Middle compartment defects,a common subtype of pelvic floor dysfunction(PFD),are primarily characterized by the prolapse of the uterus or vaginal vault.Magnetic resonance imaging(MRI)has emerged as a valuable diagnostic tool for PFD,offering superior soft tissue resolution while eliminating exposure to ionizing radiation.This review comprehensive summarizes current applications of MRI in the diagnosis and treatment of PFD,covering measurement methods,manifestations of three-level structural defects,postoperative efficacy evaluation,vaginal axial assessment,and evaluation of the mesh status.The authors suggest that MRI enables precise preoperative evaluation of three-level defects,thereby facilitating the development of personalized treatment plans.Additionally,MRI provides an accurate postoperative assessment of surgical outcomes and mesh status,offering a new basis for postoperative assessment.MRI demonstrates unique value in the diagnosis and treatment of middle compartment defects.

Objective To evaluate the perioperative safety and mid-term outcomes of laparoscopic sacrocolpopexy(LSC)and laparoscopic pectopexy(LP)for pelvic organ prolapse(POP).Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted on 274 POP patients,including 178 who underwent LSC and 96 who underwent LP,between August 2017 and January 2023.The extent of prolapse and anatomical restoration were assessed preoperatively and postoperatively using the Pelvic Organ Prolapse Quantification(POP-Q)system.Quality of life outcomes were evaluated with validated questionnaires,including Pelvic Floor Distress Inventory-short form 20(PFDI-20),Pelvic Floor Impact Questionnaire-short form 7(PFIQ-7),and Pelvic Organ Prolapse/Urinary Incontinence Sexual Questionnaire-12(PISQ-12).Postoperative patient satisfaction was assessed during follow-ups.Postoperative anatomical restoration,perioperative status,and postoperative complications,recurrence,and quality of life were compared between the two groups.Multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify postoperative risk factors for recurrence.Results The operative time in the LSC group was significantly shorter than that in the LP group(P<0.05).Intraoperative blood loss was higher in the LSC group compared to that in the LP group(P<0.05).The LSC group also exhibited higher rates of de novo stress urinary incontinence and constipation(P<0.05).The mean follow-up duration was(35.91±16.90)months.The positions of the indicator points(Aa,Ba,C,Ap,and Bp)in the POP-Q classification after the operation were all better than those before the operation.The PFDI-20 score,PFIQ-7 score,and PISQ-12 score all improved compared to those before the operation(P<0.05).Comparison of preoperative and postoperative PFDI-20,PFIQ-7,and PISQ-12 scores showed no intergroup differences.Compared with the LP group,the LSC group had the lower preoperative POP-Q measurements at points Aa and Ba(P<0.05),but superior postoperative measurements for all the indicator points(Aa,Ba,C,Ap,and Bp)(P<0.05).Recurrence occurred in 28 cases in the LP group and 4 cases in the LSC group,with the LP group presenting a significantly higher anatomical recurrence rate than the LSC group did(31.46%[28/89]vs.2.41%[4/166],P<0.05).The subjective cure rate(100%)and objective cure rate(97.59%)in the LSC group were superior to those in the LP group(88.76%and 68.54%,respectively;P<0.05).The results of the multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that,after adjusting for the confounding factors,including age,gravidity,parity,body mass index,and duration of POP,the risk of recurrence after LSC surgery was 0.044 times that after LP(odds ratio[OR],0.044;95%CI,0.015-0.133;P<0.001).Conclusion Mid-term outcomes of LP with partial cervical preservation appear inferior to those of LSC,with LSC demonstrating superior anatomical restoration and lower rates of anatomical recurrence.However,improvements in sexual function and quality of life are comparable between the two procedures.Further evaluation with larger sample sizes and longer follow-up is warranted to better characterize long-term outcomes.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common functional gastrointestinal disorder and its symptoms are subject to the composition of the gut microbiota. However, it is not yet clear how probiotics relieve IBS, and there is no well-acknowledged standards concerning the clinical application of probiotics. This systematic review was conducted on the literature published from January 2020 to December 2023 and included 12 randomized controlled trials on probiotics in the treatment of IBS. Compared with placebo, the probiotic preparations improved the overall efficacy in IBS patients and was also well tolerated, suggesting the potential of probiotics in IBS management. Nevertheless, different probiotic strains, dosages, combinations, and dosing schedules may affect the outcomes. In the future, large-scale, multi-center, long-term follow-up studies are still needed to clarify the effective strains and methods of use and to promote the use of probiotics in the treatment of IBS.

Traumatic injuries represent the fifth leading cause of death in China and the primary cause of death among young adults. While facial fractures can lead to significant aesthetic and psychological consequences, fractures in the limbs and joints impair functional mobility. In traumatic incidents requiring forensic evaluation, such as traffic accidents or violent conflicts, the type and severity of fractures directly determine injury grading and disability assessment. Consequently, the accurate diagnosis of traumatic fractures is not only a critical medical issue impacting patient management and rehabilitation but also a significant social issue influencing judicial fairness. This article systematically reviews advancements in multi-modal imaging techniques. While conventional X-ray radiography remains a fundamental screening tool, it faces challenges in detecting occult fractures. Multi-slice spiral computed tomography (MSCT), utilizing 3D reconstruction, enables spatial analysis of complex fractures. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), with its multi-sequence capabilities, plays an indispensable role in detecting bone marrow edema and assessing concomitant soft tissue injuries. Regarding innovative technologies, dual-energy computed tomography (DECT) employs virtual non-calcium (VNC) techniques for quantitative bone marrow edema analysis; ultra-high-resolution computed tomography (U-HRCT) breaks through imaging limitations of trabecular microarchitecture with a resolution of approximately 10 μm; and 7.0 T ultra-high-field MRI, alongside MRI-based CT-like imaging techniques, advances radiation-free bone structure evaluation. Artificial intelligence (AI) models significantly enhance diagnostic efficiency in fracture detection. Future developments will focus on multi-modal image fusion, the construction of intelligent decision-support systems, and the quantitative functional assessment of bone microstructure, facilitating a paradigm shift from anatomical description to prognostic prediction and realizing the principles of personalized medicine.

Spinal cord injury represents a severe central nervous system trauma characterized by prolonged treatment duration, limited neural regeneration, and delayed functional recovery, greatly affecting patients′ quality of life. The impaired neural tissue struggles to recover effectively due to both the hostile microenvironment and its own compromised state. Current clinical interventions, including early reduction, laminectomy decompression, and intravenous or intrathecal methylprednisolone administration, fail to simultaneously modulate the microenvironment and improve the neural status. Zinc, a trace element abundant in the central nervous system, plays a critical role in gene expression regulation, synaptic plasticity, and neuronal activity. Clinical evidences have indicated that lower serum zinc concentration in patients with spinal cord injury correlates with poorer outcomes and animal experiments have also demonstrated the neuroprotective effects of zinc. In fact, zinc supplementation therapy has not yet been developed into a mature clinical protocol. Besides, related animal studies still lack comprehensive understanding. To this end, the authors reviewed the biological characteristics of zinc, its administration routes, neuroprotective effects and mechanisms in the management of spinal cord injury, aiming to provide references for future basic research and clinical practice.

Objective:To analyze the clinical and endoscopic features of elderly patients with early gastric neuroendocrine neoplasms(g-NEN)to provide insights for clinical diagnosis and treatment.Methods:Seven cases of early-stage g-NEN in elderly patients admitted to Beijing Hospital from May 2020 to October 2024 were reported.Information including patient demographics, medical history, laboratory findings, endoscopic features, and pathological results was summarized an analyzed.Meanwhile, a literature review was conducted on g-NEN cases reported domestically and internationally from the establishment of databases to April 2025, with a comparative analysis of baseline characteristics, background mucosal conditions, and pathological diagnoses.Results:A total of 7 elderly patients with early g-NEN were included, including 3 males and 4 females, with an average age of 67 years at diagnosis.Endoscopic and pathological features: endoscopic lesions were mainly located on the greater curvature of the stomach, mostly slightly elevated, with 4/7(57.1%)being single lesions and the others accompanied by multiple polyps.The size of gastric neuroendocrine tumor(g-NET) lesions ranged from 1 mm to 19 mm, with a median Kyoto gastritis score of 3.In terms of pathological grading, there were 6 cases of G1 and 1 case of gastric neuroendocrine carcinoma(g-NEC). All 7 patients underwent endoscopic submucosal dissection(ESD). The follow-up period after surgery ranged from 3 months to 4 years, and no tumor was found at the vertical and horizontal margins of all lesions on pathology.A literature review of 32 reported cases showed that 40.6%(13/32)of cases exhibited background mucosal atrophy or intestinal metaplasia, with positive rates of chromogranin A(CgA) and synapsin(Syn)reaching 95.8%(23/24) and 100.0%(25/25), respectively.Notably, elderly patients with g-NEC demonstrated aggressive invasiveness, with a metastasis rate of 62.5%(5/8).Conclusions:Elderly patients with g-NEN exhibit high heterogeneity and significant differences in invasiveness, necessitating heightened clinical vigilance.Precise management should integrate background mucosal status, Kyoto gastritis score, pathological biomarkers, and imaging techniques.Blue laser imaging with magnifying endoscopy(BLI-ME)and endoscopic ultrasonography(EUS)can further analyze the characteristics of these tumors, and endoscopic submucosal dissection(ESD)remains the primary treatment modality for early-stage g-NEN.

Objective:To validate the accuracy of three-dimensional anatomical models reconstructed from cone beam CT (CBCT) using micro-CT as the gold standard, and to evaluate the feasibility of performing anatomical analyses on such models.Methods:A total of 13 isolated deciduous teeth with intact roots were collected, including 5 anterior teeth and 8 molars, with a total of 34 root canals. The teeth were extracted from children aged 3-9 years who visited Peking University Hospital of Stomatology from January 2019 to April 2022 due to trauma or periapical disease, and were then scanned by micro-CT (with a voxel size of 0.018 mm) and CBCT (with a voxel size of 0.125 mm), respectively. Using a threshold-based semi-automated region segmentation method, anatomical models of these isolated teeth were reconstructed from the two CTs. Subsequently, the two CT reconstructed models were registered based on the iterative closest point algorithm, followed by deviation analysis. The key anatomical parameters were measured on the micro-CT and CBCT models, respectively, and the differences were calculated.Results:The CBCT reconstruction models were relatively accurate in the hard tissue morphology, and 97.1% (33/34) of the root canals were identified accurately. When it comes to the deviation analysis, the average distance between the matched points on the CBCT reconstruction models and the micro-CT models was (0.01±0.03) mm for the hard tissue, and (0.00±0.03) mm for the pulp chambers and canals, which did not affect clinical observation. The hard tissue and root canal length of CBCT models were both smaller than those of micro-CT models ( P<0.05), with a 95% limits of agreement of (-0.70, 0.14) mm for the hard tissue, and a 95% limits of agreement of (-1.93, 1.00) mm for the pulp chambers and canals. The impact of these differences on clinical operations was all within the acceptable range. Conclusions:Using micro-CT as a validate standard, CBCT with a voxel size of 0.125 mm was proved to be an effective tool for the reconstruction of deciduous teeth. Therefore, the reconstructed models were appropriate for studying deciduous teeth anatomy.

Objective:To explore the molecular epidemiological characteristics of human metapneumovirus (HMPV) in children with acute respiratory infection (ARI) in Beijing from 2023 to 2024.Methods:In the longitudinal study, 9 834 children with ARI were enrolled from August 2023 to December 2024, including the influenza-like illness (ILI) group from emergency and outpatient department receiving influenza virus (Flu) and HMPV test and the ARI inpatient group for 13 common respiratory pathogen screening test including HMPV, Flu, respiratory syncytial virus, and so on. All respiratory samples positive with HMPV were genotyped by amplifying and sequencing of G gene and further phylogenetic analysis. The χ2 test and Wilcoxon rank-sum test were used to compare the positive rate and basic clinical data of the 2 groups. Results:Among 9 834 enrolled patient, there were 5 276 male and 4 558 female children, with age 5.4 (1.9, 8.2) years. In ILI group of 1 460 patients, there were 83 cases (5.7%) positive for HMPV, with the age 4.9 (3.6, 6.6) years and children under 6.0 years old 59 cases (71.1%). Among 8 374 ARI inpatients, there were 256 cases (3.1%) positive for HMPV, with age 3.5 (1.3, 6.4) years and children under 6.0 years old 188 cases (73.4%). The HMPV positive rate and the age of children positive for HMPV in ARI inpatient group were significantly lower than that in ILI group (both P<0.001). In December, 2024, the HMPV positive rates of ILI and ARI inpatient group (21.3% (17/80), 15.0% (47/314)) were significantly higher than the total positive rates of each group (both P<0.001). Among 279 subtyped specimens, there were 155 cases (55.6%) belonging to genotype A and 124 cases (44.4%) belonging to genotype B. Sub-lineage A2.2.2 containing 111nt-insertions was predominate one in 2023 with positive ratio 89.2% (91/102), and B2 was predominate in 2024 with positive ratio 64.4% (114/177). Conclusions:From 2023 to 2024, the positive rate of HMPV in the ILI group was higher than that in the ARI inpatient group, suggesting a common epidemic of HMPV infection. Children positive for HMPV in the ARI inpatient group were younger than that in the ILI group. A severe epidemic of HMPV was observed in the winter of 2024, which requires attention. Sub-lineage A2.2.2 with 111nt-duplicate insertions and B2 were the predominant epidemic strains in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

Objective:To evaluate the performance of the neural network model in segmenting gout tophus in the first metatarsophalangeal（MTP1）joint ultrasound images.Methods:A total of 1 218 tophus images from 381 patients who underwent MTP1 ultrasound examinations in the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University between May 2023 and December 2024 were prospectively collected. The images were divided into training，validation，and test sets in a ratio of 7∶2∶1. Multiple neural network models were trained to automatically identify and segment tophus in the images，with physician-annotated tophus regions serving as the reference standard. Model performance was evaluated in the test set，and the impact of tophus characteristics（e.g.，echogenicity，size，and presence of bone erosion）on segmentation efficacy was analyzed.Results:In the test set，CMUNeXt demonstrated superior tophus segmentation performance versus Unet，Unet++，TransUnet，and CMU-Net，achieving an accuracy of 99.1%，precision of 79.1%，recall of 84.6%，intersection over union of 68.8%，and Dice similarity coefficient of 80.2%. Logistic regression identified tophus echogenicity，size，and bone erosion as independent efficacy factors OR（95% CI）=7.275（1.598-33.129），21.303（4.282-105.985），13.520（3.617-50.530），0.076（0.007-0.823）（all P<0.05）. Hypoechoic tophus demonstrated significantly superior segmentation performance compared to mixed-echoic and isoechoic tophus（all P<0.05），and lesions with larger maximum diameters（>10 mm）were segmented more effectively than smaller tophus（ P<0.05）. Conclusions:The CMUNeXt model enables accurate identification and segmentation of tophus in MTP1 ultrasound images，particularly excelling for larger and hypoechoic lesions. This approach holds significant promise for AI-assisted diagnosis of MTP1 gouty arthritis.

Objective:To study the relationship between urinary arsenic methylation metabolism patterns and skin keratinization and pigmentation abnormalities in population exposed to arsenic through drinking water.Methods:Using a cross-sectional study method, a survey on endemic arsenic poisoning was conducted among permanent residents of drinking water endemic arsenic poisoning areas in Bayannur City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in 2004 (before water improvement). In 2017 (after water improvement), 71 arsenic exposed individuals were followed up as survey subjects. According to the "Diagnosis of Endemic Arsenism" (WS/T 211-2015), the clinical grading of skin injuries (skin keratinization, pigmentation abnormalities) in the survey subjects was evaluated. Urine samples were collected for detection of arsenic methylation metabolite levels by high-performance liquid chromatography inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and calibrated with urinary creatinine. The changes and amplitudes of urinary arsenic methylation indicators before and after water improvement were calculated and analyzed according to the outcome of skin keratinization and pigmentation abnormalities which were divided into reduced, unchanged, and added groups.Results:(1) The changes in urinary total arsenic (TAs), inorganic arsenic (iAs), monomethyl arsenic (MMA), and dimethyl arsenic (DMA) levels in different outcome groups of skin keratinization were compared, and the differences were statistically significant ( H = 9.08, 8.77, 9.28, 8.57, P < 0.05). The changes in urinary TAs, iAs, MMA, DMA levels, iAs percentage (iAs%), DMA percentage (DMA%), and primary methylation index (PMI) in different outcome groups of skin pigmentation abnormalities were compared, and the differences were statistically significant ( H = 8.04, 10.67, 8.29, 9.14, 6.30, 9.10, 7.20, P < 0.05). (2) The comparison of amplitudes in urinary TAs, iAs, MMA, and DMA levels in different outcome groups of skin keratinization showed statistically significant differences ( H = 6.92, 7.34, 6.66, 6.16, P < 0.05). The amplitudes in urinary iAs level, iAs%, DMA%, and PMI in different outcome groups of skin pigmentation abnormalities were compared, and the differences were statistically significant ( H = 7.94, 7.61, 9.95, 7.22, P < 0.05). Conclusion:The changes pattern of urinary TAs, iAs, MMA, DMA, iAs%, DMA%, and PMI in population exposed to arsenic through drinking water is related to the transformation of skin keratinization and pigmentation abnormalities.