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Vascular calcification is the transformation of arterial wall mesenchymal cells, particularly smooth muscle cells (SMCs), into osteoblast phenotypes by various pathological factors. Additionally, vascular transformation mediates the abnormal deposition of calcium salts in the vascular wall, such as intimal and media calcification. Various pathological types have been described, such as calcification and valve calcification. The incidence of vascular calcification in patients with diabetes is much higher than that in nondiabetic patients, representing a critical cause of cardiovascular events in patients with diabetes. Because basic research on the clinical transformation of vascular calcification has yet to be conducted, this study systematically expounds on the risk factors for vascular calcification, vascular bed differences, sex differences, ethnic differences, diagnosis, severity assessments, and treatments to facilitate the identification of a new entry point for basic research and subsequent clinical transformation regarding vascular calcification and corresponding clinical evaluation strategies.

Intraoperative cardiac arrest (IOCA) is a lethal complication of noncardiac surgery. According to several reports, immediate survival after IOCA is approximately 50%. In this study, a retrospective case analysis was performed to determine the incidence of IOCA, the potential causes of cardiac arrest, and the risk factors of no resuscitation in patients undergoing tumorous surgery. The medical records of surgery patients who experienced cardiac arrest during the intraoperative period between 2005 and 2014 were reviewed. The general conditions of the patients with IOCA were compared between the successfully resuscitated group and the unresuscitated group. Fifteen patients with IOCA among 142,853 patients undergoing tumorous surgery were reviewed during the study period. Immediate survival after IOCA was 60%. Hospital survival was 46.7%. The incidence of IOCA decreased during 2010 to 2014 when compared with the rate during 2005 to 2009 (P

Improving the early detection rate and prediction of bladder cancer remains a great challenge in management of this disease. To examine the value of urinary orosomucoid 1 (ORM1) for the early detection and surveillance of bladder cancer, two-dimensional differential gel electrophoresis (2-DE) and matrix-assisted laser desorption time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/TOFMS) were applied to identify the differently expressed proteins in urine between bladder cancer and healthy controls. Thirteen different proteins including ORM1 were identified. After verification by western blotting, the ORM1 expressions were quantified in 186 urine samples by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) correcting for creatinine expression. ELISA quantification showed the urinary ORM1-Cr was found to be higher in bladder cancer patients compared to controls and benign cases (7172.23±3049.67 versus 2243.16±969.01, 2493.48±830.37 ng/ml, respectively, P

Findings from epidemiologic studies concerning red and processed meat intake and bladder cancer risk remain conflicting. Thus, we conducted this meta-analysis to examine the associations of red and processed meat intake with bladder cancer. Eligible studies published up to May 2014 were retrieved via both computer searches and review of references. Finally, we identified 14 studies on red meat (involving 9,084 cases) and 11 studies on processed meat (7,562 cases) involving up to 1,558,848 individuals. Random-effects models were used to estimate summary relative risk estimates (SRRE) based on high vs. low intake, and heterogeneity between study results was explored through stratified analyses on the basis of red/processed meat category, gender, study design and geographical region. Overall, the SRRE for all studies regarding red meat intake was 1.15 (95% CI: 0.97-1.36). Significant positive association was observed between processed meat consumption and bladder cancer (SRRE = 1.22; 95% CI: 1.04-1.43). Interestingly, increased by 25% and 33% risk of bladder cancer were observed for red meat and processed meat intake respectively in populations from the American continent. In conclusion, our fi ndings showed that there was an absence of an association between red meat intake and bladder cancer, but suggested that high consumption of processed meat probably correlated with rising risk of bladder cancer. In addition, positive relationships were observed regarding people intake of red and processed meat in the American continent. These findings need to be confirmed in future research.

Objectives The purpose was to clarify the potential association between fish intake and risk of heart failure. Methods We searched relevant studies in PubMed database through January 2012 and manual review of references. Five independent prospective cohort studies involving 5273 cases and 144,917 participants were included. The summary relative risk estimates (SRRE) based on the highest compared with the lowest category of fish consumption were estimated by variance-based meta-analysis. In addition, we performed sensitivity and dose-response analyses to examine the association. Results the result is an absence of an association fish intake and heart failure (SRRE = 1.00, 95% CI: 0.81-1.24). However, fried fish intake positively associated with heart failure (SRRE = 1.40, 95% CI: 1.22-1.61). In addition, dose-response analysis of fried fish suggested that each increment of 6 times fried fish per month corresponded to a 37% increase of heart failure rate (RR = 1.37, 95% CI = 1.20-1.56). Conclusions Heterogeneity is a major concern in meta-analysis. A remarkable heterogeneity was observed across the including studies. This might be caused by variability among the study populations, follow-up period, analytic methodology, dietary assessment method and adjustment for confounding factors. Based on our subgroups by geographical region, sex, method of fish cooking, little heterogeneity was observed among studies conducted in Europe and studies that assessed fried fish individually. We were not able to other subgroup analysis due to the very limited data. However, the results of sensitivity analyses were similar and robust, indicating that no any single study considerably influenced the overall risk estimate between fish intake and heart failure. In addition, we observed no evidence of publication bias in our meta-analysis based on Egger’s test and Begg’s rank correction. Our results compare favorably with most of studies included in our analysis, in which they reported that subjects consuming fish were not associated with heart failure risk, whereas consumption of fried fish was associated with 40% higher risk for incident HF. Dose-response analysis of fried fish suggested that 37% increased risk of heart failure were caused by incremental increase of consuming on average 6 times fried fish per month. The underlying mechanism involved in the association between fried fish consumption and heart failure is uncertain. One plausible reason is that the net effect of benefit versus risk of fried fish consumption may be detrimental (29). Although method of frying does not decrease the absolute n-3 fatty acid level, frying adds other fatty acids from the frying oil and the procedure of cooking at high temperature may add oxidation products, partially hydrogenated oils and transfatty acids (30-32).These products may cause the HF risk increasing. In addition, the association between fried fish intake and heart failure risk appeared partly related to higher risk clinical and lifestyle factors. The higher fried fish consumption was tightly correlated with lower fiber and higher fruit/vegetable intake (15, 19).Further, it could cause higher prevalence of diabetes, atrial fibrillation, CAD, higher systolic blood pressure, higher body mass index, higher prevalence of smoking and higher energy intake (15).

Background and Objective The purpose of this research is to reconstruct 3-dimensional (3D) structure of the pulmonary veins and the left atrium through multislice computed tomography (MSCT), and then compare the variation of ostia, the antrum volume of pulmonary veins and the left atrium volume in AF patients with and without recurrence. Methods We consecutively enrolled sixty-five AF patients who accept RFCA therapy from June 2008 to January 2009, patients were followed up for one year from the day of RFCA. All patients were injected with intravenous constrast medium before being evaluated by 16-slice computed tomography (MSCT). The 3D reconstruction of PVs and left atrium was transformed into AW4.2 system, and we calculated the variation of pulmonary veins by Cardiac IQ software. Diameters of PVs ostia were measured by virtual endoscopy. The antrum volume of PVs and the left atrium volume were calculated by software volume rendering (VR). Results Pulmonary vein anatomical variations type in two groups showed no significant differences. The antrum volume of the bilateral PVs in the patients with recurrence was significantly larger than that in the patients without recurrence, left (3.84 ± 0.75 vs. 3.24 ± 0.49cm 3 , P 3 , P Conclusions The maximum and minimum diameter of PVs ostia, the left atrium volume of bilateral PVs and left atrium in patients with recurrence group were significantly larger than no recurrence group. But it had no relationship with the atrium volume of bilateral PVs justified by left atrium volume.