Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is an aggressive primary liver malignancy often diagnosed at an advanced stage, resulting in a poor prognosis. Accurate risk stratification and early detection of HCC are critical unmet needs for improving outcomes. Several blood-based biomarkers and imaging tests are available for early detection, prediction, and monitoring of HCC. However, serum protein biomarkers such as alpha-fetoprotein have shown relatively low sensitivity, leading to inaccurate performance. Imaging studies also face limitations related to suboptimal accuracy, high cost, and limited implementation. Recently, liquid biopsy techniques have gained attention for addressing these unmet needs. Liquid biopsy is non-invasive and provides more objective readouts, requiring less reliance on healthcare professional’s skills compared to imaging. Circulating tumor cells, cell-free DNA, and extracellular vesicles are targeted in liquid biopsies as novel biomarkers for HCC. Despite their potential, there are debates regarding the role of these novel biomarkers in the HCC care continuum. This review article aims to discuss the technical challenges, recent technical advancements, advantages and disadvantages of these liquid biopsies, as well as their current clinical application and future directions of liquid biopsy in HCC.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is an aggressive primary liver malignancy often diagnosed at an advanced stage, resulting in a poor prognosis. Accurate risk stratification and early detection of HCC are critical unmet needs for improving outcomes. Several blood-based biomarkers and imaging tests are available for early detection, prediction, and monitoring of HCC. However, serum protein biomarkers such as alpha-fetoprotein have shown relatively low sensitivity, leading to inaccurate performance. Imaging studies also face limitations related to suboptimal accuracy, high cost, and limited implementation. Recently, liquid biopsy techniques have gained attention for addressing these unmet needs. Liquid biopsy is non-invasive and provides more objective readouts, requiring less reliance on healthcare professional’s skills compared to imaging. Circulating tumor cells, cell-free DNA, and extracellular vesicles are targeted in liquid biopsies as novel biomarkers for HCC. Despite their potential, there are debates regarding the role of these novel biomarkers in the HCC care continuum. This review article aims to discuss the technical challenges, recent technical advancements, advantages and disadvantages of these liquid biopsies, as well as their current clinical application and future directions of liquid biopsy in HCC.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is an aggressive primary liver malignancy often diagnosed at an advanced stage, resulting in a poor prognosis. Accurate risk stratification and early detection of HCC are critical unmet needs for improving outcomes. Several blood-based biomarkers and imaging tests are available for early detection, prediction, and monitoring of HCC. However, serum protein biomarkers such as alpha-fetoprotein have shown relatively low sensitivity, leading to inaccurate performance. Imaging studies also face limitations related to suboptimal accuracy, high cost, and limited implementation. Recently, liquid biopsy techniques have gained attention for addressing these unmet needs. Liquid biopsy is non-invasive and provides more objective readouts, requiring less reliance on healthcare professional’s skills compared to imaging. Circulating tumor cells, cell-free DNA, and extracellular vesicles are targeted in liquid biopsies as novel biomarkers for HCC. Despite their potential, there are debates regarding the role of these novel biomarkers in the HCC care continuum. This review article aims to discuss the technical challenges, recent technical advancements, advantages and disadvantages of these liquid biopsies, as well as their current clinical application and future directions of liquid biopsy in HCC.

Objective:To explore the effect of family empowerment model based on cloud follow-up in schizophrenia patients and their main caregivers.Methods:From January 2020 to June 2021, 160 schizophrenics and their 160 main caregivers who were admitted to Shaoxing Seventh People's Hospital were selected as the study subject by convenience sampling. According to the method of random number table, the subjects were divided into control group and observation group, with 80 patients and 80 main caregivers in each group. The patients in the control group were given routine nursing, while the patients in the observation group received family empowerment nursing model based on cloud follow-up on the basis of the control group. Both groups of patients were intervened continuously for six months after enrollment. Morisky Medication Adherence Scale-8 (MMAS-8) , Personal and Social Performance Scale (PSP) , Family Environment Scale-Chinese Version (FES-CV) , Self-Perceived Burden Scale (SPBS) , Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) and Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) were used to evaluate the drug compliance, personal social function, family function of the two groups of patients, disease burden and negative emotions of main caregivers.Results:After six months of intervention, the medication compliance of observation group was better than control group, the difference was statistically significant ( P<0.05) . The PSP score of patients in the observation group was higher than that of the control group, and the FEC-CV scores in all dimensions of the observation group were better than that of the control group, with statistically significant differences ( P<0.05) . After intervention, the disease burden, SAS and SDS scores of the main caregivers in the observation group were lower than those in the control group, with statistically significant differences ( P<0.05) . Conclusions:The family empowerment model based on cloud follow-up can improve the treatment compliance, personal social function and family environment of schizophrenics, and relieve the disease burden and negative emotions of the main caregivers, which is worthy of clinical practice.

Objective:To analyze the clinical application effect of psychological intervention based on narrative medicine in geriatric inpatients.Methods:Using the convenient sampling method, a total of 120 inpatients who were admitted to Department of Geriatrics in Shaoxing Seventh People's Hospital from January 2018 to December 2020 were selected as the research objects. According to the block random method, the patients were divided into the control group and the observation group, with 60 cases in each group. The patients in the control group were given routine nursing, while patients in the observation group were given psychological intervention based on narrative medicine on the basis of the control group. The Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) , Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) and Exercise of Self-Care Agency (ESCA) were used to investigate the patients, and the nursing satisfaction of the two groups was calculated.Results:Before nursing, there were no statistically significant differences in SAS, SDS and ESCA scores between two groups ( P>0.05) . After nursing, the SAS and SDS scores of the observation group were lower than those of the control group, and scores of self-concept, self-care responsibility and the total score of ESCA were higher than those of the control group, and the differences were statistically significant ( P<0.05) . The nursing satisfaction of the observation group was higher than that of the control group, and the difference was statistically significant ( P<0.05) . Conclusions:Psychological intervention based on narrative medicine can improve the self-care ability and nursing satisfaction of inpatients in the geriatric department and improve the adverse emotional state of patients, which is worthy of clinical application.

Objective: To investigate the current status and real performance of the detection of RUNX1-RUNX1T1 fusion transcript levels and WT1 transcript levels in China through interlaboratory comparison. Methods: Peking University People’s Hospital (PKUPH) prepared the samples for comparison. That is, the fresh RUNX1-RUNX1T1 positive (+) bone morrow nucleated cells were serially diluted with RUNX1-RUNX1T1 negative (-) nucleated cells from different patients. Totally 23 sets with 14 different samples per set were prepared. TRIzol reagent was added in each tube and thoroughly mixed with cells for homogenization. Each laboratory simultaneously tested RUNX1-RUNX1T1 and WT1 transcript levels of one set of samples by real-time quantitative PCR method. All transcript levels were reported as the percentage of RUNX1-RUNX1T1 or WT1 transcript copies/ABL copies. Spearman correlation coefficient between the reported transcript levels of each participated laboratory and those of PKUPH was calculated. Results: ①RUNX1-RUNX1T1 comparison: 9 samples were (+) and 5 were (-) , the false negative and positive rates of the 20 participated laboratories were 0 (0/180) and 5% (5/100) , respectively. The reported transcript levels of all 9 positive samples were different among laboratories. The median reported transcript levels of 9 positive samples were from 0.060% to 176.7%, which covered 3.5-log. The ratios of each sample’s highest to the lowest reported transcript levels were from 5.5 to 12.3 (one result which obviously deviated from other laboratories’ results was not included) , 85% (17/20) of the laboratories had correlation coefficient ≥0.98. ②WT1 comparison: The median reported transcript levels of all 14 samples were from 0.17% to 67.6%, which covered 2.6-log. The ratios of each sample’s highest to the lowest reported transcript levels were from 5.3-13.7, 62% (13/21) of the laboratories had correlation coefficient ≥0.98. ③ The relative relationship of the reported RUNX1-RUNX1T1 transcript levels between the participants and PKUPH was not always consistent with that of WT1 transcript levels. Both RUNX1-RUNX1T1 and WT1 transcript levels from 2 and 7 laboratories were individually lower than and higher than those of PKUPH, whereas for the rest 11 laboratories, one transcript level was higher than and the other was lower than that of PKUPH. Conclusion The reported RUNX1-RUNX1T1 and WT1 transcript levels were different among laboratories for the same sample. Most of the participated laboratories reported highly consistent result with that of PKUPH. The relationship between laboratories of the different transcript levels may not be the same.

Objective To explore district nurses' experience with hospital-community-family integrated management of chronic diseases.Methods Fifteen district nurses were interviewed by semi-structured interviews,and data were analyzed by Colaizzi's seven-step method.Results Three themes emerged:Theme 1,integration of chronic diseases was accepted by patients gradually,but collaboration with tertiary hospitals was needed;theme 2,government's guidance contributed to the development of integrated management of chronic diseases;theme 3,integrated management of chronic diseases still faced challenges.Theme 3 contained four sub-themes:limited self-preparedness;limited community medical resources and authority;unsatisfied residents' medical service and dispensing;imperfect information sharing platform.Conclusion Integrating existing medical resources,enhancing collaboration with tertiary hospitals,solving conflicts between residents' needs and primary health care resources,enhancing competency of district nurses are main tasks for advancing management of chronic disease.

Breast Neoplasms ; genetics ; Carcinoma ; genetics ; Female ; Gene Amplification ; Humans ; Immunohistochemistry ; In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; methods ; Receptor, ErbB-2 ; genetics

Objective To establish the index system of core competencies for midwife. Methods By qualitative research, semi-structured interview were carried out in 17 staffs relevant to midwifery. Results “Antenatal care”,“Intrapartum care”,“Postnatal care”, “Feminine care”, “Public health care &Integrative competency”, and “Professional quality” were established as 7 main midwifery core competency frame. Conclusions This research explores the core competency for midwife from various perspectives, and we construct the frame of index system according to national conditions. The achievement of core competencies for midwife requires policy, law and manpower resource as guarantee.

BACKGROUNDSignificant efforts have been made to identify factors that differentiate patients treated with novel therapies, such as bortezomib in multiple myeloma (MM). The exact expression pattern and prognostic value of the cancer/testis antigen preferentially expressed antigen of melanoma (PRAME) in MM are unknown and were explored in this study.

METHODSThe transcript level of PRAME was detected in bone marrow specimens from 100 newly diagnosed MM patients using real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and the prognostic value of PRAME was determined through retrospective survival analysis. PRAME expression higher than the upper limit of normal bone marrow was defined as PRAME overexpression or PRAME (+).

RESULTSSixty-two patients (62.0%) overexpressed PRAME. PRAME overexpression showed no prognostic significance to either overall survival (n = 100) or progression-free survival (PFS, n = 96, all P > 0.05) of patients. The patients were also categorized according to regimens with or without bortezomib. PRAME overexpression tended to be associated with a lower two-year PFS rate in patients treated with non-bortezomib-containing regimens (53.5% vs. 76.9%, P = 0.071). By contrast, it was not associated with the two-year PFS rate in patients with bortezomib-containing regimens (77.5% vs. 63.9%, P > 0.05). When the patients were categorized into PRAME (+) and PRAME (-) groups, treatment with bortezomibcontaining regimens predicted a higher two-year PFS rate in PRAME (+) patients (77.5% vs. 53.5%, P = 0.027) but showed no significant effect on two-year PFS rate in PRAME (-) patients (63.9% vs. 76.9%, P > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONPRAME overexpression might be an adverse prognostic factor of PFS in MM patients treated with non-bortezomib-containing regimens. Bortezomib improves PFS in patients overexpressing PRAME.

Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Antigens, Neoplasm ; metabolism ; Boronic Acids ; therapeutic use ; Bortezomib ; Disease-Free Survival ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Multiple Myeloma ; drug therapy ; metabolism ; mortality ; Pyrazines ; therapeutic use ; Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Young Adult