Medicine
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Dietary counseling and nutritional support (DCNS) are generally accepted as being necessary for patients with oral cancer and oropharyngeal cancer (OC). However, there is no evidence that dietary counseling plays a significant role in weight loss. In this study, we examined the DCNS based on persistent weight loss during and after treatment in oral cancer and OC patients, as well as the effect of body mass index (BMI) on survival in both groups. ⋯ Despite receiving frequent DCNS, patients continued to lose body weight during and 1 year after treatment. The survival time of an individual with a BMI above average appears to be increased. Future studies should preferably use randomized trials to compare standard DCNS with more intensive DCNS, which includes earlier and/or prolonged treatment.
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Primary drug-resistant tuberculosis (DR-TB) contributes significantly to the global TB epidemic, particularly in countries with high TB burdens. This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of primary DR-TB prevalence in Chongqing, China, from 2012 to 2020. A total of 4546 newly diagnosed and 2769 relapse TB patients admitted to the hospital from 2012 to 2020 were included. ⋯ Noticeably, rising trends of primary DR-TB (from 0 to 27.3%) and MDR-TB (from 0 to 9.1%) in the population of ≤14 years were observed from 2012 to 2020. Although the rate of primary DR-TB showed a downward trend, a rising drug-resistance rate among some particular subgroups was still observed. Further control of primary DR-TB should focus more on TB patients aged 15 to 64 years.
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Prediction of postoperative survival for laryngeal carcinoma patients is very important. This study attempts to demonstrate the utilization of the random survival forest (RSF) and Cox regression model to predict overall survival of laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) and compare their performance. A total of 8677 patients diagnosed with LSCC from 2004 to 2015 were obtained from surveillance, epidemiology, and end results database. ⋯ What's more, the calibration curve displayed similar results of 2 models both in training set and validation set. The performance of RSF model were better than Cox regression model. The RSF algorithms provide a relatively better alternatives to be of clinical use for estimating the survival probability of LSCC patients.
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To determine the hepatitis C virus (HCV) care cascade among persons who were born during 1945 to 1965 and received outpatient care on or after January 2014 at a large academic healthcare system. Deidentified electronic health record data in an existing research database were analyzed for this study. Laboratory test results for HCV antibody and HCV ribonucleic acid (RNA) indicated seropositivity and confirmatory testing. ⋯ While only 3% were screened for HCV, the seroprevalence was high in the screened sample. Despite the established safety and efficacy of DAAs, only 15% initiated treatment during the study period. To achieve HCV elimination, improved HCV screening and linkage to HCV care and DAA treatment are needed.
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hypoxia inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) and pyruvate kinase M2 (PKM2) are 2 key metabolic regulatory proteins, they could engage in a positive feedback loop and drive cancer growth by enhancing glycolysis. This study aimed to investigate the expression of HIF-1α and PKM2 in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and its correlation with the patients clinicopathological features and with tumor invasion and metastasis. Surgically resected PTC specimens from 60 patients were collected. ⋯ The results showed that the positive expressions of HIF-1α, PKM2, and HIF-1α/PKM2 axis (HIF-1α+/PKM2+) were all significantly higher in PTC than those in normal thyroid follicular epithelium, and a positive correlation was found between HIF-1α and PKM2 in PTC. Further analysis showed that in PTC, the positive expression of HIF-1α and HIF-1α/PKM2 axis (HIF-1α+/PKM2+) were significantly associated with bigger tumor size, moreover, the positive expressions of HIF-1α, PKM2 and HIF-1α/PKM2 axis (HIF-1α+/PKM2+) were all correlated with capsular invasion and lymph node metastasis, while they were all not correlated with gender, sex and multicentricity of tumor. This study identified HIF-1a/PKM2 axis as potential molecular marker for predicting the invasion and progression of papillary thyroid carcinoma.