Primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) is a chronic, progressive optic neuropathy. The aim was to develop an evidence-based clinical practice guideline of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) for POAG with focus on Chinese medicine pattern differentiation and treatment as well as approved herbal proprietary medicine.

The relative efficacy of operative and nonoperative treatments for the displaced intra-articular calcaneal fractures (DIACF) remains uncertain.

The debate on the efficacy of unilateral percutaneous kyphoplasty (UPKP) and bilateral percutaneous kyphoplasty (BPKP) for the treatment of osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures (OVCFs) is ongoing.This meta-analysis aimed to evaluate the clinical results of UPKP and BPKP in the treatment of OVCFs.

There has been a lot of research on physical therapy for tension-type headaches. However, the efficacy of physical therapy on the suboccipital region remains unclear.

Equinus, varus, cavus, and adduction are typical signs of congenital talipes equinovarus (CTEV). Forefoot adduction remains a difficulty from using previous corrective methods. This study aims to develop a corrective method to reduce the severity of forefoot adduction of CTEV children with moderate deformities during their walking age. The devised method was compared with 2 other common corrective methods to evaluate its effectiveness. A Dennis Brown (DB) splint, DB splint with orthopedic shoes (OS), and forefoot abduct shoes (FAS) with OS were, respectively, applied to 15, 20, and 18 CTEV children with moderate deformities who were scored at their first visit according to the Diméglio classification. The mean follow-up was 44 months and the orthoses were changed as the children grew. A 3D scanner and a high-resolution pedobarograph were used to record morphological characteristics and plantar pressure distribution. One-way MAVONA analysis was used to compare the bimalleolar angle, bean-shape ratio, and pressure ratios in each study group. There were significant differences in the FAS+OS group compared to the DB and DB+OS groups (P < 0.05) for most measurements. The most salient differences were as follows: the FAS+OS group had a significantly greater bimalleolar angle (P < 0.05) and lower bean-shape ratio (P < 0.01) than the other groups; the DB+OS and FAS+OS groups had higher heel/forefoot and heel/LMF ratios (P < 0.01 and P < 0.001) than the DB group. FAS are critical for correcting improper forefoot adduction and OS are important for the correction of equinus and varus in moderately afflicted CTEV children. This study suggests that the use of FAS+OS may improve treatment outcomes for moderate CTEV children who do not show signs of serious torsional deformity.

Surgical site infections (SSI) are devastating complications after surgery for femoral neck fractures. There are a lot of literature have shown a strong association between diabetic patients and SSI. This study aimed to identify diabetes as an independent risk factor of SSI, focusing on femoral neck fractures, and to investigate the other potential risk factors for SSI.We retrospectively collected data from patients who underwent surgery for femoral neck fractures through the medical record management system at a single level 1 hospital between January 2015 and June 2016. Demographic and clinical patient factors and characteristics of SSI were recorded. The case group was defined as patients with SSI and the control group was defined as patients without SSI. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to determine the risk factors for SSI.Data were provided for 692 patients, among whom 26 had SSI, representing an incidence rate of 3.67%. In the SSI group, 24 (3.47%) patients had superficial infection and 2 (0.29%) had deep infection. On multivariate analysis, diabetes (P < .001) was determined an independent risk factor of SSI, so were surgery performed between May and September (P = .04), body mass index (P = .031), corticosteroid therapy (P = .003), anemia (P = .041), and low preoperative hemoglobin levels.Our results suggest that clinicians should recognize patients with these factors, particularly diabetes. And taking management optimally in the preoperative period will prevent the SSI after femoral neck fracture.

Urothelial cancer-associated 1 (UCA1), an oncogenic long non-coding RNA, was aberrantly upregulated in colorectal cancer (CRC). This study aimed to further explore the clinical value of UCA1 in CRC.

Chloride intracellular channel (CLIC) proteins are novel Cl-channels with 6 family members (CLIC1-6) that are known to play crucial roles in multiple physiological functions, such as neurological, cardiovascular, pulmonary, and auditory functions, and in various malignancies, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). However, considerable challenges exist in identifying appropriate CLICs as therapeutic target molecules and prognostic biomarkers for HCC because the transformation of soluble or integral membrane protein forms, and specific pharmacological agents (agonists and antagonists) for distinct CLICs remains enigmatic.To address this issue and the possible molecular basis and the signaling networks activated by CLICs in HCC, we examined the transcriptional, promoter methylation, DNA mutation, survival, and immune infiltration data of CLICs in patients with HCC using the ONCOMINE, UALCAN, GEPIA, cBioPortal, and TIMER databases.The data showed that the expression levels of CLIC family members were differed between tumor and normal tissues. High expression levels of CLIC1 and CLIC3 were associated with advanced cancer stage in HCC patients. Low CLIC1 expression was associated with a better overall survival (OS). The DNA methylation levels of the CLIC1-3 and CLIC5-6 promoters in tumor tissue with HCC were significantly lower in HCC tissues than in normal tissues. Patients with CLIC1 alterations had a shorter OS than patients with unaltered CLIC1. Moreover, the expression levels of CLICs correlated with the infiltration of 6 different immune cells (B cells, CD4+ T cells, CD8+ T cells, neutrophils, macrophages, and dendritic cells).These results indicate that the increased mRNA expression and decreased promoter DNA methylation level of CLICs may play crucial roles in HCC tumorigenesis. The expression of CLIC family members was significantly correlated with the tumor immune status. High CLIC1 and CLIC3 expression levels could serve as biomarkers for identifying advanced-stage HCC. Moreover, a CLIC1 mutation rate of 18% was also observed and CLIC1 genetic alterations were significantly associated with lower OS in HCC patients.

Explore the predictive power of Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs) for evaluating the prognosis of transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) treatment on advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) patients, and use it to construct a prediction model.We retrospectively analyzed 43 patients with Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage C HCC who underwent TACE treatment.The survival time of 43 advanced HCC patients were 2 to 60 months, with the median survival time of 12 months, 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival rates were 42.9%, 9.0%, and 3.6%, respectively. The OS of patients with high level of CTCs before TACE (CTC1 > 2) was significantly lower than that of patients with low level of CTCs (8 vs 12 months, P = .040), but there was no significant difference in PFS between the 2 groups (P = .926). Meanwhile, there was no significant difference in OS and PFS between patients with high level CTCs and those with low level CTCs at 1 week and 4 weeks after TACE (P all > .05). In univariate and multivariate Cox regression analysis, the number of lesions and CTC before TACE were the independent influencing factors for prognosis in these patients, and the HR was 3.01 and 1.20, respectively (all P < .05). The area under curve of COX regression model to predict OS increased with the increase of follow-up time, ranging from 0.56 to 0.85.The CTCs number before TACE is an effective biomarker for predicting the OS of advanced HCC patients. The joint prediction model based on CTCs and tumor number can effectively predict the prognosis of patients with advanced HCC.

Cone-rod dystrophy (CORD) is an inherited, progressive retinal disorder with genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity. Here, we aimed to identify the pathogenic mutation in affected individuals in a Chinese family with autosomal dominant cone-rod dystrophy (adCORD).

Hoffa fractures are coronal-plane fractures of the femoral condyle, which are rarer than sagittal-plane condylar fractures. This study aimed to systematically review the clinical knowledge base of Hoffa fractures to facilitate the diagnosis and management of such injuries.

This study aimed to compare the diagnostic values of contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CECT) in detecting small hepatocellular carcinoma (SHCC).

This meta-analysis aimed to compare the clinical symptoms of COVID-19 pneumonia in children.

The sensitivity of tumor cells to chemotherapy drugs may become attenuated accounts for various reasons. Reduced drug sensitivity may cause the failure of chemotherapy and affect the prognosis of patients with cancer. This study investigates the relationship between the expression levels of lung resistance protein (LRP) and placental glutathione S-transferase-P1 (GSTP1), the resistance of primary epithelial ovarian cancer (PEOC) to chemotherapy, and the prognosis of patients with platinum drug-resistant PEOC.Quantitative PCR (QT-PCR) was used to detect the mRNA level of the resistance genes LRP, GSTP1 in all tissue and cell lines.The expression levels of resistance gene (LRP, GSTP1) in PEOC were the highest, followed by borderline adenoma tissues, and the lowest levels found in benign tumor tissues, the difference of genes expression between different tissues was statistically significant; the difference between the expression rates and relative expression level of drug resistance genes was statistically significant in platinum sensitive group compare with the platinum resistant group. The difference between resistant gene negative-expression and positive-expression of chemotherapy efficiency, disease free survival time, and recurrence time were statistically significant. The resistant genes expression in the PEOC patients of the negative-group survival curves was higher than that in the positive group. With ascites non-cellular component (ANCC) stimulated SKOV3 cells, the cell proliferation inhibition rate (CPIR) increased, and with ANCC stimulated SKOV3/DDP, the expression of LRP and GSTP1 also increased.ANCC may promote the expression of drug resistance genes, and the expression of genes may predict the poorly prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer in the world, with 694,000 deaths each year. Despite improvements in treatment strategies in recent years, the overall survival rate of CRC is still very low and the survival rate is highly dependent on the stage at the time of diagnosis. Some biomarkers have shown great potential for early screening of CRC and some have been tested in systematic reviews (SRs). However, the quality of these SRs remains unclear and these SRs did not clarify which biomarker is the optimal diagnostic test. This overview will evaluate the methodological quality of available SRs and compare the diagnostic value of different biomarkers in order to find the best biomarker for diagnosing CRC.

Solitary functioning kidney (SFK) is tough issue to address in clinical, mostly developed from renal artery stenosis (RAS) in adults. Although renal artery stent is widely used to help SFK patients, the efficacy of the stent is still disputable. This study is aimed at reviewing a series of SFK cases to draw a conclusion about the efficacy of renal artery stent.

Glioma is a complex tumor composed of both neoplastic and non-neoplastic cells, including tumor-infiltrating leukocytes (TILs), and each cell type contributes to tumor formation and malignant progression. Among TILs, tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) are of great importance and play a key role in the immune response to cancer. In this study, 22 types of adaptive and innate TILs were evaluated in gliomas. TAMs, which account for 38.7% of all these cells, are the most abundant immune infiltrates in the tumor microenvironment. In addition, we observed different immune cell patterns in low-grade glioma and glioblastoma. Our research indicated that there was a connection between TILs, and 13 of 22 TILs were significantly associated with patient outcomes. Finally, the prognosis and diagnostic value of TAMs were revealed using Kaplan-Meier analysis. We identified the optimal cutoff point of TAMs at an infiltrating level of 0.47 to predict patient prognosis, with a median overall survival of 448 days in patients with higher TAM infiltration levels and 2660 days in patients with lower TAM infiltration levels. These findings provide a new idea for glioma to regulate tumor-specific immunity, clarify the potential effects of TAMs on disease pathology, and provide a theoretical basis for immune intervention treatment of gliomas.

The tumor microenvironment (TME) plays an important role in the development of breast cancer. Due to limitations in experimental conditions, the molecular mechanism of TME in breast cancer has not yet been elucidated. With the development of bioinformatics, the study of TME has become convenient and reliable.Gene expression and clinical feature data were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas database and the Molecular Taxonomy of Breast Cancer International Consortium database. Immune scores and stromal scores were calculated using the Estimation of Stromal and Immune Cells in Malignant Tumor Tissues Using Expression Data algorithm. The interaction of genes was examined with protein-protein interaction and co-expression analysis. The function of genes was analyzed by gene ontology enrichment analysis, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes analysis and gene set enrichment analysis. The clinical significance of genes was assessed with Kaplan-Meier analysis and univariate/multivariate Cox regression analysis.Our results showed that the immune scores and stromal scores of breast invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) were significantly lower than those of invasive lobular carcinoma. The immune scores were significantly related to overall survival of breast IDC patients and both the immune and stromal scores were significantly related to clinical features of these patients. According to the level of immune/stromal scores, 179 common differentially expressed genes and 5 hub genes with prognostic value were identified. In addition, the clinical significance of the hub genes was validated with data from the molecular taxonomy of breast cancer international consortium database, and gene set enrichment analysis analysis showed that these hub genes were mainly enriched in signaling pathways of the immune system and breast cancer.We identified five immune-related hub genes with prognostic value in the TME of breast IDC, which may partly determine the prognosis of breast cancer and provide some direction for development of targeted treatments in the future.

Craniosacral therapy (CST) has remained controversial in the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders. To our knowledge, there is no larger sample size of research to demonstrate the effectiveness of craniosacral therapy in the human suboccipital region on hamstring muscle.

To measure changes in the sizes of Schlemm canal (SC) and trabecular meshwork (TM) in healthy individuals before and after topical application of 1% adrenaline at 15, 45, and 90 minutes using anterior segment optical coherence tomography (ASOCT).