Safety of AS04-HPV-16/18 vaccine in Chinese women aged 26 years and older and long-term protective effect in women vaccinated at age 18-25 years: A 10-year follow-up study.

INTRODUCTION: The pivotal efficacy study assessed efficacy and safety of GSK's AS04-HPV-16/18 vaccine in Chinese women aged 18-25 years up to 6 years. The present extension study, performed 4 years later, offered AS04-HPV-16/18 vaccination to placebo recipients. Vaccine safety and its long-term protective effect were assessed at Year 10. METHODS: All 6051 women who received AS04-HPV-16/18 or the placebo during the initial study (NCT00779766) were invited to phase III/IV, open-label, partially controlled extension Year 10 study (NCT03629886). Placebo recipients were offered three-dose AS04-HPV-16/18 vaccination and followed up over 12 months to assess the safety. Cervical samples from all women were examined. Vaccine efficacy (VE) against incident infections and cytological lesions associated with HPV-16/18 and other oncogenic types was assessed as exploratory objective. RESULTS: Among 3537 women (out of 6051) enrolled in the extension study, 1791 women (mean age 32.7 years; standard deviation 1.8 years) received AS04-HPV-16/18 and reported no serious adverse events, potential immune-mediated diseases, or adverse pregnancy outcomes related to vaccination. Among 6051 women, VE against incident HPV-16, -18, and -16/18 infections up to Year 10 was 82.8% (95% confidence interval: 72.5-89.7), 79.8% (64.5-89.2), and 80.8% (72.4-87.0), respectively. VE against HPV-16/18 ASC-US+, CIN1+, and CIN2+ was 92.7% (82.2-97.7), 94.8% (67.4-99.9), and 90.5% (34.6-99.8), respectively. CONCLUSION: AS04-HPV-16/18 vaccine showed an acceptable safety profile in Chinese women vaccinated at age 26 years or above, and a long-term protection similar to other efficacy trials worldwide.

Status and development for detection and control of ammonium bisulfate as a by-product of SCR denitrification.

When denitrification technology using NH3 or urea as the reducing agent is applied to remove NOx from the flue gas, ammonium bisulfate (ABS) by-product will also be generated in the flue gas. ABS has an impact on catalyst life span, denitrification efficiency etc., air preheater and its downstream thermal equipment also have a significant negative impact due to its plugging and corrosion. The requirement for NOx removal efficiency is improved by ultra-low emissions in China. However, wide-load denitrification makes the flue gas composition and temperature changing more complicated. Increasing ammonia injection can improve the NOx removal effect, but too much ammonia injection will lead to the formation of ABS and the increase of deposition risk, the contradiction between these two aspects is amplified by ultra-low emissions and wide-load denitrification in many plants. Coordinating NOx control and reducing the impact of ABS on equipment are issues that the industry needs to solve urgently. In recent years, extensive research on ABS had been carried out deeply, consequently, there has been a relatively in-deepth knowledge foundation for ABS formation, formation temperature, deposition temperature, dew point temperature, decomposition behavior, etc., but the existing researches are insufficient to support the problem of ABS under full load denitrification completely resolved. Therefore, some analysis and detection methods related to ABS are reviewed in this paper, and the impact of ABS on SCR, air preheater and other equipment and the existing research results on reducing the impact of ABS are summarized also. It is hoped that this review will provide a reference for the industry to solve the problems of ABS that hinder wide-load denitrification and affect ultra-low emissions.

Scale-up experiments of SO2 removal and the promoting behavior of NO in moving beds at medium temperatures.

The dry flue gas desulfurization (FGD) method was studied, which is a part of the integrated removal of multi-pollutants at medium temperatures. Although dry flue gas treatment is a simple and effective method, it is still a highly empirical-led application technology. A superior desulfurization adsorbent, fine powder of NaHCO3 (hereinafter called fine NaHCO3), was selected by scale-up experiments. A deep understanding of the reaction process and mechanism is then explored, which helps the further optimization of dry desulfurization. Based on the multi-factor experiments for NaHCO3, the effect mechanism of NO on desulfurization using NaHCO3 is also proposed. The conversion of SO3 2- → SO4 2- is promoted by the existence of NO. Therefore, a slight decline can be found. According to the influences of the SO2 concentration and the residence time, it is concluded that the diffusion of SO2 into the channel of NaHCO3 is the rate-limiting step. Impressively, the reaction process of reactants was clearly studied by in situ FTIR spectroscopy to determine the whole process. Moreover, the recycling of NaHCO3 is the main direction for reducing adsorbent consumption in the next step. The predictable insights are beneficial for profoundly understanding the gas composition synergetic interaction for the SO2 removal by the dry treatment using NaHCO3.

Clinical performance of Onclarity HPV assay and Cobas HPV test in detection of cervical precancer and cancer in Chinese women.

OBJECTIVE: The Roche Cobas (Cobas) and BD Onclarity (Onclarity) human papillomavirus (HPV) assays are convenient, PCR-based, HPV DNA tests; currently, data on performance of Onclarity in Chinese women is limited. We aimed to evaluate the clinical performance of Onclarity for detecting cervical lesions in Chinese women. METHODS: In total, 1122 women were enrolled into this study. Exfoliated cervical cells were collected in PreservCyt medium and were tested using Cobas and Onclarity. Cytology and histology were interpreted by senior cytologists and a panel of pathologists, respectively, at Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. RESULTS: The assays showed excellent concordance for HPV16 (kappa = 0.91, 95% CI: 0.85-0.97) and for 12 other high-risk types (HPV31/33/35/39/45/51/52/56/58/59/66/68, kappa = 0.84, 95% CI: 0.78-0.90), and very good concordance for HPV18 (kappa = 0.75, 95% CI: 0.69-0.81). No difference for ≥CIN2 sensitivity was observed between Onclarity and Cobas (both 90.5%); and the