Evaluation of kidney allograft status using novel ultrasonic technologies

Early diagnosis of kidney allograft injury contributes to proper decisions regarding treatment strategy and promotes the long-term survival of both the recipients and the allografts.Although biopsy remains the gold standard,non-invasive methods of kidney allograft evaluation are required for clinical practice.Recently,novel ultrasonic technologies have been applied in the evaluation and diagnosis of kidney allograft status,including tissue elasticity quantification using acoustic radiation force impulse(ARFI)and contrast-enhanced ultrasonography(CEUS).In this review,we discuss current opinions on the application of ARFI and CEUS for evaluating kidney allograft function and their possible influencing factors,advantages and limitations.We also compare these two technologies with other non-invasive diagnostic methods,including nuclear medicine and radiology.While the role of novel non-invasive ultrasonic technologies in the assessment of kidney allografts requires further investigation,the use of such technologies remains highly promising.

Combining long-term and short-term user interest for personalized hashtag recommendation

Hashtags, terms prefixed by a hash-symbol #, are widely used and inserted anywhere within short messages （tweets） on micro-blogging systems as they present rich sen- timent information on topics that people are interested in. In this paper, we focus on the problem of hashtag recommenda- tion considering their personalized and temporal aspects. As far as we know, this is the first work addressing this issue spe- cially to recommend personalized hashtags combining long- term and short-term user interest. We introduce three features to capture personal and temporal user interest： 1） hashtag textual information; 2） user behavior; and 3） time. We of- fer two recommendation models for comparison： a linear- combined model, and an enhanced session-based temporal graph （STG） model, Topic-STG, considering the features to learn user preferences and subsequently recommend person- alized hashtags. Experiments on two real tweet datasets illus- trate the effectiveness of the proposed models and algorithms.

Low molecular weight heparin reduces arterial blood lactic acid content and increases estimated glomerular filtration rate in patients with moderate Covid-19 pneumonia

Background:Coronavirus disease 2019(Covid-19)remains a serious health threat worldwide.We aimed to investigate whether low molecular weight heparin(LMWH)can promote organ function recovery in moderate Covid-19 pneumonia patients.Methods:We initiated an LMWH protocol in Covid-19 patients with increased D-dimer,body mass index>30 kg/m^(2) or a history of diabetes from January 18,2020 at Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center.In this retrospective study,we assigned moderate Covid-19 pneumonia patients admitted between January 18th and April 18,2020 receiving the LMWH protocol to the LMWH group.Moderate patients who met the inclusion criteria but did not receive LMWH protocol were included in the control group by 1:2 propensity score matching.General clinical information,indicators for renal function,arterial blood gas analyses,arterial blood lactic acid content(mmol/L),and coagulation indexes at 0 day,3 days,7 days,and 11 days after admission were recorded and compared between the two groups.Results:There were 41 patients in the LMWH group and 82 patients in the control group.General information in both groups were similar.Compared to the control group,the arterial blood lactic acid content(mmol/L)at day 11(1.3[1.1,1.7]vs.1.2[0.9,1.3],P=0.016)was reduced in the LMWH group.The estimated glomerular filtration rate(eGFR)in the LMWH group was higher than that in the control group at day 7(108.54[89.11,128.17]vs.116.85[103.39,133.47],P=0.039)and day 11(113.74[94.49,126.34]vs.128.31[112.75,144.12],P=0.003).The serum creatinine levels(Scr)in the LMWH group were lower than that in the control group at day 7(62.13[51.47,77.64]vs.55.49[49.50,65.75],P=0.038)and day 11(63.35[50.17,75.73]vs.51.62[44.62,61.24],P=0.005).Conclusions:LMWH treatment can reduce arterial blood lactic acid levels and improve eGFR in moderate Covid-19 pneumonia patients.Randomized controlled trials are warranted to further investigate this issue.

Hymecromone:a clinical prescription hyaluronan inhibitor for efficiently blocking COVID-19 progression

Currently,there is no effective drugs for treating clinically COVID-19 except dexamethasone.We previously revealed that human identical sequences of SARS-CoV-2 promote the COVID-19 progression by upregulating hyaluronic acid(HA).As the inhibitor of HA synthesis,hymecromone is an approved prescription drug used for treating biliary spasm.Here,we aimed to investigate the relation between HA and COVID-19,and evaluate the therapeutic effects of hymecromone on COVID-19.Firstly,HA was closely relevant to clinical parameters,including lymphocytes(n=158;r=−0.50;P<0.0001),C-reactive protein(n=156;r=0.55;P<0.0001),D-dimer(n=154;r=0.38;P<0.0001),and fibrinogen(n=152;r=0.37;P<0.0001),as well as the mass(n=78;r=0.43;P<0.0001)and volume(n=78;r=0.41;P=0.0002)of ground-glass opacity,the mass(n=78;r=0.48;P<0.0001)and volume(n=78;r=0.47;P<0.0001)of consolidation in patient with low level of hyaluronan(HA<48.43 ng/mL).Furthermore,hyaluronan could directly cause mouse pulmonary lesions.Besides,hymecromone remarkably reduced HA via downregulating HAS2/HAS3 expression.Moreover,89%patients with hymecromone treatment had pulmonary lesion absorption while only 42%patients in control group had pulmonary lesion absorption(P<0.0001).In addition,lymphocytes recovered more quickly in hymecromone-treated patients(n=8)than control group(n=5)(P<0.05).These findings suggest that hymecromone is a promising drug for COVID-19 and deserves our further efforts to determine its effect in a larger cohort.