Objective To analyze and compare the auxiliary value and significance of γ-interferon release assay (IGRA) in the diagnosis of tuberculosis. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted to collect the test results of 462 suspected tuberculosis patients who underwent IGRA detection in the outpatient department of Tianjin Tuberculosis Control Center from January 2020 to December 2021. According to the diagnostic results, they were divided into a tuberculosis group of 229 cases (203 cases of pulmonary tuberculosis and 26 cases of extrapulmonary tuberculosis) and a non-tuberculosis group of 233 cases. The auxiliary diagnostic value of IGRA for tuberculosis was analyzed and compared with two methods of Mycobacterium tuberculosis culture and Xpert MTB/RIF. Results The positive rates of IGRA, Mycobacterium tuberculosis culture, and Xpert MTB/RIF in TB patients were 76.42%, 29.26% and 40.62%, respectively, compared with the non-TB group (38.20%, 0.00%, 0.00%), with statistically significant differences (P<0.001). The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value of IGRA alone in the detection of tuberculosis were 76.42%, 61.80%, 69.29%, and 72.73% respectively, those of Mycobacterium tuberculosis culture were 29.26%, 98.28%, 94.37%, and 63.43%, and those of Xpert MTB/RIF were 40.60%, 100%, 100%, and 63.14%. The positive rates of IGRA were 76.85% and 73.08% in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis and extrapulmonary tuberculosis, respectively, with no statistical significance (P>0.05). The positive rates of IGRA in bacterial positive patients and non-tuberculosis patients were 79.34% and 38.20%, respectively, with statistical significance (χ2=54.526, P<0.001). The positive rates of IGRA in patients with and without tuberculosis were 73.15% and 38.20%, respectively, with significant difference (χ2=36.456, P<0.001). Conclusions IGRA has a relatively high sensitivity in the diagnosis of tuberculosis and also has certain advantages in the screening of extrapulmonary tuberculosis and mycobacterium-negative It provides important reference basis for the clinical diagnosis of tuberculosis.

Psoriasis is an autoimmune skin disease in which dendritic cells (DCs) trigger the progression of psoriasis by complex interactions with keratinocytes and other immune cells. In the present study, we aimed to load celastrol, an anti-inflammatory ingredient isolated from Chinese herbs, on mannosylated liposomes to enhance DC uptake as well as to induce DC tolerance in an imiquimod-induced psoriasis-like mouse model. Mannose was grafted onto liposomes to target mannose receptors on DCs. The results demonstrated that compared with unmodified liposomes, DCs preferred to take up more fluorescence-labeled mannosylated liposomes. After loading celastrol into mannose-modified liposomes, they effectively inhibited the expression of maturation markers, including CD80, CD86 and MHC-II, on DCs both in vitro and in vivo. Additionally, after intradermal injection with a microneedle, celastrol-loaded mannose-modified liposomes (CEL-MAN-LPs) achieved a superior therapeutic effect compared with free drug and celastrol-loaded unmodified liposomes in the psoriasis mouse model in terms of the psoriasis area and severity index, histology evaluation, spleen weight, and expression of inflammatory cytokines. In conclusion, our results clearly revealed that CEL-MAN-LPs was an effective formulation for psoriasis treatment and suggested that this treatment has the potential to be applied to other inflammatory diseases triggered by activated DCs.

Psoriasis is an autoimmune inflammatory disease, where dendritic cells (DCs) play an important role in its pathogenesis. In our previous work, we have demonstrated that topical delivery of curcumin-loaded poly (lactic-

Objective:To analyze the clinical characteristics and diagnosis and treatment of children with Kasabach-Merritt phenomenon (KMP).Methods:A retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical data and follow-up data of 8 patients diagnosed KMP in Beijing Children′s Hospital, Capital Medical University from January 2016 to January 2019.The clinical data included laboratory examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis.Results:Among the 8 children with KMP, 6 cases were male and 2 cases were female.The median onset age was 4 (0-17) months, 2 cases of neonatal onset.The median onset to the diagnosis time was 59 (34-140) days; 6 cases with bone destruction; 6 cases had misdiagnosis and mistreatment history, they were misdiagnosed as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, Evans syndrome, abnormal bone and joint development; 4 cases were Kaposiform hemangioendothelioma; 8 cases were used alone or combined with the application of hormones, Sirolimus, and Vincristine, 7 patients underwent interventional therapy.All patients survived with a median follow-up period of 487 (112-1 033) days.Median time of platelet count returned to normal was 24.5 (7-60) days, and median time of fibrinogen returned to normal was 20 (7-30) days.Median time of D-dimer dropped to a normal was 105 (40-240) days.Conclusions:Children with concurrent platelet count and coagulation abnormalities should be considered with KMP.Doctors need to identify the potential visceral vascular lesions.Early diagnosis and treatment are important, which can improve the clinical prognosis of patients.

Objective:To provide clinical references for the diagnosis and treatment of hemophilic pseudotumor (HPT) in maxillofacial region.Methods:Fourteen cases of HPT in maxillofacial region from the Department of Stomatology, Beijing Children′s Hospital from Jan 2009 to Jan 2019 were collected. Two cases were lost for follow-up and 12 patient,all boys, were finally followed up and included in the study. The patients aged from 13 months to 10 years old. The medical history, clinic manefestitions and the features of the radiology examination were recorded. The patients were treated by using replacement treatment first. If the conservative treatment was not effective, the patients then received operation combined with pereoperation replacement thearapy. The patients were followed up for 13 months to 10 years.There were 11 cases of hemophilia A, and 1 case of hemophilia B. Two cases were severe type, the others (10/12) were mild and moderate types. Only 1 case was diagnosed as hemophilia initially. Nine cases (9/12) were misdiagnosed as malignant tumors, 1 case was misdiagnosed as osteomyelitis and 1 case was misdiagnosed as hemangioma. Only 3 cases had identified history of trauma before.Results:All cases were treated with replacement therapy first, among which 10 cases were effective, 8 cases were cured by conservative therapy, 1 case had residual soft tissue fistula after conservative treatment and 1 case recurrented after conservative treatment for 8 months. Two patients with poor efficacy to the replacement treatment were performed operations and finally were cured.Conclusions:The misdiagnosis rate of HPT in maxillofacial region was high. The conservative factor replacement therapy could achieve good results in most children and could be used as the preferred treatment. If the conservative treatment was not effective, the surgical treatment was also a safe option.

Objective:To understand the relationship between joint bleeding and joint disease in hemophilia children, and to provide a theoretical basis for clinical treatment and prognosis.Methods:The patients with severe hemophilia A between 1 and 7 years old and with relevant nodal bleeding records were selected.All the patients admitted in Beijing Children′s Hospital, Capital Medical University, and Chengdu New Century Women′s and Children′s Hospital since June 2016 to January 2017.All the joint bleeding of each child was taken as the study joint, and the joint bleeding was collected during the last 3 months.The joints were assessed by using ultrasound, X-ray, magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) and Hemophilia Joint Health Score (HJHS) scoring systems.The correlation analysis was conducted between the joint bleeding, ultrasound, X-ray, MRI and HJHS scores.The correlation analysis was conducted for baseline ultrasound, X-ray, MRI and HJHS scores.Results:(1) There were 18 patients enrolled.The mean age was (5.6±1.8) years old.There were 30 joints bleeding in the observation period in total, with the annul median joint bleeding times of 4 (4-16 times), and the annul median target joint bleeding times of 8 (4-16 times). (2) Joint bleeding times of was correlated with ultrasound and X-ray evaluation ( r=0.390, P=0.033; r=0.517, P=0.008), and not correlated with HJHS or MRI(all P>0.05). (3) There was significantly positive correlation among ultrasound, X-ray, HJHS and MRI [ r=0.815(ultrasound vs.X-ray), r=0.510(ultrasound vs.HJHS), r=0.812(ultrasound vs.MRI), r=0.666(X-ray vs.HJHS), r=0.911(X-ray vs.MRI), r=0.781(HJHS vs.MRI), all P<0.01]. (4) There was no correlation between times and assessment for joints whose ultrasound and /or MRI in joints with abnormal ultrasound and /or MRI evaluation( P>0.05). Conclusions:The results of joint bleeding and joint evaluation are inconsistent.Joint bleeding can not truly reflect the situation of joint diseases.The assessment of hemophilia should include comprehensive evaluation of joint structure, function, activity ability and other aspects to guide the treatment of haemophi-lia children.

Objective:To observe the pronunciation of consonants among children with developmental speech sound disorder and explore the correlation between mispronounced consonants and short-term memory so as to determine the pathogenesis of the disorder.Methods:Thirty-six children with developmental speech sound disorder and aged 4 to 13 years were evaluated. Their pronunciation of consonants at the phoneme and lexical levels was tested to record the error types and error rate. Twelve of the children were then randomly chosen to form a voice disorder group. Another 10 healthy counterparts constituted a control group. The short-term memory of both groups was assessed and any correlation between pronunciation and short-term memory was analyzed.Results:The children with a developmental speech sound disorder differed significantly from the controls in terms of the numbers of errors in articulating blade-alveolar, blade-palatal and velar consonants. On the phoneme level, the highest substitution error rate occurred when pronouncing lingua-palatal consonants (42.86%), followed by supradental consonants (32%). The highest distortion and non-acquisition error rates were with blade-palatal consonants (14%) and lingua-palatal consonants (9.5%). On the vocabulary level, the highest substitution, distortion, ellipsis and non-acquisition error rates appeared when pronouncing lingua-palatal and velar consonants, velar and blade-palatal consonants, supradental consonants as well as blade-palatal consonants. Significant differences were found between the phoneme and lexical levels in the substitution of supradental and blade-palatal consonants as well as in the ellipsis of blade-alveolar consonants. They were moderately associated with pronunciation level. There was, however, no significant difference in working memory span between the two groups, and no significant correlation was observed between working memory span and pronunciation level.Conclusion:The mispronunciation of consonants by children with developmental speech disorders is higher at the lexical than at the phoneme level. They mainly substitute lingua-palatal and velar consonants and elide supradental consonants, which may be related to short-term memory span.

Objective: To evaluate the clinical value of high-risk factors in combination with stratification method in predicting the clinical prognosis of patients diagnosed with N_2-3M₀ nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Methods: A total of 226 N_2-3M₀ NPC patients who underwent IMRT from November 2013 to May 2015 were enrolled in this study. The relationship between tumor volume, cervical metastatic lymph node characteristics (necrosis and fusion) and T and N staging was analyzed. The high-risk factors that affected the survival were identified. The value of high-risk factors combined with stratification method in predicting the clinical prognosis was assessed. Results: N₃ staging, V_n≥47.15cm³ and lymph node fusion (LNF) were the high-risk factors for distant metastasis in patients with stage N_2-3M₀ NPC. All patients were classified into the low-risk, medium-risk, high-risk and extremely high-risk groups according to high-risk factors. For patients in the low-risk, medium-risk, high-risk and extremely high-risk groups, the 3-year overall survival rates were 84.2%, 76.7%, 58.7% and 36.4%(all P<0.001), 87.3%, 85.2%, 54.5% and 12.1% for the distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) rates (all P<0.001), 76.8%, 74.3%, 49.2% and 12.1%for the progression-free survival (PFS) rates (all P<0.001), and 89.2%, 88.5%, 91.5% and 88.3% for the loco-regional recurrence-free survival (LRRFS) rates (P=0.914), respectively. The risk stratification method showed the best curve separation for DMFS compared to the V_n, N staging and LNF classification groups (all P<0.05). Conclusion High-risk factors in combination with stratification method has the highest clinical value in predicting the clinical prognosis of N_2-3M₀ NPC patients.

Objective: To know the detection rate of hereditary thrombocytopenia (HT) in children with chronic thrombocytopenia and its clinical and laboratory characteristics for an early clinical identification and diagnosis of HT in future. Methods: Data of the children with thrombocytopenia, who had been treated in Beijing Children′s Hospital from April 2016 to May 2018 and whose present history lasted for more than 1 year and had poor response to immunotherapy were retrospectively collected.HT was screened in these patients by adopting next generation sequencing (NGS). Finally, clinical and laboratory characteristics of these children with HT were summarized and analyzed. Results: A total of 161 children with chronic thrombocytopenia were included.Forty-three cases (26.7%) were found to have gene mutations.The genetic rules of the mutant gene, the family verification and the clinical manifestations of the proband and some related laboratory tests were analyzed and 24 cases (14.9%) can be diagnosed as HT.Among the HT patients, the proportion of males and females was 159, and the median onset of age was 0.58 years, which was significantly lower than that of non-HT cases (the median onset of age was 4.36 years), and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.001); the proportion of mucosal hemorrhage and visceral hemorrhage (31.8% and 13.7%) of HT was significantly higher than non-HT cases (15.3% and 0.6%), and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.001). Fifty percent of (12/24 cases) cases of HT had positive family history; according to the ave-rage platelet volume and platelet morphology in peripheral blood smear, HT could be divided into small platelet HT, po-sitive platelet HT and large platelet HT.Some cases had well response to immunotherapy but seemed easy to relapse du-ring the withdrawal period, while the others responded poorly to therapy.Different clinical manifestations of HT suggest different pathogenesis, which can be divided into the related types of megakaryocyte differentiation defect, megakaryocyte maturation defect, platelet release defect and platelet survival time shortening. Conclusions The pathogenesis and cli-nical phenotype of HT was different.Some of them were effective for immunotherapy, which were easily confused with immune thrombocy-topenla(ITP). It is clinically necessary to perform NGS in children with thrombocytopenia at early onset, abnormal platelet morphology, prolonged disease course or severe mucosal/visceral hemorrhage, in order to recognize HT timely to avoid delay in diagnosis and poor prognosis.

Objective: To compare the efficacy and safety of short course and high-dose Dexamethasone (HDD) and conventional Prednisone as first-line strategy for children newly diagnosed as primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP). Methods: This study analyzed pre-experimental data of a single center prospective randomized controlled clinical trial.Newly diagnosed but untreated ITP patients enrolled at the Department of Blood and Cancer Center, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University from November 2016 to May 2017 were randomized into HDD group[Dexamethasone 0.6 mg/(kg·d), intravenous injection for 4 days]and Prednisone group[Prednisone 2 mg/(kg·d) for 14-28 days and then tapered within 1-2 months, the course of treatment less than 3 months]. Initial response, sustained response and adverse effects after therapy were observed in 2 groups. Results: Sixty-six children with ITP were included in the study: 32 patients were in the HDD group and 34 patients were in the Prednisone group.Two groups were matched in the baseline characteristics including gender, age, platelet counts and disease course before therapy and bleeding assessment (all P>0.05). The initial response (the response of HDD group within 10 days of treatment and Prednisone group within 28 days of treatment): overall initial response had no statistical difference between the HDD group and the Prednisone group[90.6%(29/32 cases) vs.100.0%(34/34 cases), χ²=1.528, P>0.05]. HDD group had a lower incidence of complete response compared with that in the Prednisone group[54.4%(19/32 cases) vs.94.1%(32/34 cases), χ²=11.330, P=0.001]; median time of response in two groups showed no statistically difference (2 d vs.1 d, Z=-0.149, P>0.05). There was no significant difference in the recovery of skin and mucosal bleeding after treatment between the Dexamethasone group and the Prednisone group (Z=-1.413, -1.031, all P>0.05). The sustained response (the response lasted for up to 6 months and above): overall and complete sustained response had no statistically difference between the HDD group and the Prednisone group [92.9%(26/28 cases) vs.85.3%(29/34 cases), P=0.594; 78.9% (15/19 cases) vs.81.3%(26/32 cases), P=1.000]. Log-rank test showed no significant difference in the duration of response between 2 groups (P=0.341). The side effects in the Prednisone group included weight gain or Cushing sign (94.1%) and mental and emotional changes (23.5%); in the HDD group 15.6% of children had infection, without other glucocorticoid-related side effects.There was no significant difference in the incidence of infection between two groups[15.6%(5/32 cases) vs.26.5%(9/34 cases), P=0.281]. All of the above infections were of respiratory tract infections and mild gastrointestinal infections. Conclusions Efficacy of the HDD group in the initial and sustained responses is similar, but side effects were apparently lower compared with that in the Prednisone group.However, a large multicenter randomized controlled clinical study is necessary to confirm this result.