Background and Objectives: The Fractional Flow Reserve and Intravascular UltrasoundGuided Intervention Strategy for Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Intermediate Stenosis (FLAVOUR) trial demonstrated non-inferiority of fractional flow reserve (FFR)-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI. We sought to investigate the cost-effectiveness of FFR-guided PCI compared to IVUS-guided PCI in Korea. Methods: A 2-part cost-effectiveness model, composed of a short-term decision tree model and a long-term Markov model, was developed for patients who underwent PCI to treat intermediate stenosis (40% to 70% stenosis by visual estimation on coronary angiography).The lifetime healthcare costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were estimated from the healthcare system perspective. Transition probabilities were mainly referred from the FLAVOUR trial, and healthcare costs were mainly obtained through analysis of Korean National Health Insurance claims data. Health utilities were mainly obtained from the Seattle Angina Questionnaire responses of FLAVOUR trial participants mapped to EQ-5D. Results: From the Korean healthcare system perspective, the base-case analysis showed that FFR-guided PCI was 2,451 U.S. dollar lower in lifetime healthcare costs and 0.178 higher in QALYs compared to IVUS-guided PCI. FFR-guided PCI remained more likely to be cost-effective over a wide range of willingness-to-pay thresholds in the probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Conclusions Based on the results from the FLAVOUR trial, FFR-guided PCI is projected to decrease lifetime healthcare costs and increase QALYs compared with IVUS-guided PCI in intermediate coronary lesion, and it is a dominant strategy in Korea.

Background and Objectives: The Fractional Flow Reserve and Intravascular UltrasoundGuided Intervention Strategy for Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Intermediate Stenosis (FLAVOUR) trial demonstrated non-inferiority of fractional flow reserve (FFR)-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI. We sought to investigate the cost-effectiveness of FFR-guided PCI compared to IVUS-guided PCI in Korea. Methods: A 2-part cost-effectiveness model, composed of a short-term decision tree model and a long-term Markov model, was developed for patients who underwent PCI to treat intermediate stenosis (40% to 70% stenosis by visual estimation on coronary angiography).The lifetime healthcare costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were estimated from the healthcare system perspective. Transition probabilities were mainly referred from the FLAVOUR trial, and healthcare costs were mainly obtained through analysis of Korean National Health Insurance claims data. Health utilities were mainly obtained from the Seattle Angina Questionnaire responses of FLAVOUR trial participants mapped to EQ-5D. Results: From the Korean healthcare system perspective, the base-case analysis showed that FFR-guided PCI was 2,451 U.S. dollar lower in lifetime healthcare costs and 0.178 higher in QALYs compared to IVUS-guided PCI. FFR-guided PCI remained more likely to be cost-effective over a wide range of willingness-to-pay thresholds in the probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Conclusions Based on the results from the FLAVOUR trial, FFR-guided PCI is projected to decrease lifetime healthcare costs and increase QALYs compared with IVUS-guided PCI in intermediate coronary lesion, and it is a dominant strategy in Korea.

BACKGROUND:Osteoporotic fracture is the most serious complication of osteoporosis.Previous studies have demonstrated that gut microbiota has a regulatory effect on skeletal tissue and that gut microbiota has an important relationship with osteoporotic fracture,but the causal relationship between the two is unclear. OBJECTIVE:To explore the causal relationship between gut microbiota and osteoporotic fractures using Mendelian randomization method. METHODS:The genome-wide association study(GWAS)datasets of gut microbiota and osteoporotic fracture were obtained from the IEU Open GWAS database and the Finnish database R9,respectively.Using gut microbiota as the exposure factor and osteoporotic fracture as the outcome variable,Mendelian randomization analyses with random-effects inverse variance weighted,MR-Egger regression,weighted median,simple model,and weighted model methods were performed to assess whether there is a causal relationship between gut microbiota and osteoporotic fracture.Sensitivity analyses were performed to test the reliability and robustness of the results.Reverse Mendelian randomization analyses were performed to further validate the causal relationship identified in the forward Mendelian randomization analyses. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:The results of this Mendelian randomization analysis indicated a causal relationship between gut microbiota and osteoporotic fracture.Elevated abundance of Actinomycetales[odds ratio(OR)=1.562,95%confidence interval(CI):1.027-2.375,P=0.037),Actinomycetaceae(OR=1.561,95%CI:1.027-2.374,P=0.037),Actinomyces(OR=1.544,95%CI:1.130-2.110,P=0.006),Butyricicoccus(OR=1.781,95%CI:1.194-2.657,P=0.005),Coprococcus 2(OR=1.550,95%CI:1.068-2.251,P=0.021),Family ⅩⅢ UCG-001(OR=1.473,95%CI:1.001-2.168,P=0.049),Methanobrevibacter(OR=1.274,95%CI:1.001-1.621,P=0.049),and Roseburia(OR=1.429,95%CI:1.015-2.013,P=0.041)would increase the risk of osteoporotic fractures in patients.Elevated abundance of Bacteroidia(OR=0.660,95%CI:0.455-0.959,P=0.029),Bacteroidales(OR=0.660,95%CI:0.455-0.959,P=0.029),Christensenellacea(OR=0.725,95%CI:0.529-0.995,P=0.047),Ruminococcaceae(OR=0.643,95%CI:0.443-0.933,P=0.020),Enterorhabdus(OR=0.558,95%CI:0.395-0.788,P=0.001),Eubacterium rectale group(OR=0.631,95%CI:0.435-0.916,P=0.016),Lachnospiraceae UCG008(OR=0.738,95%CI:0.546-0.998,P=0.048),and Ruminiclostridium 9(OR=0.492,95%CI:0.324-0.746,P=0.001)would reduce the risk of osteoporotic fractures in patients.We identified 16 gut microbiota associated with osteoporotic fracture by the Mendelian randomization method.That is,using gut microbiota as the exposure factor and osteoporotic fracture as the outcome variable,eight gut microbiota showed positive causal associations with osteoporotic fracture and another eight gut microbiota showed negative causal associations with osteoporotic fracture.The results of this study not only identify new biomarkers for the early prediction of osteoporotic fracture and potential therapeutic targets in clinical practice,but also provide an experimental basis and theoretical basis for the study of improving the occurrence and prognosis of osteoporotic fracture through gut microbiota in bone tissue engineering.

Background and Objectives: The Fractional Flow Reserve and Intravascular UltrasoundGuided Intervention Strategy for Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Intermediate Stenosis (FLAVOUR) trial demonstrated non-inferiority of fractional flow reserve (FFR)-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI. We sought to investigate the cost-effectiveness of FFR-guided PCI compared to IVUS-guided PCI in Korea. Methods: A 2-part cost-effectiveness model, composed of a short-term decision tree model and a long-term Markov model, was developed for patients who underwent PCI to treat intermediate stenosis (40% to 70% stenosis by visual estimation on coronary angiography).The lifetime healthcare costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were estimated from the healthcare system perspective. Transition probabilities were mainly referred from the FLAVOUR trial, and healthcare costs were mainly obtained through analysis of Korean National Health Insurance claims data. Health utilities were mainly obtained from the Seattle Angina Questionnaire responses of FLAVOUR trial participants mapped to EQ-5D. Results: From the Korean healthcare system perspective, the base-case analysis showed that FFR-guided PCI was 2,451 U.S. dollar lower in lifetime healthcare costs and 0.178 higher in QALYs compared to IVUS-guided PCI. FFR-guided PCI remained more likely to be cost-effective over a wide range of willingness-to-pay thresholds in the probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Conclusions Based on the results from the FLAVOUR trial, FFR-guided PCI is projected to decrease lifetime healthcare costs and increase QALYs compared with IVUS-guided PCI in intermediate coronary lesion, and it is a dominant strategy in Korea.

Background Coal workers' pneumoconiosis is a serious occupational disease in China. Exhaled volatile organic compounds (VOCs) can serve as the "breath fingerprint" of internal pathological processes, which provides a theoretical basis for exhaled VOCs to be used as potential non-invasive biomarkers for early diagnosis of coal workers' pneumoconiosis. Objective To screen out the characteristic VOCs and important characteristic VOCs of exhaled air in patients with coal workers' pneumoconiosis, and to explore the potential of these VOCs as biomarkers for early non-invasive diagnosis of the disease. Methods In this study, 27 VOCs in the exhaled breath of 22 patients with stage I coal workers' pneumoconiosis, 77 workers exposed to dust, and 92 healthy controls were quantitatively detected by thermal desorption gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (TD-GC-MS). Substances with P<0.05 in univariate analysis and variable importance projection (VIP) >1 in supervised orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis (OPLS-DA) model were selected as the characteristic VOCs for early diagnosis of coal workers' pneumoconiosis. Age was included in the LASSO regression model as a covariate to screen out important characteristic VOCs, and the diagnostic performance was evaluated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. Spearman correlation was further used to explore the correlation between important characteristic VOCs and clinical lung function indicators. Results Through univariate analysis and OPLS-DA modeling, 8 VOCs were selected, including 2-methylpentane, 3-methylpentane, n-hexane, methylcyclopentane, n-heptane, methylcyclohexane, 4-methyl-2-pentanone, and 2-hexanone, in exhaled breath of patients with coal workers' pneumoconiosis. The concentrations of 4 VOCs, including 3-methylpentane, n-hexane, 4-methyl-2-pentanone, and 2-hexanone, showed a decreasing trend with the increase of dust exposure years. By LASSO regression, the important characteristic VOCs of the coal workers' pneumoconiosis group and the dust exposure group were n-hexane, methylcyclohexane and 4-methyl-2-pentanone, and the important characteristic VOCs of the coal workers' pneumoconiosis group and the healthy group were 2-methyl-pentane and 4-methyl-2-pentanone. The ROC analysis showed that the area under the curve (AUC) of n-hexane, methylcyclohexane, and 4-methyl-2-pentanone were 0.969, 0.909, and 0.956, respectively, and the AUC of combined diagnosis was 0.988 and its Youden index was 0.961, suggesting that these results can serve as a valuable reference for further research on early diagnosis. The Correlation analysis found that there was a positive correlation between n-hexane and lung function indicators in the important characteristic VOCs, indicating that it could indirectly reflect the obstruction of lung function ventilation, further proving that important characteristic VOCs have the potential to monitor lung function decline. Conclusion Three important characteristic VOCs selected in this study have the potential to be used as non-invasive biomarkers for early diagnosis and disease monitoring of coal workers' pneumoconiosis, and are worthy of further study and verification.

Background and Objectives: The Fractional Flow Reserve and Intravascular UltrasoundGuided Intervention Strategy for Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Intermediate Stenosis (FLAVOUR) trial demonstrated non-inferiority of fractional flow reserve (FFR)-guided percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS)-guided PCI. We sought to investigate the cost-effectiveness of FFR-guided PCI compared to IVUS-guided PCI in Korea. Methods: A 2-part cost-effectiveness model, composed of a short-term decision tree model and a long-term Markov model, was developed for patients who underwent PCI to treat intermediate stenosis (40% to 70% stenosis by visual estimation on coronary angiography).The lifetime healthcare costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) were estimated from the healthcare system perspective. Transition probabilities were mainly referred from the FLAVOUR trial, and healthcare costs were mainly obtained through analysis of Korean National Health Insurance claims data. Health utilities were mainly obtained from the Seattle Angina Questionnaire responses of FLAVOUR trial participants mapped to EQ-5D. Results: From the Korean healthcare system perspective, the base-case analysis showed that FFR-guided PCI was 2,451 U.S. dollar lower in lifetime healthcare costs and 0.178 higher in QALYs compared to IVUS-guided PCI. FFR-guided PCI remained more likely to be cost-effective over a wide range of willingness-to-pay thresholds in the probabilistic sensitivity analysis. Conclusions Based on the results from the FLAVOUR trial, FFR-guided PCI is projected to decrease lifetime healthcare costs and increase QALYs compared with IVUS-guided PCI in intermediate coronary lesion, and it is a dominant strategy in Korea.

ObjectiveTo investigate the therapeutic efficacy， influencing factors， and safety of a treatment regimen based on coblopasvir hydrochloride capsules/sofosbuvir tablets in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus （HCV） infection in a real-world setting. MethodsA total of 253 patients who attended The Third People’s Hospital of Kunming from September 1， 2021 to May 31， 2024 were enrolled， among whom there were 86 patients with compensated liver cirrhosis （CLC group） and 167 patients with chronic hepatitis C （CHC group）. The patients were treated with coblopasvir hydrochloride capsules （60 mg）/sofosbuvir tablets （400 mg） with or without ribavirin tablets for 12 weeks， and they were followed up for 12 weeks after drug withdrawal. The primary outcome measures were the rate of sustained virologic response at week 12 after treatment （SVR12） and safety， and the secondary outcome measures were the changes in liver function， renal function， blood routine， and liver stiffness measurements （LSM） after 4 weeks of treatment， after 12 weeks of treatment， and at 12 weeks after drug withdrawal. The independent-samples t test and the Mann-Whitney U test were used for comparison of continuous data between two groups， and the Friedman test was used for comparison between multiple groups， while the Bonferroni method was used for paired comparison within each group； the chi-square test was used for comparison of categorical data between two groups. The Logistic analysis was used to investigate related influencing factors. ResultsThe 253 patients with chronic HCV infection had a mean age of 49.38±8.65 years， and there were 151 male patients （59.7%）. Of all patients， 33.99% （86/253） had liver cirrhosis， 25.69% （65/253） had hypertension， 10.67% （27/253） had HIV infection， 8.70% （22/253） had diabetes， 3.95% （10/253） had liver cancer， 1.98% （5/253） had chronic hepatitis B， and 7.91% （20/253） were treatment-experienced patients. As for genotype distribution， 2.77% （7/253） had genotype 1， 12.65% （32/253） had genotype 2， 66.01% （167/253） had genotype 3， 16.60% （42/253） had genotype 6， and 1.98% （5/253） had unknown genotype. The patients had an overall SVR12 rate of 92.09%， with an SVR12 rate of 93.02% in the CLC group and 91.02% in the CHC group. The multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that age （odds ratio ［OR］=1.086， 95% confidence interval ［CI］： 1.007 — 1.170， P=0.032） and HCC （OR=9.178， 95%CI： 1.722 — 48.912， P=0.009） were independent influencing factors for sustained virologic response. Compared with baseline data， the CLC group had significant reductions in alanine aminotransferase （ALT） （χ²=107.103， P0.05）， aspartate aminotransferase （AST） （χ²=90.602， P0.05）， and LSM （χ²=42.235， P0.05） after 12 weeks of treatment， while the CHC group had significant reductions in total bilirubin （χ²=15.113， P0.05）， ALT （χ²=202.237， P0.05）， AST （χ²=161.193， P0.05）， and LSM （χ²=37.606， P0.05）. The incidence rate of serious adverse events was 1.58%， and none of the patients withdrew from drug therapy； the patients with such events were relieved after active symptomatic treatment. The incidence rate of all adverse events was 23.72%， among which fatigue （17.39%） and nausea （2.37%） were the most common adverse events， and these events often disappeared within 2 weeks or were gradually relieved after symptomatic treatment. ConclusionCoblopasvir hydrochloride capsules/sofosbuvir tablets with or without ribavirin tablets has good efficacy and safety in the treatment of chronic HCV infection.

Central retinal artery occlusion(CRAO)refers to occlusion of the central retinal artery(CRA), which acts as the primary blood supply to the inner neurosensory retina, and leads to an acute loss of vision and permanent visual disability. The natural history of visual prognosis in CRAO is generally poor. Despite a variety of treatment options have been studied, such as ocular massage, anterior chamber paracentesis, hyperbaric oxygen therapy(HBOT)and intra-arterial infusion of tissue plasminogen activator(tPA), but there is currently no evidence-based management strategies for the treatment of CRAO. Furthermore, the efficacy of all available managements is debatable and many have uncertain risks. This review will offer a summary of the currently known treatment options for CRAO and probe into their safety and efficacy on the prognosis of CRAO.

γδ T cells are a kind of innate immune T cell. They have not attracted sufficient attention because they account for only a small proportion of all immune cells, and many basic factors related to these cells remain unclear. However, in recent years, with the rapid development of tumor immunotherapy, γδ T cells have attracted increasing attention because of their ability to exert cytotoxic effects on most tumor cells without major histocompatibility complex (MHC) restriction. An increasing number of basic studies have focused on the development, antigen recognition, activation, and antitumor immune response of γδ T cells. Additionally, γδ T cell-based immunotherapeutic strategies are being developed, and the number of clinical trials investigating such strategies is increasing. This review mainly summarizes the progress of basic research and the clinical application of γδ T cells in tumor immunotherapy to provide a theoretical basis for further the development of γδ T cell-based strategies in the future.
Humans ; Receptors, Antigen, T-Cell, gamma-delta ; Immunotherapy, Adoptive ; T-Lymphocytes ; Immunotherapy ; Neoplasms/therapy*

OBJECTIVE To study the effects of methimazole on the urinary metabolomics of hyperthyroidism rats， and to preliminarily investigate its possible mechanism. METHODS Thirty SD rats were randomly divided into control group， model group and methimazole group， with 10 rats in each group. Except for the control group， the rats in the other two groups were given Levothyroxine sodium tablets 160 mg/kg by intragastric administration for 15 days； at the same time， methimazole group was additionally given methimazole 3.6 mg/kg daily by intragastric administration every day. The basic condition of the rats was observed， and the body weight and anal temperature were measured. After the last medication， the serum levels of triiodothyronine （T3）， tetraiodothyronine （T4）， free triiodothyronine （FT3）， free tetraiodothyronine （FT4）， and thyroid stimulating hormone （TSH） were determined； 24-hour urine was collected on the 15th day after administration. UPLC-TOF-MS was used to analyze the urine metabolomics of rats. Principal component analysis and orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis were used to screen out related differential metabolites， and potential metabolic pathways were analyzed by using HMDB and KEGG. RESULTS Compared with the control group， the rectal temperature， serum levels of T3， T4， FT3 and FT4， the expressions of differential metabolites sebacic acid， cholic acid 3-O-glucuronic acid and N6， N6， N6-trimethyl-L-lysine in urine were significantly up-regulated， while body weight， serum level of TSH， the expressions of deoxycytidine and 2-oxo-4-methylthiobutanoic acid in urine were significantly down-regulated （P＜0.01）. Compared with model group， above indexes of rats were reversed significantly in methimazole group （P＜0.01 or P＜0.05）. Above five differential metabolites were mainly involved in four signaling pathways: pentose and glucuronate interaction， lysine degradation， cysteine and methionine metabolism， and pyrimidine metabolism. CONCLUSIONS Methimazole might improve hyperthyroidism by modulating the four pathways of pentose and glucuronate interaction， lysine degradation， cysteine and methionine metabolism， and pyrimidine metabolism.