T lymphocyte proportion in Alzheimer’s disease prognosis

Bai et al investigate the predictive value of T lymphocyte proportion in Alzheimer's disease(AD)prognosis.Through a retrospective study involving 62 AD patients,they found that a decrease in T lymphocyte proportion correlated with a poorer prognosis,as indicated by higher modified Rankin scale scores.While the study highlights the potential of T lymphocyte proportion as a prognostic marker,it suggests the need for larger,multicenter studies to enhance generalizability and validity.Additionally,future research could use cognitive exams when evaluating prognosis and delve into immune mechanisms underlying AD progression.Despite limitations inherent in retrospective designs,Bai et al's work contributes to understanding the immune system's role in AD prognosis,paving the way for further exploration in this under-researched area.

FogMed:A Fog-Based Framework for Disease Prognosis Based Medical Sensor

Recently,an increasing number of works start investigating the combination of fog computing and electronic health(ehealth)applications.However,there are still numerous unresolved issues worth to be explored.For instance,there is a lack of investigation on the disease prediction in fog environment and only limited studies show,how the Quality of Service(QoS)levels of fog services and the data stream mining techniques influence each other to improve the disease prediction performance(e.g.,accuracy and time efficiency).To address these issues,we propose a fog-based framework for disease prediction based on Medical sensor data streams,named FogMed.This framework aims to improve the disease prediction accuracy by achieving two objectives:QoS guarantee of fog services and anomaly prediction of Medical data streams.We build a virtual FogMed environment and conduct comprehensive experiments on the public ECG dataset to validate the performance of FogMed.The experiment results show that it performs better than the cloud computing model for processing tasks with different complexities in terms of time efficiency.

Methodology for high-quality studies on course and prognosis of inflammatory bowel disease

Inflammatory bowel diseases(IBDs) are characterized by a chronic course with an alternation of relapses and remissions.Questions about prognosis are important for the patient who wants to know how the disease will affect his/her life and also for clinicians to make management decisions.Correct selection of the patients is the basis for good methodological studies on the course of IBD.A great proportion of data on the course of IBD is derived from a limited number of cohort studies.Studies help to define the endpoints for clinical trials and to identify subsets of patients in whom the prognosis of the disease can be stratified according to clinical features.Specific scientific requirements for high-quality studies on prognosis are the following:use of inception cohort,description of referral patterns,completeness of follow-up,objective outcome criteria,blind outcome assessment,adjustment for extraneous prognostic factors and statistical issues.We analyzed each of these requirements in studies on IBDs.To date,prospective and populationbased cohort studies are the standard for an unbiased assessment of prognosis.A better knowledge of the course of disease of chronic disorders ideally requires:(1) data from population-based studies,to avoid selection bias from referral centers in which patients with a more severe disease are usually treated;(2) inclusion of patients seen at the onset of the disease excluding misdiagnosed cases;and(3) follow-up from the onset of the disease to the end without dropouts.

A Retrospective Study of Branch Atheromatous Disease： Analyses of Risk Factors and Prognosis

The theory of branch atheromatous disease（BAD） has been commonly underused in clinical practice and research since it was proposed in 1989. In this study, we sought to explore clinical characteristics of its substypes and biomarkers for prognosis of BAD. A total of 176 consecutive patients with BAD were classified into two groups： paramedianpontine artery group（PPA group, n=70） and lenticulostriate artery group（LSA group, n=106）. Bivariate analyses were used to explore the relationship between white matter hyperintensities（WMHs）, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale（NIHSS） scores and prognosis evaluated by the modified Rank Scale（m RS） at 6th month after stroke. The differences in prevalence of diabetes mellitus and a history of ischemic heart disease were statistically significant between PPA group and LSA group（χ~2=8.255, P=0.004; χ~2=13.402, P〈0.001）. The bivariate analyses demonstrated a positive correlation between NIHSS and poor prognosis in patients with BAD and in the two subtype groups, and a positive correlation between WMHs and poor prognosis in the PPA group. It is concluded that a significantly higher prevalence of diabetes mellitus and a history of ischemic heart disease exist in the PPA group than in the LSA group. In addition, high grades of NIHSS scores imply poor prognosis in patients with BAD and in the two subtype groups. Moreover, WMHs are a positive predictor for poor prognosis in patients in the PPA group.

Different types of tumor microvessels in stageⅠ-ⅢA squamous cell lung cancer and their clinical significance

BACKGROUND Lung cancer(LC)is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality among malignant neoplasms.Improving the diagnosis and treatment of LC remains an urgent task of modern oncology.Previously,we established that in gastric,breast and cervical cancer,tumor microvessels(MVs)differ in morphology and have different prognostic significance.The connection between different types of tumor MVs and the progression of LC is not well understood.AIM To evaluate the morphological features and clinical significance of tumor MVs in lung squamous cell carcinoma(LUSC).METHODS A single-center retrospective cohort study examined medical records and archival paraffin blocks of 62 and 180 patients with stage I-IIIA LUSC in the training and main cohorts,respectively.All patients underwent radical surgery(R0)at the Orenburg Regional Cancer Clinic from May/20/2009 to December/14/2021.Tumor sections were routinely processed,and routine Mayer's hematoxylin and eosin staining and immunohistochemical staining for cluster of differentiation 34(CD34),podoplanin,Snail and hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha were performed.The morphological features of different types of tumor MVs,tumor parenchyma and stroma were studied according to clinicopathological characteristics and LUSC prognosis.Statistical analysis was performed using Statistica 10.0 software.Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to identify potential risk factors for LUSC metastasis to regional lymph nodes(RLNs)and disease recurrence.Receiver operating characteristic curves were constructed to discriminate between patients with and without metastases in RLNs and those with and without disease recurrence.The effectiveness of the predictive models was assessed by the area under the curve.Survival was analyzed using the Kaplan-Meier method.The log-rank test was used to compare survival curves between patient subgroups.A value of P<0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance.RESULTS Depending on the morphology,we classified tumor vessels into the following types:normal MVs,dilated capillaries(DCs),atypical DCs,DCs with weak expression of CD34,"contact-type"DCs,structures with partial endothelial linings,capillaries in the tumor solid component and lymphatic vessels in lymphoid and polymorphocellular infiltrates.We also evaluated the presence of loose,fine fibrous connective tissue(LFFCT)and retraction clefts in the tumor stroma,tumor spread into the alveolar air spaces(AASs)and fragmentation of the tumor solid component.According to multivariate analysis,the independent predictors of LUSC metastasis in RLNs were central tumor location(P<0.00001),the presence of retraction clefts(P=0.003),capillaries in the tumor solid component(P=0.023)and fragmentation in the tumor solid component(P=0.009),whereas the independent predictors of LUSC recurrence were tumor grade 3(G3)(P=0.001),stage N2(P=0.016),the presence of LFFCT in the tumor stroma(P<0.00001),fragmentation of the tumor solid component(P=0.0001),and the absence of tumor spread through the AASs(P=0.0083).CONCLUSION The results obtained confirm the correctness of our previously proposed classification of different types of tumor vessels and may contribute to improving the diagnosis and treatment of LUSC.

Long-term follow-up of children and adolescents with primary sclerosing cholangitis and autoimmune sclerosing cholangitis

BACKGROUND： Sclerosing cholangitis（SC） is a chronic cholestatic hepatobiliary disease with uncertain long-term prognosis in pediatric patients. This study aimed to evaluate longterm results in children with SC according to the types of SC.METHODS： We retrospectively followed up 25 children with SC over a period of 4-17 years（median 12）. The diagnosis of SC was based on biochemical, histological and cholangiographic findings. Patients fulfilling diagnostic criteria for probable or definite autoimmune hepatitis at the time of diagnosis were defined as having autoimmune sclerosing cholangitis（ASC）; other patients were included in a group of primary sclerosing cholangitis（PSC）. The incidence of the following complications was studied： obstructive cholangitis, portal hypertension, advanced liver disease and death associated with the primary disease.RESULTS： Fourteen（56%） patients had PSC and 11（44%） had ASC. Patients with ASC were significantly younger at the time of diagnosis（12.3 vs 15.4 years, P=0.032） and had higher Ig G levels（22.7 vs 17.2 g/L, P=0.003）. The mentioned complications occurred in 4（16%） patients with SC, exclusively in the PSC group： one patient died from colorectal cancer, one patient underwent liver transplantation and two patients, in whom severe bile duct stenosis was present at diagnosis, were endoscopically treated for acute cholangitis. Furthermore, twoother children with ASC and 2 children with PSC had elevated aminotransferase levels. The 10-year overall survival was 95.8% in all patients, 100% in patients without complicated liver disease, and 75.0% in patients with complications.CONCLUSION： In children, ASC is a frequent type of SC, whose prognosis may be better than that in patients with PSC.

Impact of cytomegalovirus intestinal disease on the prognosis in patients with severe intestinal graft-versus-host disease

Objective To explore risk factors,clinical characteristics and prognosis of CMV enteritis combined with severe intestinal graft-versus-host disease(GVHD).Methods The data of 80 intestinal gradeⅢ/ⅣGVHD patients from January 2005 to September 2015 in hematology of PKUPH were retrospectively analyzed.All patients received colonoscopy and all GVHD diagnoses

Ultrastructure of intrahepatic biliary canaliculi and prognosis of congenital biliary atresia

Objective To investigate the relationship between the ultrastructure of intrahepatic biliary canaliculi and the prognosis of congenital biliary atresia.Methods Liver biopsies from 25 patients who were operated on for congenital biliary atresia were examined under the transmission electron microscope. The relationship between the number of well-developed bile canaliculi and patient prognosis was studied.Results The survival rate for 13 patients with well-developed intrahepatic biliary canaliculi and 12 patients with poorly-developed intrahepatic biliary canaliculi were 92.3% (12/13) and 33.3% (4/12) respectively. The difference between two groups was statistically significant (P<0.05).Conclusions Intrahepatic biliary canaliculi ultrastructure could be used as one of the prognostic factors in congenital biliary atresia.

Edge biomarkers for classification and prediction of phenotypes

In general,a disease manifests not from malfunction of individual molecules but from failure of the relevant system or network,which can be considered as a set of interactions or edges among molecules.Thus,instead of individual molecules,networks or edges are stable forms to reliably characterize complex diseases.This paper reviews both traditional node biomarkers and edge biomarkers,which have been newly proposed.These biomarkers are classified in terms of their contained information.In particular,we show that edge and network biomarkers provide novel ways of stably and reliably diagnosing the disease state of a sample.First,we categorize the biomarkers based on the information used in the learning and prediction steps.We then briefly introduce conventional node biomarkers,or molecular biomarkers without network information,and their computational approaches.The main focus of this paper is edge and network biomarkers,which exploit network information to improve the accuracy of diagnosis and prognosis.Moreover,by extracting both network and dynamic information from the data,we can develop dynamical network and edge biomarkers.These biomarkers not only diagnose the immediate pre-disease state but also detect the critical molecules or networks by which the biological system progresses from the healthy to the disease state.The identified critical molecules can be used as drug targets,and the critical state indicates the critical point of disease control.The paper also discusses representative biomarker-based methods.