Objective To evaluate the quality of treatment planning(TP)and re-optimization planning(RP)of radiotherapy for rectal cancer using PlanIQ software,thereby providing methods and tools for the screening and optimization of radiotherapy plans.Methods Twenty patients with rectal cancer who received radiotherapy were selected retrospectively,with 10 cases of intensity-modulated radiotherapy(IMRT)and 10 of volumetric modulated arc therapy(VMAT).(1)TP:IMRT plan involved 5-field irradiation,and VMAT plan involved two 360°arcs.The prescription doses were 50 Gy/25 f for PTV1 and 45 Gy/25 f for PTV2.All plans underwent direct machine parameter optimization and required 95%isodose lines to cover 100%of the target volume.Organs-at-risk(OAR)were limited by reference to tolerated dose standards.After the planning was completed,the plans were reviewed and confirmed by a physician,and the treatment was implemented after dose verification.(2)RP:a physicist with 10 years of experience re-optimized the 20 TP plans,with the irradiation technique and field setting unchanged.The re-optimization involved adjusting planning conditions and parameters based on individual experience until the dose to OAR was minimized while without affecting PTV coverage.The quality of TP plans and RP plans were quantitatively evaluated using PlanIQ software.Non-parametric Wilcoxon signed rank test was performed for dose-volume histogram parameters and plan quality index between two groups.Results The dose-volume histogram parameters in RP plans were superior to those in TP plans,and the differences in the Dmax of PTV1,the V45 Gy and Dmax of small intestine,and the V45 Gy of colon were statistically significant(P<0.05).The quality scores of RP plans for IMRT group,VMAT group and all patients were significantly higher than those of TP plans(P<0.05),with plan quality index of 88.55±3.35 vs 86.61±4.63(P=0.005),89.72±3.15 vs 87.21±3.04(P=0.028),and 89.14±3.22 vs 86.91±3.22(P=0.001),respectively.Conclusion RP can further improve the quality of radiotherapy plan for rectal cancer.PlanIQ software serves as an effective tool for quality control and screening of radiotherapy planning.

ObjectiveTo investigate the effects of Guizhi Fulingwan on oxidative stress and renal fibrosis in diabetic mice based on the nuclear factor E₂-associated factor 2/antioxidant response element （Nrf2/ARE） pathway， and to explore its mechanism of action. MethodA diabetic mouse model was established by feeding high-fat diet combined with intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin. The diabetic mice were divided into a model group， a metformin group （250 mg·kg^-1）， and Guizhi Fulingwan low， medium， and high dose groups （400.4， 800.8， 1 601.6 mg·kg^-1）， with 10 mice in each group. Another 10 mice were included in a normal group. The treatment was conducted continuously for 8 weeks. Body mass and blood glucose were recorded， and the renal index was calculated. Triglyceride （TG）， total cholesterol （TC）， urea nitrogen （BUN）， serum creatinine （SCr）， superoxide dismutase （SOD）， and malondialdehyde （MDA） levels were measured. Pathological changes in renal tissues were observed using Hematoxylin-eosin， periodate-Schiff， and Masson staining. The protein levels of α-smooth muscle actin （α-SMA）， fibronectin （FN）， and transforming growth factor-β₁ （TGF-β₁） were detected by immunohistochemistry. The protein levels of Nrf2， Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 （Keap1）， SOD1， NAD（P）H single-nucleotide oxidase 1 （NQO1）， and heme oxygenase-1 （HO-1） were detected by Western blot. ResultCompared with the normal group， the model group showed elevated glucose， renal index， TG， TC， BUN， and SCr levels， thickened glomerular basement membrane， increased collagen fibers in renal tissues， decreased SOD activity， elevated MDA content， increased protein levels of FN， TGF-β₁， α-SMA， and Keap1， and decreased protein levels of Nrf2， SOD1， NQO1， and HO-1 （P<0.01）. Compared with the model group， the Guizhi Fulingwan and metformin groups showed reduced blood glucose， renal index， TG， TC， BUN， and SCr levels， improved renal histopathological injury， significantly increased SOD activity， significantly reduced MDA content， reduced protein levels of FN， TGF-β₁， α-SMA， and Keap1， and increased protein levels of Nrf2， SOD1， NQO1， and HO-1 （P<0.05， P<0.01）. ConclusionGuizhi Fulingwan can improve oxidative stress and inhibit renal fibrosis， and its mechanism may be related to the activation of the Nrf2/ARE signaling pathway.

Objectives:This study aimed to compare the clinical characteristics between light-chain cardiac amyloidosis(AL-CA)and transthyretin cardiac amyloidosis(ATTR-CA). Methods:A retrospective analysis was conducted in patients diagnosed with AL-CA and ATTR-CA at Peking University Third Hospital from January 2011 to October 2023.There were 35 patients diagnosed with AL-CA(AL-CA group)and 21 patients diagnosed with ATTR-CA(ATTR-CA group).Clinical manifestations,ECG,echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance(CMR)results were compared between patients with AL-CA and ATTR-CA. Results:Compared to the AL-CA group,the ATTR-CA group has a higher proportion of males(54.3%vs.90.5%,P=0.005),the proportion of patients with hypertension was lower(42.9%vs.9.5%,P=0.009).In terms of clinical manifestations,edema,proteinuria,renal insufficiency and serous effusion were more common in the AL-CA group,while the incidence of limb numbness was higher in the ATTR-CA group(all P＜0.05).There were significant differences in the incidence of limb lead low voltage(57.1%vs.28.6%,P=0.038)and conduction block(14.3%vs.61.9%,P=0.001)between the AL-CA group and ATTR-CA group on ECG.Although the AL-CA group had a shorter time interval from initial symptoms to diagnosis(6.0[2.0,15.0]months vs.35.0[14.0,56.5]months,P=0.002)and less pronounced left ventricular thickening on echocardiography(interventricular septum thickness:[13.3±2.0]mm vs.[15.7±2.2]mm,P=0.001;left ventricular mass:[198.4±67.8]g vs.[246.6±53.5]g,P=0.009)and CMR(interventricular septum thickness:[16.0±2.1]mm vs.[18.9±3.8]mm,P=0.033;left ventricular mass:[132.9±45.3]g vs.[194.7±50.8]g,P=0.011),the proportion of patients with NYHA grades Ⅲ-Ⅳ(48.6%vs.19.0%,P=0.027)was higher,the levels N-terminal B-type natriuretic peptide precursor and cardiac troponin T levels were higher(both P＜0.05),and the 1-year survival rate was lower in the AL-CA group than in the ATTR-CA group(65.7%vs.100%,P=0.001). Conclusions:AL-CA and ATTR-CA had differences in clinical and ECG manifestations.While the severity of left ventricular hypertrophy was less pronounced in AL-CA compared to ATTR-CA,cardiac function and prognosis were worse in AL-CA than in ATTR-CA.

Objective To observe the effects of electroacupuncture on the motor function and expressions of Irisin,Decorin and Myostatin in skeletal muscle of SAMP8 mice;To explore the mechanism of electroacupuncture in the treatment of the motor dysfunction of Alzheimer disease(AD).Methods Totally 247-month-old male SAMP8 mice were randomly divided into model group and electroacupuncture group,with 12 mice in each group,and the 12 male SAMR1 mice with the same age were set as the control group."Baihui","Dazhui"and"Shenshu"were selected in the electroacupuncture group,once a day,8 days as one course of treatment,with an interval of 2 days,for a total of 3 courses.The control group and the model group were not intervened.The motor function of mice was tested by grip strength test,pole climbing test and open field test,the mRNA expressions of Irisin,Decorin and Myostatin in quadriceps muscle were detected by RT-qPCR,and the protein expressions of Irisin,Decorin and Myostatin in quadriceps muscle were detected by immunohistochemistry and Western blot.Results Compared with the control group,the grip peak and duration of the mice in the model group decreased,head turning time and pole climbing time were prolonged(P<0.01),the mRNA and protein expressions of Irisin and Decorin decreased(P<0.05,P<0.01),and the expressions of Myostatin mRNA and protein increased(P<0.05).Compared with the model group,the grip peak and duration of the mice in the electroacupuncture group increased,head turning time and pole climbing time were decreased(P<0.05),the mRNA and protein expressions of Irisin and Decorin increased(P<0.05),and the expressions of Myostatin mRNA and protein decreased(P<0.05).Conclusion Electroacupuncture can improve the motor dysfunction of SAMP8 mice,and its mechanism may be related to regulating the expressions of Irisin,Decorin and Myostatin in skeletal muscle.

Objective:To explore changes in high-risk sexual behaviors and associated factors in HIV-infected men who have sex with men (MSM) in industrial workers, and provide evidence for designing behavioral interventions for this population.Methods:In this observational study, HIV-infected MSM were recruited in industrial workers using convenient sampling during August to September 2021. The sample size was estimated to be 530. A questionnaire was used and combined with routine follow-up to collect socio-demographic characteristics, high-risk sexual behaviors, partner notification, viral load testing and history of sexually transmitted diseases before and after diagnosis of HIV infection. The χ2 test was used to analyze the changes in high-risk sexual behaviors before and after diagnosis and logistic regression was conducted to identify factors associated with high-risk sexual behaviors. Results:A total of 560 HIV-infected MSM in industrial workers were recruited in this study. Of whom, 32.1% (180/560) had unprotected anal intercourse (UAI) within 12 months after diagnosis . The proportions of those having UAI with casual, commercial and regular same-sex partners significantly decreased from 73.4% (381/519), 75.1% (187/249) and 69.5% (207/298) within 12 months before diagnosis to 36.2% (146/403), 40.2% (86/214) and 34.2% (67/196) within 12 months after diagnosis , respectively. Educational level of college or above (a OR=0.41, 95% CI:0.23-0.71), passive anal sex (a OR=0.40, 95% CI:0.19-0.85), both active and passive anal sex after diagnosis (a OR=0.40, 95% CI:0.20-0.83) and no unprotected oral sex (a OR=0.02, 95% CI:0.01-0.05) were negatively associated with UAI within 12 months after diagnosis. Whereas, not considering necessary to use condom consistently after having repeated undetectable viral load (a OR=3.02, 95% CI:1.37-6.69) was positively associated with UAI within 12 months after diagnosis. Conclusions:Compared with that before diagnosis of HIV infection, although the prevalence of UAI seemed to decrease in HIV-infected MSM in industrial workers after diagnosis, nearly one third of them had high-risk sexual behaviors. Therefore, relevant interventions should be strengthened to reduce high-risk sexual behaviors.

Electrocardiogram (ECG) can visually reflect the physiological electrical activity of human heart, which is important in the field of arrhythmia detection and classification. To address the negative effect of label imbalance in ECG data on arrhythmia classification, this paper proposes a nested long short-term memory network (NLSTM) model for unbalanced ECG signal classification. The NLSTM is built to learn and memorize the temporal characteristics in complex signals, and the focal loss function is used to reduce the weights of easily identifiable samples. Then the residual attention mechanism is used to modify the assigned weights according to the importance of sample characteristic to solve the sample imbalance problem. Then the synthetic minority over-sampling technique is used to perform a simple manual oversampling process on the Massachusetts institute of technology and Beth Israel hospital arrhythmia (MIT-BIH-AR) database to further increase the classification accuracy of the model. Finally, the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database is applied to experimentally verify the above algorithms. The experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively solve the issues of imbalanced samples and unremarkable features in ECG signals, and the overall accuracy of the model reaches 98.34%. It also significantly improves the recognition and classification of minority samples and has provided a new feasible method for ECG-assisted diagnosis, which has practical application significance.
Algorithms ; Arrhythmias, Cardiac/diagnosis* ; Electrocardiography ; Humans ; Memory, Short-Term ; Neural Networks, Computer ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted

Purpose: This study was aimed to investigate long-term survivals and toxicities of early-stage nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in endemic area, evaluating the role of chemotherapy in stage II patients. Materials and Methods: Totally 187 patients with newly diagnosed NPC and restaged American Joint Committee on Cancer/ International Union Against Cancer 8th T1-2N0-1M0 were retrospectively recruited. All received intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT)±chemotherapy (CT) from 2001 to 2010. Results: With 15.7-year median follow-up, 10-year locoregional recurrence-free survival, distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), disease-specific survival (DSS), and overall survival (OS) were 93.3%, 93.5%, 92.9% and 88.2%, respectively. Multivariable analyses showed cervical lymph nodes positive and pre-treatment prognostic nutritional index ≥ 52.0 could independently predict DMFS (p=0.036 and p=0.011), DSS (p=0.014 and p=0.026), and OS (p=0.002 and p < 0.001); Charlson comorbidity index < 3 points could predict DSS (p=0.011); age > 45 years (p=0.002) and pre-treatment lactate dehydrogenase ≥ 240 U/L (p < 0.001) predicted OS. No grade 4 late toxicity happened; grade 3 late toxicities included subcutaneous fibrosis (4.3%), deafness or otitis (4.8%), skin dystrophy (2.1%), and xerostomia (1.1%). No differences on survivals were shown between IMRT+CT vs. IMRT alone in stage II patients, even in T2N1M0 (p > 0.05). Unsurprising, patients in IMRT+CT had more acute gastrointestinal reaction, myelosuppression, mucositis, late ear toxicity, and cranial nerve injury (all p < 0.05) than IMRT alone group. Conclusion Superior tumor control and satisfying long-term outcomes could be achieved with IMRT in early-stage NPC with mild late toxicities. As CT would bring more toxicities, it should be carefully performed to stage II patients.

Radiotherapy is one of the most important treatments of malignant tumors. However, after the radiotherapy combined with surgery and systemic therapy significantly improved the prognosis of cancer patients, somelong-term survivors after radiation exposure were diagnosed as second primary malignancies such as breast cancer, esophageal cancer, rectal cancer, bladder cancer, and sarcoma. This paper mainly discusses the radiotherapy-induced second primary neoplasms in terms of the dose-effect relationship, incubation period, influencing factors, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis.

Objective:To seek any correlation of the ratio of knee flexor to knee extensor peak torque (H/Q) with the balance and walking ability of hemiplegic stroke survivors.Methods:Thirty stroke survivors with hemiplegia had the H/Q value of their knees measured at angular velocities of 60°/sec and 120°/sec using an isokinetic muscle strength test. Their motor control ability was assessed using the Pro-Kin balance test system, while their balance and walking were assessed using the Berg balance scale (BBS), the stand-to-walk timing test (TUGT) and the 10m walk test (10MWT). Any correlation was sought between the H/Q value of the affected knee, the test results, stability limits and offset index.Results:The average H/Q values of the affected knee joint at 60°/sec and 120°/sec were significantly lower than those of healthy joints. They were positively correlated with BBS scores and stability limits, and negatively correlated with TUGT and 10MWT times and with the offset indices.Conclusion:The H/Q value of the affected knee of a stroke survivor with hemiplegia predicts balance and walking ability. It may be a useful clinical indicator for evaluating their motor functioning.

Objective:To investigate the immediate curative effect of adjustable knee orthosis in knee hyperextension patients after stroke.Methods:Thirty patients with knee hyperextension patients after stroke admitted to our hospital from June 2019 to December 2019 were selected. The balance and walking function in these patients were evaluated using Bipedal stability and stability limits were evaluated by Pro-Kin 254 beam walking test system, equilibrium function was evaluated by Berg balance scale (BBS), and walking function was evaluated by timed up and go test (TUGT) and ten-meter walking test (10MWT) before and after wearing the adjustable knee orthosis.Results:Patients after wearing the adjustable knee orthosis had significantly decreased movement length, movement area, standard deviation of the movement trajectory front and rear direction, and standard deviation of the movement trajectory left and right direction, and significantly increased limits of stability as compared with those before wearing the adjustable knee orthosis ( P<0.05). Patients after wearing the adjustable knee orthosis had significantly increased BBS scores, and statistically shortened time of TUGT and 10MWT as compared with those before wearing the adjustable knee orthosis ( P<0.05). Conclusion:The adjustable knee orthosis can improve the bipedal stability and stability limits, and balance and walking functions of knee hyperextension patients after stroke, which is worth of clinical application.