Research progress in transcriptional and immunological biomarkers associated with tuberculosis infection / 中华预防医学杂志

Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease that poses a serious threat to human health. About a quarter of the world's population were infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis in 2020, and the majority of them were latently infected. Approximately 5%-10% of the population with latent tuberculosis infection may progress to active TB disease. Identifying latent TB infection from active TB by biomarkers and screening people with latent TB infection at high risk of progression for preventive treatment by biomarkers that can reliably predict the progression is one of the most effective strategies to control TB. This article reviews the progress of research on transcriptional and immunological biomarkers for identifying TB infection and predicting the progression from latent infection to active TB, with the aim of providing new ideas for tuberculosis control.

Clinical significance of costimulatory molecule B7-H3 expression on CD3(+) T cells in colorectal carcinoma / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>B7-H3 has been widely studied in the context of tumor progression in recent years, and behaves as a tumor cell marker in a variety of tumors including colorectal carcinoma. The mechanism of B7-H3 in tumor progression is complicated and not clear yet. Studies have revealed that B7 family molecules are expressed on infiltrated lymphocytes as well as tumor cells in tumor microenvironment, which indicates that different expression pattern may lead to different clinical outcomes.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The expression of B7-H3 was detected in tissues of 98 colorectal carcinoma patients by using immunohistochemistry. Then the expression of B7-H3 on CD3(+) T lymphocytes isolated from fresh cancer tissues of 12 colorectal carcinoma patients was analyzed by flow cytometry assay. The relationship between the expression of B7-H3 on CD3(+) T lymphocytes and patients' clinical pathological parameters was demonstrated with statistical analysis.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Patients with more CD3(+) T cell infiltration survived much longer than patients with less CD3(+) T cell infiltration (P < 0.05); B7-H3 was highly expressed by infiltrating CD3(+) T lymphocytes in colorectal carcinoma tissues. The expression of B7-H3 was found to be significantly related with lymph node metastasis status (P < 0.05), but not with the patient's gender, age, tumor size, differentiation degree, depth of tumor invasion, Dukes' stage, distant metastasis and whether or not mucinous adenocarcinoma was present (P > 0.05). Moreover, the survival time of patients with low expression of B7-H3 was obviously longer than those of high B7-H3 expression patients, but the seven-year survival rate showed no difference between the high and low B7-H3 expression patients (P > 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The negative costimulatory molecule B7-H3 on infiltrating CD3(+) T lymphocytes in colorectal carcinoma bears importance in the clinical pathological progress and prognosis of colorectal carcinoma.</p>

Noninfectious fever following aortic surgery: incidence, risk factors, and outcomes / 中国医学科学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To determine the incidence, course, potential risk factors, and outcomes of noninfectious fever developed in patients after aortic surgery.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>patients who received operation for aortic aneurysm or dissection in our center from January 2006 to January 2008 were reviewed. Patients who met one of the following criteria were excluded: having a known source of infection during hospitalization; having a preoperative oral temperature greater than or equal to 38.0 degrees C; undertaking emergency surgery; having incomplete data. Univariate analysis was performed in patients with noninfectious postoperative fever and those without, with respect to demographics, intraoperative data, etc. Risk factors for postoperative fever were considered for the multivariate logistic regression model if they had a P value less than 0.10 in the univariate analysis.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Totally 463 patients undergoing aortic surgery were enrolled for full review. Among them, 345 (74.5%) patients had noninfectious postoperative fever, the other 118 (25.5%) patients didn't develop postoperative fever. Univariate analysis demonstrated that several risk factors were associated with the development of noninfectious postoperative fever, including weight, surgical procedure, minimum intraoperative bladder temperature, temperature upon intensive care unit (ICU) admission, discharge, and during ICU stay, as well as blood transfusion. In a further multivariate analysis, surgical site of thoracic and thoracoabdominal aorta (odds ratio: 4.861; 95% confidence interval: 3.029-5.801; P=0.004), lower minimum intraoperative bladder temperature (odds ratio: 1.117; 95% confidence interval: 1.01-1.24; P=0.04), and higher temperature on admission to the ICU (odds ratio: 2.57; 95% confidence interval: 1.28-5.18; P=0.008) were found to be significant predictors for noninfectious postoperative fever. No difference was found between the febrile and afebrile patients with regard to postoperative hospitalization duration (P=0.558) or total medical costs (P=0.896).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Noninfectious postoperative fever following aortic surgery is very common and closely related with perioperative interventions.</p>

Intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography during cardiovascular surgery:experience from 493 cases / 中华麻醉学杂志

From June 1997 to June 2001 intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography(TEE)was used in 493 patients undergoing different cardiovascular operations including correction of congenital heart defect, coronary artery bypass grafting(CABG),cardiac valve replacement and major vascular surgery.The clinical data of these cases were complete and detailed enough for retrospective review.Their cardiac functions were graded to be classⅡ-Ⅳaccording to New York Heart Association(NYHA)classification.The patients ranged in age between 1.6-74 yrs and weighed between 8.5-92 kg.The probe of TEE was inserted in esophagus after tracheal intubation.Preoperative diagnosis was found to be wrong by TEE in 20 cases(4.1%).Additional defect was found in 51 cases(10.3%).The type of operation planned before operation was altered in 52 cases(10.5%). During the operation real time TEE revealed that the operation performed failed to achieve the goal and revision surgery was needed in 24 cases(4.9%).Abnormal hemodynamics and cardiac function were found by TEE after the heart resumed spontaneous beat in 17 cases(3.5%)and appropriate treatment was instituted.Oral and pharyngeal mucous membrane bleeding occurred in 7 cases.There were no serious complications attributable to TEE.Intraoperative TEE is a very useful tool in formulating the surgery,monitoring hemodynamics and assessing immediate results of surgery and is safe and reliable in the hands of trained anesthesiologists.