplan-Meier method was used to calculate the time of secondary CNSI in the non-CNSI group. RESULTS: The IPI risk, CNS-IPI risk, number of extranodal sites involved, and CSF protein in the CNSI group were significantly higher than those in the non-CNSI group (all P <0.05). The levels of cfDNA and IL-10 in peripheral blood of CNSI group were significantly higher than those of non-CNSI group (both P <0.01). cfDNA and IL-10 in peripheral blood were both positively correlated with CSF protein (r =0.402 4, 0.315 1). ROC curve analysis showed that peripheral blood cfDNA and IL-10 had certain predictive value for CNSI, and the area under the curve (AUC) was 0.829 and 0.742, respectively. The AUC of the combined detection was 0.910, with a sensitivity of 80.00% and a specificity of 93.70%. The diagnostic efficacy was significantly higher than that of the two prediction values alone. The median follow-up time was 20 (6-31) months. Non-CNSI patients were grouped based on peripheral blood cfDNA combined with IL-10 positive or negative pairs. The time of secondary CNSI in positive group was significantly shorter than that in negative group (P <0.05). CONCLUSION cfDNA and IL-10 in peripheral blood of DLBCL patients with CNSI are significantly increased, and the combined detection of cfDNA and IL-10 has good predictive value for CNSI.
Humans ; Interleukin-10/blood* ; Lymphoma, Large B-Cell, Diffuse/blood* ; Retrospective Studies ; Female ; Male ; Cell-Free Nucleic Acids/blood* ; Middle Aged ; ROC Curve ; Prognosis ; Central Nervous System Neoplasms ; Central Nervous System/pathology* ; Adult ; Predictive Value of Tests

Hemodynamic monitoring can reflect cardiac function and blood perfusion and is an indispensable monitoring method in clinical practice. Invasive hemodynamic monitoring methods represented by the thermodilution method are limited in their clinical application scope because they require vascular cannulation. Non-invasive hemodynamic monitoring has attracted extensive attention from medical companies and clinicians at home and abroad in recent years due to its advantages such as safety, non-invasiveness, continuous monitoring, simple operation, and low cost. This paper designs a non-invasive hemodynamic monitoring system based on the impedance cardiography, including hardware, algorithm, software design, and performance parameter evaluation. Among them, the hardware part mainly includes a differential high-frequency constant current source stimulation circuit, impedance cardiogram signal acquisition, and ECG signal acquisition circuit. Signal processing includes wave filtering, impedance cardiogram signal calibration, and ECG signal and impedance cardiogram signal feature point recognition. According to the collected impedance cardiogram and ECG signals, hemodynamic parameters such as heart rate (HR), stroke volume (SV), cardiac output (CO), stroke index (SI), cardiac index (CI), and cardiac contractility index (ICON) are calculated based on the Nyboer thoracic cylinder model. After testing, the key technical indicators of the system hardware are better than that of the relevant medical device standards. The system was used to collect impedance cardiogram and ECG signal data from 40 volunteers. The calculated HR, SV, and CO, three important hemodynamic indicators, were compared with the ICONCore non-invasive cardiac output monitor of OSYPKA Medical in Germany. Their Pearson correlation coefficients were 0.992 ( P<0.001), 0.948 ( P<0.001), and 0.933 ( P<0.001), respectively, verifying that the designed system has high accuracy and reliability.
Cardiography, Impedance/methods* ; Humans ; Hemodynamic Monitoring/methods* ; Equipment Design ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Hemodynamics ; Algorithms ; Monitoring, Physiologic/methods* ; Electrocardiography

End-tidal carbon dioxide monitoring is an important means of evaluating human lung function and is widely used in fields such as clinical emergency treatment and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. This paper develops a microstream end-tidal carbon dioxide monitoring system. It adopts an integrated gas circuit design to further reduce the size of the equipment. The system uses the method of calculating the root mean square (RMS) of differential pressure signals to regulate the gas circuit flow, enabling the system to stably operate at a flow state of 30 mL/min. In addition, by simultaneously detecting multiple environmental parameters such as temperature and pressure, the system realizes system state monitoring and gas parameter compensation. The test results show that various indicators of the system meet the requirements of relevant standards, laying a good foundation for subsequent engineering applications.
Carbon Dioxide/analysis* ; Equipment Design ; Monitoring, Physiologic/methods* ; Humans

In order to improve the effect of transcranial electrical stimulation treatment and realize personalized treatment for patients with varying severity levels, this paper designed an integrated four-channel EEG recording multimodal transcranial electrical stimulation system. This system can conduct real-time monitoring on EEG and related characteristic analysis before stimulation, in stimulation, and after stimulation. This enables physicians and researchers to resolve real-time brain states, evaluate transcranial electrical stimulation effect, and then artificially adjust the stimulation parameters. After relevant testing and verification, the system can select four stimulation modes: TACS, TDCS, TPCS and TRNS, which can output the constant stimulation current of 0.03 mA accuracy in the range of ±2 mA and the stimulation frequency of low frequency of 0~4 kHz (precision of 0.01 Hz) and high frequency 50~100 kHz, which can obtain more accurate EEG signals under stimulation interference, demonstrating a good market application prospect.
Electroencephalography/methods* ; Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation/instrumentation* ; Humans ; Equipment Design

This paper introduces a 16-channel multimodal high-precision transcranial electrical stimulation system specifically for non-invasive brain stimulation. This system added TMCS mixed four traditional stimulation modes with TACS, TDCS, TPCS and TRNS. By designing a compensated high-precision constant current source, the constant stimulation current with an accuracy of 0.03 mA in the range of ±2 mA and the stimulation frequency of 50~200 kHz with low frequency of 0~4 kHz (high frequency of 0.1 Hz) are realized. In TACS stimulation mode, there are five adjustable wave forms: triangular wave, sine wave, sawtooth wave, square wave and mixed wave. The system has dual closed-loop control overcurrent detection and simultaneous real-time electrode contact impedance detection. After relevant tests and verification, the system has good stimulation accuracy, high safety and reliability. Compared with the existing products at home and abroad, it features lower cost, richer stimulation mode and waveforms, demonstrating a certain market application value.
Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation/instrumentation* ; Equipment Design ; Humans

Ischemic stroke (IS) is a globally life-threatening disease. Presently, few therapeutic medicines are available for treating IS, and rt-PA is the only drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US. In fact, many agents showing excellent neuroprotection but no blood flow-improving activity in animals have not achieved ideal clinical efficacy, while thrombolytic drugs only improving blood flow without neuroprotection have limited their wider application. To address these challenges and meet the huge unmet clinical need, we have designed and identified a novel compound AAPB with dual effects of neuroprotection and cerebral blood flow improvement. AAPB significantly reduced cerebral infarction and neural function deficit in tMCAO rats, pMCAO rats, and IS rhesus monkeys, as well as displayed exceptional safety profiles and excellent pharmacokinetic properties in rats and dogs. AAPB has now entered phase I of clinical trials fighting IS in China.

Environmental toxicants have been linked to aging and age-related diseases. The emerging evidence has shown that the enhancement of detoxification gene expression is a common transcriptome marker of long-lived mice, Drosophila melanogaster, and Caenorhabditis elegans. Meanwhile, the resistance to toxicants was increased in long-lived animals. Here, we show that farnesoid X receptor (FXR) agonist obeticholic acid (OCA), a marketed drug for the treatment of cholestasis, may extend the lifespan and healthspan both in C. elegans and chemical-induced early senescent mice. Furthermore, OCA increased the resistance of worms to toxicants and activated the expression of detoxification genes in both mice and C. elegans. The longevity effects of OCA were attenuated in Fxr ^-/- mice and Fxr homologous nhr-8 and daf-12 mutant C. elegans. In addition, metabolome analysis revealed that OCA increased the endogenous agonist levels of the pregnane X receptor (PXR), a major nuclear receptor for detoxification regulation, in the liver of mice. Together, our findings suggest that OCA has the potential to lengthen lifespan and healthspan by activating nuclear receptor-mediated detoxification functions, thus, targeting FXR may offer to promote longevity.

In recent decades, the prevalence of hyperuricemia and gout has increased dramatically due to lifestyle changes. The drugs currently recommended for hyperuricemia are associated with adverse reactions that limit their clinical use. In this study, we report that berberine (BBR) is an effective drug candidate for the treatment of hyperuricemia, with its mechanism potentially involving the modulation of gut microbiota and its metabolite, succinic acid. BBR has demonstrated good therapeutic effects in both acute and chronic animal models of hyperuricemia. In a clinical trial, oral administration of BBR for 6 months reduced blood uric acid levels in 22 participants by modulating the gut microbiota, which led to an increase in the abundance of Bacteroides and a decrease in Clostridium sensu stricto_1. Furthermore, Bacteroides fragilis was transplanted into ICR mice, and the results showed that Bacteroides fragilis exerted a therapeutic effect on uric acid similar to that of BBR. Notably, succinic acid, a metabolite of Bacteroides, significantly reduced uric acid levels. Subsequent cell and animal experiments revealed that the intestinal metabolite, succinic acid, regulated the upstream uric acid synthesis pathway in the liver by inhibiting adenosine monophosphate deaminase 2 (AMPD2), an enzyme responsible for converting adenosine monophosphate (AMP) to inosine monophosphate (IMP). This inhibition resulted in a decrease in IMP levels and an increase in phosphate levels. The reduction in IMP led to a decreased downstream production of hypoxanthine, xanthine, and uric acid. BBR also demonstrated excellent renoprotective effects, improving nephropathy associated with hyperuricemia. In summary, BBR has the potential to be an effective treatment for hyperuricemia through the gut-liver axis.