Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder in China:A Nationwide Multi-center Population-based Study Among Children Aged 6 to 12 Years

This study aimed to obtain the first national estimate of the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder(ASD) in Chinese children.We targeted the population of 6 to 12-year-old children for this prevalence study by multistage convenient cluster sampling.The Modified Chinese Autism Spectrum Rating Scale was used for the screening process.Of the target population of 142,086 children,88.5%(n=125,806) participated in the study.A total of 363 children were confirmed as having ASD.The observed ASD prevalence rate was 0.29%(95% CI:0.26%-0.32%) for the overall population.After adjustment for response rates,the estimated number of ASD cases was867 in the target population sample,thereby achieving an estimated prevalence of 0.70%(95% CI:0.64%-0.74%).The prevalence was significantly higher in boys than in girls(0.95%;95% CI:0.87%-1.02% versus 0.30%;95%CI:0.26%-0.34%;P <0.001).Of the 363 confirmed ASD cases,43.3% were newly diagnosed,and most of those(90.4%) were attending regular schools,and 68.8% of the children with ASD had at least one neuropsychiatric comorbidity.Our findings provide reliable data on the estimated ASD prevalence and comorbidities in Chinese children.

Identification and quantification of benzimidazole metabolites of thiophonate-methyl sprayed on celery cabbage using SiO_2@NiO solid-phase extraction in combination with HPLC-MS/MS

Thiophonate-methyl(TPM) is one of fungicides and pesticides widely used in agriculture field.However,the residue of its benzimidazole(BZD) metabolites in related agricultural products poses a potential risk to consumers.In this paper,nickel oxide nanoparticle-deposited silica(SiO_2@NiO) composite was used for the selective enrichment and purification of TPM's BZD metabolites in celery cabbage sprayed with TPM.Meanwhile,high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with precursor ion scan-mass spectrometry(HPLC-PIS-MS) and high-resolution MS/MS analysis(HR-MS/MS) was utilized for their qualitative and quantitative analysis.Twenty-one potential TPM's BZD metabolites were found and four of them were identified.One metabolite was discovered for the first time.Besides,a robust and sensitive quantitative method was developed with good linearities(R^2> 0.9972) within a wide range of 10.00-1000 ng/g.The detection limits of three known TPM's metabolites were within the range of 3.20-4.90 ng/g.Relative standard deviations(RSDs) of intra-day and inter-day precisions were less than 18.3%,which showed perfect reproducibility.The method was successfully applied to monitoring TPM's BZD metabolites in celery cabbage sprayed with TPM and the concentration versus time curves of TPM's metabolites in celery cabbage were plotted.This method is expected to be used to monitor BZD residues in various fruits and vegetables.