[Methodological and reporting quality of randomized controlled trials on the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia with traditional Chinese medicine].

OBJECTIVE: To systematically evaluate the methodological quality and reporting quality of randomized controlled trials (RCT) on the treatment of BPH with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), in order to provide some methodological reference for clinical practice and research. METHODS: We searched CNKI, VIP, Wanfang Data and PubMed for RCTs on the treatment of BPH with TCM published in China from January 2013 to November 2023. Two researchers screened the literature separately, and evaluated the methodological and reporting quality of the RCTs based on the Cochrane bias risk assessment tool and CONSORT TCM compound. RESULTS: Totally, 88 RCTs were included in this study. In terms of methodological quality, according to the Cochrane bias risk assessment tool, 27 biases in the process of randomization were identified as of low-risk and the other 61 of a certain risk. Among the allocation-related biases deviating from the established interventions, 76 were of low risk, 10 of a certain risk and 2 of high risk; among the compliance-related biases deviating from the established interventions, 76 were of low risk and 12 of a certain risk; among the biases due to missing outcome data, 86 were of low risk and 2 of a certain risk, while all the biases due to outcome measurement were of low risk; and among the biases from selective reporting, 65 were of low-risk, 2 of a certain risk and 21 of high-risk. In terms of reporting quality, according to the evaluation criteria of consort TCM compound, appropriate key words were used in 1 RCT (0.01%), the random assignment sequence method described in 27 (30.68%), the details of assignment limitation given in 5 (5.68%), assignment concealment mentioned in 3 (3.41%), the blind method and assignment concealment employed in 3 (3.41%), fall-offs recorded in 10 (11.36%), adverse events reported in 38 (43.18%), and limitations of the trials analyzed in 18 (20.45%). All the RCTs lacked complete intervention measures, subject flow chart, clinical trial registration and research schemes. CONCLUSION: At present, the methodological quality and reporting quality of RCTs on the treatment of BPH with TCM are generally low, with the main problems of incomplete experimental designs, lack of detailed description of randomized and blind methods, and insufficient TCM symptom evaluation of outcome indicators. Researchers should be cautious in adopting and applying the results reported, follow the CONSORT statement in design, registration, implement and reporting of the scheme, fully consider the clinical characteristics of TCM in the treatment of BPH, and reasonably design and report the evaluation indicators.

Mechanism of Shugan Yidan fan, a Chinese herbal formula, in rat model of premature ejaculation.

BACKGROUND: Premature ejaculation (PE) is one of the most common forms of sexual dysfunction in men, and multimodal therapeutic regimens should be considered to treat the condition. We developed a Chinese medicine herbal medicine, Shugan Yidan fang that had a significant clinical effect on PE patients, extending the time between penetration and ejaculation. However, the mechanism of this formula remains unclear. There is evidence that PE is associated with peripheral neuropathology, and the actions of dopamine (DA) and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT). The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanism of Shugan Yidan fang's effect on PE through the relationship between sexual behavioristics and the level of neurotransmitters and dopamine receptors (DARs). RESULTS: We showed that the male PE groups had a significant PE phenotype compared to healthy rats. Treatment with Shugan Yidan fang improved the behavioristics of the PE rats, and reduced the expression of DAR mRNA and protein while improving dopamine transporter levels. CONCLUSIONS: Our study provided evidence for the beneficial effect of Shugan Yidan fang in PE therapy, and proposed a preliminary potential mechanism for the clinical application of the formula.

RéSUMé: CONTEXTE: L'éjaculation précoce (EP) est l'une des formes les plus courantes de dysfonction sexuelle chez les hommes, et des régimes thérapeutiques multimodaux doivent être envisagés pour traiter la maladie. Nous avons développé une phytothérapie de médecine chinoise, dénommée Shugan Yidan fang, qui a eu un effet clinique significatif sur les patients atteints d'EP, prolongeant le temps entre la pénétration et l'éjaculation. Le mécanisme d'action de cette formule reste cependant flou. Il existe des preuves que l'EP est associée à une neuropathologie périphérique et aux actions de la dopamine (DA) et de la 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT). Le but de cette étude était d'étudier le mécanisme de l'effet de Shugan Yidan sur l'EP à travers la relation entre les comportements sexuels et le niveau de neurotransmetteurs et de récepteurs de la dopamine (DAR). RéSULTATS: Nous avons montré que les groupes PE mâles avaient un phénotype PE significatif par rapport aux rats sains. Le traitement avec Shugan Yidan fang a amélioré les comportements sexuels des rats PE et a réduit l'expression de l'ARNm DAR et des protéines, tout en améliorant les niveaux de de transporteurs de la dopamine. CONCLUSIONS: Notre étude a fourni des preuves de l'effet bénéfique du Shugan Yidan dans la thérapie de la PE, et a proposé un mécanisme potentiel préliminaire pour l'application clinique de la formule.

An integrated pan-cancer analysis of identifying biomarkers about the EGR family genes in human carcinomas.

BACKGROUND: The early growth response (EGR) family genes, including EGR1, EGR2, EGR3 and EGR4, play important roles in transcriptional regulation and have been reported to be involved in the process of cell growth and apoptosis in a variety of human tumors. However, there have been no systematic pan-cancer analysis about EGR family genes. OBJECTIVE: This study is to clarify the functions and roles of EGR family genes in human pan-cancer. METHOD: Based on the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) datasets, the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) database and several comprehensive bioinformatics methods, we evaluated the expression levels and prognostic values of EGR family genes and explored their relationships with tumor microenvironment (TME), tumor mutation burden (TMB), microsatellite instability (MSI), immune infiltration and immunohistochemistry (IHC). RESULT: It was found that the expressions of EGR1, EGR2 and EGR3 were abnormally low in 15 cancers, 11 cancers and 13 cancers, respectively, while the expression of EGR4 was abnormally high in 9 cancers and abnormally low in 5 cancers, compared with the corresponding control samples. The expressions of EGR family genes were significantly associated with prognosis, immune score, stromal score, MSI, TMB and immune infiltration for multiple cancers. Moreover, immunohistochemical results manifested that the protein expressions of EGR1 and EGR3 might cause clinical tumor progression in some cancers. CONCLUSION: These findings elucidated the important roles of the EGR family genes in tumor development and provided clues for further study of the EGR family genes as potential biomarkers in pan-cancer.

MFDNN: multi-channel feature deep neural network algorithm to identify COVID19 chest X-ray images.

The use of chest X-ray images (CXI) to detect Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS CoV-2) caused by Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID19) is life-saving important for both patients and doctors. This research proposes a multi-channel feature deep neural network (MFDNN) algorithm to screen people infected with COVID19. The algorithm integrates data over-sampling technology and MFDNN model to carry out the training. The oversampling technique reduces the deviation of the prior probability of the MFDNN algorithm on unbalanced data. Multi-channel feature fusion technology improves the efficiency of feature extraction and the accuracy of model diagnosis. In the experiment, Compared with traditional deep learning models (VGG19, GoogLeNet, Resnet50, Desnet201), the MFDNN model obtains an average test accuracy of 93.19% in all data. Furthermore, in each type of screening, the precision, recall, and F1 Score of the MFDNN model are also better than traditional deep learning networks. Furthermore, through ablation experiments, we proved that a multi-channel convolutional neural network (CNN) is superior to single-channel CNN, additional layer and PSN module, and indirectly proved the sufficiency and necessity of each step of the MFDNN classification method. Finally, our experimental code will be placed at https://github.com/panliangrui/covid19.

Immunoglobulin Classification Based on FC* and GC* Features.

Immunoglobulins have a pivotal role in disease regulation. Therefore, it is vital to accurately identify immunoglobulins to develop new drugs and research related diseases. Compared with utilizing high-dimension features to identify immunoglobulins, this research aimed to examine a method to classify immunoglobulins and non-immunoglobulins using two features, FC* and GC*. Classification of 228 samples (109 immunoglobulin samples and 119 non-immunoglobulin samples) revealed that the overall accuracy was 80.7% in 10-fold cross-validation using the J48 classifier implemented in Weka software. The FC* feature identified in this study was found in the immunoglobulin subtype domain, which demonstrated that this extracted feature could represent functional and structural properties of immunoglobulins for forecasting.

E2F1 Induces tumor cell survival via nuclear factor-kappaB-dependent induction of EGR1 transcription in prostate cancer cells.

Transcription factor E2F1 has been implicated in both apoptosis-promoting and apoptosis-suppressing effects. However, factors that mediate its antiapoptotic effects are still not identified. Using prostate tumor-derived cell lines, we showed here that E2F1 activated the expression of transcription factor EGR1 for promoting cell survival. E2F1 up-regulated the production of EGR1-induced growth factors, epidermal growth factor, platelet-derived growth factor, and insulin-like growth factor II, which in turn activated the phosphoinositide-3-kinase/Akt pathway to resist drug-induced apoptosis. Moreover, E2F1 directly induced the transcription of the Egr1 gene using the kappaB site located in its proximal promoter. E2F1 physically interacted with the RelA subunit of nuclear factor-kappaB and modulated its transactivity to fully activate EGR1 transcription. Together, these studies uncovered a novel mechanism for E2F1-induced suppression of apoptosis in prostate cancer. [Cancer Res 2009;69(6):2324-31].