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Objective: To investigate the effects of extremely low-frequency electromagnetic fields (ELF-EMF) on myogenesis during the early stage of denervated muscle atrophy in Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. Methods: a total of 36 female SD rats were fed in cages and divided into three groups: the normal control group, the muscle atrophy group and the 10Hz/1.5mT magnetic field group. The rats in the 10Hz/1.5mT magnetic field group received a magnetic field intervention for 2h per day. The posterior muscle groups of the lower limbs of rats were sampled on the first, second, third and fourth weeks for evaluating the underlying changes. The harvested tissues were stained with hematoxylin–eosin (HE) dye to observe the morphology of the muscle atrophy and to measure the muscle fiber cross-sectional area ratio. A reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction was used to detect the expression of Myf5 mRNA in each group. The myogenesis-related proteins in the harvested muscle tissue were detected by western blot assay. Results: (1) HE staining showed that with the extension of denervation time, the structural disorder of muscle fibers was aggravated, and in the second week of the denervated muscle atrophy, muscle fiber cross-sectional area tended to increase in the 10Hz/1.5mT magnetic field group. Overall muscle atrophy was inevitable. (2) Results of RT-PCR showed that the expression of Myf5 mRNA in the 10Hz/1.5mT magnetic field group was significantly high in the second week of denervation, and the difference was statistically significant compared with the muscle atrophy group (*p<0.05). (3) Western blot analysis showed that the expression of MYF5 proteins in the 10Hz/1.5mT magnetic field group was significantly higher than that in the muscle atrophy group (**p<0.01) in the second week of denervation. Further, the expression of MYOG protein in the 10Hz/1.5mT magnetic field group was significantly higher than that in the muscle atrophy group (****p<0.0001). Conclusions: 10Hz/1.5mT ELF-EMF can significantly promote myogenesis during early denervated muscle atrophy in SD rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because many networked systems can only be characterized with fractional-order dynamics in complex environments, fractional-order calculus has been studied deeply recently. When diverse individual features are shown in different agents of networked systems, heterogeneous fractional-order dynamics will be used to describe the complex systems. Based on the distinguishing properties of agents, heterogeneous fractional-order multi-agent systems (FOMAS) are presented. With the supposition of multiple leader agents in FOMAS, distributed containment control of FOMAS is studied in directed weighted topologies. By applying Laplace transformation and frequency domain theory of the fractional-order operator, an upper bound of delays is obtained to ensure containment consensus of delayed heterogenous FOMAS. Consensus results of delayed FOMAS in this paper can be extended to systems with integer-order models. Finally, numerical examples are used to verify our results.

Background and objective: The success rate of thrombolytic therapy for patients with ultralong cardiac arrest caused by pulmonary embolism (PE) has been increasing. Thrombolytic timing to reduce the risk of bleeding is critical in preventing anterior spinal artery syndrome (ASAS). Methods: This is a case report of an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) caused by massive PE caused to a patient who received thrombolytic therapy after 140 min of pre-hospital cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Results: A 51-year-old female was admitted to the emergency department due to an OHCA, presenting with no vital signs. After 140 min of CPR, vital signs remained unstable, so thrombolytic therapy with 50-mg Alteplase was performed, spontaneously improving circulation. After admission to the ICU, the muscle strength of the lower limbs was 0 and both shallow and deep reflexes disappeared. After discharge, there was no improvement in the lower limbs at the six-month follow-up. A search of the PubMed database identified 13 cases of OHCA caused by PE who underwent in-hospital CPR before thrombolytic therapy for 2–150 min, with an 8% incidence of ASAS and a 50% recovery rate. Conclusion: Ultralong CPR for patients with cardiac arrest caused by PE does not affect the outcome of thrombolytic therapy. However, it is necessary to identify these patients early and perform thrombolytic therapy to prevent the complications of CPR as well as the injury to the upper motor neurons caused by thrombosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with brain metastases (BM) have a poor prognosis. Despite the traditional methods including radiotherapy and chemotherapy, epidermal growth factor receptor‐tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR‐TKIs) might benefit patients on survival and quality of life. We investigated the cost‐effectiveness of icotinib compared with whole‐brain irradiation (WBI) with or without chemotherapy for NSCLC patients with BM. Materials and methods: A Markov model was conducted based on the data of BRAIN trial. We compared the economic benefit between icotinib and the combination of WBI and WBI plus chemotherapy group. We considered disease progression as intracranial progression and overall progression separately. Sensitivity analyses were performed to observe the stability of the model. The willingness‐to‐pay (WTP) was set as 3× per capita gross domestic product ($25929/quality‐adjusted life year [QALY]) from the Chinese healthcare perspective. Results: When considering progression as intracranial progression and overall progression, respectively, the incremental cost‐effectiveness ratio was $14 882.64/QALY and $13 484.21/QALY between icotinib and WBI/WBI‐chemotherapy. Besides, both of the average cost‐effective ratio (ACER) and net benefit showed advantage of icotinib (ACER: $34 521.42/QALY for intracranial progression and $36 562.63/QALY for overall progression; net benefit: –$8407.36 for intracranial progression and –$9836.41 for overall progression). One‐way sensitivity analyses demonstrated that no thresholds were encountered. The probabilistic sensitivity analyses showed even at a WTP under $18 000/QALY, icotinib could be cost‐effective. Conclusion: : Icotinib was cost‐effective compared with WBI with or without chemotherapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]