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Objectives: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has rapidly swept across the world. This study aimed to explore the relationship between the chest CT findings and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 patients. Methods: Patients with COVID-19 confirmed by next-generation sequencing or RT-PCR who had undergone more than 4 serial chest CT procedures were retrospectively enrolled. Results: This study included 361 patients - 192 men and 169 women. On initial chest CT, more lesions were identified as multiple bilateral lungs lesions and localised in the peripheral lung. The predominant patterns of abnormality were ground-glass opacities (GGO) (28.5%), consolidation (13.0%), nodule (23.0%), fibrous stripes (5.3%) and mixed (30.2%). Severe cases were more common in patients with a mixed pattern (21.1%) and less common in patients with nodules (2.4%). During follow-up CT, the mediumtotal severity score (TSS) in patients with nodules and fibrous strips was significantly lower than that in patients with mixed patterns in all three stages (p<.01). Conclusion: Chest CT plays an important role in diagnosing COVID-19. The CT features may vary by age. Different CT features are not only associated with clinical manifestation but also patient prognosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim of the Study: Ketogenic diet (KD) has been identified as an effective strategy in treating multiple diseases. KD is capable of inducing autophagy which is an important therapeutic target for pulmonary fibrosis (PF). This study aimed to investigate the effect of KD treatment on PF progression. Materials and Methods: Intratracheal instillation of bleomycin (BLM, 5 mg/kg) to establish PF model in male Kunming mice fed either KD or standard diet. The survival of mice was recorded every day for 3weeks. The pulmonary tissues were weighed on day 21 and the pulmonary index was calculated. The histopathological changes of pulmonary tissues were analyzed by hematoxylin and eosin staining and Masson staining, and the collagen deposition by hydroxyproline assay. Then the content of proinflammatory factors in pulmonary tissues was measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and the expression of profibrogenic cytokines, autophagy markers and PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathwayrelated proteins in pulmonary tissues using western blotting or immunohistochemistry. Results: KD treatment significantly restored the BLM-induced increase of pulmonary index and had a tendency to increase the survival rate of PF mice. Furthermore, KD treatment restored the BLM-induced damage of alveolar structure, infiltration of inflammatory cells and collagen deposition and decreased hydroxyproline content. In addition, the BLMinduced secretion of tumor necrosis factor-alpha, interleukin-6 and interleukin-1b and expression of transforming growth factor b1, phospho-Smad2/3, connective tissue growth factor, a-smooth muscle actin and collagen type III alpha 1 chain were inhibited by KD. KD treatment also up-regulated the expression of light chain 3 II/I and Beclin1 and down-regulated the expression of p62, phospho-AKT, phospho-mTOR and phospho-p70S6K, suggesting that KD induced autophagy and suppressed the BLM-induced activation of PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway. Conclusions: These findings indicate that KD can alleviate PF in vivo by regulating autophagy and PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway, which provides a novel therapeutic strategy for PF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Primarily to evaluate the potential of contact endoscopy, the nasopharyngeal mucosa were examined using contact microscopy. With contact endoscopy it has been possible to visualize (60×, 150×) the superficial cell layers of the nasopharyngeal epithelium, previously stained with methylene blue in vivo and in situ. Normal nasopharyngeal epithelium (20 cases) and cases with pathology (18 cases of chronic nasopharyngitis, 5 cases of nasopharyngeal cyst, and 57 cases of poorly differentiated squamous carcinoma) were assessed with contact endoscopy. The results showed that contact endoscopy can offer clear morphology and arrangement of the epithelial cells of the superficial layers and microvascular networks, such as the size and shapes of the cells or nuclei, nucleus/cytoplasm ratio, karyokinesis, etc. Our study indicated that contact endoscopy can permit the mapping of cellular alteration over mucosa and constitutes a new method of monitoring a high-risk population or precancerous lesions of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]