Search

Transient elastography ( TE) is accurate in staging fibrosis noninvasively. However, a reliable serum biomarker with comparable accuracy is also important, especially when TE is unreliable/unavailable. Therefore, we aimed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of serum Golgi protein 73 ( GP73) for significant fibrosis in patients with chronic HBV infection. A total of 801 patients with chronic liver disease (CLD; 492 chronic HBV infection and 309 non- HBV liver disease) with liver biopsy performance were enrolled. Healthy controls (n = 180) and hepatocellular carcinoma ( HCC) patients (n = 85) were included for comparisons. Liver biopsy was used as the reference method for fibrosis staging. Serum GP73 level was measured in duplicate in double-blind fashion. Serum GP73 was highest in HCC but also significantly higher in chronic hepatitis B than in healthy controls. The elevation of serum GP73 in non- HCC patients was significantly associated with the presence of significant fibrosis independently of ALT level, liver stiffness (LS) value, inflammation grade and other confounding factors. The diagnostic performance of serum GP73 was accurate in antiviral-naïve HBV patients (area under the receiver operating curve [ AUROC], 0.76 95% CI: 0.72-0.81) but not in patients with ongoing antiviral treatment ( AUROC, 0.60). The utility of serum GP73 was also confirmed in non- HBV CLD ( AUROC, 0.80 95% CI: 0.75-0.85). Serum GP73 was comparable to LS ( AUROC, 0.78 95% CI: 0.73-0.82) and significantly better than AST to platelet ratio index ( APRI) ( AUROC, 0.67 95% CI: 0.62-0.72) and FIB-4 ( AUROC, 0.68 95% CI: 0.63-0.73). In conclusion, serum GP73 is an accurate serum marker for significant fibrosis in chronic HBV infection, with higher accuracy than APRI and FIB-4. Serum GP73 is potentially a complementary tool for TE when evaluating the necessity of antiviral treatment, particularly in patients without definite antiviral indication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum spirochaete bacterium. The killer immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR) gene family encodes cell surface receptors that are found on natural killer (NK) cells and certain T-cell subsets. NK cells are fast-acting effector lymphocytes of innate immunity that respond to infection. The activity of NK cells depends on the dynamic balance of activating and inhibitory signals that are transmitted through respective receptors including KIRs. KIR2DS4 is the only activating KIR gene in KIR haplotype A. KIR1D is a partial deletion KIR2DS4 variant encoding protein devoid of transmembrane region. Up to now, there is no knowledge of association of KIR2DS4 and its variant KIR1D with syphilis in a population that belongs to KIR gene haplotype A. Polymerase chain reaction with sequence-specific primers (PCR-SSP) method was used to genotype KIR genes in 190 patients with syphilis and 192 healthy controls. The gene frequencies of KIR2DS4 and KIR1D were analysed for the association with syphilis in patients and healthy controls who belong to KIR gene haplotype A. The gene frequency of KIR1D/ KIR1D in patients with syphilis classified as haplotype A was 16.85% and was significantly higher than that in the control group (6.59%) ( P = 0.032). However, there was no significant difference for the gene frequencies of KIR2DS4/ KIR2DS4 and KIR2DS4/ KIR1D between the two groups ( P > 0.05). KIR1D/ KIR1D was found in association with susceptibility to syphilis in the Chinese Han population that belongs to KIR gene haplotype A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several neuroimaging studies have suggested brain reorganisation in patients with cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM); however, the changes in spontaneous neuronal activity that are associated with connectedness remain largely unknown. In this study, functional connectivity strength (FCS), a data-driven degree centrality method based on a theoretical approach, was applied for the first time to investigate changes in the sensory-motor network (SMN) at the voxel level. Comparatively, CSM not only showed significantly decreased FCS in the operculum-integrated regions, which exhibited reduced resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) around the Rolandic sulcus, but it also showed increased FCS in the premotor, primary somatosensory, and parietal-integrated areas, which primarily showed an enhanced rsFC pattern. Correlation analysis showed that altered FCS (in the left premotor-ventral/precentral-operculum, right operculum-parietale 4, and right S1) was associated with worsening Japanese Orthopaedic Association scores and that the rsFC pattern was influenced by cervical cord micro-structural damage at the C2 level. Together, these findings suggest that during myelopathy, the intrinsic functional plasticity of the SMN responds to the insufficient sensory and motor experience in CSM patients. This knowledge may improve our understanding of the comprehensive functional defects found in CSM patients and may inspire the development of new therapeutic strategies in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]