Effects of High-flux Hemodialysis With Narrative Care on Clinical Efficacy and Prognostic Quality of Life of Patients With Chronic Renal Failure.

Context: Chronic renal failure (CRF) is the outcome of the continuous progression of various chronic kidney diseases. Effective treatment of a wide range of diseases may require decreasing patients' negative emotions and enhancing their disease resilience. Narrative care focuses on patients' inner awareness, feelings, and experience of a disease, stimulating positive energy in the face of it. Objective: The study intended to investigate the effects of using narrative care during high flux hemodialysis (HFHD) on clinical outcomes and prognosis of quality of life (QoL) for patients with chronic renal failure (CRF), to provide a reliable theoretical reference for future clinical treatment. Design: The research team performed a randomized controlled trial. Setting: The study took place at the Blood Purification Center at the Affiliated Hospital of Medical School at Ningbo University in Ningbo, Zhejiang, China. Participants: Participants were 78 patients with CRF who received treat with HFHD at the hospital between January 2021 and August 2022. Intervention: The research team divided participants into two groups using the random number table method, with 39 participants in each group: (1) and intervention group who received narrative nursing care and (2) a control group who receive the usual care. Outcome Measures: The research team: (1) evaluated the clinical efficacy for both groups; (2) at baseline and postintervention, measured participants' blood creatinine (SCr) and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) using blood sampling; (3) counted adverse effects; (4) investigated participants' nursing satisfaction postintervention; (5) at baseline and postintervention, assessed psychology and QoL using the Self-Assessment Scale for Anxiety (SAS), the Self-Assessment Scale for Depression (SDS), and the General Quality of Life Inventory (GQOLI-74) scale. Results: No statistically significant differences existed between the groups in terms of efficacy or renal function postintervention (P > .05). The incidence of adverse reactions was significantly lower in the intervention group than in the control group postintervention (P = .033), and the group's nursing satisfaction was significantly higher (P = .042). In addition, participants' SAS and SDS scores decreased significantly in the intervention group postintervention (P < .05), while no change occurred for the control group (P > .05). Finally, the GQOLI-74 scores were all significantly higher in the intervention group than in the control group. Conclusions: Narrative care can effectively enhance the safety of HFHD treatment in CRF patients and reduce patients' negative emotions postintervention, which is important for improving their QoL.

Shape programmable magnetic pixel soft robot.

Magnetic soft robots (MSRs) can achieve controllable shape-morphing by magnetic programming to the magnetic elastomer. However, the magnetization profile is usually implemented on a continuous region and is unchangeable. The deformation and function design of MSR hence is limited. This study presents a programmable magnetic pixel soft robot (MPSR). By encapsulating liquid-metal/NdFeB composites into a Silicone shell, the thermal-magnetic response functional film with lattice-structure is fabricated, with the highest pixel resolution of 1 × 1 mm2. A piece of laser-assisted magnetic programming equipment is developed to implement magnetic encoding on discrete regions of the film. Therefore, a mathematical model is proposed to help calculate the magnetic codes according to the preset end shape. At last, several pixel-structure MPSRs are prepared and tested. Experimental results show that using the magnetic encoding technique, we can reconfigure the deformations and functions of the robot. This study provides a basis for the programmed shape regulation and motion design of the soft robot.

Development and Verification of an Immune-Based Gene Signature for Risk Stratification and Immunotherapeutic Efficacy Assessment in Gastric Cancer.

OBJECTIVE: Due to the molecular heterogeneity of gastric cancer, only minor patients respond to immunotherapeutic schemes. This study is aimed at developing an immune-based gene signature for risk stratification and immunotherapeutic efficacy assessment in gastric cancer. METHODS: An immune-based gene signature was developed in gastric cancer by LASSO method in the training set. The predictive performance was validated in the external datasets. KEGG pathways related to risk scores were assessed by GSEA. Based on multivariate Cox regression analysis, a nomogram was established. Sensitivity to chemotherapy drugs was evaluated between high- and low-risk samples. The relationships of risk scores with infiltration levels of immune cells, stromal scores, immune scores, immune cell subgroups, and overall response to anti-PD-L1 therapy were determined. RESULTS: Our results showed that high risk scores were indicative of undesirable survival outcomes both in the training set (p < 0.0001) and the validation set (p = 0.002). Moreover, this signature could independently predict patients' survival (HR: 2.656 (1.919-3.676) and p < 0.001). Subgroup analysis confirmed the sensitivity of this signature in predicting prognosis (all p < 0.05). Cancer-related pathways were primarily enriched in high-risk samples, such as MAPK and TGF-ß pathways (p < 0.05). By incorporating stage and the risk score, we established a nomogram for predicting one-, three-, and five-year survival probability. Patients with high-risk scores were more sensitive to chemotherapy drugs (p < 0.05). There was heterogeneity in immune cells between high- and low-risk samples (p < 0.05). Samples with progressive disease exhibited the highest risk score, and those with complete response had the lowest risk score (p < 0.05). CONCLUSION: This immune-based gene signature might be representative of a promising prognostic classifier for predicting risk stratification and immunotherapeutic efficacy in gastric cancer, assisting personalized therapy and follow-up plan.

Epidemiology and persistence of cervical human papillomavirus infection among outpatient women in Heilongjiang province: A retrospective cohort study.

As persistent carcinogenic human papillomavirus (HPV) infection is a prominent driver of cervical cancer, it is essential to explore HPV persistence and its associated factors for cancer screening and prevention. A retrospective cohort study was performed in outpatient women between March 2010 and 2019 in Heilongjiang, northeast China. HPV genotyping was performed by polymerase chain reaction-membrane hybridization. An unconditional logistic regression model was used to analyze the association of factors with persistence. The overall prevalence of HPV at baseline was 27.1%, with a downward trend from 2010 to 2019 (P < .0001). The most commonly observed high- and low-risk HPVs were HPV16 (N = 1094, 5.9%) and HPV11 (N = 596, 3.2%), respectively. The probabilities of 6-month persistence were high for women infected with HPV16 (P = .0001), HPV58 (P = .018), and HPV53 (P = .014), as well as for women with multiple infections (P = .009), and those who were 51 to 60 years old (P = .004) or more than 60 years old (P = .007). The probabilities of 12-month persistence were high for women infected with HPV53 (P = .017) and 51- to 60-year-old women (P = .044). HPV16 is the dominant HPV type in Heilongjiang. An age in the range of 51 to 60 years and infection with HPV53 is associated with HPV infection persistence in the Heilongjiang population.