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Polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) has the characteristics of biocompatibility, biodegradability, modifiability, and slow release, which has attracted extensive attention in the treatment of gynecological diseases. This paper summarizes the relevant literature reports at home and abroad in recent years, expounds the research situation of PLGA nanoparticles as drug carriers in gynecological diseases such as ovarian cancer, breast cancer, cervical cancer and endometriosis, and looks forward to its great potential in clinical application in gynecological diseases, providing guidance for its prevention and treatment in gynecological diseases.
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Nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) is an important intracellular transcription factor, which regulates the expression of many genes including inflammation and apoptosis and is widely distributed in placenta. In this review, we introduced the relationship between placental NF-κB and pregnancy complications such as preeclampsia, HELLP syndromne and premature rupture of membranes. The role of placental NF-κB in the development of the pregnancy complications and the progress of the treatment of related diseases through the NF-κB pathway was summarized. This review will lay the foundation for the further study of placental related diseases and provide new ideas for the diagnosis and treatment of pregnancy complications.
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The COVID-19 epidemic had spread rapidly through China and subsequently has proliferated globally leading to a pandemic situation around the globe. Human-to-human transmissions, as well as asymptomatic transmissions of the infection, have been confirmed. As of April 3rd public health crisis in China due to COVID-19 is potentially under control. We compiled a daily dataset of case counts, mortality, recovery, temperature, population density, and demographic information for each prefecture during the period of January 11 to April 07, 2020 (excluding Wuhan from our analysis due to missing data). Understanding the characteristics of spatiotemporal clustering of the COVID-19 epidemic and R0 is critical in effectively preventing and controlling the ongoing global pandemic. The prefectures were grouped based on several relevant features using unsupervised machine learning techniques. We performed a computational analysis utilizing the reported cases in China to estimate the revised R0 among different regions for prevention planning in an ongoing global pandemic. Finally, our results indicate that the impact of temperature and demographic (different age group percentage compared to the total population) factors on virus transmission may be characterized using a stochastic transmission model. Such predictions will help prioritize segments of a given community/region for action and provide a visual aid in designing prevention strategies for a specific geographic region. Furthermore, revised estimation and our methodology will aid in improving the human health consequences of COVID-19 elsewhere.
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BackgroundThe outbreak of Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) began in January 2020 in the city of Wuhan (Hubei province, China). It took about 2 months for China to get this infectious disease under control in its epicenter at Wuhan. Since February 2020, COVID-19 has been spreading around the world, becoming widespread in a number of countries. The timing and nature of government actions in response to the pandemic has varied from country to country, and their role in affecting the spread of the disease has been debated. MethodThe present study proposed a modified susceptible-exposed-infected-removed model (SEIR) model to perform a comparative analysis of the temporal progress of disease spread in six regions worldwide: three Chinese regions (Zhejiang, Guangdong and Xinjiang) vs. three countries (South Korea, Italy and Iran). For each region we developed detailed timelines of reported infections and outcomes, along with government- implemented measures to enforce social distancing. Simulations of the imposition of strong social distancing measures were used to evaluate the impact that these measures might have had on the duration and severity of COVID-19 outbreaks in the three countries. ResultsThe main results of this study are as follows: (a) an empirical COVID-19 growth law provides an excellent fit to the disease data in all study regions and potentially could be of more general validity; (b) significant differences exist in the spread characteristics of the disease among the three regions of China and between the three regions of China and the three countries; (c) under the control measures implemented in the Chinese regions (including the immediate quarantine of infected patients and their close contacts, and considerable restrictions on social contacts), the transmission rate of COVID-19 followed a modified normal distribution function, and it reached its peak after 1 to 2 days and then was reduced to zero 11, 11 and 18 days after a 1st-Level Response to Major Public Health Emergency was declared in Zhejiang, Guangdong and Xinjiang, respectively; moreover, the epidemic control times in Zhejiang, Guangdong and Xinjiang showed that the epidemic reached an "inflection point" after 9, 12 and 17 days, respectively, after a 1st-Level Response was issued; (d) an empirical COVID-19 law provided an excellent fit to the disease data in the six study regions, and the law can be potentially of more general validity; and (e) the curves of infected cases in South Korea, Italy and Iran would had been significantly flattened and shrunken at a relatively earlier stage of the epidemic if similar preventive measures as in the Chinese regions had been also taken in the above three countries on February 25th, February 25th and March 8th, respectively: the simulated maximum number of infected individuals in South Korea, Italy and Iran would had been 4480 cases (March 9th, 2020), 2335 cases (March 10th) and 6969 cases (March 20th), instead of the actual (reported) numbers of 7212 cases (March 9th), 8514 cases (March 10th, 2020) and 11466 cases (March 20th), respectively; moreover, up to March 29th, the simulated reduction in the accumulated number of infected cases would be 1585 for South Korea, 93490 for Italy and 23213 for Iran, respectively, accounting for 16.41% (South Korea), 95.70% (Italy) and 60.59% (Iran) of the accumulated number of actual reported infected cases. ConclusionsThe implemented measures in China were very effective for controlling the spread of COVID-19. These measures should be taken as early as possible, including the early identification of all infection sources and eliminating transmission pathways. Subsequently, the number of infected cases can be controlled at a low level, and existing medical resources could be sufficient for maintaining higher cure rates and lower mortality rate compared to the current situations in these countries. The proposed model can account for these prevention and control measures by properly adjusting its parameters, it computes the corresponding variations in disease transmission rate during the outbreak period, and it can provide valuable information for public health decision- making purposes.
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Objective To investigate the level of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), homocysteine (HCY), fibronectin (Fn) and apolipoprotein E (ApoE) in the serum and cerebrospinal fluid patients with stroke to inquire into patients′endothelial function damage.Methods We chose standard stroke patients in Brain Hospital of Hu′nan Province from August 2015 to August 2016, divided into ischemic stroke (IS) group (52 cases) and hemorrhagic stroke (HS) group (33 cases), and chose patients with the cerebrospinal fluid for diagnosis and treatment and ruled out infections, the nervous system and cardiovascular system diseases as control group (20 cases).The serum VEGF, HCY, Fn, and ApoE levels of the patients on the 1 th, 5 th and14 th day after admission were monitored and compared with those in cerebrospinal fluid expression, NIHSS and Barthel were also performed for assessment of severity and prognosis of HS.Results The serum levels of VEGF, HCY and ApoE in HS group were higher than those in IS group, and the Fn level was lower than that in IS group and control group.At the same time, the Fn levels gradually increased on the 5 th and 14 th day after admission (P＜0.05), close to the control group.Cerebrospinal fluid of VEGF, HCY, Fn, and ApoE levels in HS group were higher than those in the control group, while Fn level was lower, and these indexes were lower in cerebrospinal fluid than those in the serum, and the differences were statistically significant (P＜0.05).In correlation analysis, HCY level of cerebrospinal fluid was positively correlated with ApoE in HS patients (r=0.645, P=0.001), HCY and ApoE levels in HS patients were positively correlated with patients′NIHSS score (r=0.547, P=0.006;r=0.720, P＜0.001), and negatively correlated with Barthel index score (r=-0.703, P＜0.001, r=-0.765, P＜0.001, respectively).Conclusion There were vascular endothelial injury and neuroprotective function decreased in brain tissue of stroke patients.The level of Fn was related to the patient′s prognosis, which was conducive to the differentiation of IS and HS.The cerebrospinal fluid levels of HCY and ApoE can be used to evaluate the prognosis of HS patients.