Esophageal cancer （EC） is a highly prevalent malignant tumor in China. The phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase （PI3K）/protein kinase B （Akt） signaling pathway， as one of the key oncogenic pathways， can promote the cell cycle progression， proliferation， migration， and invasion， induce chemoresistance， and inhibit apoptosis and autophagy of EC cells. Traditional Chinese medicine （TCM）， with the advantages of targeting multiple points with multiple components to delay cancer progression， can target the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway for EC treatment. This article preliminarily discusses the molecular mechanism and role of the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway in EC and elaborates on the specific targets and efficacy of TCM in treating EC through intervention in the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway in the past five years. TCM materials and extracts inhibiting the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway in EC include Borneolum， spore powder of Ganoderma lucidum without spore coat， extract of Celastrus orbiculatus， root extract of Taraxacum， and Bruceae Fructus oil emulsion. TCM active ingredients exerting the effect include flavonoids， terpenoids， saponins， phenols， polysaccharides， alkaloids， and other compounds. TCM compound prescriptions with such effect include Qige San， Huqi San， Xuanfu Daizhetang， Tongyoutang and its decomposed prescriptions， Liujunzi Tang， and Xishenzhi Formula. In addition， TCM injections such as Compound Kushen Injection and Kang'ai injection also inhibit the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway in EC. This paper summarizes the role of the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway in EC and the TCM interventions， aiming to provide reference for the research and clinical application of new drugs for EC.

ObjectiveTo explore the effect and mechanism of Sishenjian on synovial lesions induced by monosodium iodoacetate （MIA） in rats with knee osteoarthritis （KOA）. MethodSixty female Sprague-Dawley （SD） rats were randomly divided into the following six groups： normal group， model group， celecoxib group， and high-， medium-， and low-dose Sishenjian group. The KOA rat model was established by intra-articular injection of MIA. Celecoxib （18 mg·kg^-1） and Sishenjian （14.4， 7.2， 3.6 g·kg^-1） were administered by gavage according to the groups. All rats were euthanized after four weeks of continuous administration. The transverse diameter of the bilateral knee joints of rats was measured， and gross observation of the knee joint was performed. Pathological changes in knee joint synovial tissue were observed by hematoxylin-eosin （HE） staining and picrosirius red staining. Immunohistochemistry （IHC） was used to detect the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor A （VEGFA） in synovial tissue. The levels of inflammatory cytokines in the joint synovial fluid were detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay （ELISA）. Real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction （Real-time PCR） and Western blot were used to detect the expression of mRNA and proteins related to the transforming growth factor-β₁ （TGF-β₁）/Smad2/3 pathway in knee joint synovium. ResultCompared with the normal group， the transverse diameter of the knee joint in the model group significantly increased （P<0.01）. Compared with the model group， the transverse diameter of the knee joint in rats of each Sishenjian group significantly decreased （P<0.01）. Compared with the normal group， the expression levels of interleukin-1β （IL-1β） and tumor necrosis factor-α （TNF-α） in the knee joint synovial fluid of model group significantly increased （P<0.01）. Compared with the model group， the expression levels of IL-1β and TNF-α in the knee joint synovial fluid of rats in each Sishenjian group significantly decreased （P<0.01）. Compared with the normal group， the expression levels of TGF-β₁， Smad2/3， phosphorylation（p）-Smad2/3， type Ⅰ collagen α1 （ColⅠ_α1）， type Ⅲ collagen α1 （ColⅢ_α1）， VEGFA proteins and TGF-β₁， Smad2/3， ColⅠ_α1， ColⅢ_α1 mRNA in knee joint synovium of model group significantly increased （P<0.01）. Compared with the model group， the expression levels of TGF-β₁， Smad2/3， phosphorylation （p）-Smad2/3， ColⅠ_α1， ColⅢ_α1， VEGFA proteins and TGF-β₁， Smad2/3， ColⅠ_α1， ColⅢ_α1 mRNA in knee joint synovium of rats in each Sishenjian group significantly decreased （P<0.05， P<0.01）. ConclusionSishenjian can inhibit synovial inflammation and angiogenesis， and may become a potential drug for treating synovial lesions in KOA by regulating the TGF-β₁/Smad2/3 pathway.

Fungal keratitis is a serious blinding eye disease. The development of fungal infections depends primarily on the interaction of fungal virulence with host immune defense factors. The cornea is considered an immune-privileged organ, and resident macrophages are the main immune cells that respond to the heterogeneity exhibited by the microenvironment with their polarization. In the early stage of infection, macrophages polarize towards M1, which promotes inflammation and facilitates fungal clearance but produces a cellular storm that exacerbates immune damage; in the late stage of infection, macrophages polarize towards M2, which suppresses the inflammatory response and facilitates tissue repair, but may be immunosuppressed or even immune escape to the detriment of pathogen clearance. The balance between pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory responses is key to maintaining the functional integrity of the cornea. Current antifungal drug therapy is limited, so it is particularly important to find a therapeutic target for the inflammatory response triggered by the immune response in addition to antifungal therapy. In this review, the functional and phenotypic characterization of macrophage subsets associated with fungal keratitis was reviewed, more in-depth research is needed to explore the specific mechanisms by which macrophage polarization and their impact on fungal keratitis. Targeted regulation of macrophage differentiation based on their phenotype and function could be an effective approach to treat and manage fungal keratitis in the future.

Eye diagnosis is a method for inspecting systemic diseases and syndromes by observing the eyes.With the development of intelligent diagnosis in traditional Chinese medicine(TCM),artificial intelligence(AI)can improve the accuracy and efficiency of eye diagnosis.However,the research on intelligent eye diagnosis still faces many challenges,including the lack of standardized and precisely labeled data,multi-modal information analysis,and artificial in-telligence models for syndrome differentiation.The widespread application of AI models in medicine provides new insights and opportunities for the research of eye diagnosis intelli-gence.This study elaborates on the three key technologies of AI models in the intelligent ap-plication of TCM eye diagnosis,and explores the implications for the research of eye diagno-sis intelligence.First,a database concerning eye diagnosis was established based on self-su-pervised learning so as to solve the issues related to the lack of standardized and precisely la-beled data.Next,the cross-modal understanding and generation of deep neural network models to address the problem of lacking multi-modal information analysis.Last,the build-ing of data-driven models for eye diagnosis to tackle the issue of the absence of syndrome dif-ferentiation models.In summary,research on intelligent eye diagnosis has great potential to be applied the surge of AI model applications.

Objective:To examine the validity and reliability of the Pediatric Symptom Checklist(PSC)in suspended students in China(based on parent reports).Methods:A total of 184 parents were included in this study,PSC was used to assess students aged 10-19 who were suspended from primary and secondary school due to psy-chological problems.Results:After removing the fourth entry of the original scale("too active,non-active"),the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the three-factor model fit well(x2/df=1.57,RMSEA=0.06,CFI=0.93,TLI=0.91,SRMR=0.07).The Cronbach's alpha coefficients of the scale overall and the three dimensions of internalization,externalization and attention problem were 0.85,0.80,0.76 and 0.69,respectively.Conclusion:After removing the fourth entry,PSC has good construct validity and reliability evaluating psychological problems of suspended primary and secondary school students.

Fusobacterium nucleatum (F. nucleatum) is an early pathogenic colonizer in periodontitis, but the host response to infection with this pathogen remains unclear. In this study, we built an F. nucleatum infectious model with human periodontal ligament stem cells (PDLSCs) and showed that F. nucleatum could inhibit proliferation, and facilitate apoptosis, ferroptosis, and inflammatory cytokine production in a dose-dependent manner. The F. nucleatum adhesin FadA acted as a proinflammatory virulence factor and increased the expression of interleukin(IL)-1β, IL-6 and IL-8. Further study showed that FadA could bind with PEBP1 to activate the Raf1-MAPK and IKK-NF-κB signaling pathways. Time-course RNA-sequencing analyses showed the cascade of gene activation process in PDLSCs with increasing durations of F. nucleatum infection. NFκB1 and NFκB2 upregulated after 3 h of F. nucleatum-infection, and the inflammatory-related genes in the NF-κB signaling pathway were serially elevated with time. Using computational drug repositioning analysis, we predicted and validated that two potential drugs (piperlongumine and fisetin) could attenuate the negative effects of F. nucleatum-infection. Collectively, this study unveils the potential pathogenic mechanisms of F. nucleatum and the host inflammatory response at the early stage of F. nucleatum infection.
Humans ; Fusobacterium nucleatum/metabolism* ; NF-kappa B/metabolism* ; Periodontal Ligament/metabolism* ; Signal Transduction ; Fusobacterium Infections/pathology* ; Stem Cells/metabolism*

ObjectiveIn view of the standardization of clinical diagnosis and treatment of the acute abdomen and the inheritance of diagnosis and treatment experience of prestigious veteran traditional Chinese medicine（TCM） doctors， a diagnosis and treatment reasoning algorithm based on association rule mining under incomplete evidence（AMIE）+ random walk was proposed to provide information services and technical support for primary doctors by recommending personalized diagnosis and treatment plans based on medical records. MethodThe experience of diagnosis and treatment of acute abdomen of prestigious veteran TCM doctors and the text data of clinical diagnosis and treatment guidelines of integrated TCM and western medicine were collected to complete the task of knowledge extraction and construct acute abdomen knowledge graph based on Neo4j. On the basis of ontology-supported rule-based reasoning， the rule reasoning based on similar syndromes was used to expand the syndrome combinations whose Jaccard similarity was greater than the threshold in the syndrome recommendation results. The semantic path coverage algorithm was used to calculate the semantic similarity between the symptom nodes. The symptom nodes were divided into 10 categories， and the symptom nodes in the same category were extended. The random walk algorithm was used to search the symptom nodes connected with the syndrome， and the connection rules between the syndrome and symptom nodes were extended to realize the knowledge reasoning of AMIE+ random walk. ResultThe acute abdomen knowledge graph included 1 320 nodes and 2 464 relationships. According to the link prediction evaluation index of knowledge reasoning， the reasoning results of the three algorithms in the auxiliary diagnosis and treatment of acute abdomen were compared. The AMIE+ random walk algorithm complemented the knowledge graph by extending the similar syndrome connection rules and the syndrome-symptom connection rules. Compared with the knowledge reasoning algorithm based on ontology rules， the area under the curve （AUC） was 15.18% higher and the accuracy was 30.36% higher， which achieved more accurate and effective knowledge inference. ConclusionThis study used knowledge graph technology to visualize the diagnosis and treatment of acute abdomen with TCM and western medicine， assisting primary clinicians in intuitively viewing the diagnosis and treatment process and data relationship. The proposed diagnosis and treatment reasoning algorithm can realize the personalized diagnosis and treatment plan recommendation at the level of "disease-syndrome-diagnosis-treatment-prescription"， which can assist primary doctors in disease diagnosis and treatment and clinical decision-making， contribute to the knowledge sharing and application of diagnosis and treatment experience and clinical guidelines of prestigious veteran TCM doctors， improve the level of primary clinical diagnosis and treatment， and promote the normalization and standardization of the diagnosis and treatment process of acute abdomen with integrated TCM and western medicine.

Objective:To investigate the current application of colonoscopy at hospitals in China.Methods:From November 2019 to January 2020, an online questionnaire survey was conducted among gastroenterologists and colonoscopists in hospitals of different levels. The contents of questionnaire survey included basic information of colonoscopy at the respondent′s hospital, protocols and patient education of bowel preparation, implementation of colonoscopy quality control, and colonoscopists′ understanding of polypectomy techniques and post-polypectomy follow-up.Results:A total of 236 valid questionnaires were collected, involving 187 hospitals, and 143 (76.5%) had an annual operation capacity of more than 5 000 cases. In terms of bowel preparation, split-dosed polyethylene glycol electrolyte powder (PEG) was the most commonly used (60.4%, 113/187) and the most common volume of PEG was 3 L (67.4%, 126/187). Verbal (90.9%, 170/187) and written (79.7%, 149/187) instructions were given more often than other methods for patient education of bowel preparation. Antifoaming agent was routinely used in 124 (66.3%) hospitals. In terms of quality control, only 11.5% (20/174) hospitals implemented all four measures. In terms of polypectomy techniques, 98.1% (203/207) colonoscopists chose hot snare polypectomy or endoscopic mucosal resection for lesions of diameter>1 cm, while options varied for lesions of diameter<1 cm. The interval of follow-up after polypectomy recommended by colonoscopists was shorter than that by guidelines.Conclusion:Several problems are found in the survey in the application of colonoscopy in China, i. e., patient education of bowel preparation is not diversified; quality control of colonoscopy still needs to be strengthened; polypectomy techniques and follow-up after polypectomy need to be further standardized.

Objective To investigate the value of "one-stop" scanning of coronary and head and neck CTA in patients with normal body mass index (18 kg/m2 ≤ BMI ≤ 25 kg/m2) using low tube voltage (80 kVp).Methods In a retrospective analysis 80 patients with normal body mass index who had completed "one-stop" scanning of coronary and head and neck CTA were divided into A and B groups according to different scanning method,and 40 consecutive cases were selected in each group.Scanning parameters of group A and group B were tube voltage 80 kV,coronary CTA tube current 550 mA,head and neck CTA tube current 500 mA,and tube voltage 100 kV,coronary CTA tube current 450 mA,head and neck CTA tube current 400 mA separately.Subjective evaluation and objective evaluation were performed on the image quality of the two groups.CT values of coronary artery and head and neck CTA trunk branch vessel,contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR),image noise (SD) and effective dose between the two groups were compared.Results The image quality of both groups met the diagnostic requirements,and there was no statistically significant difference in subjective scores between two groups (P＞0.05).The CT values of coronary arteries,the main branches of the head and neck (the common carotid artery,the internal carotid artery) and SD of head and neck CTA were significantly different between two groups (t=4.737,6.552,3.359,2.165,2.685,4.617,P＜0.05).There was no statistically significant difference in SD of coronary CTA,CT values and CNR between head and neck vessels (middle cerebral artery) in group A and group B (P＞0.05).The effective dose of coronary CTA in group A (1.16±0.20) mSy was reduced by 51.1％ than that in group B (2.37±0.77) mSv.The effective dose of head and neck CTA in group A (0.37±0.03) mSv was reduced by 47.9％ than that in group B (0.71 ± 0.17) mSv.Conclusions The image quality with subjective evaluation met the diagnostic requirements when using a low-tube voltage for "one-stop"scanning of coronary and head and neck CTA.The CNR values were basically consistent with the conventional scanning method,and the patient effective dose was reduced by about 50％.

Since Shaw et al,first reported the first case successfully treated by veno-venous bypass (VVB),there has been great controversy on the routine application of VVB during conventional liver transplantation and piggyback liver transplantation in recent decades.With the improvements on the surgical skills,surgical techniques and anesthesiology,only a small portion of patients have the indications for VVB in liver transplantation routinely.This article reviews the current publications in this topic,which may provide new insight into the liver transplantation in clinical practice.