Globally, hepatitis B virus (HBV) affects over 250 million people, whereas hepatitis C virus (HCV) affects approximately 70 million people, posing major public health challenges. Despite the availability of vaccines and treatments, a lack of comprehensive diagnostic coverage has left many cases undiagnosed and untreated. To address the need for sensitive, specific, and accessible diagnostics, this study introduced a multiplex loop-mediated isothermal amplification assay with lateral flow detection for simultaneous HBV and HCV testing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To investigate the effect of improving the operative field and postoperative atelectasis of single-lung ventilation (SLV) in the surgical repair of coarctation of the aorta (CoA) in infants without the use of cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB).
Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study. The clinical data of 28 infants (aged 1 to 4 months, weighing between 4.
Dengue is one of the most prevalent infectious diseases in the world. Rapid, accurate and scalable diagnostics are key to patient management and epidemiological surveillance of the dengue virus (DENV), however current technologies do not match required clinical sensitivity and specificity or rely on large laboratory equipment. In this work, we report the translation of our smartphone-connected handheld Lab-on-Chip (LoC) platform for the quantitative detection of two dengue serotypes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Microbiol Immunol Infect
April 2023
Background: Obesity is associated with unfavorable outcomes for infectious diseases. Most researches exploring the association between nutritional status and dengue severity have focused on pediatric populations, with only few studies assessing adult patients.
Methods: Adult patients with laboratory-confirmed dengue admitted to a tertiary hospital in southern Taiwan between 2014 and 2015 were enrolled retrospectively.
Objective: To review and analyze the cases of interventricular septal hematoma (IVSH) following surgical correction of the ventricular septal defect (VSD) in infants in our center.
Methods: Retrospective analysis was performed on five infants with IVSH after surgical correction of VSD in our center from January 2020 to January 2022. The general preoperative information and intraoperative and postoperative results were collected and analyzed.
Benzocaine (BZC) is a local anaesthetic drug coupled with numerous adverse effects, and thus poses a great challenge for its simple and highly sensitive detection. For resolving this issue, hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin-carbon black (HP-β-CD-CB) nanohybrid that possesses the collaborative advantages of CB (, excellent electrical properties, large surface area) and HP-β-CD (, high molecule recognition and preconcentration capability) was synthesized in this study a simple process and then utilized as a novel electrode material to electrochemically detect BZC. With the optimized experimental conditions, the HP-β-CD-CB nanohybrid-modified electrode shows wide linearity from 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEvid Based Complement Alternat Med
October 2021
We randomly divided 200 children with severe pneumonia who met the indications for tracheal intubation into 2 groups in this prospective study. One group that received dexmedetomidine for sedation was recorded as the dexmedetomidine group ( = 100), and the group that received midazolam for sedation was recorded as the midazolam group ( = 100). We compared the anesthesia sedation scores, time to fall asleep, time to wake up from anesthesia, related hemodynamic parameters, and adverse reactions between the two groups of children.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The primary objective of this study was to assess the effect of selective lobar blockade on the risk of hypoxemia during one-lung ventilation in pediatric patients undergoing thoracoscopic surgery.
Design: This was a retrospective matched case-control cohort study.
Setting: The study was performed in a teaching hospital.
Objective: To investigate the safety and effectiveness of extraluminal placement of a bronchial blocker compared with carbon dioxide (CO) artificial pneumothorax in infants undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS).
Methods: The study involved 33 infants (group A) who underwent one-lung ventilation (OLV) with extraluminal placement of a bronchial blocker and 35 other infants (group B) who underwent CO artificial pneumothorax. Clinical characteristics, the degree of lung collapse, and complications were compared.
Objective: To compare the safety and efficacy of dexmedetomidine and remifentanil with sufentanil-based general anesthesia for the transthoracic device closure of ventricular septal defects (VSDs) in pediatric patients.
Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on 60 children undergoing the transthoracic device closure of VSDs from January 2019 to June 2020. The patients were divided into two groups based on different anesthesia strategies, including 30 cases in group R (dexmedetomidine- and remifentanil-based general anesthesia) and 30 cases in group S (sufentanil-based general anesthesia).
Background: To evaluate the safety and effectiveness of remifentanil-based fast-track cardiac anesthesia (FTCA) combined with the postoperative serratus anterior plane block (SAPB) for transthoracic device closure of atrial septal defect (ASD) in pediatric patients.
Methods: A total of 70 children who underwent transthoracic device closure of ASDs from January 2018 to June 2020 were divided into two groups according to different anesthesia strategies administered, namely group F (fast-track anesthesia, n = 38) and group R (routine anesthesia, n = 32), and relevant clinical data were collected and analyzed.
Results: There was no statistically significant difference between the two groups in general preoperative data, intraoperative hemodynamics, and FLACC score 1 h after extubation (p > .
Background: To investigate the safety and efficacy of remifentanil combined with dexmedetomidine in fast-track cardiac anesthesia (FTCA) for transthoracic device closure of atrial septal defect (ASD) in pediatric patients.
Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed on 61 cases of children undergoing ASD closure through a small thoracic incision from January 2018 to January 2020. According to whether FTCA was administered, they were divided into group F (fast-track anesthesia, n = 31) and group R (routine anesthesia, n = 30).
Three-dimensional (3D) cell cultures and organs-on-a-chip have been developed to construct microenvironments that resemble the environment within the human body and to provide a platform that enables clear observation and accurate assessments of cell behavior. However, direct observation of transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER) has been challenging. To improve the efficiency in monitoring the cell development in organs-on-a-chip, in this study, we designed and integrated commercially available TEER measurement electrodes into an in vitro blood-brain barrier (BBB)-on-chip system to quantify TEER variation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAim: Neuroinflammation is a potent pathological process of various neurodegenerative diseases. Sulforaphane (SFN) is a natural product and acts as a neuroprotective agent to suppress inflammatory response in brain. The present study investigated the protective effect of Sulforaphane (SFN) on lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced neuroinflammation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFhas widely evolved resistance to the most commonly used class of antifungal chemicals, the azoles. Current methods for identifying azole resistance are time-consuming and depend on specialized laboratories. There is an urgent need for rapid detection of these emerging pathogens at point-of-care to provide the appropriate treatment in the clinic and to improve management of environmental reservoirs to mitigate the spread of antifungal resistance.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: African Swine Fever (ASF) is a highly contagious and lethal viral disease of swine, the presence of which in groups of pigs leads to enormous economic losses in the farming industry. However, vaccines and drugs to treat ASF have yet to be developed. To control the spread of the African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV), a diagnostic method that can be applied rapidly and can detect the disease during the early stages of infection is urgently needed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To assess the effectiveness and safety of fast-track cardiac anesthesia using the short-acting opioid sufentanil in children undergoing intraoperative device closure of ventricular septal defect (VSD).
Methods: This retrospective clinical study included 65 children who underwent intraoperative device closure of VSD between January 2017 and June 2017. Patients were diagnosed with isolated perimembranous VSD by transthoracic echocardiography.
Breast cancer (BC) is a common cancer in women worldwide. Despite advances in treatment, up to 30% of women eventually relapse and die of metastatic breast cancer. Liquid biopsy analysis of circulating cell-free DNA fragments in the patients' blood can monitor clonality and evolving mutations as a surrogate for tumour biopsy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEarly and accurate diagnosis of malaria and drug-resistance is essential to effective disease management. Available rapid malaria diagnostic tests present limitations in analytical sensitivity, drug-resistance testing and/or quantification. Conversely, diagnostic methods based on nucleic acid amplification stepped forwards owing to their high sensitivity, specificity and robustness.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjectives: To compare the advantages and disadvantages of perventricular and percutaneous procedures for treating isolated ventricular septal defect (VSD).
Methods: A total of 572 patients with isolated VSD were selected in our hospital between January 2015 and December 2016. The patients' median age and weight were five years (1-26 years) and 29 kg (9-55 kg), respectively.
Real-time PCR is a highly sensitive and powerful technology for the quantification of DNA and has become the method of choice in microbiology, bioengineering, and molecular biology. Currently, the analysis of real-time PCR data is hampered by only considering a single feature of the amplification profile to generate a standard curve. The current "gold standard" is the cycle-threshold ( C) method which is known to provide poor quantification under inconsistent reaction efficiencies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: To compare and analyze the safety and efficacy of fast-track and conventional anesthesia for transthoracic closure of ventricular septal defects (VSDs) in pediatric patients.
Methods: A total of 82 pediatric patients undergoing transthoracic closure of VSDs between September and December 2017 were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were divided into two groups, including 42 patients in group F (fast-track anesthesia) and 40 patients in group C (conventional anesthesia).
Invasive fungal infections caused by multiazole-resistant Aspergillus fumigatus are associated with increasing rates of mortality in susceptible patients. Current methods of diagnosing infections caused by multiazole-resistant A. fumigatus are, however, not well suited for use in clinical point-of-care testing or in the field.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRapid and specific detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) related to drug resistance in infectious diseases is crucial for accurate prognostics, therapeutics and disease management at point-of-care. Here, we present a novel amplification method and provide universal guidelines for the detection of SNPs at isothermal conditions. This method, called USS-sbLAMP, consists of SNP-based loop-mediated isothermal amplification (sbLAMP) primers and unmodified self-stabilizing (USS) competitive primers that robustly delay or prevent unspecific amplification.
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