ObjectiveTo construct a multifunctional liposomal delivery system by replacing cholesterol（Chol） in conventional liposomes with saikosaponin D（SSD） and modifying with poloxamer 407（P407） for co-delivery of curcumin（Cur）. The system was evaluated for in vivo tumor targeting and inhibitory effects on mouse subcutaneous solid tumors. MethodsSingle-factor and orthogonal tests combined with information entropy weighting were used to optimize the formulation process of the liposome with encapsulation efficiency and absolute Zeta potential as indexes， and validation studies and liposomal characterization were performed. A subcutaneous solid tumor model was established by injecting H22 hepatocellular carcinoma cells subcutaneously into the dorsal surface of the right forelimb of mice. DiR-loaded traditional Chol liposomes（P407-DiR-Chol-LPs， PDCL） and novel SSD-based liposomes（P407-DiR-SSD-LPs， PDSL） were prepared by the optimized formulation process， and tail vein injection was performed to investigate the impact of SSD on liposome tumor targeting with small animal in vivo imaging. Mice were randomly divided into eight groups， including blank group， model group， free doxorubicin（DOX） group（2 mg·kg^-1）， free Cur group（8 mg·kg^-1）， free SSD group（10 mg·kg^-1）， P407-Cur-Chol-LPs（PCCL） group， P407-SSD-LPs（PSL） group， and P407-Cur-SSD-Lps（PCSL） group. Treatments were administered intraperitoneally every other day for seven doses. Antitumor efficacy and biocompatibility were evaluated by monitoring body weight change， organ indices， tumor volume and mass， relative tumor proliferation rate（T/C）， and tumor growth inhibition rate（TGI）. Histopathological analysis of liver， kidney， and tumor tissues was performed using hematoxylin-eosin（HE） staining. Serum levels of aspartate aminotransferase（AST）， alanine aminotransferase （ALT）， blood urea nitrogen（BUN）， and creatinine（Crea）in mice were quantified by fully automated biochemical analyzer. ResultsOrthogonal test yielded optimal ratios of Cur， SSD， and P407 to soybean phosphatidylcholine（SPC） as 1∶25， 1∶20， and 1∶4. The optimized PCSL exhibited spherical morphology with a particle size of 179.15 nm， a Zeta potential of -47.25 mV， and an encapsulation efficiency of 96.40%. Its in vitro release profile conformed to first-order kinetics， demonstrating excellent storage stability and hemocompatibility. In vivo imaging revealed that the fluorescence signal in tumor tissues and the fluorescence intensity ratio between tumors and organs were significantly higher in the PDSL group than in the PDCL group（P<0.05， P<0.01）. Among the treatment groups， PCSL group showed superior efficacy over free Cur group， free SSD group， PCCL group， and PSL group， with TGI>40% and T/C<60%， indicating pronounced anti-hepatocellular carcinoma effects（P<0.05， P<0.01）. Histopathology and serum biochemistry indicated minimal hepatorenal toxicity and improved hepatic and renal function in PCSL-treated mice. ConclusionReplacing Chol with SSD in preparing multifunctional drug delivery systems not only stabilizes liposomes but also yields superior anti-hepatocellular carcinoma efficacy， achieving the effect of drug-excipient integration. Co-delivery of Cur via this system can be used for treating subcutaneous solid tumors in hepatocellular carcinoma， providing new insights and technical approaches for anti-hepatocellular carcinoma research and the meridian-guiding and messenger-directing theory in traditional Chinese medicine.

ObjectiveThe essence of syndrome manifestation recognition in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is to infer the body’s latent pathogenesis state from clinical observational information, rather than to perform simple label matching. However, previous studies have largely modeled this task as syndrome pattern classification within a fixed label space, which does not adequately reflect the cognition process of TCM syndrome differentiation centered on pathogenesis reasoning, and is also insufficient to capture the openness, semantic variability, and cross-disease reusability of syndrome manifestation expression. This study aimed to investigate whether introducing pathogenesis reasoning chain-of-thought (PR-CoT) supervision into large language models (LLMs) could improve the quality and cognitive consistency of syndrome manifestation recognition and support cross-disease transfer. MethodsSyndrome manifestation recognition was formulated as a conditional generation task under the framework of clinical observational information (X)→pathogenesis structure (Z)→syndrome pattern output (Y), where Z serves as an explicit intermediate structural variable linking the clinical evidence and syndrome judgment. Within this framework, a PR-CoT-supervised dataset for syndrome manifestation recognition was constructed based on medical case records of spleen-stomach disorders. After preprocessing, information extraction, manual proofreading, and data cleaning, the dataset comprised 4 800 training cases, 400 development cases, and 400 test cases. Each sample was annotated with a structured PR-CoT consisting of three progressive levels: clinical information summarization, comprehensive pathogenesis analysis, and syndrome pattern output. Supervised fine-tuning was conducted on open-source LLMs, with an end-to-end model serving as the baseline. Qwen3-32B was used as the primary experimental model, and Qwen3-14B as the scale comparison model. A progressive multidimensional evaluation framework was further established, comprising a structural parsing level, a semantic similarity level, and an expert blind review level. At the structural parsing level, syndrome pattern expressions were decomposed into structural elements and evaluated using Precision, Recall, F1 score, and Jaccard similarity. At the semantic similarity level, independent LLMs scored the theoretical proximity between predicted and reference syndrome patterns. At the expert blind review level, three TCM experts independently evaluated model outputs on two dimensions: syndrome differentiation consistency and terminology standardization of syndrome patterns. In addition, zero-shot cross-disease transfer evaluation was conducted on gynecological and heart-system disorder test sets. ResultsAt the structural parsing level, PR-CoT supervision did not lead to a stable improvement in the element-wise overlap of syndrome pattern structural components. Compared with the corresponding baselines, neither Qwen3-32B nor Qwen3-14B showed consistent advantages in structural matching metrics after the introduction of PR-CoT supervision. In contrast, at the semantic similarity level, PR-CoT supervision produced stable positive gains across different model scales and evaluation systems. The average semantic score of Qwen3-32B increased from 6.425 8 in the baseline model to 6.585 0 after PR-CoT supervision, and that of Qwen3-14B increased from 5.870 0 to 5.964 2. At the expert blind review level, the overall score of Qwen3-32B (PR-CoT) was 7.026 0±0.107 7, higher than 6.416 3±0.288 9 for its baseline. In zero-shot cross-disease testing, the PR-CoT model still showed advantages in semantic evaluation and expert evaluation on both gynecological and heart-system disorder test sets, indicating a certain degree of transferability. ConclusionThe benefits of PR-CoT supervision are mainly reflected in TCM semantic consistency and clinical plausibility, rather than in improved hard matching of structural elements. These findings support understanding syndrome manifestation recognition as a process of generating and expressing latent pathogenesis structures, rather than as a classification task within a traditional fixed label space. By introducing pathogenesis reasoning as an explicit intermediate structure into the modeling process and combining it with a progressive multidimensional evaluation framework, this study provides a methodological pathway for intelligent TCM syndrome differentiation that integrates theoretical alignment, interpretability, and multi-level evaluation.

ObjectiveThe essence of syndrome manifestation recognition in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is to infer the body’s latent pathogenesis state from clinical observational information, rather than to perform simple label matching. However, previous studies have largely modeled this task as syndrome pattern classification within a fixed label space, which does not adequately reflect the cognition process of TCM syndrome differentiation centered on pathogenesis reasoning, and is also insufficient to capture the openness, semantic variability, and cross-disease reusability of syndrome manifestation expression. This study aimed to investigate whether introducing pathogenesis reasoning chain-of-thought (PR-CoT) supervision into large language models (LLMs) could improve the quality and cognitive consistency of syndrome manifestation recognition and support cross-disease transfer. MethodsSyndrome manifestation recognition was formulated as a conditional generation task under the framework of clinical observational information (X)→pathogenesis structure (Z)→syndrome pattern output (Y), where Z serves as an explicit intermediate structural variable linking the clinical evidence and syndrome judgment. Within this framework, a PR-CoT-supervised dataset for syndrome manifestation recognition was constructed based on medical case records of spleen-stomach disorders. After preprocessing, information extraction, manual proofreading, and data cleaning, the dataset comprised 4 800 training cases, 400 development cases, and 400 test cases. Each sample was annotated with a structured PR-CoT consisting of three progressive levels: clinical information summarization, comprehensive pathogenesis analysis, and syndrome pattern output. Supervised fine-tuning was conducted on open-source LLMs, with an end-to-end model serving as the baseline. Qwen3-32B was used as the primary experimental model, and Qwen3-14B as the scale comparison model. A progressive multidimensional evaluation framework was further established, comprising a structural parsing level, a semantic similarity level, and an expert blind review level. At the structural parsing level, syndrome pattern expressions were decomposed into structural elements and evaluated using Precision, Recall, F1 score, and Jaccard similarity. At the semantic similarity level, independent LLMs scored the theoretical proximity between predicted and reference syndrome patterns. At the expert blind review level, three TCM experts independently evaluated model outputs on two dimensions: syndrome differentiation consistency and terminology standardization of syndrome patterns. In addition, zero-shot cross-disease transfer evaluation was conducted on gynecological and heart-system disorder test sets. ResultsAt the structural parsing level, PR-CoT supervision did not lead to a stable improvement in the element-wise overlap of syndrome pattern structural components. Compared with the corresponding baselines, neither Qwen3-32B nor Qwen3-14B showed consistent advantages in structural matching metrics after the introduction of PR-CoT supervision. In contrast, at the semantic similarity level, PR-CoT supervision produced stable positive gains across different model scales and evaluation systems. The average semantic score of Qwen3-32B increased from 6.425 8 in the baseline model to 6.585 0 after PR-CoT supervision, and that of Qwen3-14B increased from 5.870 0 to 5.964 2. At the expert blind review level, the overall score of Qwen3-32B (PR-CoT) was 7.026 0±0.107 7, higher than 6.416 3±0.288 9 for its baseline. In zero-shot cross-disease testing, the PR-CoT model still showed advantages in semantic evaluation and expert evaluation on both gynecological and heart-system disorder test sets, indicating a certain degree of transferability. ConclusionThe benefits of PR-CoT supervision are mainly reflected in TCM semantic consistency and clinical plausibility, rather than in improved hard matching of structural elements. These findings support understanding syndrome manifestation recognition as a process of generating and expressing latent pathogenesis structures, rather than as a classification task within a traditional fixed label space. By introducing pathogenesis reasoning as an explicit intermediate structure into the modeling process and combining it with a progressive multidimensional evaluation framework, this study provides a methodological pathway for intelligent TCM syndrome differentiation that integrates theoretical alignment, interpretability, and multi-level evaluation.

ObjectiveTo analyze the expression level and clinical significance of Y‑box binding protein‑1（YB1） in tissues and cells of oral squamous cell carcinoma （OSCC）. MethodsBioinformatics analysis， immunohistochemistry， Western blot and qRT-PCR were used to detect the expression of YB1 in OSCC tissues， and the prognosis and survival analysis were performed. The effects of YB1 on the proliferation， migration and invasion of OSCC cells were evaluated by CCK-8， scratch assay and Transwell assay， and the expression changes of phosphoinositide 3-kinase/protein kinase B （PI3K/AKT） signaling pathway and epithelial-mesenchymal transition （EMT） related markers after YB1 knockdown were detected by Western blot. ResultsBioinformation analysis showed that the expression level of YB1 in OSCC samples was higher than that in normal samples （P0.001）， and its expression was correlated with gender （P=0.022） and tumor differentiation degree （P0.001）. Kaplan-Meier plotter survival analysis showed that the survival rate of YB1 was low （Log-rank P=0.012）. Immunohistochemistry， Western blot and qRT-PCR experiments verified that the expression level of YB1 in OSCC tissues was higher than that of normal tissues. The results of cell experiments showed that knockdown of YB1 inhibited the malignant biological behaviors such as proliferation， migration and invasion of OSCC cells. Western blot results showed that the knockdown of YB1 could reduce the protein expression levels of p-PI3K and p-AKT， and inhibit EMT. ConclusionYB1 is highly expressed in tissues and cells in OSCC， and reveals the important role of the YB1/PI3K/AKT axis in the process of EMT of OSCC， which is expected to become a new tumor marker for early diagnosis and treatment and prognosis evaluation of OSCC.

ObjectiveTo investigate whether the effect of Danggui Shaoyaosan （DSS） on cognitive impairment is related to its promotion of ketone body metabolism in the brain and regulation of glutamate/α-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isox-azolepropionic acid receptor （AMPAR） pathway. MethodsMale APP/PS1 mice were randomized into model， low-dose （3.2 g·kg^-1） DSS， medium-dose （6.4 g·kg^-1） DSS， high-dose （12.8 g·kg^-1） DSS， ketogenic diet， and inhibitor （talampanel， 5 mg·kg^-1） groups. C57BL/6J wild-type mice were selected as the normal group. The talampanel group was intragastrically administered for 2 consecutive weeks from the 6th week， and the other groups were continuously treated for 8 weeks before behavioral testing. The ultrastructure of synapses in hippocampal CA1 region was observed by transmission electron microscopy， and calcium/calmodulin-dependent kinase Ⅱ （CaMKⅡ） expression was detected by immunohistochemistry （IHC）. The levels of β-hydroxybutyrate （BHB） and lactic acid （LAC） were measured by biochemical kits， and those of glutamate （Glu）， glutamine （Gln）， γ-aminobutyric acid （GABA）， and synaptophysin （SYP） by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay （ELISA）. The mRNA levels of glutamine synthetase （GS）， glutaminase （GLS）， glutamate decarboxylase （GAD）， CaMKⅡ， and AMPAR subunits GluA1 and GluA2 were quantified by Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction （Real-time PCR）， and the protein levels of GS， GLS， GAD， GluA1， and GluA2 by Western blot. ResultsCompared with the normal group， the model group exhibited decreased recognition index， spontaneous alternation rate， and residence time in the target quadrant （P<0.01）， increased escape latency and ratio of the time in the opposite side of the target quadrant to the time in the target quadrant （P<0.05， P<0.01）， damaged synaptic ultrastructure of hippocampal CA1 region， increased positive expression of CaMKⅡ， no significant difference in BHB level， elevated LAC and Glu levels （P<0.01）， declined SYP， Gln， and GABA levels （P<0.01）， downregulated mRNA and protein levels of GS， GAD， and GluA2 （P<0.05， P<0.01）， and upregulated mRNA and protein levels of GLS and GluA1 （P<0.05， P<0.01） and mRNA level of CaMKⅡ （P<0.01）. Compared with the model group， DSS intervention improved the behavioral indexes of mice （P<0.05， P<0.01）， enhanced the synaptic ultrastructure plasticity in hippocampal CA1 region， decreased the positive expression of CaMKⅡ， raised the BHB level （P<0.01）， reduced the LAC and Glu levels （P<0.01）， elevated the SYP， Gln， and GABA levels （P<0.01）， upregulated the mRNA and protein levels of GS， GAD， and GluA2， and downregulated the mRNA and protein levels of GLS and GluA1 （P<0.05， P<0.01） and the mRNA level of CaMKⅡ （P<0.01）. ConclusionDSS can improve the learning and memory and enhance the synaptic plasticity of APP/PS1 mice. Its neuroprotective effect is coupled with the promotion of ketone body formation and remodeling of brain energy metabolism， and is related to the regulation of glutamate/AMPAR pathway.

Helicobacter pylori （H. pylori） infection is not only associated with gastrointestinal diseases， but also potentially links with neuropsychiatric disorders revealed by recent studies. Through a systematic review of the existing literature， this review summarizes epidemiological evidence for the association between H. pylori infection and diseases such as Parkinson′s disease （PD）， Alzheimer′s disease （AD）， multiple sclerosis （MS）， migraine， depression， and anxiety disorders， and further explores potential mechanisms by which it affects central nervous system function， including neural pathways mediated by the enteric nervous system and the vagus nerve， immune pathways mediated by inflammatory cytokines， and endocrine pathways mediated by gut microbial metabolites. Additionally， the current challenges facing H. pylori eradication therapy and the prospects for emerging adjuvant strategies such as probiotics and fecal microbiota transplantation are discussed. Finally， future research directions are outlined， emphasizing the need for prospective cohort studies based on standardized diagnostic methods and further investigation using animal models to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanisms， with the aim of providing new perspectives for the prevention， treatment， and early intervention of related neuropsychiatric disorders.

Electroencephalogram (EEG) is a non-invasive, high temporal-resolution technique for monitoring brain activity. However, affected by the volume conduction effect, EEG has a low spatial resolution and is difficult to locate brain neuronal activity precisely. The surface Laplacian (SL) technique obtains the Laplacian EEG (LEEG) by estimating the second-order spatial derivative of the scalp potential. LEEG can reflect the radial current activity under the scalp, with positive values indicating current flow from the brain to the scalp (“source”) and negative values indicating current flow from the scalp to the brain (“sink”). It attenuates signals from volume conduction, effectively improving the spatial resolution of EEG, and is expected to contribute to breakthroughs in neural engineering. This paper provides a systematic overview of the principles and development of SL technology. Currently, there are two implementation paths for SL technology: current source density algorithms (CSD) and concentric ring electrodes (CRE). CSD performs the Laplace transform of the EEG signals acquired by conventional disc electrodes to indirectly estimate the LEEG. It can be mainly classified into local methods, global methods, and realistic Laplacian methods. The global method is the most commonly used approach in CSD, which can achieve more accurate estimation compared with the local method, and it does not require additional imaging equipment compared with the realistic Laplacian method. CRE employs new concentric ring electrodes instead of the traditional disc electrodes, and measures the LEEG directly by differential acquisition of the multi-ring signals. Depending on the structure, it can be divided into bipolar CRE, quasi-bipolar CRE, tripolar CRE, and multi-pole CRE. The tripolar CRE is widely used due to its optimal detection performance. While ensuring the quality of signal acquisition, the complexity of its preamplifier is relatively acceptable. Here, this paper introduces the study of the SL technique in resting rhythms, visual-related potentials, movement-related potentials, and sensorimotor rhythms. These studies demonstrate that SL technology can improve signal quality and enhance signal characteristics, confirming its potential applications in neuroscientific research, disease diagnosis, visual pathway detection, and brain-computer interfaces. CSD is frequently utilized in applications such as neuroscientific research and disease detection, where high-precision estimation of LEEG is required. And CRE tends to be used in brain-computer interfaces, that have stringent requirements for real-time data processing. Finally, this paper summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of SL technology and envisages its future development. SL technology boasts advantages such as reference independence, high spatial resolution, high temporal resolution, enhanced source connectivity analysis, and noise suppression. However, it also has shortcomings that can be further improved. Theoretically, simulation experiments should be conducted to investigate the theoretical characteristics of SL technology. For CSD methods, the algorithm needs to be optimized to improve the precision of LEEG estimation, reduce dependence on the number of channels, and decrease computational complexity and time consumption. For CRE methods, the electrodes need to be designed with appropriate structures and sizes, and the low-noise, high common-mode rejection ratio preamplifier should be developed. We hope that this paper can promote the in-depth research and wide application of SL technology.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) in differentiating tumor deposits (TDs) from metastatic lymph nodes (MLNs) in rectal cancer. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 70 patients with rectal cancer, including 168 lesions (70 TDs and 98 MLNs confirmed by histopathology), who underwent pretreatment MRI and subsequent surgery between March 2019 and December 2022. The morphological characteristics of TDs and MLNs, along with quantitative parameters derived from DCE-MRI (K trans , kep, and v e) and DWI (ADCmin, ADCmax, and ADCmean), were analyzed and compared between the two groups.Multivariable binary logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were performed to assess the diagnostic performance of significant individual quantitative parameters and combined parameters in distinguishing TDs from MLNs. Results: All morphological features, including size, shape, border, and signal intensity, as well as all DCE-MRI parameters showed significant differences between TDs and MLNs (all P < 0.05). However, ADC values did not demonstrate significant differences (all P > 0.05). Among the single quantitative parameters, v e had the highest diagnostic accuracy, with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.772 for distinguishing TDs from MLNs. A multivariable logistic regression model incorporating short axis, border, v e, and ADC mean improved diagnostic performance, achieving an AUC of 0.833 (P = 0.027). Conclusion The combination of morphological features, DCE-MRI parameters, and ADC values can effectively aid in the preoperative differentiation of TDs from MLNs in rectal cancer.

ObjectiveTo investigate the effect of folic acid-modified crebanine polyethylene glycol-polylactic acid hydroxyacetic acid copolymer（PEG-PLGA） nanoparticles（FA-Cre@PEG-PLGA NPs， hereinafter referred to as NPs） combined with ultrasonic irradiation on subcutaneous tumor of liver cancer in Kunming（KM） mice. MethodsEighty-four healthy male KM mice were utilized to establish a subcutaneous tumor model of mouse hepatocellular carcinoma with H22 cells， then mice were randomly divided into model group， placebo group， hydroxycamptothecin group（8 mg∙kg^-1）， low， medium and high dose crebanine raw material groups（2， 2.5， 3 mg∙kg^-1， hereinafter referred to as the low， medium and high dose crebanine groups， respectively）， low， medium and high dose NPs groups（2， 2.5， 3 mg∙kg^-1）， and low， medium and high dose NPs combined with ultrasonic irradiation groups（2， 2.5， 3 mg∙kg^-1， hereinafter referred to as the low， medium and high dose combination groups， respectively）. The corresponding doses of drugs were administered via tail vein injection， the model group received no treatment， while the placebo group was injected with an equivalent amount of normal saline. Dosing was conducted for a total of 10 times on alternate days. The body mass of the mice was monitored， and parameters such as body mass change rate， thymus index， spleen index， tumor volume， tumor weight， relative tumor growth rate（T/C）， and tumor inhibition rate（TGI） were calculated. Pathological changes in liver and kidney tissues as well as the tumor were observed by hematoxylin-eosin（HE） staining. Additionally， the levels of aspartate aminotransferase（AST）， alanine aminotransferase（ALT）， blood urea nitrogen（BUN） and creatinine（CREA） in serum of mice were detected by biochemical method. Furthermore， the effect of ultrasound on the distribution of NPs in subcutaneous tumors of mouse hepatocellular carcinoma was observed by in vivo imaging technique. ResultsAmong different treatment methods， the combination of NPs and ultrasound irradiation had the best therapeutic effect. Compared with the model group， the body mass growth rates of mice in the medium and high combination groups decreased， while the thymus index and spleen index increased， but there was no statistically significant difference in serum AST， ALT， BUN and CREA levels， indicating that NPs combined with ultrasound irradiation had little effect on the normal physiological state of the body， oth groups had TGI>40% and T/C<60%， indicating a clear anti-tumor effect. Pathological analysis showed that compared with the NPs groups， the combination groups exhibited varying degrees of necrosis in tumor cells， accompanied by less damage to the liver and kidneys. In vivo imaging of small animals showed that compared with the high dose NPs group， the high dose combination group had stronger tumor targeting ability（P<0.01）. ConclusionNPs combined with ultrasonic irradiation can not only effectively targeted the drug to the tumor site， inhibit the subcutaneous tumor growth of mouse liver cancer， but also decrease damage to liver and kidney tissues.

Objective: To evaluate the feasibility of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) in differentiating tumor deposits (TDs) from metastatic lymph nodes (MLNs) in rectal cancer. Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 70 patients with rectal cancer, including 168 lesions (70 TDs and 98 MLNs confirmed by histopathology), who underwent pretreatment MRI and subsequent surgery between March 2019 and December 2022. The morphological characteristics of TDs and MLNs, along with quantitative parameters derived from DCE-MRI (K trans , kep, and v e) and DWI (ADCmin, ADCmax, and ADCmean), were analyzed and compared between the two groups.Multivariable binary logistic regression and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses were performed to assess the diagnostic performance of significant individual quantitative parameters and combined parameters in distinguishing TDs from MLNs. Results: All morphological features, including size, shape, border, and signal intensity, as well as all DCE-MRI parameters showed significant differences between TDs and MLNs (all P < 0.05). However, ADC values did not demonstrate significant differences (all P > 0.05). Among the single quantitative parameters, v e had the highest diagnostic accuracy, with an area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.772 for distinguishing TDs from MLNs. A multivariable logistic regression model incorporating short axis, border, v e, and ADC mean improved diagnostic performance, achieving an AUC of 0.833 (P = 0.027). Conclusion The combination of morphological features, DCE-MRI parameters, and ADC values can effectively aid in the preoperative differentiation of TDs from MLNs in rectal cancer.