Attention Layer-Based Multidimensional Feature Extraction for Diagnosis of Lung Cancer.

At present, early lung cancer screening is mainly based on radiologists' experience in diagnosing benign and malignant pulmonary nodules by lung CT images. On the other hand, intraoperative rapid freezing pathology needs to analyse the invasive adenocarcinoma nodules with the worst recovery in adenocarcinoma. Moreover, rapid freezing pathology has a low diagnostic accuracy for small-diameter nodules. Because of the above problems, an algorithm for diagnosing invasive adenocarcinoma nodules in ground-glass pulmonary nodules is based on CT images. According to the nodule space information and plane features, sample data of different dimensions are designed, namely, 3D space and 2D plane feature samples. The network structure is designed based on the attention mechanism and residual learning unit; 2D and 3D neural networks are along built. By fusing the feature vectors extracted from networks of different dimensions, the diagnosis results of invasive adenocarcinoma nodules are finally obtained. The algorithm was studied on 1760 ground-glass nodules with 5-20 mm diameter collected from a city chest hospital with surgical and pathological results. There were 340 nodules with invasive adenocarcinoma and 340 with noninvasive adenocarcinoma. A total of 1420 invasive nodule samples were cross-validated on this example dataset. The classification accuracy of the algorithm was 82.7%, the sensitivity was 82.9%, and the specificity was 82.6%.

Congo red dot test in the early prediction and diagnosis of pre-eclampsia in a tertiary health care centre in India.

OBJECTIVES: To demonstrate the use of urine congophilia quantification in the prediction and diagnosis of pre-eclampsia using Congo red dot test. STUDY DESIGN: A prospective cohort study in 378 consecutive pregnant women was conducted. All eligible, consenting women of gestational age between 10 and 34 weeks were enrolled in the study. The presence of urinary misfolded proteins was screened by a simple dot test technique on unsupported nitrocellulose membrane using Congo red dye. RESULTS: The urinary congophilia was increased in urine from women with pre eclampsia compared to healthy pregnant controls. The mean CRR value of pre eclamptic pregnant women (35.2 ±â€¯9.4%) was five times higher than that of mean CRR value of normotensive pregnant women (6.9 ±â€¯4.7%). The mean gestational age at which Congo red test showed positive was 26.95 ±â€¯2.90 weeks and the time taken from CRD positive to development of PE was 4.92 ±â€¯2.54 weeks of gestation. CONCLUSIONS: In our study, the CRD test was not only effective in predicting pre-eclampsia but was also useful in differentiating between pre-eclampsia and other forms of hypertension, as well as early onset and late onset pre-eclampsia, with positive predictive value of 80.36% and negative predictive value of 92.86.

Characterization of Rubia cordifolia L. root extract and its evaluation of cardioprotective effect in Wistar rat model.

OBJECTIVES: Rubia cordifolia L. (RC) is a well-known and highly valuable medicinal plant in the Ayurvedic system. The present study involves evaluating antioxidant and cardioprotective property of RC root extract. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The characterization of RC root extract was carried out using standard phytochemical and biochemical analysis. The functional groups were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and phytotherapeutic compounds were identified using high-resolution mass spectrometry (HR-MS). Cardioprotective activity of RC root extract was investigated against cyclophosphamide (CP; 100 mg/kg, i.p)-induced cardiotoxicity in male albino Wistar rats. RC (100, 200, and 400 mg/kg, p.o) or silymarin (100 mg/kg, p.o) was administered immediately after CP on the 1st day and the next consecutive 10 days. Biochemical and histopathological analysis was performed to observe the cardioprotective effects of RC root extract. RESULTS: Phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of secondary metabolites that include alkaloids, flavonoids, saponins, and anthraquinones in RC root extract. FTIR analysis revealed the presence of several functional groups. Based on HR-MS analysis, eight major phytotherapeutic compounds were identified in methanol root extract of RC. Biochemical analysis in CP-induced rat model administered with RC extract revealed significantly enhanced levels of antioxidant markers such as superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione S-transferase. Histopathological study showed that the rat model treated with the root extract had reduced the cardiac injury. CONCLUSION: Our results have shown that the RC extract contains various antioxidant compounds with cardioprotective effect. Treatment with RC root extract could significantly protect CP-induced rats from cardiac tissue injury by restoring the antioxidant markers.

In vitro degradation of oxalate by recombinant Lactobacillus plantarum expressing heterologous oxalate decarboxylase.

AIM: The aim of the present study is to constitutively express heterologous oxalate decarboxylase (OxdC) in Lactobacillus plantarum and to examine its ability to degrade oxalate in vitro for their future therapy against enteric hyperoxaluria. METHOD AND RESULTS: In this study, we generated a recombinant strain of Lb. plantarum to constitutively overexpress B. subtilis oxalate decarboxylase (oxdC) using a host lactate dehydrogenase promoter (PldhL ). The recombinant Lb. plantarum was able to degrade more than 90% oxalate compared to 15% by the wild type. In addition, the recombinant strain also had higher tolerance up to 500 mmol l(-1) oxalate. CONCLUSION: We developed a recombinant Lb. plantarum NC8 that constitutively expressed heterologous oxalate decarboxylase and degraded oxalate efficiently under in vitro conditions. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF STUDY: The long-term aim is to develop an efficient strain for future therapy against oxalosis.