Combined chemoradiation vs radiation therapy alone in stage-II nasopharyngeal carcinoma: A meta-analysis of the published literature

The aim of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the efficacy and toxicity of adding chemotherapy to radiotherapy (RT) in the treatment of stage-II nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). We searched Pubmed, Cochrane Library, Embase, China National Knowledge Internet, China Biology Medicine, VIP, and Wanfang database for studies of the RT with or without chemotherapy in patients with stage-II NPC that were published in any language. Analyses were carried out using RevMan 5.3 software. The relative risk was used to evaluate the data, the I² test was used to compare heterogeneity, sensitivity analysis was used to evaluate the stability and reliability of the results. There were 16 studies with 3038 patients that were included in this analysis. Risk ratios (RR) of 1.04 (95% CI: 1.01-1.06), 1.05 (95% CI: 1.00-1.10), 1.05 (95% CI: 1.02-1.07), and 1.00 (95% CI: 0.97-1.03) were observed for overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), locoregional failure-free survival (LRFS), and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS). Subgroup analysis showed that compared with conventional RT alone, chemoradiation (CRT) could significantly improve OS (RR = 1.09, 95% CI: 1.03-1.15), PFS (RR = 1.20, 95% CI: 1.08-1.35), and LRFS (RR = 1.09, 95% CI: 1.04-1.14), but did not significantly improve the rate of DMFS (RR = 1.03, 95% CI: 0.94-1.12). However, compared with intensity modulated radiation therapy alone, CRT did not significantly improve the rate of OS (RR = 1.01, 95% CI: 0.99-1.03), PFS (RR = 0.99, 95% CI: 0.95-1.03), LRFS (RR = 1.02, 95% CI: 0.99-1.05), and DMFS (RR = 0.99, 95% CI: 0.96-1.01). Compared with conventional RT alone, CRT could significantly improve patients’ prognoses in terms of OS, PFS, and LRFS for stage-II NPC, but not DMFS, and CRT can provide greater benefits from concurrent chemotherapy than neoadjuvant chemotherapy. With intensity modulated radiation therapy, the stage-II NPC patients did not benefit from the addition of chemotherapy.     

Epidermolytic ichthyosis in a child and systematized epidermolytic nevi in the mosaic parent associated with a KRT1 variant

Epidermolytic ichthyosis and epidermolytic nevi share the same histopathological features of epidermolytic hyperkeratosis, characterized by distinctive vacuolar degeneration and hypergranulosis of the superficial epidermis. Both are caused by pathogenic variants in either of two keratin genes KRT1or KRT10, with epidermolytic ichthyosis presenting as a generalized phenotype and epidermolytic nevi presenting as a mosaic phenotype. We report a boy who presented as epidermolytic ichthyosis, with diffuse erythema, superficial erosions and flaccid blisters at birth progressing to generalized ichthyosis. He was found to have inherited a novel KRT1 variant from his mother who presented with extensive epidermolytic nevi or mosaic form of epidermolytic ichthyosis, with extensive, linear and Blaschkoid verrucous, hyperkeratotic plaques over the trunk and limbs. This case highlights the importance of recognising post-zygotic mosaicism which might be transmitted to a child, and the different presentations for germline and mosaic carriers.     

临床生存数据新视角:竞争风险模型

临床生存数据常常伴有多个结局,各结局间存在竞争关系,忽略竞争风险使用传统单因素Kaplan-Meier法会高估累积死亡率,使用传统多因素Cox有可能错误估计HR值。目前国内临床文献较少提及竞争风险且方法学均未提供具体实现程序,亦无解析主流模型应用条件与参数。为此本文旨在阐述竞争风险的概念与核心模型,以实例解析累积发生率、原因别风险模型、部分分布风险模型正确的应用,并提供相应SAS 9.4程序以便临床研究人员进行竞争风险建模时参考。     

孕母全血中硒浓度与子代先天性心脏病发生的关系

目的 探讨孕母全血中硒（selenium,Se）浓度与子代先天性心脏病（congenital heart disease,CHD）发生的关系。方法 本病例对照研究选取怀有CHD胎儿的孕母为病例组（n=120）,怀有心脏结构正常胎儿的孕母作为对照组（n=108）,并抽取外周静脉血对孕母全血中Se元素进行检测。以LnSe浓度三分位将全血中Se浓度分为低、中、高水平。运用单因素和多因素Logistic回归分析孕母全血中LnSe含量与子代CHD发生的关系。结果 病例组中孕母高中以下学历、具有不良妊娠史以及吸烟比例高于对照组,差异有统计学意义（均有P<0.05）;单因素Logistic分析显示,中浓度和高浓度的Se相对于低浓度Se,对CHD及间隔缺损、圆锥干畸形和右室流出道畸形亚型有保护作用。校正孕母年龄、孕前体质指数（body mass index,BMI）、是否吸烟、样本收集孕周以及是否服用叶酸等因素后,回归分析结果显示,相对于低浓度Se组,高浓度Se组发生CHD以及间隔缺损、圆锥干畸形和右室流出道畸形亚型的矫正的优势比（adjusted OR,aOR）分别为0.29（95%CI:0.14~0.61）、0.37（95%CI:0.17~0.82）、0.22（95%CI:0.07~0.64）和0.11（95%CI:0.03~0.44）,而且高浓度Se的保护作用强于中浓度Se。结论 孕母血清Se水平升高与子代CHD的发生风险降低相关。     

Double loop ventricular tachycardia activation patterns with single loop mechanisms: Asymmetric entrainment responses during “pseudo–figure-of-eight” reentry

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Surgical outcomes of functional single ventricle with total anomalous pulmonary venous connection

Background The surgical outcomes have been greatly improved over the past four decades for functional single ventricle(FSV). However,the repair for coexistence of FSV and total anomalous pulmonary venous connection(TAPVC),especially obstructed TAPVC,has remained a clinical challenge. Little is known about the results of surgical treatment for patients with FSV-TAPVC in China. Methods Forty consecutive patients with FSV-TAPVC undergoing initial surgical palliation(median age:16.8 months;body weight:8.25 kg)were retrospectively enrolled from 2006 to 2016 in a specialized cardiovascular institute. TAPVC was repaired in 30 patients. The mean follow-up period was 49 months. Results All of the 7 patients with preoperative pulmonary vein obstruction(PVO)underwent repair of TAPVC at the first operation and survived. When a systemic to pulmonary(S-P)shunt or pulmonary artery banding(PAB)was necessary,patients with concomitant TAPVC repair had lower mortality(30.0%)and higher total cavopulmonary connection completion rate(20.0%)than those without TAPVC repair[75.0% and 0%,respectively],although with no statistical significance(Fisher test,P=0.505 and P=0.245). The overall survival rates for the cohort at 1,3 and 5 years after the initial surgical intervention were 80.0%,77.1% and 77.1%,respectively. Multivariate COX regression analysis detected that SP shunt(adjusted odds ratio:6.51;95%CI:1.26-33.71,P=0.030)is the only risk factor for survival. The reintervention rate for postoperative PVO was higher in patients with preoperative PVO than those without(57.1%vs. 4.3%,Log Rank:P=0.006). Conclusion The mid-term results of surgical repair of FSV-TAPVC are still challenging. When PVO exists,surgical repair for TAPVC is suggested as soon as possible. Repair for TAPVC should also be considered when S-P shunt or PAB is necessary. Further study with larger population are warranted to support our finding.     

A deep learning approach with temporal consistency for automatic myocardial segmentation of quantitative myocardial contrast echocardiography

Quantitative myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) has been proved to be valuable in detecting myocardial ischemia. During quantitative MCE analysis, myocardial segmentation is a critical step in determining accurate region of interests (ROIs). However, traditional myocardial segmentation mainly relies on manual tracing of myocardial contours, which is time-consuming and laborious. To solve this problem, we propose a fully automatic myocardial segmentation framework that can segment myocardial regions in MCE accurately without human intervention. A total of 100 patients’ MCE sequences were divided into a training set and a test set according to a 7: 3 proportion for analysis. We proposed a bi-directional training schema, which incorporated temporal information of forward and backward direction among frames in MCE sequences to ensure temporal consistency by combining convolutional neural network with recurrent neural network. Experiment results demonstrated that compared with a traditional segmentation model (U-net) and the model considering only forward temporal information (U-net?+?forward), our framework achieved the highest segmentation precision in Dice coefficient (U-net vs U-net?+?forward vs our framework: 0.78?±?0.07 vs 0.79?±?0.07 vs 0.81?±?0.07, p?<?0.01), Intersection over Union (0.65?±?0.09 vs 0.66?±?0.09 vs 0.68?±?0.09, p?<?0.01), and lowest Hausdorff Distance (32.68?±?14.6 vs 28.69?±?13.18 vs 27.59?±?12.82 pixel point, p?<?0.01). In the visual grading study, the performance of our framework was the best among these three models (52.47?±?4.29 vs 54.53?±?5.10 vs 57.30?±?4.73, p?<?0.01). A case report on a randomly selected subject for perfusion analysis showed that the perfusion parameters generated by using myocardial segmentation of our proposed framework were similar to that of the expert annotation. The proposed framework could generate more precise myocardial segmentation when compared with traditional methods. The perfusion parameters generated by these myocardial segmentations have a good similarity to that of manual annotation, suggesting that it has the potential to be utilized in routine clinical practice.