PSFHS challenge report: Pubic symphysis and fetal head segmentation from intrapartum ultrasound images.

Segmentation of the fetal and maternal structures, particularly intrapartum ultrasound imaging as advocated by the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG) for monitoring labor progression, is a crucial first step for quantitative diagnosis and clinical decision-making. This requires specialized analysis by obstetrics professionals, in a task that i) is highly time- and cost-consuming and ii) often yields inconsistent results. The utility of automatic segmentation algorithms for biometry has been proven, though existing results remain suboptimal. To push forward advancements in this area, the Grand Challenge on Pubic Symphysis-Fetal Head Segmentation (PSFHS) was held alongside the 26th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI 2023). This challenge aimed to enhance the development of automatic segmentation algorithms at an international scale, providing the largest dataset to date with 5,101 intrapartum ultrasound images collected from two ultrasound machines across three hospitals from two institutions. The scientific community's enthusiastic participation led to the selection of the top 8 out of 179 entries from 193 registrants in the initial phase to proceed to the competition's second stage. These algorithms have elevated the state-of-the-art in automatic PSFHS from intrapartum ultrasound images. A thorough analysis of the results pinpointed ongoing challenges in the field and outlined recommendations for future work. The top solutions and the complete dataset remain publicly available, fostering further advancements in automatic segmentation and biometry for intrapartum ultrasound imaging.

Clinical characteristics and outcome analysis of pulmonary nocardiosis in southern China: a two-center retrospective study.

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary nocardiosis (PN) is a rare and opportunistic infection. This study aimed to analyze clinical, radiological, and microbiological features, treatment and outcome of PN in southern china. METHODS: Clinical, laboratory, imaging, treatment and outcome data of PN patients at two tertiary hospitals from January 1, 2018, to January 1, 2024 were collected. Factors associated with clinical outcomes were determined by multivariate logistic regression analysis. RESULTS: 67 PN patients including 53 with clinical improvement and 14 with treatment failure were enrolled. Bronchiectasis was the most common respiratory disease in patients with PN (31.3%). The major symptoms of PN were cough (89.6%) and sputum (79.1%). Lung nodules, bronchiectasis, consolidation, pleural involvement, mass, cavity, and lymph node enlargement were the frequent computed tomography findings of PN. Among the Nocardia species detected, N. farcinica was the most common pathogen. Neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (OR = 1.052, p = 0.010), concurrent bacterial infection (OR = 7.706, p = 0.016), and the use of carbapenems (OR = 9.345, p = 0.023) were independently associated with poor prognosis in patients with PN. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides important insights into the clinical features of PN in southern china. neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, concurrent bacterial infection, and the use of carbapenems were independently associated with poor prognosis in patients with PN.

Taking measurement in every direction: Implicit scene representation for accurately estimating target dimensions under monocular endoscope.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: In endoscopy, measurement of target size can assist medical diagnosis. However, limited operating space, low image quality, and irregular target shape pose great challenges to traditional vision-based measurement methods. METHODS: In this paper, we propose a novel approach to measure irregular target size under monocular endoscope using image rendering. Firstly synthesize virtual poses on the same main optical axis as known camera poses, and use implicit neural representation module that considers brightness and target boundaries to render images corresponding to virtual poses. Then, Swin-Unet and rotating calipers are utilized to obtain maximum pixel length of the target in image pairs with the same main optical axis. Finally, the similarity triangle relationship of the endoscopic imaging model is used to measure the size of the target. RESULTS: The evaluation is conducted using renal stone fragments of patients which are placed in the kidney model and the isolated porcine kidney. The mean error of measurement is 0.12 mm. CONCLUSIONS: The approached method can automatically measure object size within narrow body cavities in any visible direction. It improves the effectiveness and accuracy of measurement in limited endoscopic space.

Clinical Characteristics of Chlamydia psittaci Infection Diagnosed by Metagenomic Next-Generation Sequencing: A Retrospective Multi-Center Study in Fujian, China.

Objective: This study aimed to describe and compare the epidemiological, demographic, clinical, laboratory and radiological characteristics as well as the complications, treatments, and outcomes of these patients. Methods: We retrospectively investigated clinical data of patients with C. psittaci infection (psittacosis) in eight Grade IIIA hospitals of Fujian. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing (mNGS) was used identify C. psittaci in clinical samples of all included patients. Results: A total of 74 patients (39 severe/35 non-severe) was diagnosed with psittacosis, 25 (33.8%) of whom had history of poultry exposure. Common symptoms included high fever (98% [37/74]), fatigue (52.7% [39/74]), and dyspnea (51.4% [38/74]). Common manifestations in imaging included consolidation (89.2%), pleural effusion (77.0%), and air bronchogram (66.2%). Common complications included acute respiratory distress syndrome (55.4% [41/74]), type I respiratory failure (52.7% [39/74]), acute liver injury (41.9% [31/74]), and secondary infection (27.0% [20/74]). The in-hospital mortality rate was 8.11% (6/74). Conclusion: C. psittaci infection is represents an underestimated cause of CAP. For SCAP patients with poultry and bird contact history, specimens were encouraged to be sended for mNGS test in time. C. psittaci infection can lead to severe, multiple system involvement, and several complications. mNGS facilitate timely diagnosis of C. psittaci infection.

The role of exosomal circular RNA ZNF292 in intermittent hypoxia-induced AC16 cardiomyocytes injury.

BACKGROUND: Exosomes are involved in cell-to-cell communication in numerous diseases including cardiovascular diseases, neurological diseases. Little attention has been dedicated to exosomal circular RNAs in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA)-related cardiovascular diseases. The aim of this study was to explore the role of exosomal circular RNA ZNF292 (circZNF292) on AC16 cells exposure to intermittent hypoxia (IH). METHODS: Exosome release inhibitor GW4869 was used to examine the effect of exosomes on IH-induced AC16 cells apoptosis. The expression of exosomal circZNF292 was detected by qRT-PCR in AC16 cells exposure to IH, and a luciferase reporter assay was conducted to confirm the connection between circZNF292 and miR-146a-5p. Exosomal circZNF292 was stably transfected with short hairpin RNAs (shRNAs) against circZNF292 and co-cultured with AC16 cells. The expression of miR-146a-5p and apoptosis-related protein was then measured to evaluate the effect of exosomal circZNF292. RESULTS: We found that IH contributed to the AC16 cells apoptosis, and the administration of GW4869 increased the apoptosis of cardiomyocytes when exposed to IH. The expression of exosomal circZNF292 decreased and miR-146a-5p increased significantly in AC16 cells exposed to IH compared to normoxic conditions. Bioinformatics analysis predicted a circZNF292/miR-146a-5p axis in IH-induced cardiomyocytes apoptosis. The dual-luciferase reporter system validated the direct interaction of circZNF292 and miR-146a-5p. Knockdown of circZNF292 increased the expressions of miR-146a-5p and accelerated the AC16 cardiomyocytes apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study suggested a novel mechanism by which exosomes transmit intrinsic regulatory signals to the myocardium through the exosomal circZNF292/miR-146a-5p axis. This finding highlights the potential of targeting this pathway as a therapeutic approach for treating cardiovascular diseases associated with OSA.

Association Between Metabolic-Associated Fatty Liver Disease and Obstructive Sleep Apnea: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Aim: Emerging evidence has revealed that obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is an independent risk factor for the development of a variety of adverse metabolic disease states. In this study, we evaluated the association between OSA severity and metabolic dysfunction-associated fatty liver disease (MAFLD) among Asian populations. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional, single-center study. The study cohort consisted of patients undergoing polysomnography and abdominal ultrasonography. Logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the independent risk factors of MAFLD in patients with OSA. Results: A total of 1065 patients (277 non-MAFLD and 788 MAFLD) were included in the study. The prevalence of MAFLD in non-OSA, mild-moderate OSA, and severe OSA patients was 58.16%, 72.41%, and 78.0%, respectively (p < 0.001). We identified significant differences in body mass index (BMI), apnea-hypopnea index (AHI), oxygen desaturation index (ODI), and lowest O2 saturation (LaSO2) between non-MAFLD and MAFLD patients (all p < 0.001). After adjusting for confounding variables, we used multivariate regression analysis to show that BMI, ODI, and triglyceride (TG) levels independently predicted the occurrence of MAFLD (odds ratio [OR] = 1.234, p < 0.001; OR = 1.022, p = 0.013; OR = 1.384, p = 0.001, respectively). Moreover, stratified analysis according to BMI indicated that TG levels were the predominant risk factor for MAFLD in a group of patients with a BMI < 23 kg/m2, while BMI, ODI, TG levels, and total cholesterol (TC) were the major risk factors for MAFLD in a group of patients with a BMI ≥ 23 kg/m2 (all p < 0.05). Conclusion: OSA-associated chronic intermittent hypoxia was independently associated with the risk of MAFLD, especially in OSA patients with a BMI ≥ 23 kg/m2, suggesting that oxidative stress might play an important role in the pathogenesis of MAFLD in patients with OSA.

Nrf2 plays protective role during intermittent hypoxia-induced ferroptosis in rat liver (BRL-3A) cells.

PURPOSE: Ferroptosis is reported to be involved in the chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH)-related liver damage in vivo. Nuclear factor E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) has an essential role in the regulation of ferroptosis. This study tested the hypothesis that intermittent hypoxia (IH) could lead to hepatocyte ferroptosis in vitro and the function of Nrf2 in IH-induced hepatocyte ferroptosis. METHODS: BRL-3A cells (rat liver cells) were exposed to normoxia or IH. The protocol of IH consisted of 32 cycles of 60-min hypoxic exposure with 30-min reoxygenation phase (nadir of 1% oxygen to peak of 20% oxygen). Ferroptosis was evaluated by cell viability, iron concentration, lipid reactive oxygen species (ROS), protein content of ferritin heavy chain (FTH1), and glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPX4). Both ferrostatin-1 (a ferroptosis inhibitor) and Nrf2 interfering RNA were applied to treat BRL-3A cells, respectively. RESULTS: IH exposure induced ferroptosis in BRL-3A cells with decreased cell viability and increased total iron content and lipid ROS levels. The protein contents of GPX4 and FTH1 in IH group were markedly lower than that in normoxic control. Ferroptosis inhibitor ferrostatin-1 alleviated IH-induced ferroptosis in BRL-3A cells. IH treatment enhanced expression of Nrf2, and Nrf2 knockdown augmented IH-induced ferroptosis in BRL-3A cells. CONCLUSIONS: The results revealed that Nrf2 played a protective role during IH-induced ferroptosis in BRL-3A cells. The finding provides a therapeutic target for obstructive sleep apnea-related liver injury.

Expression alteration of serum exosomal circular RNAs in obstructive sleep apnea patients with acute myocardial infarction.

PURPOSE: Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are recently identified as a class of non-coding RNAs that participate in the incidence of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). However, circRNAs expression pattern in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) with AMI remains unknown. The aim was to investigate circRNAs expression alteration in serum exosomes derived from OSA patients with AMI. METHODS: The serum exosomal circRNAs profile of three healthy subjects, three OSA without AMI and three OSA with AMI were analyzed using high-throughput sequencing. Bioinformatic analyses were carried out to assess potential core circRNAs and functional analyses were conducted to study biological functions. RESULTS: Compared to healthy subjects, there were 5225 upregulated and 5798 downregulated circRNAs in exosomes from OSA with AMI patients. And our study also identified 5210 upregulated and 5813 downregulated circRNAs in OSA with AMI patients compared to OSA without AMI. The differential expression of 2 circRNAs (hsa_circRNA_101147, hsa_circRNA_101561) between healthy subjects and OSA without AMI, and 4 circRNAs (hsa_circRNA_101328, hsa_circRNA_104172, hsa_circRNA_104640, hsa_circRNA_104642) between healthy subjects and OSA with AMI were confirmed by qRT-PCR. In addition, we demonstrated that miR-29a-3p targeted hsa_circRNA_104642 directly. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that there were a number of dysregulated circRNAs in exosomes from OSA with AMI patients, which might be effectively served as a promising diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic targets.

Retracted: Bcl-2 19-kDa Interacting Protein 3 (BNIP3)-Mediated Mitophagy Attenuates Intermittent Hypoxia-Induced Human Renal Tubular Epithelial Cell Injury.

This publication has been retracted by the Editor due to non-original content and deficiencies in the conduct of the study. Reference: Xiao-Bin Zhang, Gong-Ping Chen, Mao-Hong Huang, Xiang-Xing Chen, Feng-Fu Zhan, Xiu-Zhen He, Ling Cai, Hui-Qing Zeng Med. Bcl-2 19-kDa Interacting Protein 3 (BNIP3)-Mediated Mitophagy Attenuates Intermittent Hypoxia-Induced Human Renal Tubular Epithelial Cell Injury. Med Sci Monit, 2022; 28: e936760. DOI: 10.12659/MSM.936760.

The association between obstructive sleep apnea and lung nodule, carcinoembryonic antigen.

PURPOSE: The association between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and cancer risks gaining more and more attention. Data on the association between OSA and lung cancer risk are limited. This study is to investigate whether a link exists between low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) scanning of the chest findings, carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and OSA in patients suspected of OSA. METHODS: The cross-sectional study included patients aged 18 years or older who underwent continuous nocturnal polysomnography at our sleep center between February 2019 and November 2020. All subjects underwent chest LDCT and CEA. Patients with an apnea-hypopnea index (AHI) of ≥ 15/h were classified as clinically significant OSA group, whereas patients with an AHI < 15/h were classified as control group. RESULTS: A total of 277 patients were enrolled in the study. 176 patients were categorized into the OSA group, while 101 patients were categorized into the control group. There is no relationship between any OSA-related parameter and presence of lung nodule or presence of ≥ 6 mm lung nodule in the binary logistic regression analysis. OSA group demonstrated a significant higher value of CEA than control group. Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis showed that lowest O2 saturation (ß = - 0.256, p < 0.001), smoking status (ß = 0.156, p = 0.007) and age (ß = 0.153, p = 0.008) were independent predictors of elevated CEA. CONCLUSIONS: OSA was independently related to the elevated of serum CEA level, but not with presence of pulmonary nodule or ≥ 6 mm pulmonary nodule in LDCT. Further well-designed longitudinal studies with pathology available are needed to identify the association between OSA and risk of lung cancer.

AAU-Net: An Adaptive Attention U-Net for Breast Lesions Segmentation in Ultrasound Images.

Various deep learning methods have been proposed to segment breast lesions from ultrasound images. However, similar intensity distributions, variable tumor morphologies and blurred boundaries present challenges for breast lesions segmentation, especially for malignant tumors with irregular shapes. Considering the complexity of ultrasound images, we develop an adaptive attention U-net (AAU-net) to segment breast lesions automatically and stably from ultrasound images. Specifically, we introduce a hybrid adaptive attention module (HAAM), which mainly consists of a channel self-attention block and a spatial self-attention block, to replace the traditional convolution operation. Compared with the conventional convolution operation, the design of the hybrid adaptive attention module can help us capture more features under different receptive fields. Different from existing attention mechanisms, the HAAM module can guide the network to adaptively select more robust representation in channel and space dimensions to cope with more complex breast lesions segmentation. Extensive experiments with several state-of-the-art deep learning segmentation methods on three public breast ultrasound datasets show that our method has better performance on breast lesions segmentation. Furthermore, robustness analysis and external experiments demonstrate that our proposed AAU-net has better generalization performance in the breast lesion segmentation. Moreover, the HAAM module can be flexibly applied to existing network frameworks. The source code is available on https://github.com/CGPxy/AAU-net.

Relationship between severity of obstructive sleep apnea and benign prostatic hyperplasia.

PURPOSE: The cause of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) is controversial, local hypoxia and inflammation being the main two possibilities proposed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and BPH. METHODS: The study cohort comprised men from January 2016 to December 2020 in our Sleep Center. These patients were classified into four groups (no, mild, moderate, severe OSA) by apnea-hypopnea indexes (AHI). Logistic regression was used to identify independent risk factors for BPH, after which participants were stratified into younger (age ≤ 40 years) and older groups (age > 40 years) for further analysis. RESULTS: The study cohort comprised 467 patients including 135 younger subjects and 332 older subjects. The prevalence of BPH in the above listed AHI categories was 37.5%, 55.0%, 62.9%, and 52.3%, respectively (p = 0.075). Logistic regression analysis of all patients identified age as a risk factor for BPH (p < 0.001). Stratified analysis according to AHI category found a prevalence of BPH of 0.0%, 13.0%, 33.3%, and 43.9%, respectively, in younger group (p = 0.006), and 52.2%, 71.9%, 71.1%, and 56.3%, respectively, in older group (p = 0.038). Logistic regression analysis found age and AHI were independent risk factors for BPH in younger group (both p < 0.05), whereas only age was identified as a risk factor for BPH in older group (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Age is an independent risk factor for BPH in men with OSA. AHI is also an independent risk factor for BPH in younger men, suggesting that OSA may affect development of BPH in younger men.

The role of platelet-related parameters for the prediction of NAFLD in OSAHS patients.

PURPOSE: As the detection of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is imperative for the prevention of its complications, we aimed to explore the predictive value of platelet to lymphocyte count ratio (PLR) and white blood cell count to mean platelet volume ratio (WBC/MPV) in relation to the occurrence of NAFLD among patients with obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (OSAHS). METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study consisting of 351 patients with OSAHS (279 with and 72 without NAFLD). The logistic regression analysis was performed to estimate associations between PLR, WBC/MPV, and NAFLD. Finally, the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC curve) was used to analyze the efficacy of PLR and WBC/MPV in NAFLD prediction. RESULTS: Compared to the OSAHS-only group, there was a rising trend in AHI and TS90% in the OSAHS + NAFLD group. And the logistic regression analysis identified average oxygen saturation (MaSO2), WBC/MPV and PLR as predicted factors (odds ratio [OR] = 1.134, P = 0.031; OR = 7.559, P = 0.018, OR = 0.980, P < 0.001, respectively) for NAFLD in OSAHS patients. Moreover, compared with WBC/MPV, PLR, FLI, and APRI, a combination of WBC/MPV and PLR presented the largest AUC for the detection of NAFLD in BMI < 28 kg/m2 (0.753, 95% CI 0.684-0.822), and in age ≥ 60 years subgroup (0.786, 95% CI 0.692-0.880) in ROC analysis. Meanwhile, a combination of WBC/MPV and PLR presented the second largest AUC for the detection of NAFLD in all subjects (0.743, 95% CI 0.708-0.831), as well as in the age < 60 years subgroup (0.729, 95% CI 0.652-0.806), only ranked after FLI, suggesting the combination of WBC/MPV and PLR has a good predictive value for NAFLD in OSAHS patients. CONCLUSION: We confirmed that the levels of WBC/MPV, PLR, and MaSO2 were closely related to the occurrence of NAFLD among OSAHS patients. Furthermore, our results highlighted the clinical combination of WBC/MPV and PLR levels could act as a simple and effective biomarker for screening NAFLD in patients with OSAHS.

Expression profiling and functional analysis of circular RNAs in vitro model of intermittent hypoxia-induced liver injury.

Intermittent hypoxia (IH) is a prominent feature of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) which is increasingly recognized as a key risk factor for liver injury. Circular RNAs (circRNAs) has been suggested to act as a regulator of multiple biological processes. However, there is no study evaluating circRNAs alterations and potential role of circRNAs in OSA-related liver injury. The present study aimed to investigate circRNA expression profiles in vitro model of IH-induced liver injury, as well as potential functional characterization of the differentially expressed circRNAs (DE circRNAs). BRL-3A cells were exposed to IH or normoxia. Cell apoptosis and cell viability were evaluated using flow cytometry and cell counting kit-8, respectively. The expression profile of circRNAs was depicted by circRNA sequencing. The selected circRNAs were verified by quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR). Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) pathway and Gene Ontology (GO) analyses were employed to predict DE circRNAs functions. The circRNA-miRNA-mRNA regulatory network was constructed. IH treatment caused cell injury in BRL-3A cells. 98 circRNAs were identified as being dysregulated in IH-treated BRL-3A cells. Among them, 58 were up-regulated and 40 were down-regulated. Go and KEGG analyses suggested that the DE circRNAs were predominantly enriched in the biological process such as positive regulation of NF-kappaB transcription factor activity and pathways such as circadian entrainment, Wnt signaling pathway, MAPK signaling pathway, and protein export. 3 up-regulated circRNAs and 3 down-regulated circRNAs with high number of back-splicing sites were chosen for qRT-PCR validation and were consistent with the sequencing data. CircRNA1056 and circRNA805 were predicted to interact with microRNAs that might thereby regulate downstream genes. The study characterized a profile of dysregulated circRNAs in IH-induced BRL-3A cell injury. DE circRNAs may play vital roles in the pathophysiology of IH-induced liver injury. Our findings provide preliminary support for further research in mechanisms and a new theory for the pathogenesis of OSA-related liver injury.

C-Net: Cascaded convolutional neural network with global guidance and refinement residuals for breast ultrasound images segmentation.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Breast lesions segmentation is an important step of computer-aided diagnosis system. However, speckle noise, heterogeneous structure, and similar intensity distributions bring challenges for breast lesion segmentation. METHODS: In this paper, we presented a novel cascaded convolutional neural network integrating U-net, bidirectional attention guidance network (BAGNet) and refinement residual network (RFNet) for the lesion segmentation in breast ultrasound images. Specifically, we first use U-net to generate a set of saliency maps containing low-level and high-level image structures. Then, the bidirectional attention guidance network is used to capture the context between global (low-level) and local (high-level) features from the saliency map. The introduction of the global feature map can reduce the interference of surrounding tissue on the lesion regions. Furthermore, we developed a refinement residual network based on the core architecture of U-net to learn the difference between rough saliency feature maps and ground-truth masks. The learning of residuals can assist us to obtain a more complete lesion mask. RESULTS: To evaluate the segmentation performance of the network, we compared with several state-of-the-art segmentation methods on the public breast ultrasound dataset (BUSIS) using six commonly used evaluation metrics. Our method achieves the highest scores on six metrics. Furthermore, p-values indicate significant differences between our method and the comparative methods. CONCLUSIONS: Experimental results show that our method achieves the most competitive segmentation results. In addition, we apply the network on renal ultrasound images segmentation. In general, our method has good adaptability and robustness on ultrasound image segmentation.

Bcl-2 19-kDa Interacting Protein 3 (BNIP3)-Mediated Mitophagy Attenuates Intermittent Hypoxia-Induced Human Renal Tubular Epithelial Cell Injury.

BACKGROUND As a novel pathophysiological characteristic of obstructive sleep apnea, intermittent hypoxia (IH) contributes to human renal tubular epithelial cells impairment. The underlying pathological mechanisms remain unrevealed. The present study aimed to evaluate the influence of Bcl-2 19-kDa interacting protein 3 (BNIP3)-mediated mitophagy on IH-induced renal tubular epithelial cell impairment. MATERIAL AND METHODS Human kidney proximal tubular (HK-2) cells were exposed to IH condition. IH cycles were as follows: 21% oxygen for 25 min, 21% descended to 1% for 35 min, 1% oxygen sustaining for 35 min, and 1% ascended to 21% for 25 min. The IH exposure lasted 24 h with 12 cycles of hypoxia and re-oxygenation. Both the siBNIP3 and BNIP3 vector were transfected to cells. Cell viability and apoptosis, mitochondrial morphology and function, and mitophagy were detected by cell counting kit-8, flow cytometry and TUNEL staining, transmission electron microscopy, western blotting, and immunofluorescence, respectively. RESULTS In the IH-induced HK-2 cells, inhibition of BNIP3 further aggravated mitochondrial structure damage, and decreased mitophagy level, leading to increased cell apoptosis and decreased cell viability. While overexpression of BNIP3 enhanced mitophagy, which protected mitochondrial structure, it can decrease cell death in HK-2 cells exposed to IH. CONCLUSIONS The present study showed that BNIP3-mediated mitophagy plays a protective role against IH-induced renal tubular epithelial cell impairment.

Assessment of bone mineral density and bone metabolism in young men with obstructive sleep apnea: a cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Hypoxia in obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) patients during sleep may have an effect on bone metabolism. Few data regarding evaluation of bone metabolism in young individuals diagnosed with OSA. In this study, we aim to identify the association between bone mineral density and OSA in young men (≤ 40 years old of age). METHODS: Consecutive male subjects who underwent polysomnography were enrolled. Serum calcium, 25-hydroxyvitamin-D3, ß-isomerized form C-terminal telopeptide of type I collagen, osteocalcin and procollagen type 1 N-propeptide were measured in all participants, and bone mineral density (BMD) at lumbar spine (L1-L4), femoral neck and hip total were determined by dual energy X-ray absorption (DXA). RESULTS: The population consisted of 85 subjects (mean age 35.53 years). The BMD at lumbar spine (L1-L4) in moderate OSA patients was higher than control and severe OSA group significantly (p = 0.036). After adjustment for confounding factors, stepwise multiple linear regression analyses showed LaSO2 (ß = 0.340, p = 0.008) as an independent explanatory variable for Lumbar L1-L4 BMD, LaSO2 (ß = 0.304, p = 0.037), BMI (ß = 0.393, p = 0.008) for femur neck BMD and BMI (ß = 0.720, p = 0.002) for hip total BMD. CONCLUSIONS: Our finding indicated that there was a relationship between OSA and bone metabolism in younger men, and moderate OSA-related hypoxia positively related with BMD. This study also showed that different degrees of recurrent hypoxia had different effects on bone metabolism, a finding that required further investigation.

A novel convolutional neural network for kidney ultrasound images segmentation.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Ultrasound imaging has been widely used in the screening of kidney diseases. The localization and segmentation of the kidneys in ultrasound images are helpful for the clinical diagnosis of diseases. However, it is a challenging task to segment the kidney accurately from ultrasound images due to the interference of various factors. METHODS: In this paper, a novel multi-scale and deep-supervised CNN architecture is proposed to segment the kidney. The architecture consists of an encoder, a pyramid pooling module and a decoder. In the encoder, we design a multi-scale input pyramid with parallel branches to capture features at different scales. In the decoder, a multi-output supervision module is developed. The introduction of the multi-output supervision module enables the network to learn to predict more precise segmentation results scale-by-scale. In addition, we construct a kidney ultrasound dataset, which contains of 400 images and 400 labels. RESULTS: To highlight effectiveness of the proposed approach, we use six quantitative indicators to compare with several state-of-the-art methods on the same kidney ultrasound dataset. The results of our method on the six indicators of accuracy, dice, jaccard, precision, recall and ASSD are 98.86%, 95.86%, 92.18%, 96.38%, 95.47% and 0.3510, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis of evaluation indicators and segmentation results shows that our method achieves the best performance in kidney ultrasound image segmentation.

Unvaccinated Children Are an Important Link in the Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant (B1.617.2): Comparative Clinical Evidence From a Recent Community Surge.

Objective: To evaluate the necessity of Covid-19 vaccination in children aged < 12 y by comparing the clinical characteristics between unvaccinated children aged < 12 y and vaccinated patients aged ≥ 12y during the Delta surge (B.1.617.2) in Putian, Fujian, China. Methods: A total of 226 patients with SARS-Cov-2 Delta variant (B.1.167.2; confirmed by Real-time PCR positivity and sequencing) were enrolled from Sep 10th to Oct 20th, 2021, including 77 unvaccinated children (aged < 12y) and 149 people aged ≥ 12y, mostly vaccinated. The transmission route was explored and the clinical data of two groups were compared; The effect factors for the time of the nucleic acid negativization (NAN) were examined by R statistical analysis. Results: The Delta surge in Putian spread from children in schools to factories, mostly through family contact. Compared with those aged ≥ 12y, patients aged < 12y accounted for 34.07% of the total and showed milder fever, less cough and fatigue; they reported higher peripheral blood lymphocyte counts [1.84 (1.32, 2.71)×10^9/L vs. 1.31 (0.94, 1.85)×10^9/L; p<0.05), higher normal CRP rate (92.21% vs. 57.72%), lower IL-6 levels [5.28 (3.31, 8.13) vs. 9.10 (4.37, 15.14); p<0.05]. Upon admission, their COVID19 antibodies (IgM and IgG) and IgG in convalescence were lower [0.13 (0.00, 0.09) vs. 0.12 (0.03, 0.41), p<0.05; 0.02 (0.00, 0.14) vs. 1.94 (0.54, 6.40), p<0.05; 5.46 (2.41, 9.26) vs. 73.63 (54.63, 86.55), p<0.05, respectively], but longer NAN time (18 days vs. 16 days, p=0.13). Conclusion: Unvaccinated children may be an important link in the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 delta variant (B1.617.2), which indicated an urgent need of vaccination for this particular population.