Sonodynamic therapy combined with phototherapy: Novel synergistic strategy with superior efficacy for antitumor and antiinfection therapy.

Phototherapy (PT), including photodynamic therapy (PDT) and photothermal therapy (PTT), has recently achieved significant advances in antitumor and antiinfection therapy. Sonodynamic therapy (SDT), as a novel noninvasive therapy with a deeper penetration depth (>8 cm), fewer side effects and non-phototoxicity than PT, has drawn much attention in recent years. However, both PT and SDT have intrinsic limitations. By combining PT with SDT, the dualmodel therapy with advanced sensitizers overcome the intrinsic limitations and show higher efficacy than traditional monotherapy. Moreover, the photo-diagnosis modality could be easily integrated into synergistic therapy so that the sensitizer acts as a tracer for fluorescence/photoacoustic imaging, and the treatment process is visualized in a way that SDT combined with other therapies cannot achieve. This review summarizes the advanced sensitizers and the application of combination therapy, and explores the improvement strategies for promoting clinical transformation.

Tea consumption and risk of lower respiratory tract infections: a two-sample mendelian randomization study.

BACKGROUND: Observational studies have reported the association between tea consumption and the risk of lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs). However, a consensus has yet to be reached, and whether the observed association is driven by confounding factors or reverse causality remains unclear. METHOD: A two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was conducted to determine whether genetically predicted tea intake is causally associated with the risk of common LRTI subtypes. Genome-wide association study (GWAS) from UK Biobank was used to identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with an extra cup of tea intake each day. The summary statistics for acute bronchitis, acute bronchiolitis, bronchiectasis, pneumonia, and influenza and pneumonia were derived from the FinnGen project. RESULTS: We found that genetically predicted an extra daily cup of tea intake was causally associated with the decreased risk of bronchiectasis [odds ratio (OR) = 0.61, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.47-0.78, P < 0.001], pneumonia (OR = 0.90, 95% CI = 0.85-0.96, P = 0.002), influenza and pneumonia (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.85-0.97, P = 0.002), but not with acute bronchitis (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.82-1.01, P = 0.067) and acute bronchiolitis (OR = 0.79, 95% CI = 0.60-1.05, P = 0.100). Sensitivity analyses showed that no heterogeneity and pleiotropy could bias the results. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings provided new evidence that genetically predicted an extra daily cup of tea intake may causally associated with a decreased risk of bronchiectasis, pneumonia, and influenza and pneumonia.

Common mineral nutrients in ankylosing spondylitis: A 2-sample Mendelian randomization study.

OBJECTIVE: The causal relationship between common mineral nutrients and ankylosing spondylitis (AS) has not been studied. So this Mendelian randomization (MR) study aims to investigate the causal association of varying levels of calcium, zinc, copper, and selenium on AS. DESIGN: We selected 4 elements potentially associated with the onset and development of AS as exposure factors, single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as instrumental variables, and these SNPs are independent of each other(r2 < 0.05) and highly correlated with each of the 4 elements (P < 5 × 10-8 ). The 2-sample MR method takes Inverse-variance weighted (IVW) and MR-Egger as the main method and Simple mode (SM), Weighted median (WM1 ), and Weighted mode (WM2 ) as supplementary methods to evaluate the causal effect of mineral levels on AS. RESULTS: The IVW analysis does not provide convincing evidence to support a causal association between calcium (odds ratio [OR] = 1.000, 95% CI = 0.994, 1.005, P = .875), copper (OR = 1.000, 95% CI = 1.000, 1.001, P = .533) and selenium (OR = 0.999, 95% CI = 0.998, 1.000, P = .229) and AS. The IVW (OR = 1.001, 95% CI = 1.000, 1.002, P = .029) and WM1 (OR = 1.001, 95% CI = 1.000, 1.002, P = .011) results of zinc show that per standard deviation increment in zinc is a suggestive association with risks of AS, and MR-Egger (OR = 1.004, 95% CI = 0.996, 1.013, P = .265) and other supplementary methods indicate that zinc is not causally associated with AS. All MR-Egger intercept parameters and MR Pleiotropy RESidual Sum and Outlier tests demonstrated the absence of horizontal pleiotropy. CONCLUSIONS: This study does not provide convincing evidence to support a causal correlation between calcium, zinc, copper, and selenium with AS.