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Objective: This study investigated the role of titanium clip marking during endoscopy in managing patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) for whom endoscopic hemostasis has proven ineffective., Methods: A total of 63 UGIB patients admitted to the Affiliated Hospital of Zunyi Medical University between January 2018 and November 2020 were selected as the study cohort. Patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups: the control group (n=23) and the combined group (n=40). The control group underwent transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE), while the combined group received endoscopic metallic titanium clip-assisted TAE. This study compared the rates of successful embolization, clinical success, recurrence, operation time, radiation exposure time, radiation dosage, levels of hs-CRP, Cor, NE, TNF-α, IL-6, and ADH before and after treatment, as well as postoperative complications between the two groups., Results: The combined group of patients exhibited significantly higher rates of successful embolization and clinical success compared to the control group (P < .05). Additionally, the recurrence rate and levels of hs-CRP, Cor, NE, TNF-α, IL-6, and ADH were significantly lower in the combined group compared to the control group (P < .05). Furthermore, patients in the combined group had shorter operation times, reduced radiation exposure times, and lower radiation dosages compared to the control group (P < .05). There was no statistically significant difference in the occurrence of postoperative complications between the two groups (P > .05)., Conclusions: Using titanium clip marking during endoscopy provides valuable guidance in managing patients with upper gastrointestinal bleeding who have not responded to endoscopic hemostasis. This finding is especially relevant in digital subtraction angiography (DSA) and transcatheter arterial embolization (TAE) treatments. It enhances the clinical efficacy and safety of the procedure.

Studies have reported that the competing endogenous RNA (ceRNA) networks are related to disease progression and prognosis in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The roles and mechanisms of long-chain non-coding RNA AP003469.4 in HCC have remained unclear. Here, we explored the roles of AP003469.4 in HCC progression using bioinformatics, CCK-8, Transwell assay, etc. AP003469.4 targets miRNAs and these target genes were predicted by the LncBase Predicted v.2, miRDB, miRTarBase, and TargetScan databases. Then, AP003469.4-associated ceRNA network was constructed. Biological functions and mechanisms of differentially expressed genes in the ceRNA network were explored using GO and KEGG. Survival analysis and Cox regression analysis were used to screen prognostic genes and construct a prognostic risk model. The results revealed that AP003469.4, with the area under the curve of 0.9048, was highly expressed in HCC tissues. Increased expression of AP003469.4 was an independent risk factor for the dismal prognosis of HCC patients and was associated with the short overall and disease-free survival. Downregulation of AP003469.4 expression inhibited cell proliferation, cycle transition, invasion, and migration, and promoted cell apoptosis. There were 489 differentially expressed target genes in the ceRNA network, which were involved in several pathways, such as the MAPK signaling pathway, cell cycle, and p53 signaling pathway. The risk model was based on the DTYMK, ZFC3H1, CBX2, PKM, TTC26, ATG10, TAGLN2, CD3EAP, SHISA9, SLC1A5, KPNA2, SCML2, E2F7, and SMARCD1, which were the independent risk factors for poor prognosis of HCC patients. In general, interference with AP003469.4 expression might delay the progression of HCC. AP003469.4 related network could help to identify the hub target molecules in HCC progression, which might be candidate biomarkers for evaluating the prognosis of HCC patients., Competing Interests: None., (AJCR Copyright © 2022.)

Objectives: To study the correlations of CT scan with high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and D-dimer in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-2019)., Methods: From January to March 2020, COVID-19 patients were divided into two groups according to the Diagnosis and Treatment Protocol for Novel Coronavirus Pneumonia (trial version 7), with mild and ordinary cases as Group-1 and critical and severe cases as Group-2. The chest CT scan results, hs-CRP, D-dimmer levels of the two groups from admission to discharge were compared by the χ 2 test or Fisher's exact test. The quantitative data were represented as mean ± standard deviation ( x ± s). Intergroup comparisons were performed by the independent samples t test, and the ineligible data were subjected to the nonparametric rank sum test. Binary logistic regression model was used for multivariate correlation analysis, using independent variables that were significant in univariate analysis. The correlations between the above indices were analyzed., Results: In Group-1, there were two cases of normal chest CT scan results, one case of fibrosis, and 25 cases of abnormalities during the first diagnosis, mainly manifested as single or scattered ground-glass shadows. After treatment, the CT scan results became normal. The chest CT scan of Group-2 showed abnormalities, including 21 cases of multiple ground-glass shadows, and six cases of multiple consolidations accompanied by ground-glass shadows, who were critically ill and died. In addition, there were 16 cases of multiple ground glass shadows with partial consolidation, and the CRP and D-dimer levels of Group-2 were significantly higher than those of Group-1. Chest CT scan results were significantly positively correlated with CRP and D-dimer levels (P<0.05)., Conclusion: The chest CT scan results of COVID-19 patients are characteristic, being correlated with CRP and D-dimer levels. D-dimer and CRP levels significantly increase in most severe and critical patients, which are closely related to their prognosis. The indices may play predictive roles in clinical treatment and prognosis evaluation., Competing Interests: Conflict of Interest: None to declare., (Copyright: © Pakistan Journal of Medical Sciences.)

Background: Due to the heterogeneity of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), hepatocelluarin-associated differentially expressed genes were analyzed by bioinformatics methods to screen the molecular markers for HCC prognosis and potential molecular targets for immunotherapy., Methods: RNA-seq data and clinical follow-up data of HCC were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database. Multivariate Cox analysis and Lasso regression were used to identify robust immunity-related genes. Finally, a risk prognosis model of immune gene pairs was established and verified by clinical features, test set and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) external validation set., Results: A total of 536 immune-related gene (IRGs) were significantly associated with the prognosis of patients with HCC. Ten robust IRGs were finally obtained and a prognostic risk prediction model was constructed by feature selection of Lasso. The risk score of each sample is calculated based on the risk model and is divided into high risk group (Risk-H) and low risk group (Risk-L). Risk models enable risk stratification of samples in training sets, test sets, external validation sets, staging and subtypes. The area under the curve (AUC) in the training set and the test set were all >0.67, and there were significant overall suvival (OS) differences between the Risk-H and Risk-L samples. Compared with the published four models, the traditional clinical features of Grade, Stage and Gender, the model performed better on the risk prediction of HCC prognosis., Conclusion: The present study constructed 10-gene signature as a novel prognostic marker for predicting survival in patients with HCC., (© 2020 The Author(s).)