Imaging Characteristics of Clear Cell Papillary Renal Cell Carcinoma: Identifying the Sheep in Wolf's Clothing.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to describe the characteristics of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of clear cell papillary renal cell carcinoma (CCPRCC). METHODS: This retrospective study comprised 27 patients diagnosed with 29 tumors of CCPRCC. The study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee and the requirement for the informed consent was waived. The inclusion criteria stipulated pathology-confirmed CCPRCCs with at least one preoperative imaging examination, including CT or MRI. Two experienced radiologists independently analyzed the imaging characteristics, including size, location, growth mode, morphology, texture, density, and enhancement pattern. Paired t-test was used to compare differences in CT Hounsfield unit values and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) imaging between the tumor and the renal cortex. RESULTS: The mean age of the 27 patients was 57.0 ± 14.2 years. Nineteen patients underwent CT, while 12 underwent MRI (There are 4 patients underwent not only CT but also MRI). Among the cases, 26 (96%) were single, and 1 (4%) was multiple, consisting of three lesions. Out of the 29 tumors, 15 (52%) were located in the left kidney and 14 (48%) in the right kidney. The mean tumor diameter was 3.3 ± 1.7 cm. Furthermore, 19 (66%), 3 (10%), and 7 (24%) tumors were solid, cystic, mixed solid, and cystic type, respectively. The growth mode was endogenous and exogenous in 8 (28%) and 21 (72%) tumors, respectively. The tumor shape was irregular and round in 5 (17%) and 24 (83%) tumors, respectively. The CT value of the tumor was approximately 33.2 ± 9.8 HU, which was not significantly different from that of the renal cortex(31.1 ± 6.3HU)(p = 0.343). Furthermore, 7 (24%), 12 (41%), and 3 (10%) had calcification, cystic degeneration, and hemorrhage, respectively. In 12 tumors, hypointense and hyperintense were predominant on T1 and T2-weighted images, respectively. The tumor capsule was found at the edge of 12 tumors. The average ADC value of the tumor (1.54 ± 0.74 × 10-3 mm2/s) and that of the renal cortex(1.68 ± 0.63×10-3mm2 /s) was not statistically significantly different (p = 0.260). The enhancement scanning revealed "wash-in and wash-out" enhancement in 19 (68%) tumors, continuous or progressive enhancement in 6 (21%) tumors, and enhanced cystic wall and central separation in 3 (11%) tumors. CONCLUSION: CCPRCC occurs more likely in middle-aged and elderly individuals, and the tumor is prone to cystic degeneration, with rare bleeding and calcification, and no obvious limitation on MRI diffusion-weighted imaging, which enhancement form performs as mainly "wash-in and washout," but the final diagnosis depends on histopathology.

Analysis of factors related to osteoporotic vertebral fracture in prostate cancer patients.

OBJECTIVE: This study was aimed at exploring the osteoporotic vertebral fracture rate and the related causal factors in prostate cancer patients before and after treatment. METHODS: One hundred prostate cancer patients were recruited in this study. One hundred men without prostate cancer history were selected as the control group. The study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee under Ethics number B2021-373R and the requirement for the informed consent was waived. The T4-L1 vertebral body of the case group and the control group before and after treatment was evaluated according to Genant's semi-quantitative method. The difference in vertebral body fracture rate between the case group and the control group and the changes in vertebral body fracture rate before and after treatment among the case group were compared. They were grouped according to age, body mass index (BMI), prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels, Gleason grade, and androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to determine the factors significantly associated with vertebral fracture rate in prostate cancer patients. RESULTS: The prevalence of vertebral fracture was 16% and 31% in prostate cancer patients before and after treatment, respectively, and 29% in the control group. The vertebral fracture rate of the patients before treatment significantly differed that of the control group and the patients after treatment. Univariate analysis showed that age, PSA levels, and treatment parameters were the significant influencing factors of vertebral fracture rates. Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that age was the main influencing factor of vertebral fracture rates. CONCLUSION: Osteoporotic vertebral fractures in patients with prostate cancer was associated with many factors. And the incidence of vertebral fracture in prostate cancer patients after ADT was significantly higher than that before treatment.

Stacking-ac4C: an ensemble model using mixed features for identifying n4-acetylcytidine in mRNA.

N4-acetylcytidine (ac4C) is a modification of cytidine at the nitrogen-4 position, playing a significant role in the translation process of mRNA. However, the precise mechanism and details of how ac4C modifies translated mRNA remain unclear. Since identifying ac4C sites using conventional experimental methods is both labor-intensive and time-consuming, there is an urgent need for a method that can promptly recognize ac4C sites. In this paper, we propose a comprehensive ensemble learning model, the Stacking-based heterogeneous integrated ac4C model, engineered explicitly to identify ac4C sites. This innovative model integrates three distinct feature extraction methodologies: Kmer, electron-ion interaction pseudo-potential values (PseEIIP), and pseudo-K-tuple nucleotide composition (PseKNC). The model also incorporates the robust Cluster Centroids algorithm to enhance its performance in dealing with imbalanced data and alleviate underfitting issues. Our independent testing experiments indicate that our proposed model improves the Mcc by 15.61% and the ROC by 5.97% compared to existing models. To test our model's adaptability, we also utilized a balanced dataset assembled by the authors of iRNA-ac4C. Our model showed an increase in Sn of 4.1%, an increase in Acc of nearly 1%, and ROC improvement of 0.35% on this balanced dataset. The code for our model is freely accessible at https://github.com/louliliang/ST-ac4C.git, allowing users to quickly build their model without dealing with complicated mathematical equations.

A study of the diagnostic value of a modified transthoracic lung ultrasound scoring method in interstitial lung disease.

Background: Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a serious complication of connective tissue disease (CTD) with significant morbidity and mortality. Lung ultrasound (LUS) has been widely used in the diagnosis of a variety of lung diseases. However, there is no standard ultrasound scanning method or scoring method for connective tissue disease associated with interstitial lung disease (CTD-ILD); therefore, it is necessary to establish a set of standard evaluation methods. Methods: A total of 60 consecutive patients with clinically confirmed CTD and suspected ILD were prospectively included in this study. LUS and high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) were used to examine all patients. The time between HRCT and LUS examinations was less than 2 weeks. The ultrasonographic results were evaluated with the modified scoring method and the Buda scoring method. The imaging results were evaluated with the HRCT Warrick scoring method. The primary aim was to evaluate the diagnostic value of a modified ultrasound scoring method in CTD-ILD. Results: The results of the Youden index for the diagnosis of CTD-ILD by the modified method, the Buda method, and the HRCT method were 0.845, 0.711, and 0.911, respectively, with areas under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (AUC) of 0.982 [95% confidence interval (CI): 0.945-1.000], 0.950 (95% CI: 0.851-0.990), and 0.985 (95% CI: 0.949-1.000), respectively. With a clinical diagnosis as the gold standard, the consistency of the modified method and the HRCT method for CTD-ILD was high (Kappa values =0.872 and 0.913, respectively). The values of the modified method and the Buda method consistently and significantly increased with the increasing severity of CTD-ILD. For the former, there were significant differences between the mild, moderate, and severe groups (P<0.05). The ROC curve used to calculate the modified ultrasound score predicted the critical values of mild and severe pulmonary fibrotic lesions at 34 points (sensitivity, 100%; specificity, 92.9%; AUC =0.933; 95% CI: 0.807-1.000) and 64.5 points (sensitivity, 92.0%; specificity, 85.3%; AUC =0.972; 95% CI: 0.929-1.000). Conclusions: The modified ultrasound method has a higher diagnostic value than the Buda method for CTD-ILD.

Association of Plasma Sex-Related Hormones Levels with Bone Mineral Densities and Risk of Osteoporosis and Osteopenia in Men and Menopausal Women with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

Objective: This study aimed to examine associations between plasma sex-related hormones with bone mineral density (BMD) and risks of osteoporosis or osteopenia in men and postmenopausal women patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Methods: Baseline information on an ongoing cohort of 149 men and 102 postmenopausal women with T2DM in Xiamen, China were analyzed. Plasma estradiol (E2), total testosterone (T), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), luteinizing hormone (LH) and prolactin (PRL) were measured. BMD of lumbar spine (L2-4), femoral neck (FN) and total hip (TH) were determined by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). Osteoporosis or osteopenia was defined as the minimum T-scores of BMD of these three different sites of -1.0 or below. Results: T2DM patients with osteoporosis/osteopenia (66.4% in men and 79.4% in postmenopausal women), compared to those without, showed significantly decreased level of E2 (75.3±28.9 vs. 107.8±25.9pmol/L and 18.4 (18.4-29.5) vs. 22.8 (18.4-40.5) pmol/L for men and postmenopausal women, respectively, both p-values <0.05), but not other sex-related hormones (including T, FSH, LH, or PRL). For all T2DM patients together and men separately, multivariable linear regression and logistic regression analyses showed that higher E2 levels were significantly associated with higher BMD T-scores in L2-4, FN, TH and minimum of these three different sites, lower 10-year probability of major osteoporotic fractures (MOF) and hip fractures (HFs) estimated by Fracture Risk Assessment Tool score, as well as decreased risk of osteoporosis/osteopenia. As for postmenopausal women T2DM patients, E2 level was positively associated with BMD T-scores in L2-4 and minimum of three different sites but was not independently associated with risk of osteoporosis/osteopenia. Conclusion: Higher plasma E2 was significantly associated with increased BMD and lower risk of osteoporosis or osteopenia in T2DM patients, especially for men. Screening of BMD and estradiol levels as well as evaluating risks of osteoporosis/osteopenia are important for T2DM patients.

Predicting the Lung Adenocarcinoma and Its Biomarkers by Integrating Gene Expression and DNA Methylation Data.

The early symptoms of lung adenocarcinoma patients are inapparent, and the clinical diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma is primarily through X-ray examination and pathological section examination, whereas the discovery of biomarkers points out another direction for the diagnosis of lung adenocarcinoma with the development of bioinformatics technology. However, it is not accurate and trustworthy to diagnose lung adenocarcinoma due to omics data with high-dimension and low-sample size (HDLSS) features or biomarkers produced by utilizing only single omics data. To address the above problems, the feature selection methods of biological analysis are used to reduce the dimension of gene expression data (GSE19188) and DNA methylation data (GSE139032, GSE49996). In addition, the Cartesian product method is used to expand the sample set and integrate gene expression data and DNA methylation data. The classification is built by using a deep neural network and is evaluated on K-fold cross validation. Moreover, gene ontology analysis and literature retrieving are used to analyze the biological relevance of selected genes, TCGA database is used for survival analysis of these potential genes through Kaplan-Meier estimates to discover the detailed molecular mechanism of lung adenocarcinoma. Survival analysis shows that COL5A2 and SERPINB5 are significant for identifying lung adenocarcinoma and are considered biomarkers of lung adenocarcinoma.

Update on the Role of Neuropeptide Y and Other Related Factors in Breast Cancer and Osteoporosis.

Breast cancer and osteoporosis are common diseases that affect the survival and quality of life in postmenopausal women. Women with breast cancer are more likely to develop osteoporosis than women without breast cancer due to certain factors that can affect both diseases simultaneously. For instance, estrogen and the receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB ligand (RANKL) play important roles in the occurrence and development of these two diseases. Moreover, chemotherapy and hormone therapy administered to breast cancer patients also increase the incidence of osteoporosis, and in recent years, neuropeptide Y (NPY) has also been found to impact breast cancer and osteoporosis.Y1 and Y5 receptors are highly expressed in breast cancer, and Y1 and Y2 receptors affect osteogenic response, thus potentially highlighting a potential new direction for treatment strategies. In this paper, the relationship between breast cancer and osteoporosis, the influence of NPY on both diseases, and the recent progress in the research and treatment of these diseases are reviewed.

Clinical and X-ray characteristics for expressions of different receptors in patients with breast cancer. / ä¸åŒå—ä½“è¡¨è¾¾çš„ä¹³è ºç™Œæ‚£è€ çš„ä¸´åºŠä¸ŽX线特征.

OBJECTIVES: Clarifying the expression of breast cancer receptor is the key to clinical treatment for breast cancer. This study aims to explore the correlation between X-ray and clinical characteristics of 4 molecular subtypes and their receptor types of breast cancer. METHODS: A total of 439 breast cancer patients who confirmed by pathology and performed X-ray examination were enrolled. The X-ray and clinical characteristics of 4 molecular subtypes and the expression of their receptors were analyzed. RESULTS: Luminal A type showed the highest proportion of spiculate masses, and the lowest calcification score, showing significant difference with other 3 subtypes (all P<0.001). The age in the human epidermal growth factor 2 (HER2) overexpression type group was older, the proportions of menopause, the calcification score, and the calcification score with 9-12 were higher, the sizes of the tumor were greater in the HER2 overexpression type group than those in the other 3 molecular subtype groups (age P<0.05, the rest P<0.01). The proportions of regular shape, edge indistinct, and high-grade invasive ductal carcinoma in the triple-negative type group were higher than those in the other 3 molecular subtype groups (all P<0.001). The proportions of non-menopausal patients and spiculate tumors in the estrogen receptor (ER) positive and/or progesterone receptor (PR) positive groups were higher than those in both ER and PR negative group (P<0.001 and P=0.001, respectively). The proportions of calcification fraction and high-grade invasive ductal carcinoma were higher, tumor sizes were greater in the HER2 positive group, Ki-67≥20% group than those in the HER2 negative group, Ki-67<20% group, respectively (P<0.001 or P<0.05, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: Four molecular subtypes of breast cancer and their receptor expressions are correlated with X-ray and clinical characteristics, which can provide a basis for clinical diagnosis and treatment.