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Abstract Purpose The proportion of cured gastric cancer patients has drawn the attention of patients, physicians, and healthcare providers after comprehensive prevention and control measures were carried out for several years. Therefore, the relative survival and cure fraction were estimated in our study. Methods Population‐based cancer registration data were used to estimate survival and cure fraction. A total of 7585 gastric cancer cases (ICD10:C16.0 ~ C16.9) were extracted and included in the final analysis. Cases were diagnosed in 2003‐2012 and followed until the end of 2017. Relative survival was calculated as the ratio between the observed survival through the life‐table method. The expected survival was estimated by the Ederer II method. The cure fraction was estimated using flexible parametric cure models stratified by age and calendar period when the cases were diagnosed. Results The 5‐year relative survival of cardia gastric cancer increased with the calendar period of 2003‐2004, 2005‐2006, 2007‐2008, 2009‐2010, and 2011‐2012 (27.5%, 28.3%, 33.5%, 38.2%, and 46.8%, respectively). The increasing trend along with the calendar periods was also observed in cure proportion of cardia gastric cancer (24.8%, 25.2%, 31.7%, 36.0%, and 43.1%, respectively). Notable improvement of cure proportion was observed in the period of 2011‐2012, compared with the initial period of 2003‐2004. There was an improvement of 79.8% among all gastric cancer subjects, and it was 74.1% and 55.7% in cardia gastric and noncardia gastric cancer subjects, respectively. The median survival of “uncured” patients showed no significant improvement along with the calendar periods in all age groups. Conclusions Notable improvement of gastric cancer relative survival and cure proportion was observed in Linzhou during 2003‐2012.

Abstract Background An incentive spirometer (IS) is a mechanical device that promotes lung expansion. It is commonly used to prevent postoperative lung atelectasis and decrease pulmonary complications after cardiac, lung, or abdominal surgery. This study explored its effect on lung function and pulmonary complication rates in patients with rib fractures. Methods Between June 2014 and May 2017, 50 adult patients with traumatic rib fractures were prospectively investigated. Patients who were unconscious, had a history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma, or an Injury Severity Score (ISS) ≥ 16 were excluded. Patients were randomly divided into a study group (n = 24), who underwent IS therapy, and a control group (n = 26). All patients received the same analgesic protocol. Chest X-rays and pulmonary function tests (PFTs) were performed on the 5th and 7th days after trauma. Results The groups were considered demographically homogeneous. The mean age was 55.2 years and 68% were male. Mean pretreatment ISSs and mean number of ribs fractured were not significantly different (8.23 vs. 8.08 and 4 vs. 4, respectively). Of 50 patients, 28 (56%) developed pulmonary complications, which were more prevalent in the control group (80.7% vs. 29.2%; p = 0.001). Altogether, 25 patients had delayed hemothorax, which was more prevalent in the control group (69.2% vs. 29.2%; p = 0.005). Two patients in the control group developed atelectasis, one patient developed pneumothorax, and five patients required thoracostomy. PFT results showed decreased forced vital capacity (FVC) and forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1) in the control group. Comparing pre- and posttreatment FVC and FEV1, the study group had significantly greater improvements (p

ObjectiveTo evaluate the clinical performance and utility for risk stratification of DH3 HPV assay in women (≥30 years) with NILM cytology.MethodsA prospective cohort was established in Central China between November 8 to December 14, 2016 which consisted of 2180 women aging 30-64 years with NILM cytology. At baseline, all women were screened using DH3 HPV assay. HPV 16/18 positive women would be assigned to colposcopy and biopsied if necessary. Then, hr-HPV positive women without CIN2+ lesions would be followed up by cytology every 12 months for two years. In the 3rd year of follow up, all women that were not biopsy proven CIN2+ would be called back and screened by cytology again. In follow-up period, women with ASC-US and above were referred to colposcopy and biopsied if clinically indicated. CIN2+ was the primary endpoint in analysis. The clinical performance and utility for risk stratification of DH3 HPV assay were assessed by SPSS 22.0 and SAS 9.4.ResultsOf 2180 qualified women, the prevalence of hr-HPV was 8.5% (185/2180), 45(2.1%) were HPV 16/18 positive. The clinical performance for HPV16/18 was 91.7% for sensitivity, 98.4% for specificity, respectively against CIN2+ detection at baseline. In four years of study, the corresponding rates of HPV 16/18 were 51.5% and 98.7%, respectively. The cumulative absolute risk for the development of CIN2+ was as high as 37.8% for HPV 16/18 positive women, followed by hr-HPV positive (14.6%), other hr-HPV positive (11.0%) and HPV negative (0.3%) in three years. The relative risk was 125.6 and 3.4 for HPV 16/18 positive group when compared with HPV negative and other hr-HPV positive group, respectively.ConclusionsDH3 HPV assay demonstrated excellent clinical performance against CIN2+ detection in cervical cancer screening and utility of risk stratification by genotyping to promote scientific management of women with NILM cytology.

Colorectal cancer is one of the most common malignancies worldwide. Oxaliplatin is the first-line chemotherapeutic agent for the treatment of advanced colorectal cancer. However, acquired resistance to oxaliplatin limits its therapeutic efficacy, and the underlying mechanism remains largely unclear. In this study, we compared the expression of a panel of microRNAs (miRNAs) between oxaliplatin-sensitive and -resistant HCT-116 colorectal cancer cells. We found that miR-454-3p was significantly up-regulated in oxaliplatin-resistant cells and was the most differently expressed miRNA. Interestingly, we observed that inhibition of miR-454-3p resensitized resistant cells to oxaliplatin and enhanced oxaliplatin-induced cellular apoptosis. Moreover, we determined that miR-454-3p promoted oxaliplatin resistance through targeting PTEN and activating the AKT signaling pathway. In vivo study revealed that overexpression of miR-454-3p decreased the sensitivity of HCT-116 xenograft tumors to oxaliplatin treatment in a mouse model. Clinically, overexpression of miR-454-3p was associated with decreased responsiveness to oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy, as well as a short progression-free survival. Taken together, our study indicated that the expression of miR-454-3p could be used to predict oxaliplatin sensitivity, and targeting miR-454-3p could overcome oxaliplatin resistance in colorectal cancer.

Aging alters body composition to induce sarcopenia, particularly in women, but the mechanism remains unclear. We hypothesized that silk peptide(SP) intake could prevent an age-related decrease in muscle mass and strength in middle-aged female rats and explored the action mechanism. After the acute intake of SP and defatted soybean peptides, serum concentrations of amino acids were measured in ten middle-aged rats in each group. Forty 12-month-old female Sprague-Dawley rats were fed a high-fat and high-carbohydrate diet for 12 weeks including 0.5 g casein/kg body weight(BW)/day(Aged), 0.15 g SP plus 0.35 g casein/kg BW/day(Low-SP), 0.5 g SP/kg BW/day(High-SP), or 40 mg metformin plus 0.5 g casein/kg BW/day(Metformin). Ten rats aged 7-week old(Young) had the same treatment as the Aged-group. The body composition, grip strength, glucose metabolism, intestinal tissue morphology, and gut microbiota were also determined. After an acute consumption, total amino acids were more quickly absorbed and maintained at higher levels in SP than soybean peptides. Lean body mass(LBM) and grip strength were lower in the Aged-group than the Young and Low-SP groups, and the High-SP regimen increased these parameters as much as the Young-group. Serum concentrations and mRNA expression of TNF-α in the gastrocnemius and quadriceps muscles were higher in the Aged-group than the Young-group, whereas SP intake reduced their serum levels and skeletal muscles. Glucose and insulin tolerance indicated that insulin resistance was elevated in the Aged-group compared to the Young-group, while Low-SP and High-SP alleviated them as much as the Young-group. High-SP increased serum propionate and butyrate concentrations compared to the Aged-group. SP intake increased the relative abundance of Bacteroides and Prevotella and decreased Blautia and Clostridium in the feces. In conclusion, SP intake protects against a decrease in lean body mass and grip strength in middle-aged female rats. The protection was partly related to maintaining higher serum concentrations of total amino acids after SP consumption and decreasing inflammation and insulin resistance through gut microbiota modulation.

Photothermal therapy (PTT) is a promising local therapy playing an increasingly important role in tumor treatment. To maximize PTT efficacy, various near-infrared photoabsorbers have been developed. Among them, metal sulfides have attracted considerable interest due to the advantages of good stability and high photothermal conversion efficiency. However, the existing synthesis methods of metal-sulfide-based photoabsorbers suffer from the drawbacks of complicated procedures, low raw material utilization, and poor universality. Herein, we proposed a flexible, adjustable strategy capable of transforming commercial metal sulfides into injectable hydrogels for local PTT. We took copper sulfide (CuS) as a typical example, which has intense second-window near-infrared absorption (1064 nm), to systematically investigate its in vitro and in vivo characteristics. CuS hydrogel with good syringeability was synthesized by simply dispersing commercial CuS powders as photoabsorbers in alginate-Ca2+ hydrogel. This synthesis strategy exhibits the unique merits of an ultra-simple synthesizing process, 100% loading efficiency, good biocompatibility, low cost, outstanding photothermal capacity, and good universality. The in vitro experiments indicated that the hydrogel exhibits favorable photothermal heating ability, and it obviously destroyed tumor cells under 1064 nm laser irradiation. After intratumoral administration in vivo, large-sized CuS particles in the hydrogel highly efficiently accumulated in tumor tissues, and robust local PTT was realized under mild laser irradiation (0.3 W/cm2). The developed strategy for the synthesis of CuS hydrogel provides a novel way to utilize commercial metal sulfides for diverse biological applications.

Non-unitary evolution can give rise to novel steady states classified by their entanglement properties. In this work, we aim to understand the effect of long-range hopping that decays with $r^{-\alpha}$ in non-Hermitian free-fermion systems. We first study two solvable Brownian models with long-range non-unitary dynamics: a large-$N$ SYK$_2$ chain and a single-flavor fermion chain and we show that they share the same phase diagram. When $\alpha\gt0.5$, we observe two critical phases with subvolume entanglement scaling: (i) $\alpha\gt1.5$, a logarithmic phase with dynamical exponent $z=1$ and logarithmic subsystem entanglement, and (ii) $0.5 \lt \alpha \lt 1.5$, a fractal phase with $z=\frac{2\alpha-1}{2}$ and subsystem entanglement $S_A\propto L_A^{1-z}$, where $L_A$ is the length of the subsystem $A$. These two phases cannot be distinguished by the purification dynamics, in which the entropy always decays as $L/T$. We then confirm that the results are also valid for the static SYK$_2$ chain, indicating the phase diagram is universal for general free-fermion systems. We also discuss phase diagrams in higher dimensions and the implication in measurement-induced phase transitions.

Exhaled human breath analysis has great potential for the diagnosis of diseases in non-invasive way. The 13C-Urea breath test for the diagnosis of Helicobacter pylori infection indicates the ammonia concentration of 50–400 ppb in the breath. This work successfully developed a surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonator based on graphene/polypyrrole composite films decorated by gold nanoparticles (AuNPs–G/PPy) with sensitivity and selectivity to detect ammonia in parts-per-billion concentrations, which is promising for the accurate diagnosis of H. pylori infection. XRD, EDS, and SEM characterized the AuNPs–G/PPy nanocomposites, providing comprehensive insights into their structural, compositional, and morphological properties. The gas-sensing capabilities of the fabricated SAW sensors were extensively investigated, focusing on their response to NH3 gas at ambient temperature. The concentration of ammonia gas was effectively quantified by monitoring the frequency shift of the SAW device. Notably, our developed SAW sensor demonstrated outstanding sensitivity, selectivity, repeatability, and reproducibility for 50–1000 ppb NH3 in dry air. The excellent sensing performance of the AuNPs–G/PPy hybrid composite film can be attributed to the synergistic effects of graphene's superior conductivity, the catalytic properties of gold nanoparticles, and the conductivity sensitization facilitated by electron-hole recombination on the polypyrrole surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fretting wear behavior of micro-arc oxidation (MAO) treated ZK60 magnesium alloy under simulated bone plate-screw service condition was investigated. The MAO treatments on the surface of ZK60 magnesium alloy were conducted with different duty cycles of 20%, 30%, and 40%, respectively. Results show that the surface hardness and corrosion resistance of MAO-treated magnesium alloy specimens with different duty cycles are similar and are improved significantly in comparison with the bare magnesium alloy. Under the simulated bone plate-screw fretting condition, the worn surface of the bare magnesium alloy is characterized by ploughs and corrosion pits, accompanied with a high wear volume of 13.1×106μm3, while the wear is obviously decreased and mainly dominated by ploughs on the surface of the MAO-treated magnesium alloy. With the increase of duty cycle, the wear volume is 6.6×106,6.1×106μm3 and 6.5×106μm3, respectively. There is no obvious difference in the fretting wear behavior and the worn surface morphology among the MAO-treated ZK60 magnesium alloy specimens with different duty cycles. In sum, the anti-fretting wear performance of ZK60 magnesium alloy can be improved obviously after micro-arc oxidation treatment, and the duty cycle has little influence on the microstructure and fretting wear properties of the MAO layer on ZK60 magnesium alloy under the given experimental conditions.