Int J Med Sci
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The most general cancer in men is prostate cancer (PCa), with its risk increasing due to age and obesity. Visfatin, a member of adipokines, is related to cancer progression and metastasis, but its relationship in PCa remains undetermined. In addition, no knowledge is available regarding relations between visfatin polymorphisms and clinicopathological characteristics in PCa. ⋯ Visfatin rs61330082 and rs11977021 were related with a high risk of perineural invasion, lymphovascular invasion, and biochemical recurrence in prostate-specific antigen (PSA) > 10 PCa patients. The Cancer Genome Atlas database noted that visfatin mRNA level did not prominently differ with pathological T/N stage and overall survival. This finding is the first to document a connection between visfatin polymorphisms and clinicopathological characteristics of PCa in Taiwanese males.
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Purpose: To investigate the influence of different keratometry (K) measurements on the postoperative outcomes of cataract surgery with extended depth-of-focus (EDOF) intraocular lens (IOL) implantation. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted, and patients who received cataract surgery and one type of EDOF IOL implantation were included. The patients were then categorized according to K measurements, and 70 and 30 eyes were included in the biometric-K and topographic-K groups, respectively. ⋯ According to the multivariate analysis, the topographic-K group presented a significantly better UDVA (P = 0.044) and significantly lower cylinder power (P = 0.031) than the biometric-K group. Angle kappa was significantly correlated with high postoperative astigmatism in the topographic-K group (P = 0.033), whereas angle kappa, steep K, and corneal cylinder powers were significantly correlated with high postoperative astigmatism in the biometric-K group (all P < 0.05). Conclusion: Topography-based K measurements yielded better refractive outcomes than biometric-based K measurements did.
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Background: SARS-CoV-2 causes a global pandemic, with severe and critically ill COVID-19 patients often experiencing poor prognoses. Severe infection with SARS-CoV-2 is associated with oxidative stress (OS) and inflammation. Detecting markers of macromolecular damage caused by OS may provide valuable insights into disease progression. ⋯ OxLDL and OxLDL/LDL-C ratio demonstrated good discriminatory value between non-severe and severe/critically ill COVID-19, with the OxLDL/LDL-C ratio also distinguishing between severe and critically ill patients. Conclusion: Patients with severe and critically ill COVID-19 exhibit elevated levels of oxidative damage to lipoproteins. OxLDL and the OxLDL/LDL-C ratio can serve as biomarkers for assessing disease severity in COVID-19 patients.
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Background: This study aimed to develop a combined ultrasound (US)-pathology model to predict the axillary status more accurately after NST in breast cancer. Methods: This retrospective study included breast cancer patients who received NST at the First Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing Medical University from 2015 to 2022. Clinical, US, and pathological data were collected. ⋯ The US-based and combined US-pathology models were developed based on preoperative and postoperative information. The two models had an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) of 0.821 and 0.883, respectively, which was significantly higher than that of the fine-needle aspiration model (AUC: 0.735). Conclusion: In this study, based on the US-based model, a combined model incorporating the characteristics of ALNs under US and breast pathology was developed and validated to predict axillary pCR.
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Background: Iron deficiency (ID) is common in patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension and has been associated with increased morbidity and mortality. We aimed to evaluate the therapeutic effects of iron supplementation in iron deficient patients with group 1 to 4 pulmonary hypertension (PH). Methods: A total of 85 PH patients (mean age 69.8 ± 12.0 years, 56.5% female) were included in this prospective trial. ⋯ With regard to the underlying PH group, only PH group 3 patients experienced significant improvements in 6MWT distance (p=0.019), WHO functional class (p=0.017), fatigue (p=0.009) and some QoL domains, as compared to controls. Conclusions: ID was common in PH groups 1 to 4. Though intravenous iron supplementation adequately restored iron status and improved fatigue throughout all patients, in the underlying PH groups treatment was accompanied by improvements in exercise capacity, WHO function class and fatigue only in group 3 PH.