Early Tibial Vessel Recoil Following Treatment With the Bare Temporary Spur Stent System: Results From the DEEPER OUS Vessel Recoil Substudy.

PURPOSE: Vessel recoil is a common phenomenon occurring in the tibial vessels following balloon angioplasty. This study examined the occurrence and short-term impact of acute vessel recoil in a subset of patients treated with retrievable scaffold therapy (RST) via the Spur Peripheral Retrievable Scaffold System (Spur). METHODS: Patients with tibial disease underwent angiography immediately following RST, and then 15 minutes post-treatment. Vessel recoil was defined as a ≥10% decrease in lumen diameter after 15 minutes. Recoil was further analyzed by late lumen loss method, subsegmental late lumen loss method, and smallest segment to same segment method. Patient and vessel characteristics were evaluated. Functional recoil (acute vessel spasm), defined as no significant change in minimal lumen diameter (MLD) at baseline compared with 15 minutes post-treatment, was also evaluated. RESULTS: Of the 38 patients (40 lesions; 33 men [87%]; mean [SD] age 75.3 [8.2] years; 26 (68.4%) with diabetes mellitus); recoil was noted in 42.5% of vessels. Prior to treatment, 13 lesions (32.5%) were total occlusions, the mean lesion length was 64.7±30.4 mm, and 27.5% (11/40) were moderate or severely calcified. Mean treated lesion length was 97.8±39.6 mm. For lesions evaluable by duplex ultrasound, 86.7% of vessels (26/30) were patent at 6 months. There was no significant difference in patency between lesions with recoil and lesions without recoil (81.8% vs 89.5%); there was a trend toward patency in the non-recoil group. Two lesions had functional recoil (acute vessel spasm) and were patent at 6 months. There was no statistically significant correlation of recoil to comorbidities or lesion characteristics, including calcification, for which there was also no correlation to patency. CONCLUSION: Vessel recoil was noted in 42.5% of vessels treated with RST, whereas previous published rates with balloon angioplasty demonstrated vessel recoil up to 97%, suggesting that RST may impact vessel recoil. This exploratory study did not demonstrate a correlation between vessel recoil and patency at 6 months. CLINICAL IMPACT: Retrievable scaffold therapy may replace scoring devices and cutting devices for vessel preparation before definite (drug) therapy. Retrievable scaffold therapy supplements already established vessel preparation strategies in order to follow the concept of leaving nothing behaind. A temporary retrievable scaffold for changing vessel compliance and potentially releasing antiproliferative drugs represents a new interventional concept.

Chiral Macrocycles for Enantioselective Recognition.

The efficient synthesis of chiral macrocycles with highly enantioselective recognition remains a challenge. We have addressed this issue by synthesizing a pair of chiral macrocycles, namely, R/S-BINOL[2], achieving total isolated yields of up to 62% through a two-step reaction sequence. These macrocycles are readily purified by column chromatography over silica gel without the need for chiral separation, thus streamlining the overall synthesis. R/S-BINOL[2] demonstrated enantioselective recognition toward chiral ammonium salts, with enantioselectivity (KS/KR) values reaching up to 13.2, although less favorable separations were seen for other substrates. R/S-BINOL[2] also displays blue circularly polarized luminescence with a |glum| value of up to 2.2 × 10-3. The R/S-BINOL[2] macrocycles of this study are attractive as chiral hosts in that they both display enantioselective guest recognition and benefit from a concise, high-yielding synthesis. As such, they may have a role to play in chiral separations.

Reverse Gradient Distributions of Drug and Polymer Molecules within Electrospun Core-Shell Nanofibers for Sustained Release.

Core-shell nanostructures are powerful platforms for the development of novel nanoscale drug delivery systems with sustained drug release profiles. Coaxial electrospinning is facile and convenient for creating medicated core-shell nanostructures with elaborate designs with which the sustained-release behaviors of drug molecules can be intentionally adjusted. With resveratrol (RES) as a model for a poorly water-soluble drug and cellulose acetate (CA) and PVP as polymeric carriers, a brand-new electrospun core-shell nanostructure was fabricated in this study. The guest RES and the host CA molecules were designed to have a reverse gradient distribution within the core-shell nanostructures. Scanning electron microscope and transmission electron microscope evaluations verified that these nanofibers had linear morphologies, without beads or spindles, and an obvious core-shell double-chamber structure. The X-ray diffraction patterns and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic results indicated that the involved components were highly compatible and presented in an amorphous molecular distribution state. In vitro dissolution tests verified that the new core-shell structures were able to prevent the initial burst release, extend the continuous-release time period, and reduce the negative tailing-off release effect, thus ensuring a better sustained-release profile than the traditional blended drug-loaded nanofibers. The mechanism underlying the influence of the new core-shell structure with an RES/CA reverse gradient distribution on the behaviors of RES release is proposed. Based on this proof-of-concept demonstration, a series of advanced functional nanomaterials can be similarly developed based on the gradient distributions of functional molecules within electrospun multi-chamber nanostructures.

Illuminating the future of precision cancer surgery with fluorescence imaging and artificial intelligence convergence.

Real-time and accurate guidance for tumor resection has long been anticipated by surgeons. In the past decade, the flourishing material science has made impressive progress in near-infrared fluorophores that may fulfill this purpose. Fluorescence imaging-guided surgery shows great promise for clinical application and has undergone widespread evaluations, though it still requires continuous improvements to transition this technique from bench to bedside. Concurrently, the rapid progress of artificial intelligence (AI) has revolutionized medicine, aiding in the screening, diagnosis, and treatment of human doctors. Incorporating AI helps enhance fluorescence imaging and is poised to bring major innovations to surgical guidance, thereby realizing precision cancer surgery. This review provides an overview of the principles and clinical evaluations of fluorescence-guided surgery. Furthermore, recent endeavors to synergize AI with fluorescence imaging were presented, and the benefits of this interdisciplinary convergence were discussed. Finally, several implementation strategies to overcome technical hurdles were proposed to encourage and inspire future research to expedite the clinical application of these revolutionary technologies.

Polygala fallax Hemsl polysaccharides alleviated alcoholic fatty liver disease by modifying lipid metabolism via AMPK.

Alcoholic fatty liver disease (AFLD) is characterized by excessive lipid accumulation in the liver. This study aimed to investigate the protective effects and mechanisms of Polygala fallax Hemsl polysaccharides (PFPs) on AFLD. PFPs were purified and structurally characterized. An AFLD model was established in mice using alcohol and a high-fat diet. A significant reduction in hepatic steatosis was observed following PFPs treatment, evidenced by decreased fat deposition in liver tissues. Additionally, PFPs reduced various liver injury markers, increased levels of antioxidant enzymes, and improved significantly liver function. RNA sequencing revealed that PFPs improved lipid and CYP450 metabolic pathway abnormalities in AFLD mice. Furthermore, PFPs activated the AMPK pathway, reducing lipid accumulation and enhancing lipid metabolism. A HepG2 cell model treated with ethanol and oleic acid showed significant biochemical improvements with PFPs pretreatment, including reduced lipid accumulation and lower reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. To further elucidate the AMPK and PFPs correlation in AFLD, an AMPK inhibitor (compound C) was used. In vitro and in vivo qRT-PCR and Western blot results confirmed that PFPs protected against AFLD by activating AMPK phosphorylation, regulating lipid synthesis, and inhibiting lipid accumulation. PFPs also modulated CYP2E1 and oxidative stress-related gene expression, affecting liver metabolism.

Medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw: a retrospective single center study of recurrence-related factors after surgical treatment.

OBJECTIVES: To provide an overview of the features of patients with medication-related osteonecrosis of the jaw (MRONJ) and explore recurrence-related factors after surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All pathological records of patients diagnosed with osteonecrosis or osteomyelitis of the jaw were reviewed. Only patients who had a history of use of medication related to bone turnover were included. All demographic and clinical characteristics were collected during review. Univariate and logistic regression analyses were performed to evaluate the associations between risk factors and recurrence. A p value < 0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance in all analyses. RESULTS: A total of 313 patients were ultimately included. Most patients (89.14%) underwent bone turnover-related treatment due to malignancy. The breast and prostate were the most common locations of primary tumors in females and males, respectively. Almost all MRONJ patients experienced inflammatory symptoms. Recurrence occurred in 55 patients at 60 locations. The total recurrence rate was 16.85%, with no significant differences between the maxilla and mandible. Extensive surgery and flap transfer were strongly related to a lower recurrence risk. Nearly 80% of patients had recurrence-related symptoms within 6 months. CONCLUSION: When MRONJ is treated with surgical methods, extensive resection and flap transfer can reduce recurrence risk. Six-month follow-up is needed to exclude recurrence after surgery. CLINICAL RELEVANCE: This study revealed the surgical-related risk factors, such as extensive surgery and flap transfer, when treating MRONJ patients, and 6-month follow-up is needed to detect recurrence. This could provide clinical guidance for head and neck surgeons.

Guided wave multi-frequency damage localization method in variable-thickness structures by one pair of sensors based on frequency-dependent velocity anisotropy.

Variable thickness structures are prevalent in aircraft, ships, and other machines, necessitating numerous sensors for health monitoring to reduce safety hazards. This paper presents a guided wave multi-frequency localization method based on frequency-dependent velocity anisotropy. This method achieves damage localization in variable-thickness structures with a pair of sensors and can effectively reduce the number of sensors used for monitoring. Variations in structural thickness cause a gradient in guided wave velocity that bends the propagation path. Different thickness variations with different directions cause wave velocity anisotropy. As a result, variations in thickness cause possible damage loci determined by echo time to deviate from an elliptical shape. Because the velocity anisotropy is frequency-dependent, damage loci at different frequencies are close but do not overlap and intersect only at the damage location. So, the multi-frequency method can increase the damage information acquired by a single pair of sensors, enabling damage localization. Experimental validation was conducted on a steel plate with linearly varying thicknesses. The feasibility of the multi-frequency localization method was verified by successfully locating the damage at three different locations using a pair of receiver-excitation sensors. In addition, the experiments demonstrated the capability of this multi-frequency method in improving the localization accuracy of sensor networks. The method has potential applications in monitoring systems lightweight, phased arrays, and imaging enhancement.

Curcumin attenuated neuroinflammation via the TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB signaling way in the juvenile rat hippocampus following kainic acid-induced epileptic seizures.

The study examined curcumin's impart on relieving neuroinflammation of juvenile rats in kainic acid (KA) induced epileptic seizures by inhibiting the TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB pathway. There were five groups: control, KA, KA + curcumin (KC), KA + oxcarbazepine (OXC) (KO), KA + curcumin + OXC (KCO) groups. KA was stereotactically injected into right hippocampus following intraperitoneal injection of curcumin or (and) OXC for seven days. The rats in the above groups were randomly divided into three subgroups (at 6 h, 24 h, and 72 h of KA administration) following the seizure degree assessed. The number of NeuN (+) neurons and GFAP (+) astrocytes was counted. The gene and protein levels of TLR4, MyD88, and NF-κB were detected. Compared with the KA group, the seizure latency was longer, and the incidence of status epilepticus (SE) was lower in the KC, KO, and KCO groups. The most significant changes were in the KCO group. At 72 h following KA injected, the number of neurons was the least, and the number of astrocytes was the most in the KA group. The number of neurons was the most and the number of astrocytes was the least in the KCO group. At 24 h, the mRNA and protein levels of TLR4, MyD88, and NF-κB in the KA group were the most. The above valves were the least in the KCO group. Therefore, curcumin could enhance anti-epileptic effect of OXC, protect injured neurons and reduce proliferated glial cells of the hippocampus of epileptic rats by inhibiting inflammation via the TLR4/MyD88/NF-κB pathway.

Determining the Cause of Coronary Vasomotor Disorders in Patients With Ischemia and Nonobstructive Coronary Arteries: Design and Rationale of the DISCOVER INOCA Prospective, Multicenter Registry.

Background: Approximately 30% to 50% of patients who are referred for diagnostic coronary angiography are found to have no obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD). Ischemia and nonobstructive coronary arteries (INOCA) is increasingly recognized and encompasses coronary microvascular dysfunction, vasospastic angina, symptomatic myocardial bridging, and other vasomotor disorders. However, the prevalence of these disorders and whether underlying atherosclerotic plaque burden and morphology affect the long-term outcomes of each physiologic phenotype is unknown. Methods: The DISCOVER INOCA registry is ongoing at 8 centers in the United States and plans to enroll 500 patients with ischemic heart disease referred for angiography undergoing coronary function testing (CFT). All participants will complete patient-reported outcome measures and undergo protocol-guided angiography, acetylcholine provocation, coronary thermodilution, and intravascular imaging. Follow-up assessments occur at 30 days, 6 months, 1 year, and annually for 5 years. The primary short-term end point is the prevalence of INOCA phenotypes based on physiology and the degree of atherosclerosis based on intravascular ultrasound or optical coherence tomography (intravascular imaging). The primary long-term end point is the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events, defined as a composite of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, hospitalization for cardiovascular causes, or coronary revascularization at a follow-up of 5 years. At the time of this publication, 100 participants have been enrolled. Conclusions: DISCOVER INOCA is the first prospective study of INOCA patients to integrate anatomic and physiologic measures of disease and correlate them with long-term outcomes. DISCOVER INOCA will report on the prevalence of INOCA phenotypes, the safety of comprehensive invasive CFT, and the impact of testing on diagnoses and medical therapy. Symptoms and cardiovascular adverse events at long-term follow-up will be determined in patients with no obstructive CAD undergoing angiography.

BBSdb, an open resource for bacterial biofilm-associated proteins.

Bacterial biofilms are organized heterogeneous assemblages of microbial cells encased within a self-produced matrix of exopolysaccharides, extracellular DNA and proteins. Over the last decade, more and more biofilm-associated proteins have been discovered and investigated. Furthermore, omics techniques such as transcriptomes, proteomes also play important roles in identifying new biofilm-associated genes or proteins. However, those important data have been uploaded separately to various databases, which creates obstacles for biofilm researchers to have a comprehensive access to these data. In this work, we constructed BBSdb, a state-of-the-art open resource of bacterial biofilm-associated protein. It includes 48 different bacteria species, 105 transcriptome datasets, 21 proteome datasets, 1205 experimental samples, 57,823 differentially expressed genes (DEGs), 13,605 differentially expressed proteins (DEPs), 1,930 'Top 5% differentially expressed genes', 444 'Threshold-based DEGs' and a predictor for prediction of biofilm-associated protein. In addition, 1,781 biofilm-associated proteins, including annotation and sequences, were extracted from 942 articles and public databases via text-mining analysis. We used E. coli as an example to represent how to explore potential biofilm-associated proteins in bacteria. We believe that this study will be of broad interest to researchers in field of bacteria, especially biofilms, which are involved in bacterial growth, pathogenicity, and drug resistance. Availability and implementation: The BBSdb is freely available at http://124.222.145.44/#!/.

Tetramerization of PKM2 Alleviates Traumatic Brain Injury by Ameliorating Mitochondrial Damage in Microglia.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Microglial activation and neuroinflammation are key cellular events that determine the outcome of TBI, especially neuronal and cognitive function. Studies have suggested that the metabolic characteristics of microglia dictate their inflammatory response. The pyruvate kinase isoform M2 (PKM2), a key glycolytic enzyme, is involved in the regulation of various cellular metabolic processes, including mitochondrial metabolism. This suggests that PKM2 may also participate in the regulation of microglial activation during TBI. Therefore, the present study aimed to evaluate the role of PKM2 in regulating microglial activation and neuroinflammation and its effects on cognitive function following TBI. A controlled cortical impact (CCI) mouse model and inflammation-induced primary mouse microglial cells in vitro were used to investigate the potential effects of PKM2 inhibition and regulation. PKM2 was significantly increased during the acute and subacute phases of TBI and was predominantly detected in microglia rather than in neurons. Our results demonstrate that shikonin and TEPP-46 can inhibit microglial inflammation, improving mitochondria, improving mouse behavior, reducing brain defect volume, and alleviating pathological changes after TBI. There is a difference in the intervention of shikonin and TEPP-46 on PKM2. Shikonin directly inhibits General PKM2; TEPP-46 can promote the expression of PKM2 tetramer. In vitro experiments, TEPP-46 can promote the expression of PKM2 tetramer, enhance the interaction between PKM2 and MFN2, improve mitochondria, alleviate neuroinflammation. General inhibition and tetramerization activation of PKM2 attenuated cognitive function caused by TBI, whereas PKM2 tetramerization exhibited a better treatment effect. Our experiments demonstrated the non-metabolic role of PKM2 in the regulation of microglial activation following TBI. Both shikonin and TEPP-46 can inhibit pro-inflammatory factors, but only TEPP-46 can promote PKM2 tetramerization and upregulate the release of anti-inflammatory factors from microglia.

Safe MPC-based disturbance rejection control for uncertain nonlinear systems with state constraints.

This paper studies a safe model predictive control (MPC)-based disturbance rejection control for a broad range of uncertain nonlinear systems subject to complex state safety constraints. The system under study is composed of a nominal model and an uncertain term that encapsulates modeling uncertainty, control mismatch, and external disturbances. In order to estimate the system state and total uncertainty, an extended state observer (ESO) is first designed. Utilizing the output of the ESO, the control compensates for the total uncertainty in real time and concurrently implements a control barrier function (CBF)-based MPC for the compensated system. The proposed control framework guarantees both safety and disturbance rejection. Compared to the baseline algorithm CBF-MPC, the proposed method significantly enhances system stability with a smaller root mean square (RMS) error of the system state from the equilibrium point. Rigorous theoretical analysis and simulation experiments are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

H3K9 lactylation in malignant cells facilitates CD8+ T cell dysfunction and poor immunotherapy response.

Histone lysine lactylation (Kla) is a post-translational modification, and its role in tumor immune escape remains unclear. Here, we find that increased histone lactylation is associated with poor response to immunotherapy in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). H3K9la is identified as a specific modification site in HNSCC. Using cleavage under targets and tagmentation analyses, interleukin-11 (IL-11) is identified as a downstream regulatory gene of H3K9la. IL-11 transcriptionally activates immune checkpoint genes through JAK2/STAT3 signaling in CD8+ T cells. Additionally, IL-11 overexpression promotes tumor progression and CD8+ T cell dysfunction in vivo. Moreover, IL11 knockdown reverses lactate-induced CD8+ T cell exhaustion, and cholesterol-modified siIL11 restores CD8+ T cell killing activity and enhances immunotherapy efficacy. Clinically, H3K9la positively correlates with IL-11 expression and unfavorable immunotherapy responses in patients. This study reveals the crucial role of histone lactylation in immune escape, providing insights into immunotherapy strategies for HNSCC.

Exploration of undergraduate nursing students' perspectives on conducting specialized nursing education during internship: A phenomenological research study.

AIM: To comprehend the perspectives of undergraduate nursing students on conducting specialized nursing education during the internship phase, providing a basis for colleges to formulate plans for specialized nursing education. BACKGROUND: Nursing specialty in China was included in the national controlled specialty in 2024, which means signifying an effort to decrease the enrollment of junior college degree nurses, thereby increasing the number of high-quality undergraduate nurses. While the higher the education level of nursing students, the higher their expectations for themselves. However, after entering clinical practice, their social status and job nature are significantly different from those of doctors, which creates a psychological imbalance. In addition, employers lack a reasonable employment mechanism and undergraduate nursing students are used equally with vocational and technical nursing students, making them feel that their self-worth is difficult to realize. Therefore, their professional attitude becomes more negative (Meng Wei, 2018). In the process of forming professional identity among undergraduate nursing students, the professional role models and clinical experience of specialized nurses can serve as important promoting factors. By increasing interaction with specialized nurses and learning specialized nursing, undergraduate nursing students can better understand the professional role and values of nurses and form positive professional ethics and attitudes (Huang et al., 2023). To better adapt to the national health needs and assist undergraduates in transitioning to clinical practice, deepening the understanding of the profession and career, the integration of professional education during the internship phase can enable students to recognize their strengths, cultivate an awareness of suitable professions and facilitate a targeted adaptation from academic studies to clinical practice. DESIGN: The researcher initially drafted the interview outline through a literature review and intra-group discussions. To ensure the research content's richness, a semi-structured interview method was adopted. The Colaizzi seven-step analysis method was applied in the analysis. METHODS: Employing phenomenological study and purposive sampling, with data saturation as the guiding principle, 24 undergraduate nursing students undergoing internship at a tertiary hospital in China were selected for focus group interviews. RESULTS: Four main themes were extracted from the perspectives of undergraduate nursing students. These themes encompass awareness of specialized nursing and specialized nurses, recognition of specialized nursing education during the internship phase, demands for specialized nursing education during the internship phase and career expectations. CONCLUSION: Nursing administrators in hospitals and educational managers in colleges should prioritize align education with clinical needs, address the requirements of nursing students, strengthen collaboration between institutions，and advance the further development of specialized nursing.

Deep Variational Network for Blind Pansharpening.

Deep-learning-based methods play an important role in pansharpening that uses panchromatic images to enhance the spatial resolution of multispectral images while maintaining spectral features. However, most existing methods mainly consider only one fixed degradation in the training process. Therefore, their performance may drop significantly when the degradation of testing data is unknown (blind) and different from the training data, which is common in real-world applications. To address this issue, we proposed a deep variational network for blind pansharpening, named VBPN, which integrates degradation estimation and image fusion into a whole Bayesian framework. First, by taking the noise and blurring parameters of the multispectral image with the noise parameters of the panchromatic image as hidden variables, we parameterize the approximate posterior distribution for the fusion problem using neural networks. Since all parameters in this posterior distribution are explicitly modeled, the degradation parameters of the multispectral image and the panchromatic image are easily estimated. Furthermore, we designed VPBN composed of degradation estimation and image fusion subnetworks, which can optimize the fusion results guided by the variational inference according to the testing data. As a result, the blind pansharpening performance can be improved. In general, VPBN has good interpretability and generalization ability by combining the advantages of model-based and deep-learning-based approaches. Experiments on simulated and real datasets prove that VPBN can achieve state-of-the-art fusion results.

Association between estimated pulse wave velocity and in-hospital and one-year mortality of patients with chronic kidney disease and atherosclerotic heart disease: a retrospective cohort analysis of the MIMIC-IV database.

BACKGROUND: Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity has been identified as an autonomous predictor of cardiovascular mortality and kidney injury. This important clinical parameter can be non-invasively estimated using the calculated pulse wave velocity (ePWV). The objective of this study was to examine the correlation between ePWV and in-hospital as well as one-year mortality among critically ill patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and atherosclerotic heart disease (ASHD). METHODS: This study included a cohort of 1173 patients diagnosed with both CKD and ASHD, sourced from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care IV (MIMIC-IV) database. The four groups divided into quartiles according to ePWV were compared using a Kaplan-Meier survival curve to assess variations in survival rates. Cox proportional hazards models were employed to analyze the correlation between ePWV and in-hospital as well as one-year mortality among critically ill patients with both CKD and ASHD. To further investigate the dose-response relationship, a restricted cubic splines (RCS) model was utilized. Additionally, stratification analyses were performed to examine the impact of ePWV on hospital and one-year mortality across different subgroups. RESULTS: The survival analysis results revealed a negative correlation between higher ePWV and survival rate. After adjusting for confounding factors, higher ePWV level (ePWV > 11.90 m/s) exhibited a statistically significant association with an increased risk of both in-hospital and one-year mortality among patients diagnosed with both CKD and ASHD (HR = 4.72, 95% CI = 3.01-7.39, p < 0.001; HR = 2.04, 95% CI = 1.31-3.19, p = 0.002). The analysis incorporating an RCS model confirmed a linear escalation in the risk of both in-hospital and one-year mortality with rising ePWV values (P for nonlinearity = 0.619; P for nonlinearity = 0.267). CONCLUSIONS: The ePWV may be a potential marker for the in-hospital and one-year mortality assessment of CKD with ASHD, and elevated ePWV was strongly correlated with an elevated mortality risk in patients diagnosed with both CKD and ASHD.

Porous Organic Cage as an Efficient Platform for Industrial Radioactive Iodine Capture.

Herein, we firstly develop porous organic cage (POC) as an efficient platform for highly effective radioactive iodine capture under industrial operating conditions (typically ≥150 °C), ≤150 ppmv of I2). Due to the highly dispersed and readily accessible binding sites as well as sufficient accommodating space, the constructed NKPOC-DT-(I-) (NKPOC=Nankai porous organic cage) demonstrates a record-high I2 uptake capacity of 48.35 wt % and extraordinary adsorption capacity of unit ionic site (~1.62) at 150 °C and 150 ppmv of I2. The I2 capacity is 3.5, 1.6, and 1.3 times higher than industrial silver-based adsorbents Ag@MOR and benchmark materials of TGDM and 4F-iCOF-TpBpy-I- under the same conditions. Furthermore, NKPOC-DT-(I-)Me exhibits remarkable adsorption kinetics (k1=0.013 min-1), which is 1.2 and 1.6 times higher than TGDM and 4F-iCOF-TpBpy-I- under the identical conditions. NKPOC-DT-(I-)Me thus sets a new benchmark for industrial radioactive I2 adsorbents. This work not only provides a new insight for effectively enhancing the adsorption capacity of unit functional sites, but also advances POC as an efficient platform for radioiodine capture in industry.

Alginate-Based Electrospun Nanofibers and the Enabled Drug Controlled Release Profiles: A Review.

Alginate is a natural polymer with good biocompatible properties and is a potential polymeric material for the sustainable development and replacement of petroleum derivatives. However, the non-spinnability of pure alginate solutions has hindered the expansion of alginate applications. With the continuous development of electrospinning technology, synthetic polymers, such as PEO and PVA, are used as co-spinning agents to increase the spinnability of alginate. Moreover, the coaxial, parallel Janus, tertiary and other diverse and novel electrospun fiber structures prepared by multi-fluid electrospinning have found a new breakthrough for the problem of poor spinning of natural polymers. Meanwhile, the diverse electrospun fiber structures effectively achieve multiple release modes of drugs. The powerful combination of alginate and electrostatic spinning is widely used in many biomedical fields, such as tissue engineering, regenerative engineering, bioscaffolds, and drug delivery, and the research fever continues to climb. This is particularly true for the controlled delivery aspect of drugs. This review provides a brief overview of alginate, introduces new advances in electrostatic spinning, and highlights the research progress of alginate-based electrospun nanofibers in achieving various controlled release modes, such as pulsed release, sustained release, biphasic release, responsive release, and targeted release.

Randomized Phase II Trial of Immunotherapy-Based Total Neoadjuvant Therapy for Proficient Mismatch Repair or Microsatellite Stable Locally Advanced Rectal Cancer (TORCH).

PURPOSE: To assess whether the integration of PD-1 inhibitor with total neoadjuvant therapy (iTNT) can lead to an improvement in complete responses (CRs) and favors a watch-and-wait (WW) strategy in patients with proficient mismatch repair or microsatellite stable (pMMR/MSS) locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). PATIENTS AND METHODS: We conducted a prospective, multicenter, randomized, open-label, phase II trial using a pick-the-winner design. Eligible patients with clinical T3-4 and/or N+ rectal adenocarcinoma were randomly assigned to group A for short-course radiotherapy (SCRT) followed by six cycles of consolidation immunochemotherapy with capecitabine and oxaliplatin and toripalimab or to group B for two cycles of induction immunochemotherapy followed by SCRT and the rest four doses. Either total mesorectal excision or WW was applied on the basis of tumor response. The primary end point was CR which included pathological CR (pCR) after surgery and clinical CR (cCR) if WW was applicable, with hypothesis of an increased CR of 40% after iTNT compared with historical data of 25% after conventional TNT. RESULTS: Of the 130 patients enrolled, 121 pMMR/MSS patients were evaluable (62 in group A and 59 in group B). At a median follow-up of 19 months, CR was achieved at 56.5% in group A and 54.2% in group B. Both groups fulfilled the predefined statistical hypothesis (P < .001). Both groups reported a pCR rate of 50%. Respectively, 15 patients in each group underwent WW and remained disease free. The most frequent grade 3 to 4 toxicities were thrombocytopenia and neutropenia. Patients in group A had higher rate of cCR (43.5% v 35.6%) at restaging and lower rate of grade 3 to 4 thrombocytopenia (24.2% v 33.9%) during neoadjuvant treatment. CONCLUSION: The iTNT regimens remarkably improved CR rates in pMMR/MSS LARC compared with historical benchmark with acceptable toxicity. Up-front SCRT followed by immunochemotherapy was selected for future definitive study.