Indicators of Oxidative Stress in the Prediction of Coronary Artery Lesions in Patients With Kawasaki Disease.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to examine the clinical significance of oxidative stress (OS)-related indices, including inflammatory markers and lipid and platelet (PLT) parameter, in coronary artery lesions (CALs) in Kawasaki disease (KD). METHODS: Clinical data of 952 KD patients diagnosed between January 2019 and March 2022 were collected and divided into CAL and NCAL groups. All the KD patients were randomly divided into training set and verification set. The univariate analysis and multivariate logistic regression analysis of training set were used to identify the OS-related independent risk factors of CALs, which were then used to construct a predictive nomogram. Calibration curve and receiver operating characteristic curve were used to evaluate the performance of the model. The predictive nomogram was further validated on verification set. RESULTS: In the training set, 137 KD patients (18.0%) showed CALs. C-reactive protein, serum amyloid A, PLT count, monocyte-to-high-density lipoprotein (HDL) ratio, and PLT-to-lymphocyte ratio were significantly higher, whereas HDL was lower in the CAL group than the NCAL group. Increased C-reactive protein, serum amyloid A, PLT, and decreased HDL were identified as independent risk factors. The nomogram constructed using these factors showed satisfactory calibration degree and discriminatory power (the area under the curve, 0.887). In the verification set, the area under the curve was 0.795. CONCLUSION: The predictive nomogram constructed using 4 OS-related risk factors associated with CALs in patients with KD could be a useful tool for early diagnosis of CALs in KD.

Identification and Genotypic Characterization of Potentially Pathogenic Acanthamoeba Isolated from Tap Water in Wuxi, China.

Members of genus Acanthamoeba are widely distributed in the environment. Some are pathogenic and cause keratitis and fatal granulomatous amoebic encephalitis. In this study, we isolated an Acanthamoeba CJW/W1 strain from tap water in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, China. Its 18S rDNA was sequenced and a phylogenetic tree was constructed. The isolated cysts belonged to morphologic group II. Comparison of 18S rDNA sequences of CJW/W1 strain and other isolates showed high similarity (99.7%) to a clinical isolate Asp, KA/E28. A phylogeny analysis confirmed this isolate belonged to the pathogenic genotype T4, the most common strain associated with Acanthamoeba-related diseases. This is the first report of an Acanthamoeba strain isolated from tap water in Wuxi, China. Acanthamoeba could be a public health threat to the contact lens wearers and, therefore, its prevalence should be monitored.