[Different methods in predicting mortality of pediatric intensive care units sepsis in Southwest China].

Objective: To investigate the value of systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), pediatric sequential organ failure assessment (pSOFA) and pediatric critical illness score (PCIS) in predicting mortality of pediatric sepsis in pediatric intensive care units (PICU) from Southwest China. Methods: This was a prospective multicenter observational study. A total of 447 children with sepsis admitted to 12 PICU in Southwest China from April 2022 to March 2023 were enrolled. Based on the prognosis, the patients were divided into survival group and non-survival group. The physiological parameters of SIRS, pSOFA and PCIS were recorded and scored within 24 h after PICU admission. The general clinical data and some laboratory results were recorded. The area under the curve (AUC) of the receiver operating characteristic curve was used to compare the predictive value of SIRS, pSOFA and PCIS in mortality of pediatric sepsis. Results: Amongst 447 children with sepsis, 260 patients were male and 187 patients were female, aged 2.5 (0.8, 7.0) years, 405 patients were in the survival group and 42 patients were in the non-survival group. 418 patients (93.5%) met the criteria of SIRS, and 440 patients (98.4%) met the criteria of pSOFA≥2. There was no significant difference in the number of items meeting the SIRS criteria between the survival group and the non-survival group (3(2, 4) vs. 3(3, 4) points, Z=1.30, P=0.192). The pSOFA score of the non-survival group was significantly higher than that of the survival group (9(6, 12) vs. 4(3, 7) points, Z=6.56, P<0.001), and the PCIS score was significantly lower than that of the survival group (72(68, 81) vs. 82(76, 88) points, Z=5.90, P<0.001). The predictive value of pSOFA (AUC=0.82) and PCIS (AUC=0.78) for sepsis mortality was significantly higher than that of SIRS (AUC=0.56) (Z=6.59, 4.23, both P<0.001). There was no significant difference between pSOFA and PCIS (Z=1.35, P=0.176). Platelet count, procalcitonin, lactic acid, albumin, creatinine, total bilirubin, activated partial thromboplastin time, prothrombin time and international normalized ratio were all able to predict mortality of sepsis to a certain degree (AUC=0.64, 0.68, 0.80, 0.64, 0.68, 0.60, 0.77, 0.75, 0.76, all P<0.05). Conclusion: Compared with SIRS, both pSOFA and PCIS had better predictive value in the mortality of pediatric sepsis in PICU.

Identification of cancer stem cell-like cells from human epithelial ovarian carcinoma cell line.

Cancer stem cells (CSCs) play an important role in the development, invasion, and drug resistance of carcinoma, but the exact phenotype and characteristics of ovarian CSCs are still disputable. In this study, we identified cancer stem cell-like cells (CSC-LCs) and investigated their characteristics from the ovarian adenocarcinoma cell line 3AO. Our results showed that CSC-LCs were enriched in sphere-forming test and highly expressed CD44(+)CD24⁻. The spheres and CD24⁻ cells possessed strong tumorigenic ability by transplantation into nonobese diabetic/severe combined immunodeficient mice. CD44(+)CD24⁻ cells expressed stem cell markers and differentiated to CD44(+)CD24(+) cells by immunofluorescence assay and fluorescence-activated cell-sorting analysis. In vitro experiments verified that CD44(+)CD24⁻ cells were markedly resistant to carboplatin and paclitaxol. In conclusion, our study identifies the CD44(+)CD24⁻ phenotype, self-renewal, high tumorigenicity, differentiation potential, and drug resistance of ovarian CSC-LCs. Our findings may provide the evidence needed to explore a new strategy in the treatment of ovarian cancer.

Viability of freeze-dried Tice-substrain BCG by bioluminescent measurement of adenosine triphosphate.

The ATP content of viable cells in a single lot of freeze-dried Tice-substrain Mycobacterium bovis-BCG vaccine was determined after washing of organisms with isotonic buffer, using four extraction methods: boiling in 0.2 M potassium phosphate buffer at pH 7.4 for 12 min; boiling in 0.1 M Tris-EDTA buffer at pH 7.75 for 2 min; n-butanol/1.9% sodium glutamate-0.01 M sodium arsenate buffer, pH 7.0; and n-butanol/0.01 M Tris-EDTA buffer, pH 7.0. Liberated ATP was assayed with a Lumac biocounter by integrated measurement of light produced by firefly luciferin/luciferase. The dose response of internal standards paralleled that of ATP standards in water, and the response of endogenous ATP in BCG was not significantly different from a composite linear internal standard curve above 10 pg ATP (corresponding to about 10(5) viable organisms per ml), the sensitivity of the assay. When the ATP content of BCG was calculated from the composite curve, the n-butanol/Tris-EDTA method was found to be the most precise (CV less than 10%). Butanol extraction procedures were about twice as efficient as boiling methods and yielded an ATP value of about 3.4 fg/CFU, similar to ATP/CFU factors previously reported for other BCG substrains. However, when results were corrected for quench and ATP recovery, which varied with extraction method, the conversion factor increased nearly threefold.