Utility of Tissue Similarity Maps Based on Relative Cerebral Blood Volume for Grading Gliomas as Validated by Histological Results

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Network Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials: Efficacy and Safety of UDCA-Based Therapies in Primary Biliary Cirrhosis

Major ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA)-based therapies for primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) include UDCA only, or combined with either methotrexate (MTX), corticosteroids (COT), colchicine (COC), or bezafibrate (BEF). As the optimum treatment regimen is unclear and warrants exploration, we aimed to compare these therapies in terms of patient mortality or liver transplantation (MOLT) and adverse events (AE).PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and Scopus were searched for randomized controlled trials up to August 31, 2014. We estimated the hazard ratios (HRs) for MOLT and odds ratios (ORs) for AE. A sensitivity analysis based on the dose of UDCA was also executed.Thirty-one eligible articles were included. Compared with COT plus UDCA, UDCA (HR 0.38, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.09–1.39), BEF plus UDCA (HR 0.29, 95% CI 0.02–4.83), COC plus UDCA (HR 0.39, 95% CI 0.07–2.25), MTX plus UDCA (HR 0.28, 95% CI 0.05–1.63), or OBS (HR 0.49, 95% CI 0.11–2.01) all provided an increased risk of MOLT. With respect to drug AE profile, although not differing appreciably, BEF plus UDCA was associated with more AEs compared with UDCA (OR 3.16, 95% CI 0.59–20.67), COT plus UDCA (OR 2.27, 95% CI 0.15–33.36), COC plus UDCA (OR 1.00, 95% CI 0.09–12.16), MTX plus UDCA (OR 2.03, 95% CI 0.23–17.82), or OBS (OR 3.00, 95% CI 0.53–20.75). The results of sensitivity analyses were highly consistent with previous analyses.COT plus UDCA was the optimal UDCA-based regimen for both MOLT and AEs. BEF plus UDCA was most likely to cause AEs, whereas monotherapy with UDCA and coadministriation of COT plus UDCA appeared to be associated with the fewest AEs for PBC treatment.     

Comparison between a new platelet count drop method PL-11, light transmission aggregometry,VerifyNow aspirin system and thromboelastography for monitoring short-term aspirin effects in healthy individuals

Platelet function has been described by many laboratory assays, and PL-11 is a new point-of-care platelet function analyzer based on platelet count drop method, which counts platelet before and after the addition of agonists in the citrated whole blood samples. The present study sought to compare PL-11 with other three major more established assays, light transmission aggregometry (LTA), VerifyNow? aspirin system and thromboelastography (TEG), for monitoring the short-term aspirin responses in healthy individuals. Ten healthy young men took 100?mg/d aspirin for 3-day treatment. Platelet function was measured via PL-11, LTA, VerifyNow and TEG, respectively. The blood samples were collected at baseline, 2 hour, 1 day during the aspirin treatment and 1 day, 5?±?1 days, 8?±?1 days after the aspirin withdrawal. Moreover, 90 additional healthy subjects were recruited to establish a reference range for PL-11. Platelet function of healthy subjects decreased significantly 2 hours after 100?mg/d aspirin intake and began to recover during 4–6 days after the aspirin withdrawal. Correlations between methods were PL-11 vs. LTA (r?=?0.614, p?<?0.01); PL-11 vs. VerifyNow (r?=?0.829, p?<?0.01); PL-11 vs. TEG (r?=?0.697, p?<?0.001). There was no significant bias between PL-11 and LTA at baseline (bias?=?1.94%, p?=?0.804) using Bland-Altman analysis, while the data of PL-11 were significantly higher than LTA (bias?=?24.02%, p?<?0.001) during the aspirin therapy. The reference range for PL-11 in healthy young individuals was from 66.8 to 90.5% (95%CI). When aspirin low-responsiveness was defined as LTA?>?20%, the cut-off values for each method were, respectively: PL-11?>?50%, VerifyNow?>?533 ARU, TEG?>?60.2%. The results of different platelet function assays were uninterchangeable for monitoring aspirin response and correlations among them were also varied. Correlations among PL-11 and other three major assays suggested the ability of PL-11 to assess the treatment effects of aspirin. But a large cohort study is needed to confirm the cut-off value of aspirin response detected by PL-11.     

Sliding mode control of time‐varying delay Markov jump with quantized output

This paper investigates the quantized sliding mode control of Markov jump systems with time‐varying delay. A dynamical adjustment law is explored to quantize the system output. By constructing an observer‐based integral sliding surface, a sliding mode controller is designed to take over the dynamical motion of state estimation and ensure the reachability of sliding surface. A new scaling manner is developed to build the bound between the system output and quantized error. With the help of separation strategies for controller synthesis and general transition probabilities and a lower bound theorem for nonlinear integral terms, a new synthesis method to ensure the required stability and meet the required performance is proposed in the form of linear matrix inequalities. The validity of the proposed control method is illustrated by a numerical example.     

玻璃体切割联合内界膜剥除治疗糖尿病性黄斑水肿

评估玻璃体切割联合内界膜剥除对糖尿病性黄斑水肿（DME）的疗效。方法：回顾性病例对照研究。2014年6月至2017年1月间因糖尿病视网膜病变合并玻璃体积血或增殖病变于温州医科大学附属眼视光医院杭州院区行玻璃体切割手术治疗，且术前或术中经光学相干断层扫描（OCT）检查确诊合并DME的患者31例（33眼）纳入研究。16例（18眼）术中联合内界膜剥除作为剥膜组，15例（15眼）仅接受玻璃体切割手术治疗者作为对照组。所有手术均由同一医师主刀完成。术后1、3个月随访时复查OCT，对比观察黄斑中心厚度（CMT）和视力的术后变化情况。随访中CMT和最佳矫正视力（BCVA）比较采用重复测量方差分析，组间CMT和BCVA比较采用独立样本t检验。结果：手术前，手术后1、3个月2组间比较LogMAR视力总体差异有统计学意义（F=15.93，P<0.001）。术后 1个月时剥膜组BCVA高于对照组（t=2.55，P=0.02），但术后3个月时2组间差异无统计学意义（t=0.82， P=0.42）。手术前，手术后1、3个月CMT总体差异无统计学意义（F=2.85，P=0.065）。术后1、3个月时，剥膜组的CMT均低于对照组，2组间差异均有统计学意义（t=2.24，P=0.03；t=3.79，P=0.001）。术后1个月时，剥膜组有效（与术前比CMT减少20%以上）、无效（变化不超过20%）及恶化（增厚超过 20%）的例数分别为8、6、4例，术后3个月时则分别为11、5、2例，与对照组相比，术后1个月时组间差异无统计学意义（Z=-1.687，P=0.092），术后3个月时剥膜组DME改善有效比例明显高于对照组，组间差异有统计学意义（Z=-2.177，P=0.029）。结论：对于非牵拉性DME，内界膜剥除有助于术后早期DME消退。