Focusing on the reform initiatives of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (CAMS) & Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) in medical scientific and technological innovation from perspectives of deepening the reform and optimizing the ecosystem of science and technology innovation, this article summarizes the highlights of CAMS & PUMC's efforts in safeguarding people's health and promoting the Healthy China 2030 strategy through scientific and technological innovation in the fields including basic research, disease prevention and treatment, and medical technology in the past ten years. These achievements embody the endeavors and responsibility of CAMS & PUMC in realizing self-reliance and self-improvement of Chinese medical science and technology and highlight its contributions to the development of medical science and technology of China.
Humans ; Inventions ; Ecosystem ; Academies and Institutes ; China

Academies and Institutes/history* ; Animals ; Biostatistics/history* ; China ; Ecology/history* ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Insecta/physiology* ; Vertebrates/physiology* ; Zoology/history*

Academies and Institutes ; Aged ; Asbestos ; Biopsy ; Compensation and Redress ; Diagnosis ; Drinking ; Drug Therapy ; Endoscopy ; Gastrectomy ; Gastrointestinal Neoplasms ; Humans ; Korea ; Middle Aged ; Occupational Exposure ; Occupational Health ; Oxygen ; Power Plants ; Rectal Neoplasms ; Ships ; Smoke ; Smoking ; Stomach Neoplasms

PURPOSE: With the emergence of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology, profiling a wide range of genomic alterations has become a possibility resulting in improved implementation of targeted cancer therapy. In Asian populations, the prevalence and spectrum of clinically actionable genetic alterations has not yet been determined because of a lack of studies examining high-throughput cancer genomic data. MATERIALS AND METHODS: To address this issue, 1,071 tumor samples were collected from five major cancer institutes in Korea and analyzed using targeted NGS at a centralized laboratory. Samples were either fresh frozen or formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded (FFPE) and the quality and yield of extracted genomic DNA was assessed. In order to estimate the effect of sample condition on the quality of sequencing results, tissue preparation method, specimen type (resected or biopsied) and tissue storage time were compared. RESULTS: We detected 7,360 non-synonymous point mutations, 1,164 small insertions and deletions, 3,173 copy number alterations, and 462 structural variants. Fifty-four percent of tumors had one or more clinically relevant genetic mutation. The distribution of actionable variants was variable among different genes. Fresh frozen tissues, surgically resected specimens, and recently obtained specimens generated superior sequencing results over FFPE tissues, biopsied specimens, and tissues with long storage duration. CONCLUSION: In order to overcome, challenges involved in bringing NGS testing into routine clinical use, a centralized laboratory model was designed that could improve the NGS workflows, provide appropriate turnaround times and control costs with goal of enabling precision medicine.
Academies and Institutes ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; DNA ; Humans ; Korea ; Methods ; Paraffin ; Point Mutation ; Precision Medicine ; Prevalence

PURPOSE: Because of the inconsistent symptoms associated with Ureaplasma infections, their clinical significances in genitourinary tracts are under debate. Therefore, we evaluated the presence of Ureaplasma urealyticum (UU) and Ureaplasma parvum (UP) in urine samples and examined their associations with chronic prostatitis (CP) through a case and control study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We included 696 nonchlamydial nongonococcal (NCNG) urine samples from men; 350 were categorized into non-inflammatory CP, 88 in inflammatory CP, and 258 in non-CP group. We amplified a region in the Ureaplasma urease areas from these samples and determined their biovars using the Sanger method. RESULTS: Among the NCNG population, the rates of UU, UP, and non-UU/UP were 3.88%, 6.46%, and 89.66%, respectively. The overall infection rates of non-CP, inflammatory CP, and non-inflammatory CP groups were 4.15%, 6.10%, and 3.65% in UU (p=0.612) and 6.85%, 7.22%, and 6.50% in UP (p=0.968), respectively. UU infection increased the risk of white blood cell (WBC) counts (≥5) in urine (p=0.005). In contrast, UP infections did not increase the risks of urethritis. Re-analysis from the 633 men who were excluded from urethritis effects did not reveal the associations between UU infection and the clinical characteristics of CP. Furthermore, the profiles from the National Institutes of Health-Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index questionnaire and WBC counts in expressed prostatic secretion were similar among the non-CP and the two CP groups in each Ureaplasma infection. CONCLUSIONS: We found that UU may induce male urethritis. However, Ureapalsma species in urine were not definitively associated with the occurrence of CP.
Academies and Institutes ; Case-Control Studies ; Humans ; Leukocytes ; Male ; Methods ; Prostate ; Prostatitis ; Ureaplasma Infections ; Ureaplasma urealyticum ; Ureaplasma ; Urease ; Urethritis

institutes and many parents are reluctant to agree with the procedure. We investigated the correlation of clinical and pathologic parameters with the severity of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in pediatric patients using ultrasonographic examination methods and measured the prevalence of fatty pancreas in pediatric NAFLD.METHODS: Liver biopsy and abdominal ultrasound (US) examinations were performed in 58 children (42 boys, 16 girls; mean age, 12 years; age range, 4–19 years) between March 2006 and August 2017. Fatty liver and fatty pancreas were evaluated by two independent radiologists using US according to 4- and 3-point scales, respectively. We then analyzed the correlations of clinical, laboratory, and histopathologic parameters with the ultrasonographic grade of steatosis.RESULTS: Forty-two children showed simple steatosis (NAFLD activity score [NAS] ≤ 5) while 16 showed NASH (NAS > 5). Higher body mass index (BMI) percentile, waist circumference, hematocrit, insulin resistance, and lower insulin sensitivity index were significantly positively correlated with the grade of fatty liver. NAFLD activity score, amount of steatosis, and fibrosis significantly worsened as the fatty liver grade increased. Higher BMI, lower insulin sensitivity index, and boy were significantly positively correlated with the fatty pancreas grade.CONCLUSION: Altogether, ultrasonographic severity of fatty liver shows good correlation with that of clinical parameters and hepatic pathology.]]>
Academies and Institutes ; Biopsy ; Body Mass Index ; Child ; Fatty Liver ; Female ; Fibrosis ; Hematocrit ; Humans ; Insulin Resistance ; Liver ; Male ; Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease ; Pancreas ; Parents ; Pathology ; Prevalence ; Ultrasonography ; Waist Circumference ; Weights and Measures

BACKGROUND/AIMS: It is well known that gender differences are associated with clinical outcomes in patients with acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, it is not clear whether gender differences affect the prognosis of elderly patients with AMI. METHODS: We analyzed the incidence of in-hospital complications and mortality in the Korea Acute Myocardial Infarction Registry-National Institutes of Health from November 2011 to June 2015. This study included elderly patients (≥ 75 years) diagnosed with AMI. RESULTS: A total of 2,953 patients were eligible for this study. Among them, 1,529 (51.8%) patients were female, and the mean age of the female group was older than that of the male group (80.7 ± 4.4 vs. 79.6 ± 4.0 years, respectively, p < 0.001). Elderly females utilized emergency medical services less frequently compared with elderly males (11.5 vs. 15.4%, respectively, p < 0.001). Elderly female AMI patients had a similar rate of in-hospital mortality compared with elderly males (7.1 vs. 8.4%, respectively, p = 0.196). The rate of major cardiac adverse events (MACEs) was lower in elderly females than males during a 12-month follow-up (hazard ratio [HR] 1.19, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.00-1.41, p = 0.045). According to multivariate analysis, the male gender is an independent factor for predicting 1-year MACEs (HR 1.37, 95% CI 1.14-1.65, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: No significant differences in peri-procedural complications or in-hospital mortality were observed between male and female elderly patients with AMI. However, elderly female patients had a more favorable prognosis than male patients during a 1-year clinical follow-up.
Academies and Institutes ; Aged ; Emergency Medical Services ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Hospital Mortality ; Humans ; Incidence ; Korea ; Male ; Mortality ; Multivariate Analysis ; Myocardial Infarction ; Prognosis

BACKGROUND: Currently there is no external proficiency testing program for allergen-specific immunoglobulin E assays (sIgE) in Korea. The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of sIgE performed in different laboratories in Korea using Polycheck Allergy Diagnostic (Biocheck GmbH, Germany) or simply ‘Polycheck’ and to further perform an inter-laboratory comparison of sIgE. METHODS: Three inter-laboratory trials were undertaken from June 2016 to December 2017 at nine institutions. Serum samples obtained from three patients who had a history of positive Polycheck results were used in each trial. A total of 59 allergens were evaluated from the standard panel, inhalation panel, and food panel. The acceptable rates (%) of classes 0–6 of the results were calculated using three different criteria, including the consensus of 80% participants of the College of American Pathologists (CAP), the most frequent value (MFV), and the Overall Misclassification Index Score (OMIS). RESULTS: The proportion of laboratories that showed acceptable results for CAP criteria, MFV, and OMIS were around 93.0%–97.7%, 66.3%–76.0%, and 0.1–1.3, respectively, in each trial. Under-performing institutes showed consistently higher (49/68, 72.1%) or lower (19/68, 27.9%) than acceptable results for all criteria. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study evaluating the inter-laboratory variation of sIgE in Korea using various criteria. It was found that the acceptable rate could be altered based on changes in these criteria. These findings might be useful for the inter-laboratory comparison of sIgE in Korea in the future as well.
Academies and Institutes ; Allergens ; Consensus ; Humans ; Hypersensitivity ; Immunoglobulin E ; Immunoglobulins ; Inhalation ; Korea ; Laboratory Proficiency Testing ; Mass Screening ; Quality Control

PURPOSE: To determine the role of metabolic syndrome (MetS) as a risk factor for acquired premature ejaculation (PE) after considering the various risk factors, such as lower urinary tract symptoms, erectile dysfunction, hypogonadism, and prostatitis. MATERIALS AND METHODS: From January 2012 to January 2017, records of 1,029 men were analyzed. We performed multivariate analysis to identify risk factors for PE, including the covariate of age, marital status, International Prostate Symptom Score, International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF) score, National Institutes of Health-Chronic Prostatitis Symptom Index (NIH-CPSI) score, serum testosterone levels, and all components of MetS. Acquired PE was defined as self-reported intravaginal ejaculation latency time ≤3 minutes, and MetS was diagnosed using the modified National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III criteria. RESULTS: Of 1,029 men, 74 subjects (7.2%) had acquired PE and 111 (10.8%) had MetS. Multivariate analysis showed that the IIEF overall satisfaction score (odds ratio [OR]=0.67, p<0.001), NIH-CPSI pain score (OR=1.07, p=0.035), NIH-CPSI voiding score (OR=1.17, p=0.032), and presence of MetS (OR=2.20, p=0.022) were significantly correlated with the prevalence of acquired PE. In addition, the Male Sexual Health Questionnaire for Ejaculatory Dysfunction scores and ejaculation anxiety scores progressively decreased as the number of components of MetS increased. CONCLUSIONS: MetS may be an independent predisposing factor for the development of acquired PE. Effective prevention and treatment of MetS could also be important for the prevention and treatment of acquired PE.
Academies and Institutes ; Adult ; Anxiety ; Causality ; Cholesterol ; Education ; Ejaculation ; Erectile Dysfunction ; Humans ; Hypogonadism ; Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms ; Male ; Marital Status ; Multivariate Analysis ; Obesity ; Premature Ejaculation ; Prevalence ; Prostate ; Prostatitis ; Reproductive Health ; Risk Factors ; Testosterone

PURPOSE: The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of childhood obesity and overweight in Iranian children under 5 years of age using a systematic review and meta-analysis. METHODS: We searched MEDLINE (PubMed), Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scopus, CINHAL, and the Iranian databases, including Scientific Information Database (www.sid.ir), Iranian Research Institute for Information Science and Technology (Irandoc.ac.ir), Iranmedex (www.iranmedex.com), and Magiran (www.magiran.com), for all articles published between January 1989 and August 2017. Sources of heterogeneity were determined using subgroup analysis and meta-regression. RESULTS: Six articles were ultimately included in the meta-analysis to estimate the pooled prevalence, based on which the prevalence of obesity and overweight were estimated to be 8% (95% confidence interval [CI], 6%–10%) and 9% (95% CI, 7%–11%), respectively. The results of the subgroup analysis showed that the prevalence of obesity in boys and girls was 9% (95% CI, 6%–13%) and 7% (95% CI, 4–10%), respectively, and the prevalence of overweight in boys and girls was 10% (95% CI, 5%–15%) and 9% (95% CI, 5%–13%), respectively. CONCLUSION: Despite high heterogeneity among the results of the articles included in the meta-analysis, the prevalence of obesity and overweight is higher in Iranian children under 5 years of age. Therefore, parents and the health system must pay more attention to the lifestyle, nutritional habits, and physical activity of these children.
Academies and Institutes ; Child ; Female ; Humans ; Information Science ; Life Style ; Motor Activity ; Obesity ; Overweight ; Parents ; Pediatric Obesity ; Population Characteristics ; Prevalence