OBJECTIVE To compare the efficacy and safety of lacosamide （LCM） and carbamazepine （CAR） as monotherapy in the treatment of adult patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy. METHODS By methods of retrospective analysis， 84 adult patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy， were admitted to the Department of Neurology， Huaihe Hospital of Henan University during Sept. 2020-Jun. 2022， were divided into the control group （40 cases， receiving CAR treatment） and the observation group （44 cases， receiving LCM treatment） according to different medication regimens. Total response rate， epilepsy seizure frequency， blood lipid levels， and the occurrence of adverse events （AEs） of patients were compared between the 2 groups. RESULTS In the first month after treatment， there was no statistically significant difference in the total response rate between the observation group （63.64%） and the control group （55.00%， P＞0.05）； the frequency of epilepsy seizure in both groups was significantly reduced compared to before treatment （P＜0.05）， but there was no statistically significant difference between 2 groups （P＞0.05）. In the third month after treatment， the total response rate of the observation group （90.91%） was significantly higher than control group （67.50%， P＜0.05）； the frequencies of epilepsy seizure in both groups were significantly reduced compared to before treatment， and the observation group was significantly lower than the control group （P＜0.05）. In the third month after treatment， the levels of total cholesterol （TC）， triglyceride （TG） and low-density lipoprotein cholestrol （LDL-C） in the control group and the level of LDL-C in the observation group were significantly higher than before treatment， and the levels of TC， TG and LDL-C in the observation group were significantly lower than those in the control group （P＜0.05）. There was no statistically significant difference in the incidence of AEs between the observation group （15.91%） and the control group （17.50%， P＞0.05）. CONCLUSIONS Both LCM and CAR have certain effects in the treatment of newly diagnosed epilepsy in adults， which can reduce the frequency of epilepsy seizure in patients and have comparable safety. Meanwhile， LCM has better long-term efficacy than CAR in treating newly diagnosed epilepsy in adults， and its impact on the patient’s blood lipid is smaller than CAR.

Iodine is an essential trace element in the human body, and the gastrointestinal tract is the main way for the body to intake iodine. The intestinal tract contains trillions of microorganisms that have important impacts on the substance-energy metabolism and the genetic information processing in the human body. Gut microbiota or their metabolites can act on the thyroid through the circulatory system (namely the " gut-thyroid axis" ), thus potentially regulating iodine metabolism in thyroid. This article reviews the effects of gut microbiota on intestinal iodine uptake, as well as the effects of gut microbiota and their metabolites on the expression and activity of sodium iodide symporter (NIS) in thyroid cells, thus exploring the potential regulatory mechanisms of gut microbiota that involved in thyroid iodine metabolism. Potential factors affecting thyroid iodine metabolism by gut microbiota include the direct and the indirect factors. The direct factors include lipopolysaccharides, short-chain fatty acids, microbial peptides, and microbial proteins, which may affect the expression or activity of NIS in thyroid by regulating the nuclear factor kappa-B pathway, histone acetylation modifications, or antigen-antibody reactions. The indirect factors include the altered cellular environment that effected by gut microbiota which can further affect the transport of iodine ions in thyroid cells by manners like regulating the levels of thyroid-specific transcription factors and regulating the signal pathways mediated by thyroid-stimulating hormone and its receptor.

Objective:To examine the effects of different endodontic irrigation methods on root canal morphology.Methods:We collected 20 extracted single-root premolars from elderly patients(≥60 years)with periodontitis and randomly divided them into 5 groups.Group A: syringe irrigation; Group B: P5 ultrasonic irrigation, Group C: 0.20 W Er: yttrium aluminum garnet(YAG)laser irrigation; Group D: 0.30 W Er: YAG laser irrigation; and Group E; 0.35 W Er: YAG laser irrigation.Changes in the smear layer in the root canal and the hardness of the root canal were assessed.Results:After treatment with different root canal cleaning methods, the scores of smear layer removal for Groups A, B, C, D and E were(4.67±0.27), (3.08±0.57), (2.83±0.43), (1.17±0.19)and(2.87±0.50), respectively.There were statistically significant differences between them( F=35.946, P<0.01). Among them, Group B, C, D and E had better smear layer removal than Group A, and the differences were statistically significant(all P<0.01). Group D had better removal of the smear layer than Groups B, C and E, and the differences were statistically significant( P<0.01); Values for dentin microhardness of Groups A, B, C, D and E were(58.98±5.54), (55.19±5.71), (56.04±3.96), (66.65±3.23)and(45.68±7.58), respectively, with statistically significant differences( F=5.83, P<0.05), and for laser-based irrigation, the value for dentin microhardness of Group D was higher than those of groups C and B(all P<0.05). Conclusions:Laser-based root canal irrigation is better than traditional irrigation methods, with 0.30 W Er: YAG laser achieving maximal removal of the smear layer and at the same time having the least impact on root canal hardness.

Er: YAG laser bleaching is a new tooth bleaching method compared with traditional bleaching technology. The Er: YAG laser significantly improves the bleaching efficiency, has the advantages of high safety, short treatment time and excellent bleaching effect and is widely used in clinical operations. This paper summarizes the working principle and bleaching characteristics of Er: YAG laser bleaching technology and its effect on tooth structure. The existing literature suggests that the high absorption of water and hydroxyapatite by the Er: YAG laser makes it work well on water-bearing tissues and dental tissues. When it is absorbed by the bleaching agent on the tooth surface, it accelerates the catalytic oxidation-reduction reaction and selectively acts on the pigment particles deposited on the tooth, thereby achieving the effect of tooth bleaching. Er: YAG laser bleaching can be applied to most discolored teeth. The bleaching process is rapid and effective. During the bleaching process, for the dental pulp tissue, the temperature of the pulp cavity is lower than the critical value of 5.6 ℃, causing no pathological damage to the dental pulp tissue. For the hard tissues of the teeth, laser irradiation will cause changes in the chemical composition of calcium and phosphorus. The enamel presents a unique lava-like shape, and the bonding strength of the tooth increases after bleaching. Compared with other lasers, the Er: YAG laser has a wavelength close to the peak of water, and adding other ingredients to the bleaching agent is not required. Almost all the energy is used for the bleaching agent, with no damage to the surrounding tissues.

Objective:To investigate the application value of Laennec approach in laparoscopic anatomical right hemihepatectomy (LARH).Methods:The retrospective and descriptive study was conducted. The clinicopathological data of 2 female patients who underwent LARH via Laennec approach in the First Affiliated Hospital of Kangda College of Nanjing Medical University from May to July 2020 were collected. The two patients were 51 and 57 years old, respectively. Observation indicators: (1) surgical situations; (2) postoperative situations and follow-up. Follow-up using outpatient examination and telephone interview was conducted to detect post-operative survival and tumor recurrence of patients up to December 2020. Count data were repre-sented as absolute numbers.Results:(1) Surgical situations: 2 patients successfully underwent LARH via Laennec approach, without conversion to open surgery. The operation time was 180 minutes and 185 minutes, and the volume of intraoperative blood loss was 200 mL and 400 mL, respectively. No blood transfusion or gastrointestinal decompression was performed in either patient. (2) Postoperative situations and follow-up: 2 patients began to take liquid diet on the first day and out-of-bed activities on the postoperative second to third day. There was no postoperative bile fistula or bleeding, but different degrees of peritoneal and pleural effusion occurred to the 2 patients after operation. One case was improved after right-sided thoracentesis and chest tube drainage due to dyspnea, and the other case was cured after conservative therapy. There was no perioperative death. The duration of postoperative hospital stay of 2 patients was 13 days and 11 days, respectively. Results of pathological examination showed 1 case of hepatic hemangioma and 1 case of primary liver cancer, respectively. The Laennec capsule was observed on the hepatic vein branches of segment Ⅴ, Ⅵ, Ⅶ, Ⅷ, and the gap existed between the Laennec capsule and the hepatic vein. Two patients were followed up for 7 months and 5 months，respectively. They survived during the follow-up，without tumor recurrence.Conclusion:It is safe and feasible to perform LARH by Laennec approach.

Objective:To investigate the application value of dynamic scintigraphy single-photonemission computed tomography (SPECT) 99m-technetium-galactosyl human serum albumin diethy-lenetriamine pentaacetic ( 99Tc m-GSA) scintigraphy in assessing liver function of perihilar cholangio-carcinoma after portal vein embolization (PVE). Methods:The retrospective and descriptive study was conducted. The clinicopathological data of 16 patients with perihilar cholangiocarcinoma who underwent 99Tc m-GSA scintigraphy after PVE in Beijing Tsinghua Changgung Hospital Affiliated to Tsinghua University from October 2019 to January 2021 were collected. There were 8 males and 8 females, aged from 46 to 78 years, with a median age of 64 years. Observation indicators: (1) liver volume after PVE; (2) liver function after PVE; (3) typical case analysis. Measurement data with normal distribution were represented as Mean± SD. Count data were represented as absolute numbers or percentages. Comparison of data of the same patient was analyzed using the paired t test. Results:(1) Liver volume after PVE:the morphological liver volume and functional liver volume for the 16 patients were (1 420±211)mL and (389±112)mL. The morphological liver volume and functional liver volume were (636±143)mL and (234±106)mL of planning reserved lobe, (784±210)mL and (151±106)mL of planning resection lobe, respectively. The functional liver density (FLD) of planning reserved lobe and planning resection lobe were 0.36±0.12 and 0.19±0.11, showing a significant difference between them ( t=3.794, P<0.05). The planning resection rate of morpholo-gical liver volume and functional liver volume were 37.8%±0.6% and 54.8%±0.2%, showing a significant difference between them ( t=?3.720, P<0.05). (2) Liver function after PVE: 13 of 16 patients completed the indocyanine green (ICG) test, and 3 patients didn't complete the ICG test due to intolerance. For the 13 patients undergoing ICG test, the total ICG-K value was (0.15±0.03)/minutes, and the ICG-K value of planning reserved lobe was (0.07±0.02)/minutes. The total GSA-K value of 16 patients was (0.14±0.10)/minutes, and the GSA-K value of planning reserved lobe was (0.08±0.06)/minutes. (3) Typical case analysis: a 46-year-old male patient with type Bismuth Ⅲa perihilar cholangiocarcinoma was planned to perform perihilar hepatectomy combined with right hepatectomy. The imaging evaluation showed that the volume of reserved liver lobe accounted for 27% of the total liver volume. The serum total bilirubin was 256 μmol/L when admitted and decreased to 118 μmol/L on the day 5 after percutaneous transhepatic biliary drainage. The right anterior and right posterior branches of PVE was performed. SPECT 99Tc m-GSA examination was performed on the day 37 after PVE. The morphological liver volume was 559 mL of planned reserved lobe and 1 461 mL of the whole liver. The planned morphological liver volume resection rate was 61.7%. ICG-K was 0.12/minutes of the whole liver, and 0.04/minutes of planned reserved lobe. The functional liver volume was 134 mL of planned reserved lobe and 309 mL of the whole liver. The planned resection rate of functional liver volume was 56.6%. The GSA-K was 0.20/minutes of the whole liver and 0.09/minutes of planned reserved lobe. R 0 resection was achieved in perihilar hepatectomy combined with right hepatectomy and no liver failure occurred. The survival time of patients was 11 months. Conclusion:Dynamic SPECT 99Tc m-GSA scintigraphy can effectively evaluate the regional function of the reserved liver lobe in patients with perihilar cholangiocarcinoma after PVE.

Objective:To investigate the relationship between the expression levels of chemokines in serum of patients with differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC) and the progression of DTC.Methods:From January to April in 2017, blood samples of 76 patients (25 males, 51 females, median age: 39 years) with DTC after surgery in Nuclear Medicine Department of Tenth People′s Hospital Affiliated to Tongji University were collected retrospectively for detecting the expression levels of 40 chemokines. Patients were divided into different groups according to (1) with or without metastasis: the non-metastasis group ( n=13) and the metastasis group ( n=63); (2) degree of gradual dedifferentiation: without metastasis group ( n=13), lymph node metastasis group ( n=48), highly malignant group ( n=11) and radioactive iodine refractory (RAIR) with distant metastasis group ( n=4); (3) frequency of 131I treatment in follow-up for nearly 2 years: single treatment group ( n=51) and multiple treatment group ( n=25). Differences in chemokine levels among groups were compared. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to evaluate the predictive value of differential chemokines′ levels on DTC metastasis and multiple 131I treatment. Independent-sample t test, Mann-Whitney U test and one-way analysis of variance were used to analyze the data. Results:Compared with the non-metastatic group, the expression levels of Eotaxin-3 ((25.94±6.05) vs (21.76±5.71) ng/L), interferon-γ (IFN-γ; (116.04±28.98) vs (98.71±26.18) ng/L), macrophage-derived chemokine (MDC; (1 468.08±401.74) vs (1 082.94±423.30) ng/L) and thymus expressd chemokine (TECK; (505.22(419.80, 563.36) vs 402.89(347.43, 442.97) ng/L) in metastatic group were decreased, and the differences were statistically significant ( t values: 2.376, 2.131, 3.007, U=215.000, all P<0.05). The area under the ROC curve of IFN-γ+ MDC+ TECK for predicting DTC metastasis was 0.844(95% CI: 0.755-0.932, P<0.001), and the sensitivity was 79.37%(50/63). Only the differences of MDC among without metastasis group, lymph node metastasis group, highly malignant group and RAIR with distant metastasis group were significant ((1 468.08±401.74), (1 121.59±454.20), (976.07±281.04), (922.68±342.41) ng/L; F=3.564, P<0.05), and the expression was gradually decreased with the degree of dedifferentiation. Only IL-8 was significantly increased in the multiple treatment group compared with the single treatment group (28.20(23.22, 32.51) vs 30.51(26.98, 35.57) ng/L; U=801.000, P<0.05). The area under the ROC curve of IL-8 for predicting multiple 131I treatment was 0.648(95% CI: 0.523-0.773, P<0.05), and the sensitivity was 100%(25/25). Conclusions:Decreased expression of IFN-γ, MDC and TECK may be potential markers for predicting metastasis in DTC. MDC is likely to be a potential molecular target for detecting the dedifferentiation degree of DTC, decreased expression of which may indicate the increased malignancy of tumor. IL-8 may be used to predict whether patients need multiple 131I treatments.

Objective To develop a diagnostic model based on deep neural network for intelligent discrimination of thyroid function. Methods A total of 1616 patients ( 283 males, 1333 females, average age:52 years) who underwent thyroid imaging between May 2016 and June 2018 were selected. According to the clinical diagnosis, the 1616 cases included 299 normal thyroid cases, 876 hyperthyroidism cases and 441 hypothyroidism cases. Feature extraction and learning training were performed on 1000 training set sam-ples by two deep neural network models ( AlexNet;deep convolution generative adversarial networks ( DCGAN) ) using deep learning algorithm. Performance verifications were implemented on 616 test set samples. The con-sistency between the verification results of the two models and the clinical diagnosis was analyzed by Kappa test. Meanwhile, the time advantage of the intelligent diagnosis models was analyzed. Results The average diagnostic time of AlexNet model was 1 s/case, and the classification accuracy for normal thyroid, hyperthy-roidism, hypothyroidism were 82.29％(79/96), 94.62％(369/390), 100％(130/130), respectively. The Kappa value between results of AlexNet model and clinical diagnosis was 0.886 ( P<0.05) . The average di-agnostic time of DCGAN model was 1 s/case, and the classification accuracy for normal thyroid, hyperthy-roidism, hypothyroidism were 85.42％(82/96), 95.64％(373/390), 99.23％(129/130), respectively. The Kappa value between results of DCGAN model and clinical diagnosis was 0.904 ( P<0.05) . Conclusion The deep neural network intelligent diagnosis model can quickly determine the functional status of thyroid gland in thyroid imaging, and it has a high recognition accuracy, thus providing a new method for thyroid image review.

Objective To investigate the effect of recombinant botulinum neurotoxin serotype A heavy chain (BoNT/A heavy chain)on local proteins which are related to nerve growth after spinal cord injury in rats,and to get some experimental evidence to explain the mechanism of BoNT/A heavy chain in stimulating neuritogenesis. Methods Recombinant botulinum neurotoxin serotype A heavy chain was applied locally or intrathecally to rats with ipsilateral semi-dissociated lumbar spinal injury. Local spinal tissue was extracted for general protein expression by two dimension electrophoresis plus nitrate silver staining after different time period of injury. Based on the results of 2-D gel electrophoresis,growth-associated protein 43(GAP-43)and of superior cervical ganglion 10(SCG 10)were selected to examine the changes of their expression and distribution features under BoNT/A heavy chain administration using SDS-PAGE,western blot and immunofluorescence. Results (1)The model of spinal cord injury(SCI)in this study was an ipsilateral semi-dissociated lumbar SCI in rat. The rats showed obvious motor and sensory dysfunction in the ipsilateral hind limb.(2)The results from 2-D gel electrophoresis plus nitrate silver staining showed that the administration of BoNT/A heavy chain based on SCI altered the local protein expression pattern. The decrease or increase in the expression of some protein dots /dots group was clearly seen after single SCI. However, these changes were transformed by BoNT/A heavy chain treatment,which appeared as a reversed pattern turning toward that in control group or further increased expression upon SCI,such as the dots located respectively at 35-45 kDa and 18-25 kDa level,pI between 5-7. In addition,the expression of the two dots located at the level as above increased after SCI only, and showed further increase in their expression with BoNT/A heavy chain intervention.(3)The changes of selective GAP-43 and SCG 10 expression and distribution by western blot and immunofluorescence indicated that the administration of BONT/A heavy chain based on SCI amplified the expression of GAP-43 and SCG 10(P < 0.05). Meanwhile,the positive immuonfluorescent staining for both GAP-43 and SCG 10 mainly distributed nearby the proximal area of injury, both cytoplasm and neuronal processes were positively stained. Conclusions Intrathecal delivery of BoNT/A heavy chain increases the expression of growth-associated proteins GAP 43 and SCG 10 after SCI in rats.

Objective To investigate the effect and molecular mechanism of botulinum neurotoxin serotype A (BoNT/A) heavy chain on neuron regeneration. Methods Cell culture, rats, immunofluorescence, SDS-PAGE and western blot, etc. were adopted in this study to explore the alterations of histone-3 acetylation (acetyl-H3 ) by local treatment of BoNT/A heavy chain to spinal cord injury (SCI) in rats (in vivo) or by adding it into cell culture (in vitro). Meanwhile, the relevance of acetyl-H3 to neurite out-growth based on SCI and cell culture with BoNT/A heavy chain application was approached as well. Results The application of BoNT/A heavy chain to cultured Neuro-2a cells increased the level of H3 acetylation. The increase of H3 acetylation was paralleled with the growth of neuritogenesis. Also, the neuronal treatment of BoNT/A heavy chain to SCI promoted the re-growth of neuronal processes surrounding the lesions. The growth of neuronal processes was positively correlated to the level of H3 acetylation. During the periods of BoNT/A heavy chain treatment in vivo or in vitro, the increase of H3 acetylation showed two peaks. Conclusions BoNT/A heavy chain increased the H3 acetylation, which might be one of its neuritogenic mechanisms.