Recommendations for standardized management of CML patients in the core epidemic area of COVID-19(Multi-center survey results in Hubei Province, China)

BackgroundSince late December 2019, the outbreak of the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, that began in Wuhan, has become endemic in China and more than 100 countries and regions in the world. So far, there is rare data on the prevalence of COVID-19 in patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). We aimed to describe the clinical course, outcomes of CML patients with COVID-19 and prevalence of COVID-19 in CML patients. MethodsIn this multicentre, cross-sectional survey, the clinical data of CML patients with COVID-19 in each center were collected. Simultaneously, an online survey was conducted for information about the CML patients under the management at each center by asking the CML patients to complete a questionnaire,from February 15, 2020 to February 21, 2020. The questionnaire includes demographic data, place of residence, smoking status, CML diagnosis and treatment, comorbidities, combined medications, epidemiological history, symptoms(fever, cough, shortness of breath, etc) during the epidemic. Additional clinical data was collected on respondents suspected or confirmed to have COVID-19. We described and analyzed the prevalence of COVID-19 in CML patients, and focus on the clinical characteristics and outcomes of COVID-19 patients. Data were compared between the CML patients with optimal response and those with non-optimal response. The primary outcome was prevalence of COVID-19 in CML patients, as of Feb 21, 2020. Secondary outcomes included the history of epidemiology of CML patients, the clinical characteristics and outcomes of CML patients with COVID-19. FindingsOf 392 respondents, 223(56.9%) were males, and 240(61.2%) were 50 years or younger. Only 10 patients took drugs irregularly due to the influence of the epidemic because of traffic control, pharmacies unable to operate normally, etc. In the history of epidemiology, there were 4 patients with definite contact with COVID-19, of which 3 were remote contact and 1 was close contact. 12 respondents had fever, cough or shortness of breath during the epidemic, 1 case (common type) was confirmed with COVID-19 and cured after treatment. 1 patient was clinically diagnosed and succumbed. 1 of 299 (0.3%) patients with an optimal response was diagnosed with COVID-19. Of the 50 patients who failed to respond to CML treatment or had a poor response, 1 patient (2%) had a clinical diagnosis of COVID-19. InterpretationWhile the 392 CML respondents required regular referrals to hospitals, they did not have much contact with COVID-19 patients during the outbreak. Patients who failed to achieved an optimal response to CML therapy appear more likely to have a symptomatic infection with SARS-CoV-2. Older patients with comorbidities are at increased risk of death. FundingThis work was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China(NSFC)(81873440&81700142).

Fusion of Deep Learning and Compressed Domain Features for Content-Based Image Retrieval.

This paper presents an effective image retrieval method by combining high-level features from convolutional neural network (CNN) model and low-level features from dot-diffused block truncation coding (DDBTC). The low-level features, e.g., texture and color, are constructed by vector quantization -indexed histogram from DDBTC bitmap, maximum, and minimum quantizers. Conversely, high-level features from CNN can effectively capture human perception. With the fusion of the DDBTC and CNN features, the extended deep learning two-layer codebook features is generated using the proposed two-layer codebook, dimension reduction, and similarity reweighting to improve the overall retrieval rate. Two metrics, average precision rate and average recall rate (ARR), are employed to examine various data sets. As documented in the experimental results, the proposed schemes can achieve superior performance compared with the state-of-the-art methods with either low-or high-level features in terms of the retrieval rate. Thus, it can be a strong candidate for various image retrieval related applications.

Ocular Recognition for Blinking Eyes.

Ocular recognition is expected to provide a higher flexibility in handling practical applications as oppose to the iris recognition, which only works for the ideal open-eye case. However, the accuracy of the recent efforts is still far from satisfactory at uncontrollable conditions, such as eye blinking which implies any poses of eyes. To address these issues, the skin texture, eyelids, and additional geometrical features are employed. In addition, to achieve higher accuracy, sequential forward floating selection is utilized to select the best feature combinations. Finally, the non-linear support vector machine is applied for identification purpose. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves the best accuracy for both open eye and blinking eye scenarios. As a result, it offers greater flexibility for the prospective subjects during recognition as well as higher reliability for security.

Inverse halftoning with context driven prediction.

A prior work proposed by Chung-Wu considered an edge-based lookup table to obtain good inversed image quality, yet it suffers from some drawbacks in terms of image quality, memory consumption, and complexity. In this correspondence, an improved scheme is proposed to deal with these issues.

Improved block truncation coding using optimized dot diffusion.

Block truncation coding (BTC) has been considered a highly efficient compression technique for decades. However, its inherent artifacts, blocking effect and false contour, caused by low bit rate configuration are the key problems. To deal with these, an improved BTC, namely dot-diffused BTC (DDBTC), is proposed in this paper. Moreover, this method can provide excellent processing efficiency by exploiting the nature parallelism advantage of the dot diffusion, and excellent image quality can also be offered through co-optimizing the class matrix and diffused matrix of the dot diffusion. According to the experimental results, the proposed DDBTC is superior to the former error-diffused BTC in terms of various objective image quality assessment methods as well as processing efficiency. In addition, the DDBTC also shows a significant image quality improvement comparing with that of the former ordered-dither BTC.

Activation of NOD2 signalling pathway stimulates the function of human dendritic cells loaded with leukemia cell lysates / 中国实验血液学杂志

The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of NOD2 signalling pathway activated by muramyl dipeptide (MDP) on the immunomodulation effect of human monocyte-derived dendritic cells (DC) loaded with leukemia cell lysates. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMNC) were isolated by density gradient centrifugation, These cells were cultured with three cytokines for 7 days to induce their maturation. On the 5th day, cells were loaded with leukemia cell HL-60 lysates. NOD2 expression was detected by RT-PCR and Western blot. The phenotype of DC were analyzed by flow cytometry, and ELISA was used to assay levels of IL-12 (p40) . The results showed that MDP could trigger NOD2 mRNA and protein expression in different groups of DC, especially in sensitized DC+MDP group, which was significantly higher than that in the DC+MDP group and sensitized DC without MDP stimulation, the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). Besides, the expression of surface molecules (HLA-DR, CD80, CD83, CD86, CD40) in the group of DC loaded with leukemia cell lysate and stimulated by MDP (sensitized DC+MDP) reached the highest level, followed by the group of DC loaded with leukemia cell lysate without MDP and DC only stimulated by MDP, non-treated DC were the lowest (P < 0.05). Similarly, compared with untreated unstimulated DC, after loading with HL-60 lysates or only stimulating with MDP, the secretion of IL-12p40 increased, but IL-12p40 level (573.86 ± 32.09 pg/ml) in DC+MDP group was higher than that in group of sensitized DC (365.03 ± 28.86 pg/ml) (P < 0.05), and it in sensitized DC+MDP group reached the highest (898.30 ± 61.08) pg/ml, compared to other groups (P < 0.05). It is concluded that MDP can significantly enhance the NOD2 mRNA and protein expression in sensitized DC, promote the expression of HLA-DR, synergistic costimulatory molecules and adhesion molecules of DC, at the same time, MDP can increase secretion of inflammatory factors IL-12p40. This study will provide a new ideas for DC application in leukemia immunotherapy.

Mechanism of G2/M blockage triggered by activated-Chk1 in regulation of drug-resistance in K562/A02 cell line / 中国实验血液学杂志

The study was purposed to investigate the effect of phosphorylated-chk1 on cell cycle and apoptosis of human erythroleukemic cell line K562 and K562/A02, and to explore the mechanism of chk1 in regulation of drug-resistance of leukemia cells. After treatment with adrimycin for six hours, the cell cycle distribution was detected by flow cytometry; the Chk1mRNA expression was detected by RT-PCR and the Chk1 phosphorylation level was detected by Western blot. Under the condition of down-regulation of Chk1mRNA expression in cells transfected with Chk1 short hairpin RNA, the cell apoptosis rates were detected by flow-cytometry following adrimycin. The results indicated that the proportion of K562/A02 cell line in G2/M phase was (54.12 +/- 0.57)% at 6 hours after drug treatment, significantly higher than that of K562 cell line (36.99 +/- 1.28)%. No evident difference of the Chk1mRNA expression was observed between K562 and K562/A02 cell lines, while elevated Chk1 phosphorylation following DNA damage induced by adriamycin was observed in the K562/A02 cell line (0.79 +/- 0.56), significantly higher than that in K562 cell line (0.27 +/- 1.47). The cell apoptosis rate of the Chk1 shRNA group in K562/A02 cell line was 3.84-fold of blank vector group, but that in K562 cell line was 1.30-fold of blank vector group. It is concluded that the increased chk1 activity that delay the progress of cell cycle are associated with cellular resistance to adrimycin in the K562/A02 cell line.

Clinical efficacy of recombinant human interleukin 11 on thrombocytopenia in pre-aplastic anemia / 中国实验血液学杂志

To evaluate the clinical efficacy of recombinant human Interleukin 11 in the treatment of pre-aplastic anemia, six patients with pre-aplastic anemia were injected with rhIL-11 of 6 million units once a day during 7-14 days. Blood platelet counts were taken on day 8, 15, 30 and 60 after the treatment, and bone marrow examination was performed on day 15 as compared with those before treatment. The results showed that platelet counts in 3 out of 6 patients increased remarkably (50%), one of the six increased moderately (16.7%), another case of the six increased slightly (16.7%), platelet in one out of six did not significantly increase (16.7%), the total efficacy rate is 83.3%, the amount of megakaryocyte in bone marrow of all six patients increased, the side effect of the rhIL-11 treatment was light. In conclusion, the efficacy of recombinant human Interleukin-11 in the treatment of thrombocytopenia patients with pre-aplastic anemia is satisfactory. As the number of the cases is too small to conclude, further exploration needs accumulation of more applications.