Objective:To verify the predictive value of the Second Revision of the International Staging System (R2-ISS) in newly diagnosed patients with multiple myeloma (MM) who underwent first-line autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (ASCT) in a new drug era in China.Methods:This multicenter retrospective cohort study enrolled patients with newly diagnosed MM from three centers in China (Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital, Capital Medical University; the First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, and the Second Affiliated Hospital of Naval Medical University) from June 2008 to June 2018. A total of 401 newly diagnosed patients with MM who were candidates for ASCT were enrolled in this cohort, all received proteasome inhibitor and/or immunomodulator-based induction chemotherapy followed by ASCT. Baseline and follow-up data were collected. The patients were regrouped using R2-ISS. Progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) were analyzed. The Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the survival curve and two survival curves were compared using the log-rank test. Cox regression analysis were performed to analyze the relationship between risk factors and survival.Results:The median age of the patients was 53 years (range 25-69 years) and 59.5% (240 cases) were men. Newly diagnosed patients with renal impairment accounted for 11.5% (46 cases). According to Revised-International Staging System (R-ISS), 74 patients (18.5 %) were diagnosed with stage Ⅰ, 259 patients (64.6%) with stage Ⅱ, and 68 patients (17.0%) with stage Ⅲ. According to the R2-ISS, the distribution of patients in each group was as follows: 50 patients (12.5%) in stage Ⅰ, 95 patients (23.7%) in stage Ⅱ, 206 patients (51.4%) in stage Ⅲ, and 50 patients (12.5%) in stage Ⅳ. The median follow-up time was 35.9 months (range, 6-119 months). According to the R2-ISS stage, the median PFS in each group was: 75.3 months for stage Ⅰ; 62.0 months for stage Ⅱ, 39.2 months for stage Ⅲ, and 30.3 months for stage Ⅳ; and the median OS was not reached, 86.6 months, 71.6 months, and 38.5 months, respectively. There were statistically significant differences in PFS and OS between different groups (both P<0.001). Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that stages Ⅲ and Ⅳ of the R2-ISS were independent prognostic factors for PFS ( HR=2.37, 95% CI 1.30-4.30; HR=4.50, 95% CI 2.35-9.01) and OS ( HR=4.20, 95% CI 1.50-11.80; HR=9.53, 95% CI 3.21-28.29). Conclusions:The R2-ISS has significant predictive value for PFS and OS for transplant-eligible patients with MM in the new drug era. However, the universality of the R2-ISS still needs to be further verified in different populations.

Objective:To explore the prognostic factors of primary plasma cell leukemia (pPCL) in the era of novel agents.Methods:The clinical data of 66 patients with pPCL treated at the Department of Haematology, Beijing Chao-Yang Hospital, Capital Medical University from 2011 to 2022 were retrospectively collected to analyze their prognostic factors.Results:Among the 66 patients with pPCL, the median age was 59 (range: 29-79) years. The median overall survival (OS) duration was 19.0 (95% CI 10.4-27.6) months, and the median progression-free survival (PFS) duration was 11.0 (95% CI 6.5-15.6) months. The median OS and PFS were significantly longer in patients with the best post-treatment response of very good partial remission (VGPR) or better than in patients with a response of partial remission (PR) or worse (median OS: 33.0 months vs 6.0 months, P<0.001; median PFS: 16.0 months vs 3.0 months, P<0.001). OS was significantly longer in patients who underwent autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplantation than in those who did not undergo transplantation (49.0 months vs 6.0 months, P=0.002), and there was a trend toward a longer PFS in patients who underwent transplantation than in those who did not undergo transplantation (19.0 months vs 8.0 months, P=0.299). The median OS and PFS were significantly longer in patients who received maintenance therapy than in those who did not receive maintenance therapy (median OS: 56.0 months vs 4.0 months, P<0.001; median PFS: 20.0 months vs 2.0 months, P<0.001). Multivariate analysis showed that hypercalcemia was an independent risk factor ( HR=3.204, 95% CI 1.068-9.610, P=0.038) for patients with pPCL, while receiving maintenance therapy ( HR=0.075, 95% CI 0.022-0.253, P<0.001) and post-treatment response of VGPR or better ( HR=0.175, 95% CI 0.048-0.638, P=0.008) were independent protective factors for patients with pPCL. Conclusions:In the era of novel agents, hypercalcemia, receiving maintenance therapy, and post-treatment response of VGPR or better are independent prognostic factors for pPCL.

Objective To compare image quality of 5.0T and 3.0T non-contrast MRI for displaying insulinoma.Methods Twelve patients with insulinoma were prospectively enrolled,and non-contrast abdominal T1WI,T2WI as well as diffusion-weighted imaging(DWI)were acquired using 5.0T and 3.0T MR scanners,respectively.The subjective scores of image quality of each sequence of 5.0T and 3.0T MRI,also of tumor-pancreas parenchyma contrast scores were compared.The signal-to-noise ratio(SNR)and contrast-to-noise ratio(CNR)of insulinomas were observed,and the displayed rate of insulinoma by each sequence and overall MRI were compared.Results The subjective scores of 5.0T T1WI and DWI were higher than those of 3.0T T1WI and DWI(both P＜0.05),but not significantly different between 5.0T and 3.0T T2WI(P=0.166).Furthermore,the tumor-pancreas parenchyma contrast score of 5.0T T1WI was higher than that of 3.0T T1WI(P=0.023),but not significantly different between 5.0T and 3.0T T2WI,nor between 5.0T and 3.0T DWI(both P＞0.05).SNR of insulinomas on 5.0T T2WI were higher than on 3.0T T2WI(P=0.015),however,no significant difference of SNR was found between 5.0T and 3.0T T1WI,nor between 5.0T and 3.0T DWI(both P＞0.05).CNR of insulinomas on all 5.0T MRI were not significantly different with those on 3.0T MRI(all P＞0.05).The displayed rate of insulinoma on 5.0T T1WI,T2WI and DWI was 100％(12/12),66.67％(8/12)and 83.33％(10/12),respectively,on 3.0TT1WI,T2WI and DWI was 75.00％(9/12),58.33％(7/12),66.67％(8/12),respectively.The overall displayed rate of insulinoma on 5.0T and 3.0T MRI was 100％(12/12)and 83.33％(10/12),respectively.Conclusion Compared with 3.0T MRI,5.0T MRI was superior for displaying insulinoma,hence being helpful for diagnosis.

Objective:To investigate the necessity of internal fixation of the fibular fracture in the treatment of degree Ⅱ ankle supination-external rotation injury by the Dias-Tachdjian classification in children.Methods:A retrospective study was conducted to analyze the data of 69 children with ankle fracture (degree Ⅱ ankle supination-external rotation injury by the Dias-Tachdjian classification) who had been treated at Department of Orthopedic Trauma, The People's Hospital of Weifang and Department of Pediatric Orthopedics, Tianjin Hospital from January 2015 to October 2021. There were 41 males and 28 females with an age of (10.1±1.4) years, and 37 left and 32 right sides affected. The patients were divided into 2 groups according to whether internal fixation of the fibular fracture was performed. Group A consisted of 21 cases with fibular internal fixation and group B of 48 cases without fibular internal fixation. The preoperative data, operation time and operation expenses were recorded and compared between the 2 groups. At the last follow-up, the anteroposterior and lateral radiographs of bilateral full length lower limbs and ankle joints were taken; the lateral distal tibial angle (LDTA) and the anterior distal tibial angle (ADTA) on the affected side, and the disparity between bilateral ankle tibiotalar angles were measured; ankle function was assessed according to the ankle-hindfoot score of American Association of Foot and Ankle Surgery (AOFAS); the occurrence of premature physeal closure (PPC) was recorded.Results:There was no significant difference in the preoperative general data between the 2 groups, indicating comparability ( P>0.05). All patients were followed up for (19.5±4.1) months. At the last follow-up, the LDTA on the affected side was 89.6° (87.9°, 90.5°) in group A and 88.6°±1.9° in group B; the ADTA on the affected side was 80.9° (79.0°, 81.4°) in group A and 80.0° (78.6°, 81.2°) in group B; the disparity between bilateral ankle tibiotalar angles was 1.1°±0.5° in group A and 1.2°±0.5° in group B; the AOFAS ankle-hindfoot score was (89.5±5.2) points in group A and 89.0 (87.0, 92.0) points in group B. There was no statistically significant difference between the 2 groups in the above items ( P>0.05). The incidence of PPC was, respectively, 14.3% (3/21) and 14.6% (7/48) in groups A and B, showing no statistically significant difference ( P>0.05). Conclusions:In the treatment of degree Ⅱ ankle supination-external rotation injury in children, internal fixation of the fibular fracture has no significant effect on the imaging angles or the function of the ankle joint. After anatomic reduction of the distal tibia, the fibular fracture can be treated without internal fixation to reduce operational trauma, shorten operation time and reduce operation expenses.

Objective:To identify gene mutations in a family with incontinentia pigmenti, in order to confirm pathogenic mutations.Methods:Clinical data were collected from all patients in a family with incontinentia pigmenti. DNA was extracted from peripheral blood samples obtained from the patients, healthy members in the family, and 100 unrelated healthy controls, and Sanger sequencing was performed for all exons and their flanking sequences of the NEMO gene.Results:Totally, there were 4 patients in the 4-generation family, who all presented with typical skin lesions and different symptoms. Genetic testing indicated that the proband and the other 3 patients all carried a heterozygous nonsense mutation c.1153C>T (p.Gln385X) at position 1153 in exon 8 of the NEMO gene, which led to the substitution of the glutamine codon (CAG) by the termination codon (TAG) at amino acid position 385. The mutation was not identified in the 14 healthy relatives or 100 unrelated healthy controls. The mutation cosegregated with incontinentia pigmenti in the family. Database searching confirmed the mutation to be a novel nonsense mutation, and it was considered as a very strong pathogenic locus according to the American College of Medical Genetic and Genomics guidelines.Conclusion:The mutation c.1153C>T in the NEMO gene is associated with the occurrence of incontinentia pigmenti in this family.

Fecal microbiota transplantation(FMT)of human fecal samples into germ-free(GF)mice is useful for establishing causal relationships between the gut microbiota and human phenotypes.However,due to the intrinsic differences between human and mouse intestines and the different diets of the two organisms,it may not be possible to replicate human phenotypes in mice through FMT;similarly,treatments that are effective in mouse models may not be effective in humans.In this study,we aimed to identify human gut microbes that undergo significant and consistent changes(i.e.,in relative abundances)after transplantation into GF mice in multiple experimental settings.We collected 16S rDNA-seq data from four published studies and analyzed the gut microbiota pro-files from 1713 human-mouse pairs.Strikingly,on average,we found that only 47％of the human gut microbes could be re-established in mice at the species level,among which more than 1/3 under-went significant changes(referred to as"variable taxa").Most of the human gut microbes that underwent significant changes were consistent across multiple human-mouse pairs and experimen-tal settings.Consequently,about 1/3 of human samples changed their enterotypes,i.e.,significant changes in their leading species after FMT.Mice fed with a controlled diet showed a lower enter-otype change rate(23.5％)than those fed with a noncontrolled diet(49.0％),suggesting a possible solution for rescue.Most of the variable taxa have been reported to be implicated in human dis-eases,with some recognized as the causative species.Our results highlight the challenges of using a mouse model to replicate human gut microbiota-associated phenotypes,provide useful informa-tion for researchers using mice in gut microbiota studies,and call for additional validations after FMT.An online database named FMT-DB is publicly available at http://fmt2mice.humangut.info/#/.

Objective:To investigate the application value of machine learning algorithms for gauze detection in laparoscopic pancreatic surgery.Methods:The retrospective and descriptive study was conducted. The 80 intact laparoscopic pancreatic surgery videos from Peking Union Medical College Hospital of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences with timing of July 2017 to July 2020 were collected. The training set was used to train the neural network, and the test set was used to test the ability of neural network for gauze detection under different difficulties. Under the supervision of two superior doctors, videos that containing gauze were selected and classified according to recognition difficulty into three difficulty level including easy, normal and hard difficulty, and further divided based on random number method into training set with 61 videos and test set with 19 videos in a ratio of 3:1 roughly. The minimum enclosing rectangle of the gauze were marked frame by frame. All images were input to the neural network model for training after normalization and preprocessing. For every image, the output of neural network is the predicted minimum enclosing rectangle of gauze. The intersection over union >0.5 was identified as positive result. Observation indicators: (1) video annotation and classification; (2) test outcomes of neural network for test set.Count data were represented as absolute numbers or percentages.Results:(1) Video annotation and classification: a total of 26 893 frames of images form 80 videos were annotated, with 61 videos including 22 564 frames of images as the training set and 19 videos including 4 329 frames of images as the test set. Of the training set, 19 videos including 5 791 frames of images were classifed as easy difficulty, 38 videos including 15 771 frames of images were classifed as normal difficulty, 4 videos including 1 002 frames of images were classifed as hard difficulty, respectively. Of the test set, 4 videos including 1 684 frames of images were classifed as easy difficulty, 6 videos including 1 016 frames of images were classifed as normal difficulty, 9 videos including 1 629 frames of images were classifed as hard difficulty, respectively. (2) Test outcomes of neural network for test set: the overall sensitivity and accuracy of gauze detection by neural network in the test set were 78.471%(3 397/4 329) and 69.811%(3 397/4 866), respectively. The sensitivity and accuracy of gauze detection by neural network were 94.478%(1 591/1 684) and 83.168%(1 591/1 913) in easy difficulty test set. The sensitivity and accuracy of gauze detection by neural network were 80.413%(817/1 016) and 70.859%(817/1 153) in normal difficulty test set, 60.712%(989/1 629) and 54.944%(989/1 800)in hard difficulty test set. The frame rate reached more than or equally to 15 fps. The overall false negative rate and false positive rate of gauze detection by neural network in the test set were 21.529%(932/4 329) and 30.189%(1 469/4 866), respectively. The false negative was mainly due to the existence of blurred images, too small gauze exposure or blood immersion of gauze. The false positive was caused by the reflection of connective tissue or body fluids.Conclusion:The machine learning algorithms for gauze detection in laparoscopic pancreatic surgery is feasible, which could help medical staff identify gauze.

Smoldering multiple myeloma is a kind of heterogeneous asymptomatic plasma cell disease. Some patients have a high risk of developing symptomatic multiple myeloma. However, the starting point and options of treatment for smoldering multiple myeloma patients are still unclear. This article reviews the risk stratification and treatment progress of smoldering multiple myeloma.

Multiple myeloma (MM) is characterized by genetic heterogeneity and is a common secondary hematological malignancy. Many studies have revealed that variation in the number of long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) is related to the degree of MM malignancy. Advances in molecular biology technologies, such as fluorescence in situ hybridization, high-throughput sequencing, gene microarrays, and qRT-PCR, have furthered research into cytogenetic malfunction in MM. Eleven newly discovered lncRNAs in MM have been fully interpreted according to the different mechanisms of MM and have the potential to be promising biomarkers for MM diagnosis and therapy.

Objective: This study investigated the efficacy and safety of a combination of lenalidomide, bortezomib, and dexametha-sone (RVD) in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma (NDMM). Methods: The clinical features and responses of 48 patients with NDMM who were treated with RVD from January 2015 to May 2019 in Beijing Chaoyang Hospital were retrospectively analyzed. Results: The median age of the 48 patients was 59 years (range: 34-79). Among these, 44 patients were Durie-Salmon stageⅢ, 15 were ISS stageⅡ, 19 were ISS stageⅢ, and 12 had plasmacytoma; 32.5% of all patients were cytogenetic high-risk. All patients re-ceived a median of four cycles (range: 1-9) of the RVD regimen as induction treatment. The overall response rate was 97.9%, with 35.4% of patients achieving complete response (CR) or better. The rate of very good partial remission (VGPR) or better was increased from 64.1% (after two cycles) to 84.6% (after four cycles). The mean collection of CD34+cells was 4.2 (± 2.6)×106/kg. Negative minimal residual disease (MRD), as indicated by next-generation flow (NGF), was achieved in 20.6% of patients after induction. Two patients with positive MRD after induction became MRD negative after transplantation. Two patients developed grade 3 or 4 hematologic toxic-ity. No nonhematologic toxicity of grade 3 or 4 was observed. Conclusions: In patients with NDMM, RVD treatment resulted in signifi-cantly improved response rates and exhibited an acceptable risk-benefit profile, with no adverse impact on stem cell collection. RVD combined with transplantation significantly improved the negative rate of MRD, as indicated by NGF.