Age and Hair Cortisol Levels as Predictors of SARS-CoV-2 Infection.

Chronic psychosocial stress is known to adversely impact immune function. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, occupational stress among workers in healthcare was at an unprecedented level due to risks of infection and work demands. We performed a nested case-control study to investigate the associations between chronic stress and the risks of contracting SARS-CoV-2.

Implanting Iodine-125 Seed Strand Inside the Portal Vein Stent: An Improved Approach to Endovascular Brachytherapy for Treatment of Patients with Hepatocellular Carcinoma and Main Portal Vein Tumor Thrombus.

Purpose: To investigate the feasibility and efficacy of implanting an iodine-125 (I) seed strand inside a portal vein stent (PVS) in the treatment of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and main portal vein tumor thrombus (mPVTT).

Patients And Methods: Twenty-three patients who diagnosed with HCC and mPVTT and underwent endovascular implantation I seed strands and portal vein stenting were included in this study. Patients were divided into two groups.

Safety and local efficacy of computed tomography-guided microwave ablation for treating early-stage non-small cell lung cancer adjacent to bronchovascular bundles.

Objectives: To retrospectively evaluate the safety and efficacy of computed tomography (CT)-guided percutaneous microwave ablation in treating early-stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) adjacent to bronchovascular bundles.

Methods: Two hundred and thirty-one patients with early-stage NSCLC who underwent CT-guided microwave ablation of the tumor were included for analysis. Among these, 66 lesions were located adjacent to the bronchovascular bundle.

Role of NLRP3 inflammasome in hepatocellular carcinoma: A double-edged sword.

In recent years, the study of NOD-like receptor thermal protein domain associated protein 3 (NLRP3) inflammasome has become a hot topic, especially its role in various tumors. The incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma is ranked in the top five in China. Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the predominant and typical form of primary liver cancer.

Immunogenic change after percutaneous microwave ablation in pulmonary malignancies: Variation in immune cell subsets and cytokines in peripheral blood.

Introduction: To investigate immunogenic changes after percutaneous microwave ablation (MWA) in pulmonary malignancies.

Methods: Twenty-two consecutive patients with pulmonary malignancies who underwent percutaneous lung tumor MWA were prospectively enrolled in this study. Peripheral blood samples were collected on the day before (D0) and one month (M1) after MWA.

LMFFNet: A Well-Balanced Lightweight Network for Fast and Accurate Semantic Segmentation.

Real-time semantic segmentation is widely used in autonomous driving and robotics. Most previous networks achieved great accuracy based on a complicated model involving mass computing. The existing lightweight networks generally reduce the parameter sizes by sacrificing the segmentation accuracy.

The evaluation of portal hypertension in cirrhotic patients with spectral computed tomography.

Background: Iodine concentrations measured using dual-energy spectral CT (DESCT) have been recently proposed as providing good performance for examining tissues hemodynamics.

Purpose: To evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of DESCT-derived parameters in evaluating portal venous pressure in patients with liver cirrhosis.

Material And Methods: A total of 71 patients with liver cirrhosis who underwent percutaneous transhepatic portal vein puncture procedures were included in this study.

Metastable nano-zirconium phosphate inside gel-type ion exchanger for enhanced removal of heavy metals.

Nanotechnology has provided a new opportunity for water decontamination from trace heavy metals, yet the relatively poor acidic stability remains a major obstacle for the nano-adsorbents, given that acidic treatment is frequently used to regenerate the heavy metal-saturated adsorbents. Zirconium phosphate (ZrP) is very promising for water treatment due to its absolute insoluble nature, though it interacts with heavy metals mainly through the non-specific electrostatic attraction. Herein, we prepared the ultrafine ZrP (~3.

Occurrence, Distribution, and Ecological Risk Assessment of Antibiotics in Different Environmental Media in Anqing, Anhui Province, China.

The widespread usage of antibiotics in human and animal medication has brought global concerns over environmental contamination of antibiotic residues. In this study, 16 kinds of antibiotics in different environmental media of water, sediments, and soils in Anqing city, Anhui province were determined by ultra-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. A total of fourteen kinds of antibiotics were detected in surface water, with a total concentration up to 479 ng·L, while six kinds of antibiotics were detected in sediment and soil with concentrations ranging from 15.

The Role of Interventional Radiology in the Management of Late Postpancreaticoduodenectomy Hemorrhage.

Objective: To explore the role of interventional radiology (IR) in the management of late postpancreaticoduodenectomy hemorrhage (PPH).

Materials And Methods: Patients who had late PPH (occurring >24 h after index operation) managed by the IR procedure in our institution between 2013 and 2018 were retrospectively analyzed.

Result: Hired patients who were diagnosed with grade B ( = 10) and C ( = 22) late PPH underwent 40 transcatheter arterial angiographies (TAA).

Shape-controlled synthesis of Ag/CsPbBr Janus nanoparticles.

The poor light absorption of visible light for CsPbBr nanocrystals (NCs) has severely impeded their practical applications. Although the semiconductor/perovskite heterostructure holds great promise for enhancement in absorption, it has remained a serious challenge for synthesizing a semiconductor/perovskite heterostructure. In this work, monodispersed Janus heterostructures composed of CsPbBr decorated with either multiple Ag or single Ag on its surface (named as mAg/CsPbBr and sAg/CsPbBr respectively), are successfully prepared.

CTLA-4 Blockade Suppresses Progression of Residual Tumors and Improves Survival After Insufficient Radiofrequency Ablation in a Subcutaneous Murine Hepatoma Model.

Purpose: To evaluate whether anti-CTLA-4 therapy could suppress residual tumor progression and improve survival after insufficient radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in a subcutaneous murine hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) model.

Materials And Methods: Forty mice with tumors established on their right flanks were randomly divided into four groups: control group (no treatment), RFA group (insufficient RFA alone), anti-CTLA-4 group (anti-CTLA-4 monotherapy), and RFA + anti-CTLA-4 group (insufficient RFA + anti-CTLA-4). In each group, eight mice were assessed for residual tumors and survival; another two mice were killed on day 14 for histopathologic studies.

Expert consensus on image-guided radiofrequency ablation of pulmonary tumors: 2018 edition.

Lung cancer ranks first in incidence and mortality in China. Surgery is the primary method to cure cancer, but only 20-30% of patients are eligible for curative resection. In recent years, in addition to surgery, other local therapies have been developed for patients with numerous localized primary and metastatic pulmonary tumors, including stereotactic body radiation therapy and thermal ablative therapies through percutaneously inserted applicators.

Study on hippocampal volume with quantitative 3T magnetic resonance imaging in Chinese patients with epilepsy.

Background: It was still rare for the quantitative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) research of regional changes in hippocampus sclerosis (HS) in Chinese patients with epilepsy. This study aimed to study the hippocampal volumes (HVs) with quantitative MRI measurement in Chinese patients with epilepsy.

Methods: Forty-six Chinese patients with epilepsy (intractable epilepsy (IE), n = 21; non-intractable epilepsy (NIE), n = 25) and 25 normal controls were collected between July 2007 and March 2008.

Early response of hepatic malignancies to locoregional therapy-value of diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Purpose: The objective of our study was to determine the usefulness of the diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (H-MRS) of hepatic malignancies for the assessment of response to locoregional treatment.

Methods: Forty-four patients (29 men; mean age, 58 years) with hepatic malignancies were treated locally. Magnetic resonance imaging examinations obtained before and at 1 and 6 months after transarterial chemoembolization were analyzed retrospectively.

A diffusion tensor imaging study in essential tremor.

Background And Purpose: Essential tremor (ET) is suggested to be a neural degenerative disease. The authors investigated the fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value in basal ganglia, thalamus, red nucleus, and substantia nigra in ET patients using diffusion tensor image (DTI).

Methods: DTI examination was carried out in patients with ET and controls.

Regulation of the beta1,4-Galactosyltransferase I promoter by E2F1.

Cell surface carbohydrate chains are widely known to contribute to cell migration, recognition and proliferation. beta1,4-Galactosyltransferase I (beta1,4GalT I) transfers galactose to the terminal N-acetylglucosamine of complex-type N-glycan, and contributes to cell proliferation, differentiation and migration. Here, we identified beta1,4GalT I as a novel target gene of cell cycle regulator E2F1.

Boundary extraction of breast ultrasonic images.

The accurate boundary extraction is an essential preprocessing step for computerized analysis of a breast ultrasonic image. In this study, a novel approach based on the wavelet transform and the dynamic programming is proposed to extract tumor boundaries from breast ultrasonic images. Firstly, a rectangular region-of-interest (ROI) is manually selected from the ultrasonic image, followed by the ROI-based preprocessing for the noise reduction and image enhancement.

Functional interaction of E1AF and Sp1 in glioma invasion.

Transcription factor E1AF is widely known to play critical roles in tumor metastasis via directly binding to the promoters of genes involved in tumor migration and invasion. Here, we report for the first time E1AF as a novel binding partner for ubiquitously expressed Sp1 transcription factor. E1AF forms a complex with Sp1, contributes to Sp1 phosphorylation and transcriptional activity, and functions as a mediator between epidermal growth factor and Sp1 phosphorylation and activity.

Two specific inhibitors of the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase LY294002 and wortmannin up-regulate beta1,4-galactosyltransferase I and thus sensitize SMMC-7721 human hepatocarcinoma cells to cycloheximide-induced apoptosis.

Previous study indicated that beta1,4-galactosyltransferase I (beta1,4GT1) was up-regulated by cycloheximide (CHX) and thus enhanced apoptosis induced by CHX in SMMC-7721 cells. In this study, we reported that constitutively active Akt protein (myr-Akt) inhibited CHX-induced apoptosis in SMMC-7721 cells through down-regulating beta1,4GT1. However, the two PI3K inhibitors LY294002 and wortmannin treatment up-regulated beta1,4GT1 through enhancing Sp1 protein expression and consequently increased CHX-induced SMMC-7721 cells apoptosis.

beta4GalT-II increases cisplatin-induced apoptosis in HeLa cells depending on its Golgi localization.

beta1,4-Galactosyltransferase II (beta4GalT-II) is one of the enzymes transferring galactose to the terminal N-acetylglucosamine of complex-type N-glycans and its expression is significantly altered during oncogenesis with unknown functions. Here, we reported for the first time the pro-apoptotic role of beta4GalT-II in tumor cells. The level of beta4GalT-II mRNA expression was obviously decreased during HeLa cell apoptosis induced by cisplatin.

E1AF promotes breast cancer cell cycle progression via upregulation of Cyclin D3 transcription.

E1AF transcription factor, a member of Ets family, is deregulated in many tumors and widely known to play critical roles in tumor metastasis via directly binding to the promoter of genes involved in tumor migration and invasion. Here, we found that E1AF overexpression promoted breast cancer cell cycle progression and growth in vivo as well as the transcription of cell cycle-related protein Cyclin D3. And, the interference of Cyclin D3 expression by transfecting with Cyclin D3 RNAi inhibited the positive role of E1AF in cell cycle progression.

Down-regulation of beta1,4-galactosyltransferase V is a critical part of etoposide-induced apoptotic process and could be mediated by decreasing Sp1 levels in human glioma cells.

beta1,4-Galactosyltransferase V (beta1,4GalT V; EC 2.4.1.

Beta1,4-galactosyltransferase V functions as a positive growth regulator in glioma.

beta1,4-galactosyltransferase V (GalT V; EC 2.4.1.