Objective To describe the significance of the pretreatment inflammatory indicators in predicting the prognosis of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) after undergoing radical radiotherapy. Methods The data of 246 ESCC patients who underwent radical radiotherapy were retrospectively collected. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves were drawn to determine the optimal cutoff values for platelet-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), and systemic immune-inflammation index (SII). The Kaplan-Meier method was used for survival analysis. We conducted univariate and multivariate analyses by using the Cox proportional risk regression model. Software R (version 4.2.0) was used to create the nomogram of prognostic factors. Results The results of the ROC curve analysis showed that the optimal cutoff values of PLR, NLR, and SII were 146.06, 2.67, and 493.97, respectively. The overall response rates were 77.6% and 64.5% in the low and high NLR groups, respectively (P<0.05). The results of the Kaplan-Meier survival analysis revealed that the prognosis of patients in the low PLR, NLR, and SII group was better than that of patients in the high PLR, NLR, and SII group (all P<0.05). The results of the multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that gender, treatment modalities, T stage, and NLR were independent factors affecting the overall survival (OS). In addition, T stage and NLR were independent factors affecting the progression-free survival (PFS) (all P<0.05). The nomogram models of OS and PFS prediction were established based on multivariate analysis. The C-index values were 0.703 and 0.668. The calibration curves showed excellent consistency between the predicted and observed OS and PFS. Conclusion The pretreatment values of PLR, NLR, and SII are correlated with the prognosis of patients with ESCC who underwent radical radiotherapy. Moreover, NLR is an independent factor affecting the OS and PFS of ESCC patients. The NLR-based nomogram model has a good predictive ability.

Objective To investigate the effects and underlying mechanisms of a spray prepared from exosomes derived from M2 macrophages induced by interleukin-4 （IL-4） and tantalum particles （Ta） on the healing of pressure ulcers. Methods Bone marrow-derived macrophages were polarized into M2 macrophages using IL-4 or Ta, and exosomes （Exo-IL-4/Exo-Ta） were extracted. The regulatory effects of Exo-IL-4/Exo-Ta on M1 macrophage phenotypes and fibroblast matrix secretion were evaluated in vitro. Proteomic analysis was conducted to explore the biological processes and regulatory networks associated with Exo-Ta. A rat pressure ulcer model was used to assess the effects of Exo-IL-4/Exo-Ta spray on wound healing rate, inflammatory cell infiltration, and collagen deposition. Results In vitro, Exo-IL-4/Exo-Ta induced the polarization of M1 macrophages to M2 macrophages, reduced the secretion of pro-inflammatory factors, and promoted the expression of anti-inflammatory substances. Additionally, Exo-IL-4/Exo-Ta enhanced the production of collagen and fibronectin in fibroblasts. Proteomic analysis revealed that Exo-Ta primarily participated in biological processes such as energy metabolism and macromolecule biosynthesis. In vivo, Exo-IL-4/Exo-Ta spray accelerated wound healing, reduced inflammatory infiltration, and improved tissue remodeling in the rat pressure ulcer model. Conclusion Exosome sprays derived from M2 macrophages could accelerate pressure ulcer healing by modulating inflammation and promoting tissue regeneration, which demonstrated excellent clinical application potential.

Objective: To examine the casual association between age at first sexual intercourse and gynecologic malignant tumors using Mendelian randomization (MR) approach. Methods: The single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with age at first sexual intercourse were obtained from a meta-analysis of genome-wide association study (GWAS), and the SNPs related to gynecologic malignant tumors (ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, cervical cancer), and their subtypes were sourced from the IEU OpenGWAS database. Using age at first sexual intercourse as the exposure and gynecologic malignant tumors as the outcome, a MR analysis was performed with the inverse-variance weighted (IVW) method. Heterogeneity was assessed using Cochran's Q test, horizontal pleiotropy was evaluated using MR-Egger regression and MR-PRESSO test, and bias was examined using funnel plots. Results: The Mendelian randomization analysis demonstrated that younger age at first sexual intercourse was significantly associated with an increased risk of low-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (OR=0.553, 95%CI: 0.335-0.911), cervical cancer (OR=0.674, 95%CI: 0.466-0.974), endometrial cancer (OR=0.854, 95%CI: 0.730-0.999), and endometrioid carcinoma (OR=0.830, 95%CI: 0.690-0.998). No statistical association was found between the age at first sexual intercourse and ovarian cancer, high-grade serous ovarian cancer, mucinous ovarian cancer, endometrioid ovarian cancer, or non-endometrioid ovarian cancer (all P>0.05). Sensitivity analysis showed no evidence of undetected instrumental variable heterogeneity or horizontal pleiotropy (all P>0.05), and the funnel plot indicated no presence of bias. Conclusion Younger age at first sexual intercourse may be associated with an increased risk of certain gynecologic malignant tumors, highlighting the need to strengthen adolescent sex education.

Diabetic retinopathy is a common blinding complication in diabetic patients. Compared with conventional fundus color photography, fundus fluorescein angiography can dynamically display retinal vessel permeability changes, offering unique advantages in detecting early small lesions such as microaneurysms. However, existing intelligent diagnostic research on diabetic retinopathy images primarily focuses on fundus color photography, with relatively insufficient research on complex lesion recognition in fluorescein angiography images. This study proposed an adaptive multi-label classification model (D-LAM) to improve the recognition accuracy of small lesions by constructing a category-adaptive mapping module, a label-specific decoding module, and an innovative loss function. Experimental results on a self-built dataset demonstrated that the model achieved a mean average precision of 96.27%, a category F1-score of 91.21%, and an overall F1-score of 94.58%, with particularly outstanding performance in recognizing small lesions such as microaneurysms (AP = 1.00), significantly outperforming existing methods. The research provides reliable technical support for clinical diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy based on fluorescein angiography.
Diabetic Retinopathy/diagnostic imaging* ; Humans ; Fluorescein Angiography ; Microaneurysm/diagnostic imaging* ; Retinal Vessels ; Algorithms

Objective: To investigate the present situation of health education on school myopia prevention and control in primary and middle schools in Beijing, so as to provide scientific basis and suggestions for effective implementation of health education on school myopia prevention and control. Methods: From November 6-17, 2023, a total of 551 school doctors and health care teachers from public primary and secondary schools in seven districts of Beijing were investigated by using stratified random cluster sampling method. The contents included basic information, the basic situation of school health work, and the status of myopia prevention and control in schools. The data was described by frequency and proportion. Chisquare test was used to analyze the influencing factors. Results: A total of 89.8% of the respondents were found in the school of offering health education courses about myopia prevention and control. Among these respondents, 54.5% were equipped with health education course material of professional myopia prevention and control, and the teachers were primarily class teachers (57.6%), health care teachers (45.5%), and physical education teachers (45.1%), and most of the classes were conducted once a month (33.7%) and once a semester (28.1%). A total of 95.6% of the subjects had health education activities about myopia prevention and control at their schools. The frequency of activities was once a month (38.5%) and once a semester (27.9%). There were statistically significant differences of the report rate in setting up health education courses on myopia prevention and control, and the frequency of activities in different areas and different types of schools (χ2=19.53, 13.15, 34.30, 20.32, P<0.05). Conclusions Health education on school myopia prevention and control in primary and middle schools in Beijing is supportive. But health education courses taught by professional teachers should pay attention to the norms of the course material to complete a certain amount of class time, and development of health education activities should be diversified, so as to effectively implement health education of myopia prevention and control at school.

Chemotherapy resistance plays a pivotal role in the prognosis and therapeutic failure of patients with colorectal cancer(CRC).Cisplatin(DDP)-resistant cells exhibit an inherent ability to evade the toxic chemotherapeutic drug effects which are characterized by the activation of slow-cycle programs and DNA repair.Among the elements that lead to DDP resistance,O6-methylguanine(O6-MG)-DNA-meth-yltransferase(MGMT),a DNA-repair enzyme,performs a quintessential role.In this study,we clarify the significant involvement of MGMT in conferring DDP resistance in CRC,elucidating the underlying mechanism of the regulatory actions of MGMT.A notable upregulation of MGMT in DDP-resistant cancer cells was found in our study,and MGMT repression amplifies the sensitivity of these cells to DDP treatment in vitro and in vivo.Conversely,in cancer cells,MGMT overexpression abolishes their sensi-tivity to DDP treatment.Mechanistically,the interaction between MGMT and cyclin dependent kinase 1(CDK1)inducing slow-cycling cells is attainted via the promotion of ubiquitination degradation of CDK1.Meanwhile,to achieve nonhomologous end joining,MGMT interacts with XRCC6 to resist chemotherapy drugs.Our transcriptome data from samples of 88 patients with CRC suggest that MGMT expression is co-related with the Wnt signaling pathway activation,and several Wnt inhibitors can repress drug-resistant cells.In summary,our results point out that MGMT is a potential therapeutic target and predictive marker of chemoresistance in CRC.

Objective:To evaluate the effectiveness of left ventricular assist device (LVAD)implantation via minimally invasive thoracotomy.Methods:From April 2022 to October 2023, we retrospectively collected and analyzed the perioperative data of 16 patients underwent LVAD via minimally invasive thoracotomy in our institute. 16 patients included 10 males and 6 females, the mean age was(58.6±7.6)(49-76)years old, BSA was (1.75±0.90)(1.35-2.01)m 2, 6 cases of dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM), 8 cases of ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM) and 2 cases of end-stage valvular heart disease. LVAD type included 8 cases of CH-VAD, 7 cases of HeartCon and 1 case of Corheart-6. All the 16 patients underwent LVAD implantation were performed in condition of CPB, 13 patients on-beating heart, 3 patients with heart arrest. The outflow graft of 15 patients were place at ascending aorta, 1 patient was descending aorta. Results:The average surgical time was about 5.09 h, CPB time was(137±32)min, and the mechanical ventilation time was (20.8±13.6)h, stay in the ICU was(10.0±6.3)days, and the length of stay was(45.4±17.0)days. No case transition to sternotomy, no case in right ventricular failure, and no death case during 30 days.Conclusion:Minimally invasive thoracotomy approach is a safe and reliable method for left ventricular assist devices implantation, and can be used as a choice for LVAD implantation.

Objective     To summarize the effectiveness of Bentall procedure through the right anterior mini-incision. Methods    The clinical data of patients who underwent Bentall via right anterior mini-incision from September 2020 to September 2021 in the First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University were retrospectively analyzed. Results    A total of 14 males with an average age of 55.1±9.3 years and body mass index of 24.7±2.8 kg/m2 were enrolled. The cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) time was 185.6±32.9 min, the aortic cross-clamping (ACC) time was 144.8±30.3 min, the ventilation time was 18.1±13.5 h, the time in the intensive care unit was 3.7±1.8 d, and the hospital stay time was 13.4±1.6 d. Postoperative complications occurred in 5 patients: 3 patients of pleural effusion, 1 patient of pericardial effusion and 1 patient of postoperative bleeding with secondary thoracotomy hemostasis. The median follow-up time was 4 (2, 6) months. There was no mortality in the hospital or during the follow-up. As for the learning curve, the ACC time, CPB time and operation time were significantly shortened after four cases (P<0.05). Conclusion    The right anterior mini-incision for Bentall operation is safe and effective, and has clinical value.

Background: The impact of para-aortic lymphadenectomy (PALD) on prognosis and quality of life (QoL) for IB2-IIA2 cervical cancer patients remain controversial. And whether intraoperative frozen pathology exam on common iliac lymph nodes could help predict para-aortic lymph node (PALN) metastasis was unanswered with high-level evidence. Methods A multi-center, randomized controlled study is intended to investigate the effect of PALD on the prognosis and QoL in cervical cancer patients and to assess the value of intraoperative frozen pathological evaluation of common iliac nodes metastasis for the prediction of PALN metastasis. After choosing whether to receive intraoperative frozen pathological examination of bilateral common iliac lymph nodes, eligible patients will be randomly assigned (1:1) to receive PALD or not. The primary end point is 2-year progression-free survival (PFS). The secondary end points include 5-year PFS, 2-year overall survival (OS), 5-year OS, adverse events (AEs) caused by PALD, AEs caused by radiotherapy and QoL. A total of 728 patients will be enrolled from 8 hospitals in China within 3-year period and followed up for 5 years.

Objective: To explore the effect of C1q / tumor necrosis factor-related protein 9 ( CTRP9 ) on the expression of genes and proteins related to lipid metabolism of brown adipose tissue (BAT) in mice after cold stimulation． Methods : C57BL /6J male mice were injected with adenovirus Ad-GFP (control group) or Ad-CTRP9 ( experience group) into the scapular region and kept for 7 days．After cold stimulation at 4 ℃ for 10 hours，the expression levels of BAT marker genes and proteins were detected by real time PCR and Western blot. Results: Overexpression of CTRP9 induced by cold stimulation significantly increased the mRNA level of iodothyronine deiodinase 2 (Dio2) in BAT (P＜0. 01) ．Additionally，there was no significant difference in the expression of BAT marker genes ( UCP-1，PGC-1 α , PRDM16 and ARβ3) ，and liposynthesis and lipolysis related genes (PPARγ , HSL and ATGL) ．Uncoupling protein 1 (UCP-1) protein expression was upregualted in Ad-CTRP9 compared to the Ad-GFP control group ，while the expression of lipolysis related protein adipose triglyceride lipase ( ATGL) decreased significantly (P＜0. 05) ． Conclusion In cold environment，overexpression of CTRP9 promotes the accumulation of UCP-1 protein in BAT，upregulates the expression of thyroid hormone signal related gene Dio2，and inhibits triglyceride hydrolysis to maintain a constant body temperature.