AIM:To observe the changes of Th17 related cytokines in tears of conjunctivochalasis(CCH)patients with liver-kidney yin deficiency treated with traditional Chinese medicine Qi Jing Mingmu decoction combined with artificial tears.METHODS:A total of 56 CCH patients(56 eyes)with liver-kidney yin deficiency of grade Ⅱ to Ⅲ were collected and randomly divided into treatment group(treated with Qi Jing Mingmu decoction combined with artificial tears)of 26 cases(26 eyes)and control group(treated with pure artificial tears)of 30 cases(30 eyes). The treatment course was 1 mo, and international ocular surface disease index(OSDI), tear film break-up time(BUT), tear meniscus height(TMH)and conjunctival congestion index of the patients were observed before and after treatment. The patients' tears were collected before and after treatment, and Th17 related cytokines in tears were detected using flow cytometry immunofluorescence luminescence method.RESULTS:After treatment, the OSDI, BUT and conjunctival congestion index of CCH patients in the treatment group and control group were significantly improved(all P<0.01). After treatment, the TMH of CCH patients in the treatment group was significantly reduced(P<0.01), while there was no statistically significant difference in TMH of the control group before and after treatment(P=0.41). After treatment, the levels of Th17 related cytokines IL-17A, IL-22, IFN-γ, IL-17F, and IL-1β in tears of CCH patients in the treatment group were significantly reduced after treatment(all P<0.01), and the changes in the treatment group were more significant(all P<0.05). There was no significant difference in the control group before and after treatment(all P>0.05). After treatment, the levels of IL-6 and TNF-α in the tears of both groups of CCH patients decreased compared to those before treatment(both P<0.05), but the changes in the treatment group were more significant(both P<0.01).CONCLUSION:Qi Jing Mingmu decoction combined with artificial tears can effectively improve the ocular surface microenvironment, enhance tear film stability, and inhibit ocular surface inflammation in CCH patients with liver-kidney yin deficiency. This may be related to its reduction in the secretion of Th17 related cytokines in tears.

Objective:To analyze the efficacy and safety of nalbuphine for analgesia in patients with non-mechanical ventilation in intensive care unit (ICU).Methods:From December 2018 to August 2021, a multicenter randomized controlled clinical study was conducted to select non-mechanical ventilation patients with analgesic needs admitted to ICU of four hospitals in Henan Province and Guizhou Province. Patients were randomly assigned to nalbuphine group and fentanyl group. The nalbuphine group was given continuous infusion of nalbuphine [0.05~0.20 mg/(kg·h)], and the fentanyl group was given continuous infusion of fentanyl [0.5~2.0 μg/(kg·h)]. The analgesic target was critical-care pain observation tool (CPOT) score<2. The observation time was 48 hours. The primary endpoint was CPOT score, the secondary endpoints were Richmond agitation-sedation score (RASS), ICU length of stay, adverse events, and proportion of mechanical ventilation. The quantitative data of the two groups were compared by t test or Mann-Whitney U test. The enumeration data were compared by chi square test or Fisher exact probability method. The data at different time points between groups were compared by repeated measures analysis of variance. Results:A total of 210 patients were enrolled, including 105 patients in the nalbuphine group and 105 patients in the fentanyl group. There was no significant difference in baseline data between the two groups (all P>0.05). There was no significant difference in CPOT score between nalbuphine group and fentanyl group at each time point after medication ( P>0.05), the CPOT score of both groups at each time point after medication was significantly lower than that before medication, and the analgesic target could be achieved and maintained 2 hours after medication. There was no significant difference in RASS between the two groups at each time point after medication ( P>0.05), which was significantly lower than that before medication, and the target sedative effect was achieved 2 hours after medication. There was no significant difference in ICU length of stay between nalbuphine group and fentanyl group [5.0(4.0,7.5) d vs. 5.0(4.0,8.0) d, P=0.504]. The incidence of delirium, nausea and vomiting, abdominal distension, pruritus, vertigo and other adverse events in the nalbuphine group was lower than that in the fentanyl group (all P<0.05). There was no significant difference in the incidence of other adverse events such as deep sedation, hypotension and bradycardia between the two groups (all P>0.05). The incidence of respiratory depression in nalbuphine group was not significantly different from that in fentanyl group ( P>0.05), but the proportion of mechanical ventilation was significantly lower than that in the fentanyl group [1.9% (2/105) vs. 8.6%(9/105), P=0.030]. Conclusions:Nalbuphine could be used for analgesia in ICU patients with non-mechanical ventilation. The target analgesic effect could be achieved within 2 hours, and it had a certain sedative effect with a low incidence of adverse reactions.

Endo-periodontal lesions(EPLs)involve both the periodontium and pulp tissue and have complicated etiologies and pathogenic mechanisms,including unique anatomical and microbiological characteristics and multiple contributing factors.This etiological complexity leads to difficulties in determining patient prognosis,posing great challenges in clinical practice.Furthermore,EPL-affected teeth require multidisciplinary therapy,including periodontal therapy,endodontic therapy and others,but there is still much debate about the appropriate timing of periodontal therapy and root canal therapy.By compiling the most recent findings on the etiology,pathogenesis,clinical characteristics,diagnosis,therapy,and prognosis of EPL-affected teeth,this consensus sought to support clinicians in making the best possible treatment decisions based on both biological and clinical evidence.

Objective To investigate the vowel acoustic characteristics of patients with voice disorders and the reasonable way of administering vocal space area(VSA)and language in the Mandarin system.Methods A total of 40 subjects(20 males and 20 females)with voice disorder and normal healthy controls were recruited.The differ-ences in VSA between the disorder and healthy control groups were analyzed under different corpora and different vowel vertex numbers.Results The differences in VSA between the voice disorder and the control groups were highly significant in both the vowel and long sentence corpus.The differences in VSA between 4 vowels and 3 vow-els and 5 vowels were not significant,and 5 vowels were more suitable for VSA measurement in Mandarin.Conclu-sion The vowel articulation of patients with voice disorder is less clear than that of normal speakers.It is more ac-curate to use 5 vowels to measure VSA under the Mandarin system and it is better for measuring oral motility.Both single vowels and continuous speech are suitable for the measurement of VSA.

BACKGROUND: Endocrine therapy (ET) and ET-based regimens are the preferred first-line treatment options for hormone receptor (HR)-positive and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative metastatic breast cancer (HR+/HER2- MBC), while chemotherapy (CT) is commonly used in clinical practice. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy and clinical outcome of ET and CT as first-line treatment in Chinese patients with HR+/HER2- MBC. METHODS: Patients diagnosed with HR+/HER2-MBC between January 1st, 1996 and September 30th, 2018 were screened from the Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology Breast Cancer database. The initial and maintenance first-line treatment, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS) were analyzed. RESULTS: Among the 1877 included patients, 1215 (64.7%) received CT and 662 (35.3%) received ET as initial first-line treatment. There were no statistically significant differences in PFS and OS between patients receiving ET and CT as initial first-line treatment in the total population (PFS: 12.0 vs. 11.0 months, P = 0.22; OS: 54.0 vs . 49.0 months, P =0.09) and propensity score matched population. For patients without disease progression after at least 3 months of initial therapy, maintenance ET following initial CT (CT-ET cohort, n = 449) and continuous schedule of ET (ET cohort, n = 527) had longer PFS than continuous schedule of CT (CT cohort, n = 406) in the total population (CT-ET cohort vs. CT cohort: 17.0 vs . 8.5 months; P <0.01; ET cohort vs . CT cohort: 14.0 vs . 8.5 months; P <0.01) and propensity score matched population. OS in the three cohorts yielded the same results as PFS. CONCLUSIONS ET was associated with similar clinical outcome to CT as initial first-line treatment. For patients without disease progression after initial CT, switching to maintenance ET showed superiority in clinical outcome over continuous schedule of CT.
Humans ; Female ; Breast Neoplasms/metabolism* ; Receptor, ErbB-2/metabolism* ; Progression-Free Survival ; Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols/therapeutic use* ; Disease Progression ; Treatment Outcome

Objective:To systematically review the barriers encountered by nursing staff in the implementation of early activities in adult ICU units.Methods:A systematic search was conducted on CNKI, Wanfang Database, VIP Database, China Biomedical Database, PumMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library and EMBASE for the research on the obstacles of early activity nursing implementation in adult ICU from the establishment of the database to July 2020, and the final integrated analysis of the included literature was carried out.Results:A total of 26 articles were included, and 59 obstacles in 5 categories were integrated, including 6 kinds of technical level, 13 kinds of organizational culture level, 7 kinds of personnel level, 4 kinds of structural level, and 29 kinds of 6 sub categories of patients level. The most frequent obstacles were unstable condition of patients, sedation or continuous deep sedation, low staffing level, disturbance of consciousness of patients, insufficient equipment related to early activities, and low willingness or compliance of patients to participate.Conclusion:The nursing staff are facing with many obstacles in guiding and assisting ICU adult patients to carry out early activities. It is necessary to formulate modified policies aiming at changeable factors in order to promote the application of early activities in adult ICU units.

CRISPR-based genome editing systems have been successfully and effectively used in many organisms. However, only a few studies have reported the comparison between CRISPR/Cas9 and CRISPR/Cpf1 systems in the whole-genome applications. Although many web-based toolkits are available, there is still a shortage of comprehensive, user-friendly, and plant-specific CRISPR databases and desktop software. In this study, we identified and analyzed the similarities and differences between CRISPR/Cas9 and CRISPR/Cpf1 systems by considering the abundance of proto-spacer adjacent motif (PAM) sites, the effects of GC content, optimal proto-spacer length, potential universality within the plant kingdom, PAM-rich region (PARR) inhibiting ratio, and the effects of G-quadruplex (G-Q) structures. Using this information, we built a comprehensive CRISPR database (including 138 plant genome data sources, www.grapeworld.cn/pc/index.html), which provides search tools for the identification of CRISPR editing sites in both CRISPR/Cas9 and CRISPR/Cpf1 systems. We also developed a desktop software on the basis of the Perl/Tk tool, which facilitates and improves the detection and analysis of CRISPR editing sites at the whole-genome level on Linux and/or Windows platform. Therefore, this study provides helpful data and software for easy selection and application of CRISPR-based genome editing systems in plants.

Objective:To systematically evaluate the real breastfeeding experience in professional women.Methods:Qualitative studies on breastfeeding experience and needs in professional women which were published up to August 20, 2020 were retrieved from English databases such as PubMed, Medline, The Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science, Ovid, CINAHL, Joanna Briggs Institute Library, Chinese databases such as CNKI, Wanfang, VIP, SinoMed, and grey literature databases like ProQuest. After literature screening and evaluation, a collection integration method was used to integrate the results.Results:A total of 12 studies were included, and 57 complete research results were extracted, which were summarized into 8 new categories integrated into 3 new results: working mothers benefited from breastfeeding but also had negative experience due to returning to work; their breastfeeding was affected by multiple promotion and obstacles after returning to work; and they dealt with breastfeeding challenges after returning to work through self-management.Conclusions:We should actively pay attention to the breastfeeding experience of professional women, improve the support for breastfeeding of working mothers, and help them improve their self-management ability, in order to promote their breastfeeding behavior after returning to work.

Objective:To explore the application value of ultrasonic layer-specific strain technology in evaluating left ventricular systolic function in young male strength athletes.Methods:In October 2018, 30 professional young male wrestlers from Henan Provincial Heavy Sports Management Center (athlete group) and 30 healthy young males matched with age (control group) were randomly selected.Using traditional echocardiography combined with stratified strain technique, heart rate (HR), left ventricular end-diastolic diameter(LVDd), interventricular septal thickness on diastole(IVSTd), postwall thickness on diastole (PWTd), relative wall thickness (RWT), end diastolic volume index(EDVI), end systolic volume index (ESVI), ejection fraction (LVEF), stroke volume index (SVI), cardiac index (CI), spherical index (SPI), endocardial myocardial global longitudinal strain(GLSendo), mid-myocardial global longitudinal strain(GLSmid), epicardial myocardial global longitudinal strain(GLSepi), peak strain dispersion(PSD) and whole myocardial longitudinal strain cross-wall difference (ΔLS) were measured respectively. The differences between the two sets of data were analyzed.ROC curves were plotted to analyze and compare the stratified strain parameters performance to predict left ventricular systolic function or synchrony in athletes.Results:The values of LVDd, PWTd, IVSTd, RWT, SPI, EDVI, ESVI and SVI in athelete group were higher than those of the control group. And the values of HR, GLSendo, GLSmid, GLSepi and ΔLS were lower than those of the control group.The differences were statistically significant (all P<0.05). There was no significant difference in LVEF, CI and PSD between the two groups (all P>0.05). The areas under the ROC curve of GLSendo, GLSmid and GLSepi for athletes′ left ventricular systolic function were 0.753, 0.747 and 0.726, respectively, and the optimal cut-off values were -22.34%, -19.95%, -17.35%, respectively. Conclusions:Long-term high-intensity exercise can lead to subclinical changes in left ventricular systolic function, and ultrasonic layer-specific strain technology can more accurately and specifically evaluate left ventricular systolic dysfunction. Among the GLS parameters, GLSendo is the optimal parameter for testing the left ventricular systolic function of athletes.

Objective:To summarize the patient profiles and therapeutic efficacies of ABO-incompatible living-related kidney transplantations at 19 domestic transplant centers and provide rationales for clinical application of ABOi-KT.Methods:Clinical cases of ABO-incompatible/compatible kidney transplantation (ABOi-KT/ABOc-KT) from December 2006 to December 2009 were collected. Then, statistical analyses were conducted from the aspects of tissue matching, perioperative managements, complications and survival rates of renal allograft or recipients.Results:Clinical data of 342 ABOi-KT and 779 ABOc-KT indicated that (1) no inter-group differences existed in age, body mass index (BMI), donor-recipient relationship or waiting time of pre-operative dialysis; (2) ABO blood type: blood type O recipients had the longest waiting list and transplantations from blood type A to blood type O accounted for the largest proportion; (3) HLA matching: no statistical significance existed in mismatch rate or positive rate of PRA I/II between two types of surgery; (4) CD20 should be properly used on the basis of different phrases; (5) hemorrhage was a common complication during an early postoperative period and microthrombosis appeared later; (6) no difference existed in postoperative incidence of complications or survival rate of renal allograft and recipients at 1/3/5/10 years between ABOi-KT and ABOc-KT. The acute rejection rate and serum creatinine levels of ABOi-KT recipients were comparable to those of ABOc-KT recipients within 1 year.Conclusions:ABOi-KT is both safe and effective so that it may be applied at all transplant centers as needed.