Computer characterization of sinus rhythm.

Sinus rhythm tracings, including sinus tachycardia and bradycardia, are characterized quantitatively by means of an ECG measurement program which has been subjected to rigorous evaluation. The analysis is performed on tracings of short duration (10 sec). The features of regularity and stability are considered for the R wavetrain. Regularity is evaluated from the normalized differences between sucessive RR intervals. Stability is determined by the ratio of maximum and minimum RR interval durations. Due to the difficulities of automatic beat-to-beat detection and measurement of P waves, an estimate of the PR interval is obtained from a pseudo-PR interval determined from certain features of the P and R wavetrains. The constancy of this pseudo-PR interval is evaluated, and its absolute value is uded as a characteristic of the type of sinus rhythm.     

Functional Dosage of Muscarinic Cholinergic Receptor 3 Signalling,Not the Gene Dose,Determines Its Hypertension Pathogenesis

Background

Multiple quantitative trait loci for blood pressure (BP) have been localized throughout human and rodent genomes. Few of them have been functionally identified especially in humans, and little is known about their pathogenic directionality when identified. We focused on Chrm3 encoding the muscarinic cholinergic receptor 3 (M3R) as the causal gene for C17QTL1 in the Dahl salt-sensitive rat model.

Estudio longitudinal de la función visual en pacientes con esclerosis múltiple remitente-recurrente con y sin antecedentes de neuritis óptica

Introduction

The contrast sensitivity test determines the quality of visual function in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The purpose of this study is to analyse changes in visual function in patients with relapsing-remitting MS with and without a history of optic neuritis (ON).

Microvascular volume in symptomatic Achilles tendons is associated with VISA-A score

Objectives

The role of neovascularisation in tendinopathy is still poorly understood, potentially due to technical limitations of conventional power Doppler ultrasound. This study aimed to investigate the association between contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) microvascular volume (MV), Victorian Institute of Sports Assessment-Achilles (VISA-A) scores and intrinsic Achilles tendon tenderness, as well as two different Power Doppler modes.

Prevalence of suspected glaucoma in Haiti: a pilot study

ObjectiveGather epidemiological data pertaining to the prevalence of suspected glaucoma in rural and urban areas of Haiti.DesignCross-sectional pilot study.ParticipantsHaitians of African ancestry.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study on 211 Haitians of African ancestry (76 males and 135 females) aged 40 years and over. The mean age was 54.6 ± 10.9 years. The data were collected in glaucoma screening clinics at health fairs held in urban Port-au-Prince (57 people) and three rural regions (154 people) during a two-week medical mission to Haiti in November 2014. An ophthalmic exam with intraocular pressure measurement (with Tonopen) and dilated fundus exam were conducted.ResultsThe average C/D was 0.41 ± 0.18. The prevalence of suspected glaucoma, defined as C/D ≥ 0.7, asymmetry of ≥0.2 or significant rim notching, was 14.2%. The average IOP was 18.4 ± 5.4. Ocular hypertension (IOP ≥ 24mmHg) was found in 19.0% of participants.ConclusionsThe prevalence of ocular hypertension and glaucoma based on suspect optic nerves in our sample population was high, indicating a strong need for access to ophthalmologic care in the Haitian population.     

PTEN、p27在口腔粘膜白斑和口腔癌组织中的表达及意义

目的　探讨抑癌基因PTEN、p2 7在口腔粘膜白斑 (oralleukoplakia ,OLK)和口腔癌 (oralsquamouscellcancer,OSCC)组织中的蛋白表达及意义。方法　应用免疫组化S -P法检测 10例正常口腔粘膜、2 5例口腔粘膜白斑 (其中白斑伴上皮异常增生 15例 ,白斑不伴上皮异常增生 10例 )及 32例口腔癌组织中抑癌基因PTEN和p2 7的蛋白表达情况。结果　正常口腔粘膜和白斑不伴上皮异常增生组织中PTEN和 p2 7蛋白全部阳性表达 ;白斑伴上皮异常增生组织中PTEN和 p2 7蛋白阳性表达率分别为93.3%、73.3%。OSCC组织中PTEN蛋白阳性表达率为71.9% ,其中高、中、低分化OSCC组织中PTEN蛋白阳性表达率分别为 85 .7%、75 %和 33.3% ,统计学分析表明PTEN在OSCC组织中的蛋白表达与组织分化程度明显相关 (P <0 .0 5 )。OSCC组织中 p2 7蛋白的阳性表达率为4 0 .6 % ,其中高、中、低分化OSCC组织中p2 7蛋白的阳性表达率分别为 4 2 .9%、4 1.7%和 33.3% ,统计学分析表明p2 7在OSCC组织中的蛋白表达与组织分化程度无明显相关 (P >0 .0 5 )。结论　OSCC组织中PTEN和 p2 7蛋白的阴性表达率较高 ,说明PTEN和 p2 7基因突变或缺失在OSCC的发生发展过程中起重要作用。     

The impact of Mexico's conditional cash transfer programme, Oportunidades, on birthweight

Objectives To evaluate the impact of Oportunidades, a large‐scale, conditional cash transfer programme in Mexico, on birthweight. The programme provides cash transfers to low‐income, rural households in Mexico, conditional on accepting nutritional supplements health education, and health care. Methods The primary analyses used retrospective reports from 840 women in poor rural communities participating in an effectiveness study and randomly assigned to incorporation into the programme in 1998 or 1999 across seven Mexican states. Pregnant women in participating households received nutrition supplements and health care, and accepted cash transfers. Using multivariate and instrumental variable analyses, we estimated the impact of the programme on birthweight in grams and low birthweight (<2500 g), receipt of any pre‐natal care, and number of pre‐natal visits. Results Oportunidades beneficiary status was associated with 127.3 g higher birthweight among participating women and a 4.6 percentage point reduction in low birthweight. Conclusion The Oportunidades conditional cash transfer programme improved birthweight outcomes. This finding is relevant to countries implementing conditional cash transfer programmes.     

‘Mate’ Intake,Hormone-Based Risk Factors and Breast Cancer: a Case-Control Study

Previous reports on the inverse association between ‘mate’ intake (infusion of Ilex Paraguariensis herb) and breastcancer (BC) risk led us to consider two main roles for the infusion: as a substantial antioxidant contributor and asa hormone regulator, particularly through anti-aromatase capacities. Since menstrual-reproductive risk factors forBC reflect women’s estrogenic exposure during the reproductive lifespan, and considering that ‘mate’ intake exertsputative stronger protection among high antioxidant contributors, we attempted to analyze interactions among theinfusion, hormon-linked reproductive factors and BC risk, which have hitherto remained unexplored. We analyzed adatabase of 572 BC incident cases and 889 controls. Women were interviewed with a specific questionnaire featuringsocio-demographic, lifestyle and reproductive variables (age at menarche, 1st live birth and menopause; number of livebirths; breastfeeding months), and a food frequency questionnaire, focusing on ‘mate’ intake (consumer status, dailyintake, age at start, age at quit, duration of habit). Odds ratios (OR) and their 95% confidence Intervals were calculatedthrough unconditional logistic regression, adjusting for relevant potential confounders. ‘Mate’ intake showed stronginverse associations with some high-risk hormone-related factors: early menarche, nulliparity, low breastfeeding, longreproductive years and high number of ovulatory cycles. Moreover, all subsets of high dietary energy demonstratedeven stronger associations. In conclusion, regarding exposure to known hormone risk factors, we found strong inverseassociations between high ‘mate’ intake and BC, which were greater among those consuming higher calorific diets.Our analyses support possible combined antioxidant and antiestrogenic effects for ‘mate’ infusions.     

DeepSMILE: Contrastive self-supervised pre-training benefits MSI and HRD classification directly from H&E whole-slide images in colorectal and breast cancer

We propose a Deep learning-based weak label learning method for analyzing whole slide images (WSIs) of Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E) stained tumor tissue not requiring pixel-level or tile-level annotations using Self-supervised pre-training and heterogeneity-aware deep Multiple Instance LEarning (DeepSMILE). We apply DeepSMILE to the task of Homologous recombination deficiency (HRD) and microsatellite instability (MSI) prediction. We utilize contrastive self-supervised learning to pre-train a feature extractor on histopathology tiles of cancer tissue. Additionally, we use variability-aware deep multiple instance learning to learn the tile feature aggregation function while modeling tumor heterogeneity. For MSI prediction in a tumor-annotated and color normalized subset of TCGA-CRC (n=360 patients), contrastive self-supervised learning improves the tile supervision baseline from 0.77 to 0.87 AUROC, on par with our proposed DeepSMILE method. On TCGA-BC (n=1041 patients) without any manual annotations, DeepSMILE improves HRD classification performance from 0.77 to 0.81 AUROC compared to tile supervision with either a self-supervised or ImageNet pre-trained feature extractor. Our proposed methods reach the baseline performance using only 40% of the labeled data on both datasets. These improvements suggest we can use standard self-supervised learning techniques combined with multiple instance learning in the histopathology domain to improve genomic label classification performance with fewer labeled data.     

格林-巴利综合征患者蛋白质及血脂代谢指标分析

目的 了解格林-巴利综合征(GBS)患者蛋白质及血脂代谢指标分布特征,探讨蛋白质及血脂代谢与GBS之间的关系.方法 共收集首都医科大学附属北京天坛医院2018-2020年90例确诊GBS患者作为GBS组,从不同年龄、性别、严重程度、分型、治疗前后等方面对蛋白质及血脂代谢指标进行分析;同时选取性别、年龄匹配的60例体检健...