Patient Characteristics Associated with Concurrent Klebsiella pneumoniae Infection and Severe Pulmonary Tuberculosis.

BACKGROUND: This study aims to investigate the clinical characteristics associated with concurrent Klebsiella pneu-moniae (K. pneumoniae) infection in hospitalized patients with severe pulmonary tuberculosis. METHODS: A retrospective study was conducted on hospitalized severe pulmonary tuberculosis patients between January 2019 and December 2020. Among the 487 patients with severe pulmonary tuberculosis, a positive sputum culture for K. pneumoniae was reported in 76 patients (15.6%, 61 males and 15 females). RESULTS: Among these patients, 27 (35.5%) and 49 (64.5%) patients were with and without K. pneumoniae infection, respectively. Compared to patients without K. pneumoniae infection, patients with K. pneumoniae infection had higher mortality (16.3% vs. 40.7%, p = 0.02), and lower inhibitory/cytotoxic CD8 count (24.2 ± 9.9 vs. 17.8 ± 8.0, p = 0.02), complement C4 (0.3 ± 0.1 vs. 0.2 ± 0.1, p = 0.01), and retinol-binding protein level (32.2 ± 22.2 vs. 22.4 ± 11.8, p = 0.02). Furthermore, the acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II score was associated with the K. pneumoniae infection in severe pulmonary tuberculosis patients. CONCLUSIONS: It can be concluded that a significant number of severe pulmonary tuberculosis patients can have concurrent K. pneumoniae infection. Immunity, nutritional status, and disease severity are associated with the concurrent infection of K. pneumoniae in these patients.

Relationship between Expression of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor and Cervical Lymph Node Metastasis in Papillary Thyroid Cancer: A Meta-analysis / 华中科技大学学报（医学）（英德文版）

The aim of the present study was to examine the relationship between the protein expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and lymph node metastasis (LNM) in papillary thyroid cancer (PTC).VEGF-related articles that had been published until August 2016 were searched from the PubMed,EMBASE,and MEDLINE to identify the risk factors of LNM in PTC.RevMan 5.3 software was used for the meta-analysis.Finally,9 articles met the inclusion criteria and were included in our meta-analysis.LNM was found to be present in 176 of 318 patients (57.8％) with high VEGF expression and in 71 of 159 patients (47.0％) with low VEGF expression.The overall OR was 2.81 (95％ confidence interval,1.49-5.29).LNM occurred more frequently in patients with high VEGF expression than in those with low VEGF expression (P=0.001).Heterogeneity was markedly decreased in the subgroup analyses of LNM in terms of the patients' country of origin and the detection methods.Our meta-analysis concluded that the VEGF protein expression is associated with LNM in PTC.