Corticosteroid therapy for patients with severe novel Coronavirus disease 2019.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of corticosteroid on hospital mortality, hospital length of stay, and time of viral clearance in patients with severe and critical COVID-19. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with severe and critical COVID-19 who had been discharged or expired were enrolled in this study. Patients were divided into corticosteroid group and non-corticosteroid group according to the systemic corticosteroid use or not. Clinical data were collected, and hospital mortality, hospital length of stay, time of viral clearance, time of mechanical ventilation, and duration from illness onset to symptom resolution were compared between the two groups. RESULTS: A total of 72 inpatients who were diagnosed with severe and critical COVID-19 were enrolled, in which 47 patients were divided into corticosteroid group and 25 were involved as the non-corticosteroid group. Baseline characteristics were generally similar between the two groups. Four (5.6%) patients died during hospitalization, and 68 (94.4%) were discharged. Among survivors, the mean duration time from admission to discharge was 19.5d (SD 7.05 d). The mean time of viral clearance among survivors was 17.5d (SD 7.67 d), with a maximum of 37 d, and a minimum of 5 d. Hospital mortality (4.3% vs. 8.0%), length of hospital stay (18.7d vs. 21.0d), and time of viral clearance (16.1d vs. 19.4d) had no significant difference between two groups (p>0.05). The duration of symptoms suffering was shorter in the corticosteroid group than non-corticosteroid group, with statistically significant difference (p<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Corticosteroid therapy in patients with severe COVID-19 cannot reduce the hospital mortality, and is not associated with delayed viral clearance, but it could relieve the inflammatory storm and improve clinical symptoms in brief. Patients with severe COVID-19 could benefit from low-dose corticosteroid treatment.

MicroRNA-1271 inhibits the progression of papillary thyroid carcinoma by targeting IRS1 and inactivating AKT pathway.

OBJECTIVE: The important role of microRNA-1271 (miR-1271) has been identified in human diseases and cancers. However, the biological function of miR-1271 remains ambiguous in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC). Therefore, the specific role of miR-1271 was investigated in PTC. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The expressions of miR-1271 and insulin receptor substrate 1 (IRS1) were detected by quantitative Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qRT-PCR) assay. The protein expression of the genes was measured by Western blot analysis. The function of miR-1271 was investigated using methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) and transwell assays. The Dual-Luciferase assay was used to observe the relationship between miR-1271 and IRS1. RESULTS: MiR-1271 was downregulated in PTC tissues. Moreover, overexpression of miR-1271 suppressed migration, invasion and proliferation of PTC cells. Furthermore, IRS1 was indicated as a direct target gene of miR-1271 and knockdown of IRS1 inhibited cell migration, invasion and proliferation in PTC. In addition, miR-1271 inhibited the progression of PTC by targeting IRS1. Besides that, miR-1271 blocked the epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and protein kinase B (AKT) pathway in PTC. CONCLUSIONS: MiR-1271 inhibited the progression of PTC by targeting IRS1 and blocking EMT and AKT pathway.