Enantioselective formal total synthesis of dihydrospirotryprostatin B.

Spirotryprostatins are representative members of medicinally interesting bioactive molecules of the spirooxindole natural products. In this communication, we present a novel enantioselective total synthesis of the spirooxindole alkaloid dihydrospirotryprostatin B. The synthesis takes advantage of copper-catalyzed tandem reaction of o-iodoanilide chiral sulfinamide derivatives with alkynone to rapidly construct the key quaternary carbon stereocenter of the natural product dihydrospirotryprostatin B.

Oxidative damage to mitochondrial DNA in maternal zebrafish (Danio rerio) exposed to dibutyl phthalate at environmentally relevant level.

Dibutyl phthalate (DBP) is a widely-used plasticizer that is dispersed in various environments, causing significant pollution and health risks. The toxic mechanism of DBP has been discussed in recent years, while the susceptibility of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to DBP exposure and the resulting damage remain unclear. In this study, maternal zebrafish were exposed to environmentally relevant concentration of DBP for 0, 2, 4, and 6 weeks. Results showed that DBP exposure impaired health status, leading to the reduced body length and weight, condition factor, hepatosomatic index, and gonadosomatic index. Furthermore, DBP exposure induced oxidative stress and ATP deficiency in the gill and liver in a time-dependent manner. The oxidized mtDNA (ox-mtDNA) levels in the D-loop and ND1 regions were assessed in different tissues, showing distinct response patterns. The high energy-consuming tissues such as heart, brain, gill, and liver exhibited elevated susceptibility to mitochondrial damage, with a rapid increase in ox-mtDNA levels in the short term. Conversely, in muscle, ovary, eggs, and offspring, ox-mtDNA gradually accumulated over the exposure period. Notably, the ox-mtDNA levels in the D-loop region of blood showed a prompt response to DBP exposure, making it convenient for evaluation. Additionally, decreased hatching rates, increased mortality, lipoperoxidation, and depressed swimming performance were observed in offspring following maternal DBP exposure, suggesting the inherited impairments of maternal mtDNA. These findings highlight the potential for ox-mtDNA to serve as a convenient biomarker for environmental contamination, aiding in ecological risk assessment and forewarning systems in aquatic environment.

High Strength and Shape Memory Spinal Fusion Device for Minimally Invasive Interbody Fusions.

Introduction: Lumbar interbody fusion is widely employed for both acute and chronic spinal diseases interventions. However, large incision created during interbody cage implantation may adversely impair spinal tissue and influence postoperative recovery. The aim of this study was to design a shape memory interbody fusion device suitable for small incision implantation. Methods: In this study, we designed and fabricated an intervertebral fusion cage that utilizes near-infrared (NIR) light-responsive shape memory characteristics. This cage was composed of bisphenol A diglycidyl ether, polyether amine D-230, decylamine and iron oxide nanoparticles. A self-hardening calcium phosphate-starch cement (CSC) was injected internally through the injection channel of the cage for healing outcome improvement. Results: The size of the interbody cage is reduced from 22 mm to 8.8 mm to minimize the incision size. Subsequent NIR light irradiation prompted a swift recovery of the cage shape within 5 min at the lesion site. The biocompatibility of the shape memory composite was validated through in vitro MC3T3-E1 cell (osteoblast-like cells) adhesion and proliferation assays and subcutaneous implantation experiments in rats. CSC was injected into the cage, and the relevant results revealed that CSC is uniformly dispersed within the internal space, along with the cage compressive strength increasing from 12 to 20 MPa. Conclusion: The results from this study thus demonstrated that this integrated approach of using a minimally invasive NIR shape memory spinal fusion cage with CSC has potential for lumbar interbody fusion.

Enhancing Ionic Selectivity and Osmotic Energy by Using an Ultrathin Zr-MOF-Based Heterogeneous Membrane with Trilayered Continuous Porous Structure.

Designing a nanofluidic membrane with high selectivity and fast ion transport property is the key towards high-performance osmotic energy conversion. However, most of reported membranes can produce power density less than commercial benchmark (5 W/m2), due to the imbalance between ion selectivity and permeability. Here, we report a novel nanoarchitectured design of a heterogeneous membrane with an ultrathin and dense zirconium-based UiO-66-NH2 metal-organic framework (MOF) layer and a highly aligned and interconnected branched alumina nanochannel membrane. The design leads to a continuous trilayered pore structure of large geometry gradient in the sequence from angstrom-scale to nano-scale to sub-microscale, which enables the enhanced directional ion transport, and the angstrom-sized (~6.6-7 Å) UiO-66-NH2 windows render the membrane with high ion selectivity. Consequently, the novel heterogeneous membrane can achieve a high-performance power of ~8 W/m2 by mixing synthetic seawater and river water. The power density can be largely upgraded to an ultrahigh ~17.1 W/m2 along with ~48.5% conversion efficiency at a 50-fold KCl gradient. This work not only presents a new membrane design approach but also showcases the great potential of employing the zirconium-based MOF channels as ion-channel-mimetic membranes for highly efficient blue energy harvesting.

Immunoregulatory Engineering of Semiconducting Charge-reversal Nanoantioxidant for Ameliorating Cancer Radioimmunotheranostics.

Radiotherapy (RT) is a crucial clinical modality for cancer. However, non-selectivity, toxicity to normal tissues, and radio-resistance severely limit RT applications. In this study, we developed a versatile X-ray theranostic nano-antioxidant (XTN) to prevent normal tissues from oxidative damage and induce systematic and robust anticancer immunity. XTN owns NIR-II photoacoustic imaging properties for precise discrimination of the tumor margin through, thereby improving the accuracy of RT. Additionally, XTN is a nano-antioxidant to enhance the cell viability of normal cells after irradiation. Most importantly, XTN scavenges ROS in the TME to preserve the stimulatory activity of released high mobility group protein B1 to dendritic cells and recover T cells' immune function. Meanwhile, XTN achieves charge-reversal specifically releasing an immunomodulator (demethylcantharidin, DMC) in the acidic TME. Moreover, the specifically released DMC inhibits protein phosphatase-2A activity and reduces regulatory T-cell differentiation. In the bilateral 4T1 tumor model, XTN-mediated radioimmunotherapy remarkably boosts a systemic antitumor immune response and induces durable immunological memory against tumor growth. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Global research hotspots and trends of acute rejection after liver transplantation from 1988 to 2022: a bibliometric analysis.

Background: Acute rejection (AR) is the predominant form of rejection observed in liver transplantation and plays a crucial role in transplant immunology. This study aims to utilize bibliometric analysis to understand the status quo, hotspots, and future trends of research on AR after liver transplantation. Methods: We searched the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) for studies on AR after liver transplantation published from 1988 to 2022. The Bibliometric Online Analysis Platform, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace were used for analysis of all extracted publications. Results: This study included 2,398 articles published in 456 journals by 12,568 authors from 1,965 institutions in 55 countries/regions. The United States and its affiliated institution, the University of Pittsburgh, were the most productive contributors. Transplantation (n = 12,435) was the most frequently cited journal. Neuhaus P (n = 38) was the highest output author, and Demetris AJ (n = 670) was the most co-cited author. The research hotspots of AR after liver transplantation include pathogenesis, immunosuppressive therapy, and prognosis. Emerging research directions include regulatory T cells, immunosuppression minimization, intra-patient variability (IPV) of tacrolimus, and novel non-invasive diagnostic markers. Conclusion: Our study utilized bibliometric methods to analyze the study of AR after liver transplantation over the past 35 years. With the prolonged survival of liver transplant recipients, the most active areas currently focus on individualized treatment and improving patient prognosis. Minimizing adverse reactions to immunosuppressive therapy while simultaneously avoiding an increase in the risk of AR remains a future research focus.

L-VSM: Label-Driven View-Specific Fusion for Multiview Multilabel Classification.

In the task of multiview multilabel (MVML) classification, each instance is represented by several heterogeneous features and associated with multiple semantic labels. Existing MVML methods mainly focus on leveraging the shared subspace to comprehensively explore multiview consensus information across different views, while it is still an open problem whether such shared subspace representation is effective to characterize all relevant labels when formulating a desired MVML model. In this article, we propose a novel label-driven view-specific fusion MVML method named L-VSM, which bypasses seeking for a shared subspace representation and instead directly encodes the feature representation of each individual view to contribute to the final multilabel classifier induction. Specifically, we first design a label-driven feature graph construction strategy and construct all instances under various feature representations into the corresponding feature graphs. Then, these view-specific feature graphs are integrated into a unified graph by linking the different feature representations within each instance. Afterward, we adopt a graph attention mechanism to aggregate and update all feature nodes on the unified graph to generate structural representations for each instance, where both intraview correlations and interview alignments are jointly encoded to discover the underlying consensuses and complementarities across different views. Moreover, to explore the widespread label correlations in multilabel learning (MLL), the transformer architecture is introduced to construct a dynamic semantic-aware label graph and accordingly generate structural semantic representations for each specific class. Finally, we derive an instance-label affinity score for each instance by averaging the affinity scores of its different feature representations with the multilabel soft margin loss. Extensive experiments on various MVML applications have verified that our proposed L-VSM has achieved superior performance against state-of-the-art methods. The codes are available at https://gengyulyu.github.io/homepage/assets/codes/LVSM.zip.

Can antitrust policy promote enterprise innovation? Evidence from Zhongguancun science and Technology Park.

Emerging countries usually rely on the innovation of enterprises within the regional innovation ecosystem to enhance the national innovation level. However, existing literature lacks insight into how antitrust policies might influence innovation within them. We estimate the impact of the implementation of the Anti-Monopoly Law on enterprise innovation within Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park, China's prominentregional innovation ecosystem. Using a cross-industry difference-in-difference design, we show that greater exposure to competition shock materially boosted enterprise innovation. Antitrust policy promotes enterprise innovation by increasing the R&D investment, human capital, and export. The promotion effect of antitrust is relatively strong in the sample of electronic information industry, firms with low levels of financing constraints, and those that undertake open innovation. Our findings elucidate the nexus between competition and innovation in regional innovation ecosystems and underscore the pivotal role of antitrust policies in the development of Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park.

The effect of oral pregabalin on the minimum alveolar concentration of isoflurane in cats.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of three different doses of oral pregabalin on minimum alveolar concentration of isoflurane (MACISO) in cats. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled, blinded, crossover trial. ANIMALS: A group of eight healthy adult cats aged 24-48 months. METHODS: Cats were randomly assigned to three oral doses of pregabalin (low dose: 2.5 mg kg-1, medium dose: 5 mg kg-1, high dose: 10 mg kg-1) or placebo 2 hours before MACISO determination, with the multiple treatments administered with a minimum 7 day washout period. Anesthesia was induced and maintained with isoflurane in oxygen until endotracheal intubation was achieved, and maintained with isoflurane with volume-controlled ventilation. MACISO was determined in triplicate using the bracketing technique and tail clamp method 120 minutes after pregabalin or placebo administration. Physiologic variables (including heart rate and blood pressure) recorded during MACISO determination were averaged and compared between the pregabalin and placebo treatments. One-way analysis of variance and the Friedman test were used to assess the difference for normally and non-normally distributed data, respectively. The Tukey test was used as a post hoc analysis. Values of p < 0.05 were considered significant. RESULTS: The MACISO with the medium- and high-dose pregabalin treatments were 1.33 ± 0.21% and 1.23 ± 0.17%, respectively. These were significantly lower than MACISO after placebo treatment (1.62 ± 0.13%; p = 0.014, p < 0.001, respectively), representing a decrease of 18 ± 9% and 24 ± 6%. The mean plasma pregabalin concentration was negatively correlated with MACISO values. Physiologic variables did not differ significantly between treatments. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Doses of 5 or 10 mg kg-1 pregabalin, administered orally 2 hours before determining MACISO, had a significant isoflurane-sparing effect in cats.

Spiking Neural Membrane Systems with Adaptive Synaptic Time Delay.

Spiking neural membrane systems (or spiking neural P systems, SNP systems) are a new type of computation model which have attracted the attention of plentiful scholars for parallelism, time encoding, interpretability and extensibility. The original SNP systems only consider the time delay caused by the execution of rules within neurons, but not caused by the transmission of spikes via synapses between neurons and its adaptive adjustment. In view of the importance of time delay for SNP systems, which are a time encoding computation model, this study proposes SNP systems with adaptive synaptic time delay (ADSNP systems) based on the dynamic regulation mechanism of synaptic transmission delay in neural systems. In ADSNP systems, besides neurons, astrocytes that can generate adenosine triphosphate (ATP) are introduced. After receiving spikes, astrocytes convert spikes into ATP and send ATP to the synapses controlled by them to change the synaptic time delays. The Turing universality of ADSNP systems in number generating and accepting modes is proved. In addition, a small universal ADSNP system using 93 neurons and astrocytes is given. The superiority of the ADSNP system is demonstrated by comparison with the six variants. Finally, an ADSNP system is constructed for credit card fraud detection, which verifies the feasibility of the ADSNP system for solving real-world problems. By considering the adaptive synaptic delay, ADSNP systems better restore the process of information transmission in biological neural networks, and enhance the adaptability of SNP systems, making the control of time more accurate.

Response of microbial diversity and function to the degradation of Barkol Saline Lake.

Barkol Lake, a shrinking hypersaline lake situated in the northeast of Xinjiang, China, has experienced the exposure of its riverbed and the gradual drying up of its original sediment due to climate change and human activities, resulting in the formation of alkaline soils. These changes have correspondingly altered the physicochemical characteristics of the surrounding environment. Microorganisms play a crucial role, with special functioning involved in various nutrient cycling and energy transfer in saline lake environments. However, little is known about how the microbial community dynamics and metabolic functions in this shrinking saline lake relate to the degradation process. To address this knowledge gap, a cultivation-independent method of amplicon sequencing was used to identify and analyze the microbial community and its potential ecological functions in the sediment and degraded area. The microbial community diversity was found to be significantly lower in the degraded areas than in the sediment samples. The Pseudomonadota was dominant in Barkol Saline Lake. The abundance of Desulfobacterota and Bacillota in the degraded areas was lower than in the lake sediment, while Pseudomonadota, Acidobacteriota, and Actinobacteriota showed an opposite trend. The ßNTI showed that microbial community assembly was primarily associated with deterministic processes in Barkol Saline Lake ecosystems and stochastic processes at the boundary between sediment and degraded areas. Functional predictions showed that sulfur metabolism, particularly sulfate respiration, was much higher in sediment samples than in the degraded areas. Overall, these findings provided a possible perspective for us to understand how microorganisms adapt to extreme environments and their role in saline lakes under environmental change.

Value of radiofrequency ablation for treating locally recurrent thyroid cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis for 2-year follow-up.

PURPOSE: To evaluate the safety and efficacy of radiofrequency ablation (RFA) in treating locoregional recurrent thyroid cancer (LRTC) after a 2-year follow-up time. METHODS: PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library were searched from inception until 20 September 2022 to find studies reporting the safety and efficacy of RFA in LRTC patients after a 2-year follow-up. Two radiologists performed the data extraction and methodological quality assessment according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. RESULTS: We analyzed 6 studies, 229 LRTC patients with 319 locally recurrent tumors were treated with RFA. The mean follow-up time of each study was ≥24 months. The pooled changes in the largest diameter and volume were 7.22 mm (95% confidence interval (CI), 6.35-8.09 mm) and 164.28 mm3 (95% CI, 87.78-240.77 mm3), respectively; the pooled volume reduction rate was 95.03% (95% CI, 87.56-102.49%). The total complete disappearance rate after treatment was 92% (95% CI, 83-100%). The pooled decrease of serum thyroglobulin levels was 0.02 ng/ml (95% CI, -0.00-0.04 ng/ml). The pooled proportion of recurrence rate was 6% (95% CI, 0-13%). The pooled complication rate was 5% (95% CI, 0-10%). The major complications were voice change and hoarseness, only one patient developed permanent vocal cord paralysis; minor complications were cough and pain. CONCLUSIONS: Ultrasound-guided RFA is an effective and safe treatment for LRTC based on 2-year follow-up results.

The role of dietary preferences in osteoarthritis: a Mendelian randomization study using genome-wide association analysis data from the UK Biobank.

Background: To understand the impact of individual preferences for specific dietary items on OA, and to help inform the development of effective and targeted OA prevention and management strategies, we performed a Mendelian randomization analysis between dietary preferences and osteoarthritis. Methods: This study utilized genetic data from the UK Biobank to investigate the association between OA and 21 different common dietary items. Instrumental variables representing European populations were carefully selected based on their genetic significance and linkage disequilibrium. In cases where a dietary item had few relevant genetic markers, a more lenient selection threshold was applied. To prevent bias, the analysis excluded single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with factors such as body mass index (BMI) and cholesterol. Using inverse-variance weighting (IVW) and Mendelian randomization, significant associations were detected between certain dietary items and OA. Results: Using Mendelian randomization to examine the relationship between 21 different dietary items and OA, significant associations were found for coffee, peas, watercress, and cheese, where the first two had a promoting effect and the last two an inhibiting effect on OA. Due to heterogeneity in the test results for cheese, a random IVW representation was used. The results of sensitivity analysis showed no significant heterogeneity or horizontal pleiotropy in the selected SNPS, demonstrating the reliability of Mendelian randomization analysis. Conclusion: This study identified coffee, peas, watercress, and cheese as food items that may have significant dietary effects on osteoarthritis. This information may be useful to consider in the development of OA management strategies.

Immobilization of a broad host range phage on the peroxidase-like Fe-MOF for colorimetric determination of multiple Salmonella enterica strains in food.

A broad host range phage-based nanozyme (Fe-MOF@SalmpYZU47) was prepared for colorimetric detection of multiple Salmonella enterica strains. The isolation of a broad host range phage (SalmpYZU47) capable of infecting multiple S. enterica strains was achieved. Then, it was directly immobilized onto the Fe-MOF to prepare Fe-MOF@SalmpYZU47, exhibiting peroxidase-like activity. The peroxidase-like activity can be specifically inhibited by multiple S. enterica strains, benefiting from the broad host range capture ability of Fe-MOF@SalmpYZU47. Based on it, a colorimetric detection approach was developed for S. enterica in the range from 1.0 × 102 to 1.0 × 108 CFU mL-1, achieving a low limit of detection (LOD) of 11 CFU mL-1. The Fe-MOF@SalmpYZU47 was utilized for detecting S. enterica in authentic food samples, achieving recoveries ranging from 91.88 to 105.34%. Hence, our proposed broad host range phage-based nanozyme exhibits significant potential for application in the colorimetric detection of pathogenic bacteria.

Optic Neuritis in a Pediatric Patient with Kikuchi-Fujimoto Disease: A Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease (KFD), also known as histiocytic necrotizing lymphadenitis, is a rare, benign, and self-limiting condition characterized by lymph node inflammation. While KFD is rarely associated with ocular manifestations, our case report highlights bilateral optic neuritis in a 13-year-old male patient with KFD. We also provide a comprehensive review of similar cases in the literature.

Early cartilage lesion and 5-year incident joint surgery in knee osteoarthritis patients: a retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVE: to investigate the association between cartilage lesion-related features observed in knee osteoarthritis (OA) patients' first MRI examination and incident knee surgery within 5 years. Additionally, to assess the predictive value of these features for the incident knee surgery. METHODS: We identified patients diagnosed with knee OA and treated at our institution between January 2015 and January 2018, and retrieved their baseline clinical data and first MRI examination films from the information system. Next, we proceeded to determine joint space narrowing grade, cartilage lesion size grade, cartilage full-thickness loss grade and cartilage lesion sum score for the medial and lateral compartments, respectively. Generalized linear regression models examined the association of these features with 5-year incident knee surgery. Positive and negative predictive values (PPVs and NPVs) were determined referring to 5-year incident knee surgery. RESULTS: Totally, 878 participants (knees) were found eligible to form the study population. Within the 5 years, surgery was performed on 61 knees. None of the cartilage-related features had been found significantly associated with incident surgery. The results were similar for medial and lateral compartments. The PPVs were low for all the features. CONCLUSIONS: Among symptomatic clinically diagnosed OA knees, cartilage lesions observed in the first MRI examinations were not found to be associated with the occurrence of joint surgery within a 5-year period. All these cartilage-related features appear to have no additional value in predicting 5-year incident joint surgery.

Human Umbilical Cord Mesenchymal Stem Cell-derived Exosome Regulates Intestinal Type 2 Immunity.

AIMS: The aim of this study was to investigate the role of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cell-derived exosomes (hUCMSC-Exo) in regulating the intestinal type 2 immune response for either protection or therapy. BACKGROUND: hUCMSC-Exo was considered a novel cell-free therapeutic product that shows promise in the treatment of various diseases. Type 2 immunity is a protective immune response classified as T-helper type 2 (Th2) cells and is associated with helminthic infections and allergic diseases. The effect of hUCMSC-Exo on intestinal type 2 immune response is not clear. METHOD: C57BL/6 mice were used to establish intestinal type 2 immune response by administering of H.poly and treated with hUCMSC-Exo before or after H.poly infection. Intestinal organoids were isolated and co-cultured with IL-4 and hUCMSC-Exo. Then, we monitored the influence of hUCMSC-Exo on type 2 immune response by checking adult worms, the hyperplasia of tuft and goblet cells. RESULT: hUCMSC-Exo significantly delays the colonization of H.poly in subserosal layer of duodenum on day 7 post-infection and promotes the hyperplasia of tuft cells and goblet cells on day 14 post-infection. HUCMSC-Exo enhances the expansion of tuft cells in IL-4 treated intestinal organoids, and promotes lytic cell death. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrates hUCMSC-Exo may benefit the host by increasing the tolerance at an early infection stage and then enhancing the intestinal type 2 immune response to impede the helminth during Th2 priming. Our results show hUCMSC-Exo may be a positive regulator of type 2 immune response, suggesting hUCMSC-Exo has a potential therapeutic effect on allergic diseases.

Bioinspired Mechanochromic Liquid Crystal Materials: from Fundamentals to Functionalities and Applications.

Inspired by intriguing color changeable ability of natural animals, the design and fabrication of artificial mechanochromic materials capable of changing colors upon stretching or pressing have attracted intense scientific interest. Liquid crystal (LC) is a self-organized soft matter with anisotropic molecular alignment. Due to the sensitivity to various external stimulations, LC has been considered as an emerging and appealing responsive building block to construct intelligent materials and advanced devices. Recently, mechanochromic LC materials have becoming a hot topic in multi fields from flexible artificial skins to visualized sensors and smart biomimetic devices. In this review, the recent progress of mechanochromic LCs is comprehensively summarized. Firstly, the mechanism and functionalities of mechanochromic LC is introduced, followed by preparation of various functional materials based on mechanochromic LCs. Then the applications of mechanochromic LCs are provided. Finally, the conclusion and outlooks of this field is given. This overview is hoped to provide inspiration in fabrication of advanced functional soft materials for scientists and engineers from multidisciplines including materials science, elastomers, chemistry and physical science. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Association Between Ultraprocessed Foods Consumption and Leucocyte Telomere Length: A Cross-Sectional Study of UK Biobank.

BACKGROUND: □ OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to investigate the association between consumption of ultraprocessed foods and leucocyte telomere length (LTL). METHODS: This cross-sectional study utilized data from the UK Biobank, including a total of 64,690 participants. LTL was measured using qPCR with natural logarithmic conversion and z-score normalization. Dietary data were collected through a 24-h recall questionnaire from 2009 to 2010. Ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) were identified using the NOVA food classification as either a continuous or a categorical variable. Multiple linear regression models were employed to analyze the association between UPF consumption and LTL. RESULTS: The included participants had an average age of 56.26 y, of whom 55.2% were female. After adjusting for demographic and health-related variables, LTL exhibited a decrease of 0.005 (95% CI: -0.007, -0.002) with 1 UPF serving increase. Compared with participants consuming ≤3.5 servings/d, those consuming 3.5 to <6 servings showed a shortening of LTL by 0.025 (95% CI: -0.046, -0.003). Participants consuming 6 to ≤8 servings/d and >8 servings/d had LTL shortening of 0.032 (95% CI: -0.054, -0.011) and 0.037 (95% CI: -0.060, -0.014), respectively (P for trend = 0.002). Subgroup analyses by UPF subclasses revealed that the consumption of ready-to-eat/heated food (ß: -0.010; 95% CI: -0.016, -0.004), beans and potatoes (ß: -0.027; 95% CI: -0.043, -0.012), animal-based products (ß: -0.012; 95% CI: -0.020, -0.005), artificial sugar (ß: -0.014; 95% CI:-0.025,-0.003), and beverages (ß: -0.005; 95% CI: -0.009, -0.001) showed negative associations with LTL. Conversely, breakfast cereals (ß: 0.022; 95% CI: 0.006, 0.038) and vegetarian alternatives (ß: 0.056; 95% CI:0.026,0.085) showed positive correlations with LTL. CONCLUSIONS: Our study found that a higher consumption of total UPF was associated with a shorter LTL. However, some UPFs may be associated with longer LTL, depending on their nutritional composition.

Postoperative lenvatinib + PD-1 blockade reduces early tumor recurrence in hepatocellular carcinoma with microvascular invasion (Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage 0 or A): a propensity score matching analysis.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of postoperative adjuvant lenvatinib + PD-1 blockade for patients with early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) with microvascular invasion (MVI). METHODS: A total of 393 patients with HCC (Barcelona Clinic Liver Cancer stage 0 or A) who underwent curative hepatectomy with histopathologically proven MVI were enrolled according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria and assigned to 2 groups: surgery alone (surgery-alone group) and surgery with lenvatinib and PD-1 blockade (surgery + lenvatinib + PD-1 group) to compare recurrence-free survival (RFS), overall survival (OS), recurrence type, and annual recurrence rate after the application of propensity score matching (PSM). The Cox proportional hazards model was used for univariate and multivariate analyses. RESULTS: Overall, 99 matched pairs were selected using PSM. Patients in the surgery + lenvatinib + PD-1 group had significantly higher 3-year RFS rates (76.8%, 65.7%, and 53.5%) than patients in the surgery-alone group (60.6%, 45.5%, and 37.4%) (P = .012). The 2 groups showed no significant difference in recurrence types and OS. Surgery alone, MVI-M2, and alpha-fetoprotein of ≥200 ng/mL were independent risk factors for RFS (P < .05), and history of alcohol use disorder was an independent risk factor for OS (P = .022). CONCLUSION: Postoperative lenvatinib + PD-1 blockade improved the RFS in patients with HCC with MVI and was particularly beneficial for specific individuals.