Novel developments in the study of estrogen in the pathogenesis and therapeutic intervention of lymphangioleiomyomatosis.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to enhance the understanding of the role of estrogen in lymphangioleiomyomatosis(LAM) and to conclude the impact of estrogen-altering events on the condition and recent advances in estrogen-based treatments for LAM. RESULTS: LAM development is strongly linked to mutations in the tuberous sclerosis gene (TSC1/2) and the presence of estrogen. Estrogen plays a significant role in the spread of TSC2-deficient uterine leiomyoma cells to the lungs and the production of pulmonary LAM. Menstruation, pregnancy, estrogen medication, and other events that cause an increase in estrogen levels can trigger the disorder, leading to a sudden worsening of symptoms. Current findings do not support using estrogen-blocking therapy regimens. However, Faslodex, which is an estrogen receptor antagonist, presents new possibilities for future therapeutic approaches in LAM. CONCLUSION: Estrogen is crucial in the development and spread of LAM. The use of estrogen inhibitors or estrogen receptor antagonists alone does not provide good control of the disease or even poses a greater risk, and the use of a combination of mTOR receptor inhibitors, complete estrogen receptor antagonists, estrogen inhibitors, and autophagy inhibitors targeting important signaling pathways in LAM pathogenesis may be of greater benefit to the patient.

Burden of tuberculosis and its association with socio-economic development status in 204 countries and territories, 1990-2019.

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) always runs in the forefront of the global burden when it comes to infectious diseases. Tuberculosis, which can lead to impairment of quality of life, financial hardship, discrimination, marginalization, and social barriers, is a major public health problem. The assessment of TB burden and trend can provide crucial information for policy decision and planning, and help countries in the world to achieve the goal of sustainable development of ending the epidemic of TB in 2030. Methods: All data are from the Global Burden of Disease 2019 (GBD 2019) database, which analyzed the burden trend of age-standardized incidence, DALYs, and deaths rate in TB and HIV/AIDS-infected TB over the past 30 years. Also, GBD 2019 not only analyzed the burden distribution of TB in 204 countries and main regions of the world but also analyzed the relationship between the burden of global TB and the socio-demographic Index (SDI). Results: The age-standardized incidence, age-standardized disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), and age-standardized deaths rate for HIV-negative TB were 10,671.45 (9,395.60-12,194.10), 59,042.45 (53,684.78-64,641.53), and 1,463.62 (1,339.24-1,602.71) (95% CI, per 100,000 person-years) in 2019, respectively. Age-standardized incidence, age-standardized DALYs, and age-standardized deaths rate of HIV/AIDS-XDR-TB (95% CI, per 1,000 person-years) were 2.10 (1.51-2.90), 64.23 (28.64-117.74), and 1.01 (0.42-1.86), respectively. We found that TB is inversely proportional to SDI, the age-standardized incidence, DALYs, and deaths rate low burden countries were in high SDI areas, while high burden countries were in low SDI areas. The global TB showed a slow decline trend, but the age-standardized incidence of HIV-positive TB was increasing, and mainly distributed in sub-Saharan Africa. Conclusion: Age-standardized incidence, age-standardized DALYs, and age-standardized deaths rate of TB is related to SDI, and the burden of low SDI countries is lighter than that of high SDI countries. Without effective measures, it will be difficult for countries around the world to achieve the goal of ending the TB epidemic by 2030. Effective control of the spread of TB requires concerted efforts from all countries in the world, especially in the countries with low SDI, which need to improve the diagnosis and preventive measures of TB and improve the control of HIV/AIDS-TB.

Global Burden of Bacterial Skin Diseases: A Systematic Analysis Combined With Sociodemographic Index, 1990-2019.

Background: The latest incidence and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) of major bacterial skin diseases (BSD) and their relationship with socioeconomic are not readily available. Objective: Describe the global age-standardized incidence and DALYs rates of BSD and analyze their relationship with socioeconomic. Methods: All data were obtained from Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2019 database. The correlation between BSD and socioeconomic development status was analyzed. Results: The age-standardized incidence and age-standardized DALYs rate of BSD are: 169.72 million [165.28-175.44] and 0.41 million [0.33-0.48]. Of the two main BSD, pyoderma cause significantly much heavier burden than cellulitis. The change of age-standardized incidence (7.38% [7.06-7.67]) and DALYs (-10.27% [-25.65 to 25.45]) rate of BSD presented an upward or downward trend from 1990 to 2019. The highest burden was in the low-middle sociodemographic index (SDI) area while the area with the lowest burden was recorded in the high-middle SDI area in 2019. Limitations: GBD 2019 data of BSD are derived from estimation and mathematical modeling. Conclusion: The burden of BSD is related to socioeconomic development status. The results based on GBD2019 data may benefit policymakers in guiding priority-setting decisions for the global burden of BSD.

Accurate Smartphone Indoor Visual Positioning Based on a High-Precision 3D Photorealistic Map.

Indoor positioning is in high demand in a variety of applications, and indoor environment is a challenging scene for visual positioning. This paper proposes an accurate visual positioning method for smartphones. The proposed method includes three procedures. First, an indoor high-precision 3D photorealistic map is produced using a mobile mapping system, and the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of the images are obtained from the mapping result. A point cloud is calculated using feature matching and multi-view forward intersection. Second, top-K similar images are queried using hamming embedding with SIFT feature description. Feature matching and pose voting are used to select correctly matched image, and the relationship between image points and 3D points is obtained. Finally, outlier points are removed using P3P with the coarse focal length. Perspective-four-point with unknown focal length and random sample consensus are used to calculate the intrinsic and extrinsic parameters of the query image and then to obtain the positioning of the smartphone. Compared with established baseline methods, the proposed method is more accurate and reliable. The experiment results show that 70 percent of the images achieve location error smaller than 0.9 m in a 10 m × 15.8 m room, and the prospect of improvement is discussed.