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Background Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) is a common clinical condition with a decades-long course. Long-term and personalised health management in community hospitals is the best way to prevent and treat KOA, and non-surgical treatment is an effective way to slow joint degeneration and postpone joint replacement surgery. Objective To understand the population characteristics, clinical staging and treatment modality characteristics of the population attending community hospitals for knee osteoarthritis, in order to provide a basis for optimising the treatment protocol for knee osteoarthritis at the grassroots level. Method All streets in the urban area of Beijing were randomly selected for the study using the whole cluster sampling method, and Hepingli Street in Dongcheng District, Beijing was censored for all patients who attended all community hospitals (7) belonging to the street from January to June 2022, and general information, medical history, personal history, clinical staging, K-L grading and treatment modalities were collected. Results A total of 3 615 KOA patients were included in this study, including 1 327 males (36.71%) and 2 288 females (63.29%), aged (71.8±13.3) years. There were 867 cases (23.98%) in the onset period, 2009 cases (55.57%) in the remission period and 739 cases (20.45%) in the rehabilitation period. Gender and age of patients with different clinical stages were not correlated with clinical stages (P>0.05), while BMI (K=0.235) and KL grading (K=0.406) were correlated with clinical stages (P

(A, D and G): Relative gene expression of candidate genes via real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) between non-traumatic osteonecrosis of the femoral head (NONFH) patients and non-NONFH patients. Dear Editor, How to differentially diagnose non-traumatic osteonecrosis of the femoral head (NONFH) patients during the transition from early to late stage accurately and identify the core regulators governing such a critical transition may be one of the clinical problems that urgently needed to be solved. Identification and assessment of novel dynamic biomarkers for monitoring non-traumatic osteonecrosis of the femoral head staging. [Extracted from the article]

Objective To analyze the characteristics of pattern elements and the distribution of patterns of femoral head necrosis, hip osteoarthritis, and hip rheumatoid arthritis, in order to provide a theoretical basis for the "different diseases with the same pattern" of chronic bone diseases. Methods A cross-sectional survey was conducted to select patients with femoral head necrosis Association Research Circulation Osseous I-II stages, hip osteoarthritis Kellgren & Lawrence I-II stages, and acute or subacute hip rheumatoid arthritis who visited the Minimally Invasive Arthrology Department, Traumatology Department, and Rheumatology and Immunology Department of Beijing University of Chinese Medicine Third Affiliated Hospital from June 2020 to June 2022. The "case report form - traditional Chinese medicine pattern manifestation scale" previously developed by our team was used to collect the pattern manifestations, which were included into an Excel 2020 spreadsheet to establish a database. SPSS 20.0 software was used for factor analysis and cluster analysis to extract pattern element information, such as disease nature and location, in order to summarize the characteristics of pattern elements, the distribution of patterns, and the similarities and differences of the three kinds of early hip joint diseases. Results A total of 410 patients were included, including 150 patients with femoral head necrosis, 160 patients with hip osteoarthritis, and 100 patients with hip rheumatoid arthritis. The pattern elements of the disease nature of femoral head necrosis include phlegm (dampness), blood stasis, yang deficiency, essence deficiency, and qi deficiency. The pattern types were initially divided into four categories: syndrome of meridian obstruction (43.33%), syndrome of phlegm and blood stasis blocking collaterals (38.00%), syndrome of liver and kidney deficiency (12.00%), and syndrome of kidney essence deficiency (6.67%). The pattern elements of the disease nature of hip osteoarthritis include phlegm (dampness), blood stasis, qi deficiency, essence deficiency, yang deficiency, and cold (dampness). The pattern types were preliminarily divided into five categories: syndrome of spleen and kidney deficiency (37.50%), syndrome of meridian obstruction (26.87%), syndrome of cold and dampness obstruction (18.75%), syndrome of phlegm and blood stasis obstruction (9.38%), and syndrome of liver and kidney deficiency (7.50%). The pattern elements of the disease nature of hip rheumatoid arthritis include phlegm (dampness), blood stasis, qi deficiency, yin and yang deficiency, cold (dampness), and essence deficiency. The pattern types were preliminarily divided into four categories: syndrome of phlegm and blood stasis obstruction (34.00%), syndrome of cold and dampness obstruction (28.00%), syndrome of blood stasis blocking collaterals (23.00%), and syndrome of liver and kidney deficiency (15.00%). Overall, the top five pattern manifestations of the three kinds of hip joint diseases were hip joint pain (96.59%), tenderness (93.90%), fixed pain (87.56%), heavy joints (85.37%), and sourness of lower limbs (75.37%). The pattern elements of the disease nature include phlegm (dampness), blood stasis, qi deficiency, etc. The pattern types were preliminarily divided into five categories: syndrome of phlegm stasis blocking collaterals (33.17%), syndrome of meridian obstruction (31.95%), syndrome of cold dampness obstruction (21.46%), syndrome of liver and kidney deficiency (7.32%), and syndrome of spleen and kidney deficiency (6.10%). There were 21 similar pattern manifestations in the three kinds of early hip joint diseases, with blood stasis and spleen deficiency being the main pattern. Conclusion The common pattern characteristics of three kinds of early hip joint diseases are spleen deficiency and blood stasis. In addition, femoral head necrosis is accompanied with phlegm-dampness pattern, hip osteoarthritis is accompanied with kidney deficiency and phlegm-dampness pattern, hip rheumatoid arthritis is accompanied with kidney deficiency and cold-dampness pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The aim of the present study was to reveal the case characteristics of osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) in Mainland China. Methods: This cross‐sectional epidemiological study derived data for ONFH patients from July 2016 to December 2018 from the China Osteonecrosis of the Femoral Head Database (CONFHD). The derived data included gender, age, body mass index (BMI), height, occupation, region, and etiology of femoral head necrosis. A descriptive analysis was performed to summarize the epidemiological characteristics of the case data in the CONFHD. Results: A total of 1844 ONFH patients (2945 hips) were included in this study, comprising 1302 men and 542 women. The age of patients ranged from 18 to 95 years, with a median of 50 years, and the male to female ratio was 2.4. Male patients are younger than female patients (48.26 ± 12.56 years old and 55.56 ± 14.94 years old, respectively). Among the 1844 patients (2945 hips), there were 528 (17.92%) hips at ARCO stage I, 941 (31.99%) hips at ARCO stage II, 873 (29.63%) hips at ARCO stage III, and 603 (20.46%) hips at ARCO stage IV. In the subclassification of ARCO stages I and II, the majority of cases were type C; type A comprised the majority in the subclassification of ARCO stage III. According to the Kellgren–Lawrence classification system, among the 603 ARCO stage IV hips, there were 178 (29.52%) grade 1 hips, 201 (33.34%) grade 2 hips, 176 (29.18%) grade 3 hips, and 48 (7.96%) grade 4 hips. Most were from three provinces: Henan (27.3%), Shanxi (13.9%), and Shandong (11.9%). Regarding BMI, 982 patients (53.25%) were overweight or obese. Among all patients, the largest proportion of patients engaged in level IV manual work. Of all the patients, there were 495 (26.84%) with steroid‐induced ONFH, 685 (37.15%) were alcoholics, and 290 (15.73%) had traumatic ONFH. The 495 patients with steroid‐induced ONFH included 278 men (56.16%) and 217 women (43.84 %), had a complete history of hormone use. Among the primary diseases, there were 195 cases (39.39%) of immune system diseases, followed by dermatological diseases, respiratory diseases, nephropathy, and other diseases. There were a total of 685 patients with alcoholic ONFH, 589 of these patients (85.99%) were men. A total of 188 (27.45%) patients had drunk alcohol for 6–10 years (comprising the highest proportion), and 280 patients (40.88%) consumed 3001–3500 mL of alcohol each week (the highest proportion). Conclusion: Osteonecrosis of the femoral head most commonly occurs after the age of 40. Male patients have an earlier onset than female patients, and the number of male patients is approximately twice that of female patients. The BMI of patients was mainly in the overweight and obese range, and half of these patients engaged in level IV manual work. From the imaging findings, the numbers of hips at ARCO stages II and III were greatest, and the number at stage I was relatively small. Among all the causes of disease, alcohol, steroid use and trauma were the three most common reasons for ONFH. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Osteoking has been extensively used for the treatment of knee osteoarthritis (KOA). However, it is lack of high-quality evidence on the clinical efficacy of Osteoking against KOA and the comparison with that of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)., Aims: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of Osteoking in treating KOA., Methods: In the current study, a total of 501 subjects were recruited from 20 medical centers, and were divided into the Osteoking treatment group ( n = 428) and the NSAIDs treatment group ( n = 73). The Propensity Score Matching method was used to balance baseline data of different groups. Then, the therapeutic effects of Osteoking and NSAIDs against KOA were evaluated using VAS score, WOMAC score, EQ-5D-3L and EQ-VAS, while the safety of the two treatment were both assessed based on dry mouth, dizziness, diarrhea, etc., Results: After 8 weeks of treatment, the Osteoking group was compared with the NSAIDs group, the VAS score [2.00 (1.00, 3.00) vs. 3.00 (2.00, 4.00)], WOMAC pain score [10.00 (8.00, 13.00) vs. 11.00 (8.00, 16.00) ], WOMAC physical function score [32.00 (23.00, 39.00) vs. 39.07 ± 16.45], WOMAC total score [44.00 (31.00, 55.00) vs. 53.31 ± 22.47) ], EQ-5D-3L score [0.91 (0.73, 0.91) vs. 0.73 (0.63, 0.83) ] and EQ-VAS score [80.00 (79.00, 90.00) vs. 80.00 (70.00, 84.00) ] were improved by the treatment of Osteoking for 8 weeks more effectively than that by the treatment of NSAIDs. After 8 weeks of treatment with Osteoking, the VAS scores of KOA patients with the treatment of Osteoking for 8 weeks were reduced from 6.00 (5.00, 7.00) to 2.00 (1.00, 3.00) ( p < 0.05), which was better than those with the treatment of NSAIDs starting from 2 weeks during this clinical observation. Importantly, further subgroup analysis revealed that the treatment of Osteoking was more suitable for alleviating various clinical symptoms of KOA patients over 65 years old, with female, KL II-III grade and VAS 4-7 scores, while the clinical efficacy of NSAIDs was better in KOA patients under 65 years old and with VAS 8-10 scores. Of note, there were no differences in adverse events and adverse reactions between the treatment groups of the two drugs., Conclusion: Osteoking may exert a satisfying efficacy in relieving joint pain and improving life quality of KOA patients without any adverse reactions, especially for patients with KL II-III grades and VAS 4-7 scores., Clinical Trial Registration: https://www.chictr.org.cn/showproj.html?proj=55387, Identifier ChiCTR2000034475., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Zhou, Zheng, Luo, Dong, Yan, Zhang, Tang, Quan, Lin, Zhang, Dong, Wang, He, Lin, Weng, Mi, Zhang and Chen.)

Photocaged, activity-based ubiquitin (Ub) probes (Ub-ABPs) have been developed for the time-resolved probing of deubiquitinating enzyme (DUB) activities, but many Ub-ABPs are still challenging to photocage because their warheads (e.g. propargylamide (PA) or dehydroalanine (Dha)) are difficult to temporally block and activate. Here, we describe a new C-terminal backbone modification strategy for the construction of photocaged Ub-ABPs in which a light-sensitive group is placed at the backbone amide bond of the Ub Gly75. This strategy enabled the facile generation of cell-permeable photocaged Ub-PA and Dha probes that could be activated to capture DUBs after photo-irradiation, and were used to profile DUBs in cells under specially designed conditions (e.g. in cells experiencing oxidative stress) or DUBs with isopeptide linkage selectivity. This backbone modification strategy is anticipated to provide a general solution for the development of photocaged Ub ABPs bearing any warheads for DUB profiling., (© 2022 Wiley-VCH GmbH.)