Early-stage hepatocellular carcinoma screening in patients with chronic hepatitis B in China: a cost-effectiveness analysis.

Aim: To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of seven screening strategies for chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients in China. Methods: A discrete event simulation model combining a decision tree and Markov structure was developed to simulate a CHB cohort aged ≥40 years on a lifetime horizon and evaluate the costs and health outcomes (quality-adjusted life years [QALYs] gained) of ultrasonography (US), alpha-fetoprotein (AFP), protein induced by vitamin K absence-II (PIVKA-II), AFP+US, AFP+PIVKA-II, GAAD (a diagnostic algorithm based on gender and age combined with results of AFP and PIVKA-II) and GAAD+US. Epidemiologic, clinical performance, utility and cost data were obtained from the literature, expert interviews and real-world data. Uncertainties on key parameters were explored through deterministic and probabilistic sensitivity analyses (DSA and PSA). Results: Compared with other strategies, GAAD+US detected the most HCC patients at early stage, and GAAD was the screening strategy with the lowest average cost per HCC case diagnosed. Using 3× China's 2022 GDP per capita ($38,233.34) as the threshold, the three strategies of US, GAAD and GAAD+US formed a cost-effectiveness frontier. Screening with US, GAAD, or GAAD+US was associated with costs of $6110.46, $7622.05 and $8636.32, and QALYs of 13.18, 13.48 and 13.52, respectively. The ICER of GAAD over US was $4993.39/QALY and the ICER of GAAD+US over GAAD was $26,691.45/QALY, which was less than 3× GDP per capita. Both DSA and PSA proved the stability of the results. Conclusion: GAAD+US was the most cost-effective strategy for early HCC diagnosis among CHB patients which could be considered as the liver cancer screening scheme for the high-risk population in China.

Controllable synthesis of Ni/SiO2 hollow spheres and their excellent catalytic performance in 4-nitrophenol reduction.

The high cost of noble metal nanoparticles used for catalytic reduction of 4-nitrophenol (4-NP) leads to an extensive study of Ni nanoparticles (NPs) for their low cost and magnetic properties. However, the conventional routes for preparing the ferromagnetic Ni NPs usually lead to large particle size and aggregation. In this study, we propose a simple two-step method for the synthesis of hierarchical Ni NP supported silica magnetic hollow microspheres (Ni/SiO2 MHMs). Tiny Ni NPs are well dispersed on the supports with high loading amounts (15 wt%). The size of Ni NPs can be tuned from 10 nm to 21 nm with the size of Ni/SiO2 MHMs increasing from 230 nm to 800 nm. The as-prepared samples exhibit excellent catalytic activity in the reduction of 4-NP. Furthermore, the experimental results prove that the size of Ni NPs plays an important role in the catalytic activity. The catalytic activity of small sized Ni NPs is higher than that of large sized and many other supported Ni NP catalysts as reported. In particular, the magnetic properties of Ni/SiO2 MHMs make them easy to recycle for reuse.

A facile solution-chemistry method for Cu(OH)2 nanoribbon arrays with noticeable electrochemical hydrogen storage ability at room temperature.

Cu(OH)(2) nanoribbon arrays were synthesized by a simple room-temperature solution reaction for the first time, which exhibited noticeable hydrogen storage capacity and large BET surface area.