Causal Relationship Between Endometriosis and Pelvic Inflammatory Diseases: Mendelian Randomization Study.

Objective: This study explores the causal relationship between endometriosis and pelvic inflammatory diseases (PID). Methods: The study utilized genome-wide association study (GWAS) datasets for endometriosis ("finn-b-N14_ENDOMETRIOSIS") and PID ("finn-b-N14_OTHFEMPELINF"). Subsequently, two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses were conducted using inverse variance weighting (IVW), Egger regression (MR-Egger), and weighted median (WM) methods. Heterogeneity was evaluated using Cochran's Q test, and in case of detected outliers, they were removed for re-evaluation of MR causality. Results: From the endometriosis GWAS dataset, 33 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were selected as instrumental variables. All three methods, IVW (OR = 1.39, P < 1×10-8), MR-Egger (OR = 1.41, P = 0.003), and WM (OR = 1.37, P = 1.16×10-5) confirmed a causal relationship between endometriosis and PID. The association between endometriosis and pelvic inflammation remained unaffected by the exclusion of individual SNPs. Lastly, Cochran's Q test and funnel plots showed no evidence of SNP asymmetry. Conclusion: The results of the MR analysis support a potential causal relationship between endometriosis and an increased risk of PID.

Mea6/cTAGE5 cooperates with TRAPPC12 to regulate PTN secretion and white matter development.

Mutations of TRAPPC12 are associated with progressive childhood encephalopathy including abnormal white matter. However, the underlying pathogenesis is still unclear. Here, we found that Trappc12 deficiency in CG4 and oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs) affects their differentiation and maturation. In addition, TRAPPC12 interacts with Mea6/cTAGE5, and Mea6/cTAGE5 ablation in OPCs affects their proliferation and differentiation, leading to marked hypomyelination, compromised synaptic functionality, and aberrant behaviors in mice. We reveal that TRAPPC12 is associated with COPII components at ER exit site, and Mea6/cTAGE5 cKO disrupts the trafficking pathway by affecting the distribution and/or expression of TRAPPC12, SEC13, SEC31A, and SAR1. Moreover, we observed marked disturbances in the secretion of pleiotrophin (PTN) in Mea6-deficient OPCs. Notably, exogenous PTN supplementation ameliorated the differentiation deficits of these OPCs. Collectively, our findings indicate that the association between TRAPPC12 and MEA6 is important for cargo trafficking and white matter development.

Control of odorants in swine manure and food waste co-composting via zero-valent iron /H2O2 system.

Odors have posed challenges to the advancement of aerobic composting. This work aims to identify the primary components responsible for odors and assess the effectiveness and mechanisms of the zero-valent iron/H2O2 system controlling various odorants in aerobic composting. Swine manure and food waste were used as composting materials, with the addition of zero-valent iron and hydrogen peroxide to mitigate odor emissions. Results revealed that odorants included ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and 22 types of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), with ethyl acetate, heptane, and dimethyl disulfide being predominant. Among the odorants emitted, ammonia accounted for 75.43%, hydrogen sulfide for 0.09%, and identified VOCs for 24.48%. The ZVI/H2O2 system showed a significant reduction in ammonia and VOCs emission, with the reduction of 51% (ammonia) and 41.3% (VOCs) respectively, primarily observed during the thermophilic period. The occurrence of Fenton-like reactions and changes in key microbial populations were the main mechanisms accounting for odor control. The occurrence of Fenton-like reaction was confirmed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and reactive oxygen detection, showing the oxidation of zero-valent iron by H2O2 to higher valence elemental iron, and the simultaneous production of ·OH. Microbial analysis indicated that an enrichment of specific microorganisms with Bacillus contributed to feammonx and Bacillaceae contributed to organic biodegradation. Redundancy analysis highlighted the role of key microbial species (Bacillaceae, Bacillus, and Ureibacillus) in effectively reducing the level of ammonia and volatile organic compounds. These novelty findings illustrated that the potential of this system is promising for controlling the emission of odorants and aerobic composting reinforcement.

Comparison of dexmedetomidine and dexamethasone as adjuvants to the ultrasound-guided interscalene nerve block in arthroscopic shoulder surgery: a systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Introduction: Interscalene block (ISB) is widely regarded as the gold standard treatment for acute pain following arthroscopic shoulder surgery. However, a single injection of a local anesthetic for ISB may not offer sufficient analgesia. Various adjuvants have been demonstrated to prolong the analgesic duration of the block. Hence, this study aimed to assess the relative efficacy of dexamethasone and dexmedetomidine as adjuncts to prolong the analgesic duration for a single- shot ISB. Methods: The efficacy of adjuvants was compared using a network meta-analysis. The methodological quality of the included studies was evaluated using the Cochrane bias risk assessment tool. A comprehensive search of the PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Science, and Embase databases was conducted with a search deadline of March 1, 2023. Various adjuvant prevention randomized controlled trials have been conducted in patients undergoing interscalene brachial plexus block for shoulder arthroscopic surgery. Results: Twenty-five studies enrolling a total of 2,194 patients reported duration of analgesia. Combined dexmedetomidine and dexamethasone (MD = 22.13, 95% CI 16.67, 27.58), dexamethasone administered perineurally (MD = 9.94, 95% CI 7.71, 12.17), high-dose intravenous dexamethasone (MD = 7.47, 95% CI 4.41, 10.53), dexmedetomidine administered perineurally (MD = 6.82, 95% CI 3.43, 10.20), and low-dose intravenous dexamethasone (MD = 6.72, 95% CI 3.74, 9.70) provided significantly longer analgesic effects compared with the control group. Discussion: The combination of intravenous dexamethasone and dexmedetomidine provided the greatest effect in terms of prolonged analgesia, reduced opioid doses, and lower pain scores. Furthermore, peripheral dexamethasone in prolonging the analgesic duration and lowering opioid usage was better than the other adjuvants when used a single medication. All therapies significantly prolonged the analgesic duration and reduced the opioid dose of a single-shot ISB in shoulder arthroscopy compared with the placebo.

Establishment of a nomogram model to predict the risk of macrosomia in patients with gestational diabetes mellitus.

BACKGROUND: To establish and verify a nomogram model that can predict the risk of macrosomia in patients with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). METHODS: Data of patients with GDM who delivered their babies in Shanxi Bethune Hospital between November 2020 and February 2022 were analyzed. Multifactor logistic regression analysis was used to screen the independent risk factors for macrosomia. The model was constructed by R software. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) and goodness-of-fit analysis were used to evaluate its efficiency and accuracy. The clinical application value was evaluated using the decision curve analysis (DCA). RESULTS: A total of 991 patients with GDM were enrolled for modeling. Multigravida, pre-pregnancy body mass index, family history of hypertension, abdominal circumference, and biparietal diameter were independent risk factors for macrosomia, and the prediction model was established. The AUC in the training and test set were 0.93 (0.89-0.97) and 0.90 (0.84-0.96), respectively, and the difference was not statistically significant. The DCA suggested that the model has a high clinical application value. CONCLUSION: The nomogram model for predicting macrosomia in patients with GDM was established. The model has certain accuracy and is expected to be a quantitative tool to guide clinical decision of delivery timing, individualized labor monitoring, and delivery mode.

Co-occurrence pattern of ARGs and N-functional genes in the aerobic composting system with initial elevated temperature.

Animal manure is known to harbor antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Aerobic composting is a prevalent cost-effective and sustainable method to treat animal waste. However, the effect of initially elevated temperature on antibiotic resistome during the composting process is unclear. In this study composting was subjected to initial external heating (EHC) for a period of 5 days compared to conventional composting (CC). After composting ARGs abundance was significantly reduced by 2.43 log in EHC and 1.95 log in CC. Mobile genetic elements (MGEs) also exhibited a reduction of 1.95 log in EHC and 1.49 log in CC. However, during the cooling phase, the genes resisting macrolide lincosamide and streptogramin B (MLSB) rebounded by 0.04 log in CC. The potential human pathogenic bacteria Pseudomonas (41.5-61.5%) and Actinobacteria (98.4-98.8%) were significantly reduced in both treatments and the bulk of targeted antibiotics were eliminated by 80.74% in EHC and 68.98% in CC. ARGs and N-functional genes (NFGs), mainly denitrification genes, were carried by the same microbial species, such as Corynebacterium sp. and Bacillus sp., of the dominant phylum. Redundancy analysis (RDA) revealed that CC microbial communities played a key role in the enrichment of ARGs while in EHC the variation of ARGs was attributed to the composting temperature. The number of high-risk ARGs was also lower in EHC (4) compared with CC (6) on day 30. These results provide insight into the effects of an initially enhanced temperature on ARGs removal and the relationship between ARGs and NFGs during the composting process.

Effects of radiofrequency balloon angioplasty on the abdominal aorta in atherosclerotic rabbits.

OBJECTIVES: A novel temperature-controlled intravascular radiofrequency balloon angioplasty (RFBA) technique was designed and developed for atherosclerosis (AS) management. METHODS: After establishing an AS model based on a balloon denudation injury of the abdominal aorta and a high cholesterol diet in rabbits, 46 animals were randomly assigned to the RFBA group (n = 28) or the plain balloon angioplasty (PBA) group (n = 28). The groups were further subdivided based on post-treatment euthanasia times (1 hour, 7 days, 14 days, and 28 days). Histopathological changes were observed by hematoxylin and eosin and Masson's staining. Immunohistochemistry, western blotting, and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction were used to detect changes in pro-inflammatory, anti-inflammatory, and apoptotic factors; TGF-ß/Smad-2 pathway protein Immune levels; and mRNA levels in tissues, respectively. RESULTS: The vascular lumen area in the RFBA group was larger than that in the PBA group at the same time points, although the change in the vascular lumen area was not different between groups. The expression of Bax, TGF-ß, Smad-2, and Caspase-3 in the RFBA group was significantly higher than that in the PBA group. The expression levels of Bcl-2 in the RFBA group were significantly lower than those in the PBA group. CONCLUSIONS: At 28 days, RFBA dilated the atherosclerotic blood vessels and thickened the fibrous cap of atherosclerotic plaques to promote plaque stability. RFBA was also found to activate apoptotic factors and the TGF-/Smad-2 inflammatory pathway.

Structure and dynamics of the EGFR/HER2 heterodimer.

HER2 belongs to the human epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase family. Its overexpression or hyperactivation is a leading cause for multiple types of cancers. HER2 functions mainly through dimerization with other family members, such as EGFR. However, the molecular details for heterodimer assembly have not been completely understood. Here, we report cryo-EM structures of the EGF- and epiregulin-bound EGFR/HER2 ectodomain complexes at resolutions of 3.3 Å and 4.5 Å, respectively. Together with the functional analyses, we demonstrate that only the dimerization arm of HER2, but not that of EGFR, is essential for their heterodimer formation and signal transduction. Moreover, we analyze the differential membrane dynamics and transient interactions of endogenous EGFR and HER2 molecules in genome-edited cells using single-molecule live-cell imaging. Furthermore, we show that the interaction with HER2 could allow EGFR to resist endocytosis. Together, this work deepens our understanding of the unique structural properties and dynamics of the EGFR/HER2 complex.

Clinical Application of Vacuum Sealing Drainage for the Treatment of Deep Burn Wounds.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to determine the effect of the clinical application of vacuum sealing drainage (VSD) on the treatment of deep burn wounds. METHODS: This single-blind, randomized, controlled study included patients who were admitted to our hospital with deep burns from January 2018 to December 2020; the patients were randomly divided into the VSD and control (CON) groups. The number of days from treatment to skin grafting; survival rate of the first skin graft; rate of positive bacterial culture; visual analog scale (VAS) pain score; and durations of wound healing, antibiotic drug use, and hospitalization were analyzed and compared between the groups. RESULTS: The application of VSD significantly shortened the number of days from treatment to skin grafting (P < .05); improved the survival rate of the first skin graft in patients with severe burns (P < .05); reduced the rate of positive bacterial culture (P < .05); reduced the VAS pain score (P < .05); and shortened the durations of wound healing (P < .05), antibiotic drug use (P < .05), and hospitalization (P < .05). CONCLUSION: Vacuum sealing drainage had a good clinical effect on the recovery of deep burn wounds.

Sensitive response mechanism of ARGs and MGEs to initial designed temperature during swine manure and food waste co-composting.

The rapid aerobic composting process has been used to reduce organic wastes, but the associated risks of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) need to evaluate in an efficient way. The primary objective of this work was to explore the underlying mechanism of initial adjustment in composting temperature on the variation of ARGs, mobile genetic elements (MGEs), and microbial composition during co-composting. The co-composting was initially externally heated (T2) for 5 days. The results showed that ARGs abundance in conventional composting (T1) was reduced by 49.36%, while multidrug was enriched by 86.16% after a period of 30 days. While in T2 ARGs were removed by 79.46% particularly the fraction of sulfonamide, multidrug, and vancomycin resistance genes were >90% without rebounding of any ARGs. Whereas, MGEs were reduced by 68.12% and 93.62% in T1 and T2, while the half-lives of ARGs and MGEs were lower in T2 compared to T1 (86.3%,86.7%). T2 also affected the metabolism function by regulating carbohydrate metabolism (9.62-10.39%) and amino acid metabolism (9.92-10.93%). Apart from this, the potential human pathogenic bacteria Pseudomonas was reduced by 90.6% in T2 and only 32.9% in T1 respectively. Network analysis showed that Ureibacillus, Weissella, Corynebacterium, Escherichia-Shigella, Acinetobacter were the main host of multiple genes. Structural equation models exhibited that bacterial communities were mainly responsible for the enrichment of ARGs in T1, whereas, it was directly affected by MGEs in T2. Similarly, ARGs variation was directly related to composting temperature. With this simple strategy, ARGs associated risk can be significantly reduced in composting.

Enhancement and Restoration of Scratched Murals Based on Hyperspectral Imaging-A Case Study of Murals in the Baoguang Hall of Qutan Temple, Qinghai, China.

Environmental changes and human activities have caused serious degradation of murals around the world. Scratches are one of the most common issues in these damaged murals. We propose a new method for virtually enhancing and removing scratches from murals; which can provide an auxiliary reference and support for actual restoration. First, principal component analysis (PCA) was performed on the hyperspectral data of a mural after reflectance correction, and high-pass filtering was performed on the selected first principal component image. Principal component fusion was used to replace the original first principal component with a high-pass filtered first principal component image, which was then inverse PCA transformed with the other original principal component images to obtain an enhanced hyperspectral image. The linear information in the mural was therefore enhanced, and the differences between the scratches and background improved. Second, the enhanced hyperspectral image of the mural was synthesized as a true colour image and converted to the HSV colour space. The light brightness component of the image was estimated using the multi-scale Gaussian function and corrected with a 2D gamma function, thus solving the problem of localised darkness in the murals. Finally, the enhanced mural images were applied as input to the triplet domain translation network pretrained model. The local branches in the translation network perform overall noise smoothing and colour recovery of the mural, while the partial nonlocal block is used to extract the information from the scratches. The mapping process was learned in the hidden space for virtual removal of the scratches. In addition, we added a Butterworth high-pass filter at the end of the network to generate the final restoration result of the mural with a clearer visual effect and richer high-frequency information. We verified and validated these methods for murals in the Baoguang Hall of Qutan Temple. The results show that the proposed method outperforms the restoration results of the total variation (TV) model, curvature-driven diffusion (CDD) model, and Criminisi algorithm. Moreover, the proposed combined method produces better recovery results and improves the visual richness, readability, and artistic expression of the murals compared with direct recovery using a triple domain translation network.

Composting effect and antibiotic removal under a new temperature control strategy.

The main objective of this study was to investigate the feasibility of a new temperature control strategy in the co-composting process to accelerate operation cycle and remove antibiotics from mixed organic wastes. The evaluation of the composting process showed that composting with temperature control (TC) was completed within 14 days. The final compost of TC exhibited a 10% higher degradation of organic matters, more humus formation and 11.25% lower heavy metals concentration than conventional composting (CC), which fully met the Chinese National Agricultural Organic Fertilizer Standard requirements. The degradation extent and kinetic of macrolides, tetracyclines, sulfonamides and fluoroquinolones showed that the removal efficiency of total antibiotics in TC was 23.58% higher than CC, with less half-life, which was significantly correlated with higher temperature. Particularly, the highest removal was observed for sulfonamides (87.45%) in TC, the half-life of which was reduced by 75.95% compared with CC. The higher degradation rate was attributed to enhanced decomposition of unstable antibiotics and degrading activity of microbes at high temperature. The microbiological analysis showed that the external heating led to a distinct composition and succession of bacterial community in TC. Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Actinobacteriota and Bacteroidota were dominant and the emergence of Patescibacteria and Chloroflexi at cooling period in TC proved that the later composting environment was in an oligotrophic state. Current research provided a promising rapid composting approach for high-quality fertilizer production and antibiotic management in organic waste disposal.

Three-Dimensional Conformal Radiotherapy Combined with Gemcitabine and Docetaxel in the Treatment of Advanced Bladder Cancer and Its Effects on Inflammatory Factors and Immune Function.

Objective: To assess the efficacy of three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy (3D-CRT) combined with GT chemotherapy (gemcitabine+docetaxel) in the treatment of advanced bladder cancer and its influence on inflammatory factors and immune function. Methods: A total of 42 elderly patients with advanced bladder cancer who were admitted to our hospital from January 2019 to January 2020 were included and assigned to the GT group (21 cases) receiving GT chemotherapy and combination group (21 cases) given 3D-CRT combined with GT chemotherapy. The clinical efficacy, immune function, inflammatory factors, tumor markers, urinary angiogenesis molecules before and after treatment, 1-year survival rate, 2-year survival rate, and incidence of adverse reactions of the two groups were compared. SPSS 22.0 statistical software was used for data processing and analysis. Results: The combination group had 5 cases of CR, 12 cases of PR, 3 cases of SD, and 1 case of PD, with an ORR of 80.95% (17/21), which was remarkably higher than the ORR of 57.14% (12/21) in the GT group which had 3 cases of CR, 9 cases of PR, 5 cases of SD, and 4 cases of PD (P < 0.05). The 1-year survival rate of the combination group was 76.19% (16/21), and the 2-year survival rate was 47.62% (10/21), which were higher than the 1-year survival rate of 47.62% (10/21) and 2-year survival rate of 19.05% (4/21) in the GT group (P < 0.05). The two groups presented similar results in terms of adverse reactions rate (P > 0.05). After treatment, the combination group obtained significantly lower levels of urinary bladder cancer antigen (UBC), nuclear matrix protein-22 (NMP-22), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) than the GT group (P < 0.05). The CD3+, CD4+, and CD4+/CD8+ levels of the two groups of patients were lower than those before treatment (P < 0.05), but no statistical difference was observed between the two groups after treatment (P > 0.05). The levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and interferon-γ (IFN-γ) of the two groups witnessed a decline after treatment, with lower results in the combination group as compared to the control group (P < 0.05). Before treatment, no significant difference in the Generic Quality of Life Inventory-74 (GQOLI-74) score between the two groups was found (P > 0.05). After treatment, the combination group had higher GQOLI-74 scores than the GT group (P < 0.05). Conclusion: 3D-CRT combined with GT chemotherapy yields a significant effect on the treatment of elderly advanced bladder cancer by effectively protecting immune function, mitigating inflammation, inhibiting tumor marker levels and the expression of angiogenic molecules, and improving patients' survival.

Tonoplast inositol transporters: Roles in plant abiotic stress response and crosstalk with other signals.

Inositol transporters (INT) are thought to be the pivotal transporters for vital metabolites, in particular lipids, minerals, and sugars. These transporters play an important role in transitional metabolism and various signaling pathways in plants through regulating the transduction of messages from hormones, neurotransmitters, and immunologic and growth factors. Extensive studies have been conducted on animal INT, with promising outcomes. However, only few recent studies have highlighted the importance and complexity of INT genes in the regulation of plant physiology stages, including growth and tolerance to stress conditions. The present review summarizes the most recent findings concerning the role of INT or inositol genes in plant metabolism and the response mechanisms triggered by external stressors. Moreover, we highlight the emerging role of vacuoles and vacuolar INT in plant molecular transition and their related roles in plant growth and development. INTs are the essential mediators of inositol uptake and its intracellular broadcasting for various metabolic pathways where they play crucial roles. Additionally, we report evidence on Na+/inositol transporters, which until now have only been characterized in animals, as well as H+/inositol symporters and their kinetic functions and physiological role and suggest their roles and operating mode in plants. A more comprehensive understanding of the INT functioning system, in particular the coordinated movement of inositol and the relation between inositol generation and other important plant signaling pathways, would greatly advance the study of plant stress adaptation.

Comparative analysis of physiological variations and genetic architecture for cold stress response in soybean germplasm.

Soybean (Glycine max L.) is susceptible to low temperatures. Increasing lines of evidence indicate that abiotic stress-responsive genes are involved in plant low-temperature stress response. However, the involvement of photosynthesis, antioxidants and metabolites genes in low temperature response is largely unexplored in Soybean. In the current study, a genetic panel of diverse soybean varieties was analyzed for photosynthesis, chlorophyll fluorescence and leaf injury parameters under cold stress and control conditions. This helps us to identify cold tolerant (V100) and cold sensitive (V45) varieties. The V100 variety outperformed for antioxidant enzymes activities and relative expression of photosynthesis (Glyma.08G204800.1, Glyma.12G232000.1), GmSOD (GmSOD01, GmSOD08), GmPOD (GmPOD29, GmPOD47), trehalose (GmTPS01, GmTPS13) and cold marker genes (DREB1E, DREB1D, SCOF1) than V45 under cold stress. Upon cold stress, the V100 variety showed reduced accumulation of H2O2 and MDA levels and subsequently showed lower leaf injury compared to V45. Together, our results uncovered new avenues for identifying cold tolerant soybean varieties from a large panel. Additionally, we identified the role of antioxidants, osmo-protectants and their posttranscriptional regulators miRNAs such as miR319, miR394, miR397, and miR398 in Soybean cold stress tolerance.

Urination behaviours of senior citizens in five Chinese cities: Results of a cross-sectional survey.

AIM: To investigate the urination behaviours of senior citizens in China. METHODS: Stratified random sampling was used to recruit senior citizens who met the inclusion criteria from five cities in China. After training by researchers, participants recorded their urination behaviours in real time by using the validated 7-day 24-hour urination behaviour record, which consisted of frequency of urination, time of urination, urinary urgency and urine colour. RESULTS: Of the 551 recruited participants, 524 (233 male and 291 female) completed the survey, yielding a completion rate of 95.1%. The median frequency of urination was 7.4 times per day. The frequency of urination was highest among participants in Guangzhou, at 8.0 times per day (χ2  = 29.356; P < .001), and participants in the first percentile body mass index group, at 8.0 times per day (χ2  = 10.344; P = .016). The percentage of participants who urinated >7 times during the day was 44.3%. The percentage of participants who urinated ≥1 time at night was 77.5%. The number of times participants reported feeling no urge to urinate, a strong urge to urinate and an uncomfortable urge to urinate accounted for 59.7%, 62.8% and 24.8% of all records of urinary urgency, respectively. Instances of patients having no urge to urinate, a strong urgent to urinate and an uncomfortable urge accounted for 16.1%, 13.3% and 2.9% of all instances of urination, respectively. The number of times participants whose urine was yellow and dark yellow accounted for 69.1% and 18.9% of all records of urine colour, respectively. Urine with yellow and dark yellow colour accounted for 13.0% and 1.5%, respectively. CONCLUSION: Unhealthy urination behaviours, including urinating at night and holding back urine, were common among senior citizens. This result can provide information for the prevention and control of urinary system diseases.

Image scanning microscopy with a long depth of focus generated by an annular radially polarized beam.

Image scanning microscopy (ISM) is a promising tool for bioimaging owing to its integration of signal to noise ratio (SNR) and super resolution superior to that obtained in confocal scanning microscopy. In this paper, we introduce the annular radially polarized beam to the ISM, which yields an axially extended excitation focus and enhanced resolution, providing a new possibility to obtain the whole information of thick specimen with a single scan. We present the basic principle and a rigorous theoretical model for ISM with annular radially polarized beam (ISM-aRP). Results show that the resolution of ISM-aRP can be enhanced by 4% compared with that in conventional ISM, and the axial extent of the focus is longer than 6λ. The projected view of the simulated fluorescent beads suspension specimen demonstrates the validity of ISM-aRP to obtain the whole information of volume sample. Moreover, this simple method can be easily integrated into the commercial laser scanning microscopy systems.

A morphing-Based 3D point cloud reconstruction framework for medical image processing.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: In the virtual surgery simulation system, the reconstruction of a highly precise soft tissue 3D model is an effective method to improve the user's visual telepresence. However, the traditional point cloud generation method based on subdivision and filling is unsatisfactory due to its low accuracy and slow speed. METHODS: To address this problem, we present a novel 3D point cloud reconstructing model based on Morphing. The 3D surface model of soft tissue (live) is obtained from a series of 2D CT images using Mimics. The 3D voxel model of soft tissue is reconstructed through a sequential change of the 3D surface model by utilizing Morphing. A nonlinear interpolation method is used to fit the irregular shape of the model and improve simulation accuracy. RESULTS: The point cloud model builds from discrete points, avoiding the problems of instability and computational complexity, which are inherent in both the surface and volume models for soft tissue. Compared with the volumetric subdividing and voxel filling method, the simulation results show that the 3D cloud model reconstructed based on Morphing is more fast, accurate and consistent with the real soft tissue. CONCLUSIONS: The simulating experiment of soft tissue deformation using 3D point cloud model which reconstructed using moprhing proved our method is effective and correct.

A case report of a woman after childbirth with a dehisced abdominal wound as well as fat liquefaction and large skin necrosis.

Recently high-frequency electric knife and abdominal binder are widely used in the abdominal operation in China. Nevertheless, with the high occurrence of the abdominal wound, we think that whether both these operations could be used or not. Here, we report the case of a 40-year-old female patient where negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) was applied to her dehisced abdominal wound as well as fat liquefaction and large skin necrosis with pleasing results. The patient with high fever was referred to our department from her earlier hospital for 6 days after cesarean delivery. During the surgery, her earlier doctor used a high-frequency electric knife for convenient-using, and after the operation, the patient immediately used an abdominal binder for good shape. However, the abdominal surgical incision was opened at postoperative day 3, with fat liquefaction releasing large fatty acids along both abdominal sides with penetration under the abdominal binder. After admitted at postoperative day 6 with aggravating wound, surgery was considered because of no reduction in the size of the wound. A series of vacuum sealing drainage (VSD) or vacuum-assisted closure (VAC) as well as others, were operated. In the admitted 25th day, the wound was completely closed. NPWT is a practical and effective therapy for the treatment of numerous refractory and intractable wounds. Therefore, we suggest that the high-frequency electric knife and an abdominal binder should be avoided using an abdominal operation. This case is the first report of the use of NPWT over a dehisced abdominal wound with fat liquefaction and large skin necrosis on a postpartum patient in China.

Depolarization and repolarization parameters on ECG predict recurrence after atrial fibrillation ablation in patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

INTRODUCTION: The outcomes of atrial fibrillation (AF) ablation remain suboptimal. It is important to identify which AF patients will most likely benefit from ablation and who are more likely to show treatment failure, especially in those with structural heart disease such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). METHODS AND RESULTS: We enrolled 120 HCM patients who underwent primary AF ablation (48 with persistent AF). Preprocedural QTc was measured and corrected using the Bazett's formula, and the distribution of fragmentation of the QRS complex (fQRS) was recorded. Arrhythmia recurrence was defined as any kind of documented atrial tachyarrhythmia of more than 30 seconds. Overall, arrhythmia recurrence occurred in 69 patients after 13.4 months' follow-up. fQRS was present in 71 (59.17%) patients and was most commonly (81.69%) observed in the inferior leads. QTc more than 448 ms could predict arrhythmia recurrence with a sensitivity of 68.1% and specificity of 68.6%. Patients with QTc more than 448 ms (hazard ratio [HR]: 1.982; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.155-3.402; P = .013) or those with fQRS+ (HR: 1.922; 95% CI: 1.151-3.210; P = .012) were at an increased risk of recurrence. A combination of fQRS+ and QTc more than 448 ms was superior to fQRS or QTc alone in predicting arrhythmia recurrence. CONCLUSION: In patients with HCM undergoing AF ablation, QTc prolongation, specifically >448 ms, and presence of fQRS are independent risk factors for arrhythmia recurrence at follow-up. The combination of these two parameters has greater predictive value and would help to identify patients who are at the highest risk of procedural failure.