Journal of the Chinese Medical Association : JCMA
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The appropriateness of hysterectomy has gained an interest in scrutiny and debate. Periodic audits of the prevailing clinical practices are imperative for insight, and to formulate recommendations and guidelines. We report the temporal trends of hysterectomies, over the last 10 years in a teaching hospital. ⋯ We report a static trend in hysterectomy over the past 10 years. This audit provides an insight for the need of shifting the abdominal to vaginal route, in carefully chosen patients. This will be beneficial for the patients, and for the trainees, where they can learn under supervision. Availability and patient education about the nonsurgical management options for benign gynecological conditions, as well as awareness about sequelae of hysterectomy, will bring down the rate in countries such as India.
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Patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement surgery (TAVR) are typically older adults with multiple chronic diseases and therefore have a high surgical risk. The N-terminal of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) and pro-BNP, referred to as NT-pro-BNP, is an easily measurable biomarker of heart failure. Studies on correlation between higher NT-pro-BNP levels and adverse prognoses after TAVR have yielded inconsistent results. Here, we investigated whether preoperative NT-pro-BNP levels are correlated with outcomes among older adults undergoing TAVR. ⋯ For older patients undergoing TAVR with NT-pro-BNP levels > 4853 ng/L, their postoperative outcomes and 1-year mortality were correlated. Thus, NT-pro-BNP is useful for the risk assessment of patients undergoing TAVR and should be regarded as a biomarker in future risk assessments.
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Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) have been investigated as a potential biomarker for predicting prognosis and monitoring therapeutic responses in colorectal cancer (CRC). However, the sensitivity of CTCs detection is low, thus limiting the clinical utility of CTCs. We aim to examine the clinicopathological parameters that improve prognosis prediction for CRC using CTCs as a biomarker. ⋯ We identified that patients with more than five CTCs exhibited significantly worse OS. Additionally, patients with the normal level of CEA, but who also had more than five CTCs trended towards a worse OS.
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Study on oxidative stress and inflammatory/antioxidant substance levels in autism spectrum disorder.
The etiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) includes oxidative stress and brain inflammation. We investigated the relationship among oxidative stress markers, in vivo inflammatory substances, and antioxidants that can be easily measured in the clinic and compared them between children with ASD and those with typical development (TD). ⋯ The results suggest that serum levels of in vivo inflammatory substances, stress-related substances, and antioxidants are altered in ASD under oxidative stress.