Does It Matter to Establish a Strategic Partnership for COVID-19 Prevention and Control? The Perspective of Multiple Distances in Emerging Economies.

The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has impacted the politics, economy and society of countries around the world. The public health diplomacy system through which developed countries in Europe and America used to provide vertical one-way assistance to developing countries faces huge challenges. How emerging economies can cooperate to fight the pandemic on the basis of mutual trust and mutual benefit has become an urgent issue. In this paper, we examine the impact of political mutual trust on the effectiveness of pandemic prevention and control from the perspective of establishing strategic partnerships between emerging economies. Furthermore, taking into account the huge differences between emerging economies, this paper explores institutional distance, cultural distance, and geographical distance-the adjustment effect of the control effect. Studies have shown that the improvement of political mutual trust is conducive to the formation of a community of shared futures between countries and has a positive effect on curbing the spread of the pandemic. The increase of the three-dimensional distance of institutions, culture, and geography will weaken the effect of establishing strategic partners for pandemic prevention and control. This paper explores a new model of horizontal international cooperation among emerging economies, and provides a reference for emerging economies to deal with common globalization issues in the future.

Prone position versus supine position in postoperative radiotherapy for breast cancer: A meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: This meta-analysis evaluates the difference of sparing organs at risk (OAR) in different position (Prone position and Supine position) with different breathing patterns (Free breathing, FB/Deep inspiration breath hold, DIBH) for breast cancer patients receiving postoperative radiotherapy and provides a useful reference for clinical practice. METHOD: The relevant controlled trials of prone position versus supine position in postoperative radiotherapy for breast cancer were retrieved from the sources of PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase, Web of Science and ClinicalTrails.gov. The principal outcome of interest was OAR doses (heart dose, left anterior descending coronary artery dose and ipsilateral lung dose) and target coverage. We mainly compared the effects of P-FB (Prone position FB) and S-FB (Supine position FB) and discussed the effects of DIBH combined with different positions on OAR dose in postoperative radiotherapy. We calculated summary standardized mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). The meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.4 software. RESULTS: The analysis included 751 patients from 19 observational studies. Compared with the S-FB, the P-FB can have lower heart dose, left anterior descending coronary artery (LADCA) dose, and ipsilateral lung dose (ILL) more effectively, and the difference was statistically significant (heart dose, SMD = - 0.51, 95% CI - 0.66 ∼ - 0.36, P < .00001. LADCA dose, SMD = - 0.58, 95% CI - 0.85 ∼ - 0.31, P < .0001. ILL dose, SMD = - 2.84, 95% CI - 3.2 ∼ - 2.48, P < .00001). And there was no significant difference in target coverage between the S-FB and P-FB groups (SMD = - 0.1, 95% CI - 0.57 ∼ 0.36, P = .66). Moreover, through descriptive analysis, we found that P-DIBH (Prone position DIBH) has better sparing OAR than P-FB and S-DIBH (Supine position DIBH). CONCLUSION: By this meta-analysis, compared with the S-FB we found that implementation of P-FB in postoperative radiotherapy for breast cancer can reduce irradiation of heart dose, LADCA dose and ILL dose, without compromising mean dose of target coverage. Moreover, P-DIBH might become the most promising way for breast cancer patients to undergo radiotherapy.