OBJECTIVES: We propose a sparse-view cone-beam CT reconstruction algorithm based on bidirectional flow field guided projection completion (BBC-Recon) to solve the ill-posed inverse problem in sparse-view cone-beam CT imaging. METHODS: The BBC-Recon method consists of two main modules: the projection completion module and the image restoration module. Based on flow field estimation, the projection completion module, through the designed bidirectional and multi-scale correlators, fully calculates the correlation information and redundant information among projections to precisely guide the generation of bidirectional flow fields and missing frames, thus achieving high-precision completion of missing projections and obtaining pseudo complete projections. The image restoration module reconstructs the obtained pseudo complete projections and then refines the image to remove the residual artifacts and further improve the image quality. RESULTS: The experimental results on the public datasets of Mayo Clinic and Guilin Medical University showed that in the case of a 4-fold sparse angle, compared with the suboptimal method, the BBC-Recon method increased the PSNR index by 1.80% and the SSIM index by 0.29%, and reduced the RMSE index by 4.12%; In the case of an 8-fold sparse angle, the BBC-Recon method increased the PSNR index by 1.43% and the SSIM index by 1.49%, and reduced the RMSE index by 0.77%. CONCLUSIONS The BBC-Recon algorithm fully exploits the correlation information between projections to allow effective removal of streak artifacts while preserving image structure information, and demonstrates significant advantages in maintaining inter-slice consistency.
Algorithms ; Cone-Beam Computed Tomography/methods* ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/methods* ; Humans

OBJECTIVE: To elucidate the role and mechanism of microRNA-145-5p (miR-145-5p) in hypoxia-induced pyroptosis of human alveolar epithelial cells. METHODS: In vitro, human alveolar epithelial cell line BEAS-2B was cultured. Cells in the logarithmic growth phase were cultured to 80% confluence and then used for the experiment. (1) BEAS-2B cells were cultured under 1% O₂ hypoxic condition, with a normoxic control group. Western blotting was employed to detect the expressions of pyroptosis marker proteins [NOD-like receptor protein 3 (NLRP3), Gasdermin D N-terminal domain (GSDMD-N), and caspase-1] in cells cultured for 24 hours. Real-time fluorescent quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to detect the expression of miR-145-5p in cells cultured for 6 hours and 12 hours. (2) Cells were transfected with 30 nmol/L miR-145-5p mimic to overexpress miR-145-5p expression under normoxic condition or 30 nmol/L miR-145-5p inhibitor to suppress miR-145-5p expression under hypoxic condition. Control group and negative control group were respectively set up. After 24 hours of cell culture, Western blotting was used to detect the expressions of pyroptosis marker proteins and nuclear factor-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) in cells. Flow cytometry was applied to detect the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in cells. The target genes of miR-145-5p were predicted by miR target gene prediction software miRWalk and verified by Western blotting. (3) Under hypoxic condition, cells were transfected with 6.94 ng/μL silent information regulator 5 (Sirt5) overexpression plasmid or pretreated with 12.5 mmol/L N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC) as an ROS inhibitor. The empty plasmid group and control group were set up. After 24 hours of cell culture, Western blotting was used to detect the expressions of Sirt5, Nrf2, and pyroptosis marker proteins in cells. Flow cytometry was used to detect the level of ROS in cells. RESULTS: (1) Compared with the normoxic control group, the expression levels of pyroptosis marker proteins in the 24-hour hypoxia group was significantly increased, indicating that hypoxia could induce pyroptosis in BEAS-2B cells. The expression level of miR-145-5p in cells gradually increased with the extension of hypoxia induction time, indicating that hypoxia could cause the increase of miR-145-5p expression level. (2) The expression levels of pyroptosis marker proteins in cells of miR-145-5p mimic group significantly increased under normoxic condition as compared with the control and negative control groups [NLRP3 protein (NLRP3/β-actin): 1.58±0.07 vs. 1.00±0.01, 0.98±0.07, GSDMD-N protein (GSDMD-N/β-actin): 1.71±0.03 vs. 1.01±0.01, 0.85±0.03, caspase-1 protein (caspase-1/β-actin): 2.33±0.04 vs. 1.01±0.01, 1.05±0.04, all P < 0.05], Nrf2 protein expression level was significantly decreased (Nrf2/β-actin: 0.79±0.03 vs. 1.00±0.01, 1.03±0.04, both P < 0.05), ROS level was significantly up-regulated (fluorescence intensity: 1.74±0.03 vs. 1.00±0.01, 0.92±0.03, both P < 0.05). Under hypoxia condition, compared with control group and negative control group, the expression levels of pyroptosis marker proteins in miR-145-5p inhibitor group were significantly decreased [NLRP3 protein (NLRP3/β-actin): 0.21±0.04 vs. 1.70±0.02, 1.63±0.04; GSDMD-N protein (GSDMD-N/β-actin): 1.32±0.02 vs. 2.51±0.02, 2.72±0.03; caspase-1 protein (caspase-1/β-actin): 0.56±0.01 vs. 2.77±0.02, 3.12±0.03; all P < 0.05], Nrf2 protein expression level was significantly increased (Nrf2/β-actin: 1.57±0.04 vs. 1.22±0.01, 1.28±0.04, both P < 0.05), ROS level was significantly down-regulated (fluorescence intensity: 0.64±0.05 vs. 1.87±0.04, 1.70±0.07, both P < 0.05). The results indicated that miR-145-5p could promote cell pyrodeath. The predictive result of miRWalk showed that the 3' untranslated region (3'UTR) of Sirt5 had complementary base binding sites with miR-145-5p. The expression level of Sirt5 protein in cells of miR-145-5p mimic group was significantly lower than that of control group and negative control group under normoxic condition (Sirt5/β-actin: 0.59±0.03 vs. 1.00±0.01, 1.01±0.03, both P < 0.05), which verified that Sirt5 was the target gene of miR-145-5p. (3) The occurrence of pyrodeath could be partially reversed by transfection with Sirt5 overexpression plasmid or adding ROS inhibitor NAC into cells, and Sirt5 overexpression could also up-regulate Nrf2 expression and eliminate intracellular ROS. CONCLUSION In human alveolar epithelial cells, miR-145-5p can down-regulate Nrf2 by targeting Sirt5, thereby increasing ROS expression and inducing pyrodeath.
Humans ; MicroRNAs ; Pyroptosis ; Cell Hypoxia ; Alveolar Epithelial Cells/cytology* ; Cell Line ; NLR Family, Pyrin Domain-Containing 3 Protein ; Caspase 1/metabolism* ; Epithelial Cells/metabolism* ; Gasdermins ; Phosphate-Binding Proteins

Objective To study carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales(CRE)infection in the neurosurgical inten-sive care unit(NS-ICU)under the combination of active screening using anal swabs and bundled intervention mea-sures in environment with high prevalence of CRE infection,and provide scientific basis for healthcare-associated in-fection(HAI)prevention and control.Methods Inpatients in NS-ICU from 2020 to 2021 were selected as the con-trol group,and didn't undergo active anal swab screening.NS-ICU inpatients from 2022 to 2023 were taken as the trial group,and implemented intervention of active anal swab screening.Isolation measures for CRE positive cases in two groups were implemented,and the incidence of CRE HAI between two groups of patients were compared.Results 645 patients were actively screened for CRE,with a total of 912 screenings.The overall screening positive rate was 9.21％,and the rectal CRE colonization rate in NS-ICU patients was 13.02％(84/645),out of which Klebsiella pneumoniae accounted for 92.86％(n=78 strains).The positive screening rates in patients in the trial group within 48 hours after admission as well as on day 3-7,day 8-15,and 16-30 were 3.30％,4.94％,13.68％,and 18.85％,respectively.With prolonged hospitalization time,the positive rate of CRE anal swab screening gradually increased.During the study period,the overall CRE HAI rate was 6.24％(72/1 153).After implementing active screening intervention,the CRE HAI rate in the trial group was lower than that in the control group(3.57％[23/645]vs 9.65％[49/508],P＜0.001).Conclusion In hospital environment with high CRE prevalence,implementing active screening and bundled intervention measures can effectively identify CRE carriers and reduce the risk of infection caused by intestinal colonization.

Objective To compare the efficacy and safety of perioperative chemotherapy regimens based on docetaxel administered in different cycles for locally advanced gastric cancer(LAGC)and gastroesophageal junction cancer(GEJC)through a network Meta-analysis.Methods PubMed,Embase,Cochrane Library,and Web of Science databases were electronically searched to collect randomized controlled trials(RCTs)evaluating docetaxel-based perioperative regimens for the treatment of LAGC and GEJC from inception to February 28,2025.Two researchers independently screened the literature,extracted relevant data,and assessed the risk of bias in the included studies.Subsequently,a network Meta-analysis was performed using R 4.5.0 software.Results A total of 10 RCTs involving 2,064 patients were included.The results of the network Meta-analysis showed that,compared with three cycles of epirubicin,cyclophosphamide,and fluorouracil(ECF regimen)and four cycles of platinum and fluorouracil(PF regimen),both three-cycle and four-cycle docetaxel,platinum,and fluorouracil(TPF regimen)significantly increased the complete tumor resection rate(R0 resection rate).Compared with surgery alone,the three-cycle TPF regimen significantly improved the R0 resection rate.Additionally,the four-cycle TPF regimen significantly improved 3-year and 5-year progression-free survival(PFS)compared with the two-cycle PF regimen,and significantly improved overall survival(OS)at 3 and 5 years compared with the three-cycle ECF regimen.Compared with surgery alone,the three-cycle TPF regimen also significantly increased the pathological complete response rate(pCR rate).Furthermore,compared with the two-cycle TPF and three-cycle ECF regimens,the four-cycle TPF and PF regimens were associated with a lower risk of surgical complications.Conversely,the two-cycle TPF and three-cycle ECF regimens significantly increased the risk of surgical complications compared with surgery alone.No statistically significant differences were observed in the incidence of grade 3 to 4 adverse events among the treatment regimens(P＞0.05).Based on the surface under the cumulative ranking curve(SUCRA)plot and pairwise comparisons,the three-cycle PF regimen appeared to be the most effective in achieving the highest R0 resection rate,the three-cycle TPF regimen appeared to be the most effective in achieving the highest pCR rate,while the four-cycle TPF regimen was associated with the best outcomes in terms of 3-year and 5-year PFS and OS.Conclusion The four-cycle TPF regimen may be associated with the optimal PFS and OS among perioperative chemotherapy regimens.No statistically significant differences were observed between the four-cycle TPF and the three-cycle PF in terms of R0 resection rate,between the four-cycle TPF and the three-cycle TPF in terms of pCR rate,or between the four-cycle TPF and the other seven regimens included in the study in terms of safety assessment.The four-cycle TPF regimen may represent the optimal perioperative chemotherapy regimen for patients with LAGC and GEJC.

Objective To study carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales(CRE)infection in the neurosurgical inten-sive care unit(NS-ICU)under the combination of active screening using anal swabs and bundled intervention mea-sures in environment with high prevalence of CRE infection,and provide scientific basis for healthcare-associated in-fection(HAI)prevention and control.Methods Inpatients in NS-ICU from 2020 to 2021 were selected as the con-trol group,and didn't undergo active anal swab screening.NS-ICU inpatients from 2022 to 2023 were taken as the trial group,and implemented intervention of active anal swab screening.Isolation measures for CRE positive cases in two groups were implemented,and the incidence of CRE HAI between two groups of patients were compared.Results 645 patients were actively screened for CRE,with a total of 912 screenings.The overall screening positive rate was 9.21％,and the rectal CRE colonization rate in NS-ICU patients was 13.02％(84/645),out of which Klebsiella pneumoniae accounted for 92.86％(n=78 strains).The positive screening rates in patients in the trial group within 48 hours after admission as well as on day 3-7,day 8-15,and 16-30 were 3.30％,4.94％,13.68％,and 18.85％,respectively.With prolonged hospitalization time,the positive rate of CRE anal swab screening gradually increased.During the study period,the overall CRE HAI rate was 6.24％(72/1 153).After implementing active screening intervention,the CRE HAI rate in the trial group was lower than that in the control group(3.57％[23/645]vs 9.65％[49/508],P＜0.001).Conclusion In hospital environment with high CRE prevalence,implementing active screening and bundled intervention measures can effectively identify CRE carriers and reduce the risk of infection caused by intestinal colonization.

Objective To compare the efficacy and safety of perioperative chemotherapy regimens based on docetaxel administered in different cycles for locally advanced gastric cancer(LAGC)and gastroesophageal junction cancer(GEJC)through a network Meta-analysis.Methods PubMed,Embase,Cochrane Library,and Web of Science databases were electronically searched to collect randomized controlled trials(RCTs)evaluating docetaxel-based perioperative regimens for the treatment of LAGC and GEJC from inception to February 28,2025.Two researchers independently screened the literature,extracted relevant data,and assessed the risk of bias in the included studies.Subsequently,a network Meta-analysis was performed using R 4.5.0 software.Results A total of 10 RCTs involving 2,064 patients were included.The results of the network Meta-analysis showed that,compared with three cycles of epirubicin,cyclophosphamide,and fluorouracil(ECF regimen)and four cycles of platinum and fluorouracil(PF regimen),both three-cycle and four-cycle docetaxel,platinum,and fluorouracil(TPF regimen)significantly increased the complete tumor resection rate(R0 resection rate).Compared with surgery alone,the three-cycle TPF regimen significantly improved the R0 resection rate.Additionally,the four-cycle TPF regimen significantly improved 3-year and 5-year progression-free survival(PFS)compared with the two-cycle PF regimen,and significantly improved overall survival(OS)at 3 and 5 years compared with the three-cycle ECF regimen.Compared with surgery alone,the three-cycle TPF regimen also significantly increased the pathological complete response rate(pCR rate).Furthermore,compared with the two-cycle TPF and three-cycle ECF regimens,the four-cycle TPF and PF regimens were associated with a lower risk of surgical complications.Conversely,the two-cycle TPF and three-cycle ECF regimens significantly increased the risk of surgical complications compared with surgery alone.No statistically significant differences were observed in the incidence of grade 3 to 4 adverse events among the treatment regimens(P＞0.05).Based on the surface under the cumulative ranking curve(SUCRA)plot and pairwise comparisons,the three-cycle PF regimen appeared to be the most effective in achieving the highest R0 resection rate,the three-cycle TPF regimen appeared to be the most effective in achieving the highest pCR rate,while the four-cycle TPF regimen was associated with the best outcomes in terms of 3-year and 5-year PFS and OS.Conclusion The four-cycle TPF regimen may be associated with the optimal PFS and OS among perioperative chemotherapy regimens.No statistically significant differences were observed between the four-cycle TPF and the three-cycle PF in terms of R0 resection rate,between the four-cycle TPF and the three-cycle TPF in terms of pCR rate,or between the four-cycle TPF and the other seven regimens included in the study in terms of safety assessment.The four-cycle TPF regimen may represent the optimal perioperative chemotherapy regimen for patients with LAGC and GEJC.

Objective We propose a dual-domain cone beam computed tomography(CBCT)reconstruction framework DualCBR-Net based on improved differentiable domain transform for cone-angle artifact correction.Methods The proposed CBCT dual-domain reconstruction framework DualCBR-Net consists of 3 individual modules:projection preprocessing,differentiable domain transform,and image post-processing.The projection preprocessing module first extends the original projection data in the row direction to ensure full coverage of the scanned object by X-ray.The differentiable domain transform introduces the FDK reconstruction and forward projection operators to complete the forward and gradient backpropagation processes,where the geometric parameters correspond to the extended data dimension to provide crucial prior information in the forward pass of the network and ensure the accuracy in the gradient backpropagation,thus enabling precise learning of cone-beam region data.The image post-processing module further fine-tunes the domain-transformed image to remove residual artifacts and noises.Results The results of validation experiments conducted on Mayo's public chest dataset showed that the proposed DualCBR-Net framework was superior to other comparison methods in terms of artifact removal and structural detail preservation.Compared with the latest methods,the DualCBR-Net framework improved the PSNR and SSIM by 0.6479 and 0.0074,respectively.Conclusion The proposed DualCBR-Net framework for cone-angle artifact correction allows effective joint training of the CBCT dual-domain network and is especially effective for large cone-angle region.

Objective We propose a dual-domain cone beam computed tomography(CBCT)reconstruction framework DualCBR-Net based on improved differentiable domain transform for cone-angle artifact correction.Methods The proposed CBCT dual-domain reconstruction framework DualCBR-Net consists of 3 individual modules:projection preprocessing,differentiable domain transform,and image post-processing.The projection preprocessing module first extends the original projection data in the row direction to ensure full coverage of the scanned object by X-ray.The differentiable domain transform introduces the FDK reconstruction and forward projection operators to complete the forward and gradient backpropagation processes,where the geometric parameters correspond to the extended data dimension to provide crucial prior information in the forward pass of the network and ensure the accuracy in the gradient backpropagation,thus enabling precise learning of cone-beam region data.The image post-processing module further fine-tunes the domain-transformed image to remove residual artifacts and noises.Results The results of validation experiments conducted on Mayo's public chest dataset showed that the proposed DualCBR-Net framework was superior to other comparison methods in terms of artifact removal and structural detail preservation.Compared with the latest methods,the DualCBR-Net framework improved the PSNR and SSIM by 0.6479 and 0.0074,respectively.Conclusion The proposed DualCBR-Net framework for cone-angle artifact correction allows effective joint training of the CBCT dual-domain network and is especially effective for large cone-angle region.

Objective:To compare the clinical efficacy of laparoscopic inguinal lymph node dissection(L-ILND)and open inguinal lymph node dissection(O-lLND)in the treatment of penile cancer after radical penile cancer surgery. Methods:The clinical outcomes of 63 patients who were diagnosed with penile cancer(TNM staging:T1_3,N0-3,M0)and received L-ILND(41 cases)or O-ILND(22 cases)after radical penile cancer surgery in Department of Urology,Hubei Cancer Hospital,Tongji Medical College,Huazhong University of Science and Technology from 2008 to 2020 were retrospectively studied.The primary endpoint of this study was overall survival,and the secondary endpoints were 5-year overall survival and 5-year cancer-specific survival.The different clinical characteristics were compared between the L-ILND group and O-ILND group.Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to study the risk facotrs for postoperative wound complications.Kaplan-Meier method was used for prognosis analysis.COX regression analysis was used to investigate the factors for overall survival prediction. Results:Among the 63 penile cancer patients studied,41 patients received L-ILND and the remaining 22 received O-ILND.There were no statistically significant differences in the baseline characteristics between the two groups of patients.The median overall survival(78 months vs 72 months,P=0.844),5-year overall survival rate(74.5％vs 78.3％,P=0.144),5-year cancer-specific survival rate(77.2％vs 71.4％,P=0.228)showed no obvious difference between L-ILND and O-ILND group.The rate of postoperative wound complications in the O-ILND group was significantly higher than that in the L-ILND group(74％vs 15％,P=0.01 2).The result of multivariate COX regression analysis showed that tumor grade[hazard ratio(H-R)=2.774,P=0.021]and lymph node pathological stage(HR=1.482,P=0.024)were significantly correlated with patients'prognosis. Conclusion:The clinical efficacy of L-ILND and O-ILND is similar,but L-ILND has a higher safety profile and lower incidence of postoperative wound complications.Therefore,L-ILND is a more ideal surgical approach for inguinal lymph node dissection after radical penile cancer surgery.

Humans ; Computational Biology ; Neutrophils/metabolism* ; Sepsis/metabolism* ; Signal Transduction/genetics* ; Immunosuppression Therapy ; Gene Expression Profiling