Application of Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging in Evaluating Acute Xerostomia in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Treated With Induction Chemotherapy Plus Concurrent Chemoradiotherapy.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to identify the efficacy of diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) in tracking and monitoring the dynamic change of parotid glands (PGs), submandibular glands (SMGs), sublingual glands (SLGs), and acute xerostomia in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients treated with induction chemotherapy (IC) plus concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT). Methods: The prospective study recruited 42 participants treated with IC+CCRT. All patients underwent DKI scanning six times: before IC, before RT, in the middle of the RT course, immediately after RT, and 1 and 3 months post-RT. Mean diffusion coefficient (MD) and mean kurtosis (MK) of PG, SMG, SLG, saliva flow rate measured under resting (uSFR) and stimulated condition (sSFR), and xerostomia questionnaire (XQ) scores were recorded. Results: At each time point, sSFR was significantly higher than uSFR (p < 0.05 for all). MD of the salivary glands and XQ scores increased over time while MK, uSFR, and sSFR decreased. After IC, the significant differences were detected in MD and MK of bilateral SMG and MK of the left SLG (p < 0.05 for all), but not in MD and MK of PG, uSFR, sSFR, and XQ scores. After RT, sSFR at 1m-RT decreased significantly (p = 0.03) while no significant differences were detected in uSFR and XQ scores. Moderate-strong correlations were detected in ΔMD-PG-R%, ΔMK-PG-R%, ΔMD-PG-L%, ΔMK-PG-L%, ΔMD-SMG-R%, ΔMK-SMG-R%, ΔMD-SMG-L%, ΔMK-SMG-L%, and ΔMD-SLG-R%, with correlation coefficients (p < 0.05 for all) ranging from 0.401 to 0.714. ΔuSFR% was correlated with ΔMD-SMG% (p = 0.01, r = -0.39), ΔMD-SLG% (p < 0.001, r = -0.532), and ΔMK-SMG% (p < 0.001, r = -0.493). ΔsSFR% correlated with ΔMD-PG% (p = 0.001, r = -0.509), ΔMD-SMG% (p = 0.015, r = -0.221), and ΔMK-PG% (p < 0.001, r = 0.524). ΔXQ% was only correlated with ΔMK-PG% (p = 0.004, r = 0.433). Conclusion: DKI is a promising tool for tracking and monitoring the acute damage of PG, SMG, and SLG induced by IC+CCRT in NPC patients.

The proportion, species distribution and dynamic trends of bloodstream infection cases in a tertiary hospital in China, 2010-2019.

BACKGROUND: Recent epidemiological studies on bloodstream infection (BSI) that include the proportion, species distribution and dynamic changes are scarce in China. This study was performed to understand these epidemiological data of BSI over the past 10 years in China. METHODS: Using a prospective nosocomial infection surveillance system, this study was retrospectively performed in one of the largest hospitals in China. The time trend was tested using the Cochran-Armitage trend test in R Programming Language. RESULTS: From 2010 to 2019, there were totally 9381 episodes of BSI cases out of 1,437,927 adult-hospitalized patients in the hospital, the total proportion of BSI cases was 6.50‰ (6.50 episodes per 1000 adult-hospitalized patients) and the proportion had significantly decreased (8.24-6.07‰, time trend P < 0.001). Among the 9381 episodes of BSI, 93.1% were bacteremia and others were fungemia (6.9%). As the most common species, the composition ratios of coagulase-negative staphylococcus (25.6-32.5%), Escherichia coli (9.8-13.6%) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (5.3-10.4%) had been dynamically increased (all time trends P < 0.05) and the proportion of Pseudomonas aeruginosa had decreased (4.0-2.4%, time trend P = 0.032). However, Staphylococcus aureus (3.3-3.1%) and Acinetobacter baumannii (4.4-4.2%) had not changed significantly (P > 0.05). These common species were consistent with China Antimicrobial Surveillance Network reported in 2018 (2018 CHINET report), but their composition ratios were different. In addition, among bacteremia, the proportion of multidrug-resistant bacteria gradually increased from 52.9 to 68.4% (time trend P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: The proportion and species distribution of BSI were dynamically changing along certain trends. These trends deserved more attention from clinicians and researchers.

[Cartilaginous tumors of the cricoid: a case report].

Review a case of cricoid cartilaginous tumour in our hospital in December 2013 retrospectively, which received laryngofissure surgery and was followed up for 1 year. The case is still alive without recurrence. The incidence of laryngeal cartilaginous tumour is low, most are cases of cricoid cartilaginous tumour. Try to preserve laryngeal function in surgery as much as possible.

miR-20a promotes prostate cancer invasion and migration through targeting ABL2.

The aberrant expression of microRNAs (miRNAs) has been found in various types of cancer. The present study found miR-20a was significantly up-regulated in prostate cancer compared with normal prostate tissues. Patients with a higher miR-20a expression had a Gleason score of 7-10 and shorter survival time. The transwell and wound healing assays revealed that blocking expression of miR-20a by miR-20a ASO suppresses the invasion and migration of PC-3 and DU145 cells in vitro and also inhibits tumor growth in vivo. Furthermore, we identified miR-20a directly targets the ABL family non-receptor tyrosine kinases ABL2 and negatively regulates the phosphorylation of its downstream gene p190RhoGAP. Knockdown of ABL2 promoted cell invasion and migration and we identified miR-20a-induced cell invasion and migration can be rescued by ABL2. In conclusion, our findings show that miR-20a significantly contributes to the progression of prostate cancer by targeting ABL2.