Chinese herbal medicine combined with Western medicine for Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia in children:An overview of systematic reviews

Objective:To summarize the characteristics and evaluate the quality of the methodology and evidence within systematic reviews(SRs)of Chinese herbal medicine(CHM)for Mycoplasma pneumoniae pneumonia(MPP)inchildren.Methods:SRs of randomized controlled trials were searched using PubMed,the Cochrane Library,Embase,the Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure Databases(CNKI),the Chinese Scientific Journals Database(VIP),Wanfang,and the SinoMed Database.SRs on the use of CHM alone or in combination with Western medications for MPP in children were included.The study compared the effects of Western medicine alone with those of CHM.The evidence quality using the A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews(AMSTAR)2,the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses(PRISMA)2020,and the Grading of Recommendations,Assessment,Development,and Evaluation(GRADE)criteria.The primary indicators were the total effective rate,fever subsidence time,and cough disappearance time.The secondary outcomes were pulmonary rale disappearance time,average hospitalization time,lung X-ray infiltrate disappearance time,immunological indices,and inflammatory cytokine levels.Results:Twelve relevant SRs were included;75%(9/12)were assessed as very low quality,and 25%(3/12)Were rated as low quality using the AMSTAR 2 criteria.According to the PRISMA 2020 checklist,the average SR score was 20.3 out of a 27 point maximum.In all SRs,CHM demonstrated improvement in symptoms and signs among children with MPP.The evidence quality using the GRADE criteria ranged from"very low"(>50%)to"moderate"(<5%).The most common downgrading factor was imprecision,followed by publication bias and inconsistency.Conclusion:This overview highlights the limited quality of the methodology and evidence of the included SRs.Although the included studies showed the beneficial effects of CHM on MPP in children,it was difficult to draw firm conclusions owing to methodological flaws.

Reviewer Locator模块在科技期刊中的应用实践与发展前景——以《中国肺癌杂志》为例

科技期刊作为科技传播的重要力量,其对重要科研成果的发布速度影响着科学技术的传播效力,而编辑工作效率直接决定稿件发表周期,提高编辑工作效率是科技期刊发展的推进器。为此,从同行评议审稿人储备和遴选方面入手,重点阐述如何准确高效地多维度遴选优质审稿人,归纳并探析Reviewer Locator模块在科技期刊办刊工作中的实际应用经验,助力出版业实现质量更好、效率更高的发展。

Two-Sided Stable Matching Decision-Making Method Considering Matching Intention under a Hesitant Fuzzy Environment

In this paper,a stable two-sided matching(TSM)method considering the matching intention of agents under a hesitant fuzzy environment is proposed.The method uses a hesitant fuzzy element(HFE)as its basis.First,the HFE preference matrix is transformed into the normalized HFE preference matrix.On this basis,the distance and the projection of the normalized HFEs on positive and negative ideal solutions are calculated.Then,the normalized HFEs are transformed into agent satisfactions.Considering the stable matching constraints,a multiobjective programming model with the objective of maximizing the satisfactions of two-sided agents is constructed.Based on the agent satisfaction matrix,the matching intention matrix of two-sided agents is built.According to the agent satisfaction matrix and matching intention matrix,the comprehensive satisfaction matrix is set up.Furthermore,the multiobjective programming model based on satisfactions is transformed into a multiobjective programming model based on comprehensive satisfactions.Using the G-S algorithm,the multiobjective programming model based on comprehensive satisfactions is solved,and then the best TSM scheme is obtained.Finally,a terminal distribution example is used to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.

The influence of resistance exercise training prescription variables on skeletal muscle mass,strength,and physical function in healthy adults:An umbrella review

Purpose:The aim of this umbrella review was to determine the impact of resistance training(RT)and individual RT prescription variables on muscle mass,strength,and physical function in healthy adults.Methods:Following Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses(PRISMA)guidelines,we systematically searched and screened eligible systematic reviews reporting the effects of differing RT prescription variables on muscle mass(or its proxies),strength,and/or physical function in healthy adults aged>18 years.Results:We identified 44 systematic reviews that met our inclusion criteria.The methodological quality of these reviews was assessed using A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews;standardized effectiveness statements were generated.We found that RT was consistently a potent stimulus for increasing skeletal muscle mass(4/4 reviews provide some or sufficient evidence),strength(4/6 reviews provided some or sufficient evidence),and physical function(1/1 review provided some evidence).RT load(6/8 reviews provided some or sufficient evidence),weekly frequency(2/4 reviews provided some or sufficient evidence),volume(3/7 reviews provided some or sufficient evidence),and exercise order(1/1 review provided some evidence)impacted RT-induced increases in muscular strength.We discovered that 2/3 reviews provided some or sufficient evidence that RT volume and contraction velocity influenced skeletal muscle mass,while 4/7 reviews provided insufficient evidence in favor of RT load impacting skeletal muscle mass.There was insufficient evidence to conclude that time of day,periodization,inter-set rest,set configuration,set end point,contraction velocity/time under tension,or exercise order(only pertaining to hypertrophy)influenced skeletal muscle adaptations.A paucity of data limited insights into the impact of RT prescription variables on physical function.Conclusion:Overall,RT increased muscle mass,strength,and physical function compared to no exercise.RT intensity(load)and weekly frequency impacted RT-induced increases in muscular strength but not muscle hypertrophy.RT volume(number of sets)influenced muscular strength and hypertrophy.

Aspect Level Songs Rating Based Upon Reviews in English

With the advancements in internet facilities,people are more inclined towards the use of online services.The service providers shelve their items for e-users.These users post their feedbacks,reviews,ratings,etc.after the use of the item.The enormous increase in these reviews has raised the need for an automated system to analyze these reviews to rate these items.Sentiment Analysis(SA)is a technique that performs such decision analysis.This research targets the ranking and rating through sentiment analysis of these reviews,on different aspects.As a case study,Songs are opted to design and test the decision model.Different aspects of songs namely music,lyrics,song,voice and video are picked.For the reason,reviews of 20 songs are scraped from YouTube,pre-processed and formed a dataset.Different machine learning algorithms—Naïve Bayes(NB),Gradient Boost Tree,Logistic Regression LR,K-Nearest Neighbors(KNN)and Artificial Neural Network(ANN)are applied.ANN performed the best with 74.99%accuracy.Results are validated using K-Fold.

Neurophysiological, histological, and behavioral characterization of animal models of distraction spinal cord injury: a systematic review

Distraction spinal cord injury is caused by some degree of distraction or longitudinal tension on the spinal cord and commonly occurs in patients who undergo corrective operation for severe spinal deformity.With the increased degree and duration of distraction,spinal cord injuries become more serious in terms of their neurophysiology,histology,and behavior.Very few studies have been published on the specific characteristics of distraction spinal cord injury.In this study,we systematically review 22 related studies involving animal models of distraction spinal cord injury,focusing particularly on the neurophysiological,histological,and behavioral characteristics of this disease.In addition,we summarize the mechanisms underlying primary and secondary injuries caused by distraction spinal cord injury and clarify the effects of different degrees and durations of distraction on the primary injuries associated with spinal cord injury.We provide new concepts for the establishment of a model of distraction spinal cord injury and related basic research,and provide reference guidelines for the clinical diagnosis and treatment of this disease.

Quality assessment of systematic reviews assessing the effects of traditional Chinese exercises in the control of diabetes mellitus

Objective:To assess the quality of systematic reviews assessing the effects of traditional Chinese exercises on controlling blood indices,anthropometric indices,psychological indices,and quality of life in patients with diabetes.Methods:Systematic studies/meta-analyses of intervention with traditional Chinese exercises on diabetes mellitus were searched in the Pub Med,Web of Science,the China National Knowledge Infrastructure Databases(CNKI),Wan Fang Database,and Chinese Scientific Journal Database(VIP).Two researchers independently screened the studies and extracted the data.The methodology and quality of evidence of the included studies were assessed using A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews2(AMSTAR-2)and Grading of Recommendations Assessment,Development and Evaluation(GRADE)criteria,respectively.Results:A total of 32 systematic reviews/meta-analyses were included in the present study.Of them,the methodological quality of 4 studies was graded as low,while that of the other 28 was graded as extremely low.The most common quality flaws in key items included a lack of preliminary proposals for systematic reviews,failure to explain the reasons for the inclusion criteria,failure to provide a list of excluded studies and reasons for exclusion,failure to report potential conflicts of interest,and inadequate assessment of publication bias.The quality of evidence for most of the 18 outcomes was subsequently graded as medium or low.Overall,the results of these studies indicated that Tai Chi,health qigong,and other traditional Chinese exercises lowered fasting blood glucose(FBG),2-h postprandial blood glucose(2hPBG),hemoglobin A_(1c)(HbA_(1c)),and body mass index,and relieved anxiety and depression in patients with diabetes.Conclusion:Our findings indicate that the methodological quality of systematic reviews related to traditional Chinese exercises in the diabetic population is generally low,and the quality of evidence is also relatively poor.Therefore,we suggest that the quality of systematic reviews and meta-analyses on traditional Chinese exercises for controlling diabetes mellitus needs to be improved.In the future,researchers should conduct higher-quality clinical studies with reference to the AMSTAR2 checklist and GRADE system.

Liquefaction susceptibility and deformation characteristics of saturated coral sandy soils subjected to cyclic loadings-a critical review

Coral sandy soils widely exist in coral island reefs and seashores in tropical and subtropical regions.Due to the unique marine depositional environment of coral sandy soils,the engineering characteristics and responses of these soils subjected to monotonic and cyclic loadings have been a subject of intense interest among the geotechnical and earthquake engineering communities.This paper critically reviews the progress of experimental investigations on the undrained behavior of coral sandy soils under monotonic and cyclic loadings over the last three decades.The focus of coverage includes the contractive-dilative behavior,the pattern of excess pore-water pressure(EPWP)generation and the liquefaction mechanism and liquefaction resistance,the small-strain shear modulus and strain-dependent shear modulus and damping,the cyclic softening feature,and the anisotropic characteristics of undrained responses of saturated coral sandy soils.In particular,the advances made in the past decades are reviewed from the following aspects:(1)the characterization of factors that impact the mechanism and patterns of EPWP build-up;(2)the identification of liquefaction triggering in terms of the apparent viscosity and the average flow coefficient;(3)the establishment of the invariable form of strain-based,stress-based,or energy-based EPWP ratio formulas and the unique relationship between the new proxy of liquefaction resistance and the number of cycles required to reach liquefaction;(4)the establishment of the invariable form of the predictive formulas of small strain modulus and strain-dependent shear modulus;and(5)the investigation on the effects of stress-induced anisotropy on liquefaction susceptibility and dynamic deformation characteristics.Insights gained through the critical review of these advances in the past decades offer a perspective for future research to further resolve the fundamental issues concerning the liquefaction mechanism and responses of coral sandy sites subjected to cyclic loadings associated with seismic events in marine environments.

An Ensemble-Based Hotel Reviews System Using Naive Bayes Classifier

The task of classifying opinions conveyed in any form of text online is referred to as sentiment analysis.The emergence of social media usage and its spread has given room for sentiment analysis in our daily lives.Social media applications and websites have become the foremost spring of data recycled for reviews for sentimentality in various fields.Various subject matter can be encountered on social media platforms,such as movie product reviews,consumer opinions,and testimonies,among others,which can be used for sentiment analysis.The rapid uncovering of these web contents contains divergence of many benefits like profit-making,which is one of the most vital of them all.According to a recent study,81%of consumers conduct online research prior to making a purchase.But the reviews available online are too huge and numerous for human brains to process and analyze.Hence,machine learning classifiers are one of the prominent tools used to classify sentiment in order to get valuable information for use in companies like hotels,game companies,and so on.Understanding the sentiments of people towards different commodities helps to improve the services for contextual promotions,referral systems,and market research.Therefore,this study proposes a sentiment-based framework detection to enable the rapid uncovering of opinionated contents of hotel reviews.A Naive Bayes classifier was used to process and analyze the dataset for the detection of the polarity of the words.The dataset from Datafiniti’s Business Database obtained from Kaggle was used for the experiments in this study.The performance evaluation of the model shows a test accuracy of 96.08%,an F1-score of 96.00%,a precision of 96.00%,and a recall of 96.00%.The results were compared with state-of-the-art classifiers and showed a promising performance andmuch better in terms of performancemetrics.

Drug Usage Safety from Drug Reviews with Hybrid Machine Learning Approach

With the increasing usage of drugs to remedy different diseases,drug safety has become crucial over the past few years.Often medicine from several companies is offered for a single disease that involves the same/similar substances with slightly different formulae.Such diversification is both helpful and danger-ous as such medicine proves to be more effective or shows side effects to different patients.Despite clinical trials,side effects are reported when the medicine is used by the mass public,of which several such experiences are shared on social media platforms.A system capable of analyzing such reviews could be very helpful to assist healthcare professionals and companies for evaluating the safety of drugs after it has been marketed.Sentiment analysis of drug reviews has a large poten-tial for providing valuable insights into these cases.Therefore,this study proposes an approach to perform analysis on the drug safety reviews using lexicon-based and deep learning techniques.A dataset acquired from the‘Drugs.Com’contain-ing reviews of drug-related side effects and reactions,is used for experiments.A lexicon-based approach,Textblob is used to extract the positive,negative or neu-tral sentiment from the review text.Review classification is achieved using a novel hybrid deep learning model of convolutional neural networks and long short-term memory(CNN-LSTM)network.The CNN is used at thefirst level to extract the appropriate features while LSTM is used at the second level.Several well-known machine learning models including logistic regression,random for-est,decision tree,and AdaBoost are evaluated using term frequency-inverse docu-ment frequency(TF-IDF),a bag of words(BoW),feature union of(TF-IDF+BoW),and lexicon-based methods.Performance analysis with machine learning models,long short term memory and convolutional neural network models,and state-of-the-art approaches indicate that the proposed CNN-LSTM model shows superior performance with an 0.96 accuracy.We also performed a statistical sig-nificance T-test to show the significance of the proposed CNN-LSTM model in comparison with other approaches.

Sentiment Analysis Based on Performance of Linear Support Vector Machine and Multinomial Naïve Bayes Using Movie Reviews with Baseline Techniques

Movies are the better source of entertainment.Every year,a great percentage of movies are released.People comment on movies in the form of reviews after watching them.Since it is difficult to read all of the reviews for a movie,summarizing all of the reviews will help make this decision without wasting time in reading all of the reviews.Opinion mining also known as sentiment analysis is the process of extracting subjective information from textual data.Opinion mining involves identifying and extracting the opinions of individuals,which can be positive,neutral,or negative.The task of opinion mining also called sentiment analysis is performed to understand people’s emotions and attitudes in movie reviews.Movie reviews are an important source of opinion data because they provide insight into the general public’s opinions about a particular movie.The summary of all reviews can give a general idea about the movie.This study compares baseline techniques,Logistic Regression,Random Forest Classifier,Decision Tree,K-Nearest Neighbor,Gradient Boosting Classifier,and Passive Aggressive Classifier with Linear Support Vector Machines and Multinomial Naïve Bayes on the IMDB Dataset of 50K reviews and Sentiment Polarity Dataset Version 2.0.Before applying these classifiers,in pre-processing both datasets are cleaned,duplicate data is dropped and chat words are treated for better results.On the IMDB Dataset of 50K reviews,Linear Support Vector Machines achieve the highest accuracy of 89.48%,and after hyperparameter tuning,the Passive Aggressive Classifier achieves the highest accuracy of 90.27%,while Multinomial Nave Bayes achieves the highest accuracy of 70.69%and 71.04%after hyperparameter tuning on the Sentiment Polarity Dataset Version 2.0.This study highlights the importance of sentiment analysis as a tool for understanding the emotions and attitudes in movie reviews and predicts the performance of a movie based on the average sentiment of all the reviews.

Two-Sided Matching Decision Making with Multi-Attribute Probabilistic Hesitant Fuzzy Sets

In previous research on two-sided matching(TSM)decision,agents’preferences were often given in the form of exact values of ordinal numbers and linguistic phrase term sets.Nowdays,the matching agent cannot perform the exact evaluation in the TSM situations due to the great fuzziness of human thought and the complexity of reality.Probability hesitant fuzzy sets,however,have grown in popularity due to their advantages in communicating complex information.Therefore,this paper develops a TSM decision-making approach with multi-attribute probability hesitant fuzzy sets and unknown attribute weight information.The agent attribute weight vector should be obtained by using the maximum deviation method and Hamming distance.The probabilistic hesitancy fuzzy information matrix of each agent is then arranged to determine the comprehensive evaluation of two matching agent sets.The agent satisfaction degree is calculated using the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution(TOPSIS).Additionally,the multi-object programming technique is used to establish a TSM method with the objective of maximizing the agent satisfaction of two-sided agents,and the matching schemes are then established by solving the built model.The study concludes by providing a real-world supply-demand scenario to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.The proposed method is more flexible than prior research since it expresses evaluation information using probability hesitating fuzzy sets and can be used in scenarios when attribute weight information is unclear.

List of reviewers

We are grateful to the following reviewers for reviewing the papers for Plasma Science and Technology from 4 December,2022 to 24 December,2023.

An Online Fake Review Detection Approach Using Famous Machine Learning Algorithms

Online review platforms are becoming increasingly popular,encouraging dishonest merchants and service providers to deceive customers by creating fake reviews for their goods or services.Using Sybil accounts,bot farms,and real account purchases,immoral actors demonize rivals and advertise their goods.Most academic and industry efforts have been aimed at detecting fake/fraudulent product or service evaluations for years.The primary hurdle to identifying fraudulent reviews is the lack of a reliable means to distinguish fraudulent reviews from real ones.This paper adopts a semi-supervised machine learning method to detect fake reviews on any website,among other things.Online reviews are classified using a semi-supervised approach(PU-learning)since there is a shortage of labeled data,and they are dynamic.Then,classification is performed using the machine learning techniques Support Vector Machine(SVM)and Nave Bayes.The performance of the suggested system has been compared with standard works,and experimental findings are assessed using several assessment metrics.

Effectiveness of Music-Based Therapeutic Intervention on People with Dementia: A Rapid Review

Background: Dementia is a condition with progressive cognitive dysfunction and manifestation of both behavioral and psychosocial symptoms. Non-pharmacological measures such as music therapy are gaining importance since efficacy and safety of people with dementia have been questionable for pharmacological measures. Patient’s response to music is persistent even in the later stage of dementia. Aim: This rapid review aims to identify, analyze, evaluate, and summarize the best available evidence on the effectiveness of music-based therapeutic interventions among people with dementia. Method: CINAHL Cochrane Library, internet websites of rapid review producers, and reference lists were searched to identify articles for inclusion. Two reviewers independently screened the literature search results. Effectiveness, music-based therapeutic intervention, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, systematic review and systematic review with meta-analysis terms were used to abstract data from included studies. Main Findings: 11 SRs and SRs with meta-analysis were reviewed which revealed positive effect of music therapy on five major outcomes with 9 studies effect on behavioral outcome, 6 studies with positive effect on psychosocial outcome reducing anxiety, 6 with improved cognition, 1 study revealed with improved quality of life and 1 study revealed effect on physiological outcomes. Conclusion: Music therapy has positive effect on treatment of dementia but further studies with larger sample size and specified to single intervention should be conducted to provide generalisable and precise results on this topic.

Thank you to our wonderful peer reviewers and authors

Laparoscopic,Endoscopic and Robotic Surgery(LERS)could not do its valuable work without the contribution of peer reviewers and authors.In this issue,we recognize our peer reviewers and authors with heartful gratitude.Thank you,peer reviewers,for your time and effort!Thank you,authors,for submitting manuscripts to LERS!

Phase-Field Simulation of Sintering Process:A Review

Sintering,a well-established technique in powder metallurgy,plays a critical role in the processing of high melting point materials.A comprehensive understanding of structural changes during the sintering process is essential for effective product assessment.The phase-field method stands out for its unique ability to simulate these structural transformations.Despite its widespread application,there is a notable absence of literature reviews focused on its usage in sintering simulations.Therefore,this paper addresses this gap by reviewing the latest advancements in phase-field sintering models,covering approaches based on energy,grand potential,and entropy increase.The characteristics of various models are extensively discussed,with a specific emphasis on energy-based models incorporating considerations such as interface energy anisotropy,tensor-form diffusion mechanisms,and various forms of rigid particle motion during sintering.Furthermore,the paper offers a concise summary of phase-field sintering models that integrate with other physical fields,including stress/strain fields,viscous flow,temperature field,and external electric fields.In conclusion,the paper provides a succinct overview of the entire content and delineates potential avenues for future research.

How completely are randomized controlled trials of non-pharmacological interventions following concussion reported? A systematic review

Purpose:The study aimed to examine the reporting completeness of randomized controlled trials(RCTs)of non-pharmacological interventions following concussion.Methods:We searched MEDLINE,Embase,PsycInfo,CINAHL,and Web of Science up to May 2022.Two reviewers independently screened studies and assessed reporting completeness using the Template for Intervention Description and Replication(TIDieR),Consensus on Exercise Reporting Template(CERT),and international Consensus on Therapeutic Exercise aNd Training(i-CONTENT)checklists.Additional information was sought my study authors where reporting was incomplete.Risk of bias(ROB)was assessed with the Cochrane ROB-2 Tool.RCTs examining non-pharmacological interventions following concussion.Results:We included 89 RCTs(n=53 high ROB)examining 11 different interventions for concussion:sub-symptom threshold aerobic exercise,cervicovestibular therapy,physical/cognitive rest,vision therapy,education,psychotherapy,hyperbaric oxygen therapy,transcranial magnetic stimulation,blue light therapy,osteopathic manipulation,and head/neck cooling.Median scores were:TIDieR 9/12(75%;interquartile range(IQR)=5;range:5-12),CERT 17/19(89%;IQR=2;range:10-19),and i-CONTENT 6/7(86%;IQR=1;range:5-7).Percentage of studies completely reporting all items was TIDieR 35%(31/89),CERT 24%(5/21),and i-CONTENT 10%(2/21).Studies were more completely reported after publication of TIDieR(t_(87)=2.08;p=0.04)and CERT(t_(19)=2.72;p=0.01).Reporting completeness was not strongly associated with journal impact factor(TIDieR:rs=0.27;p=0.01;CERT:r_(s)=-0.44;p=0.06;i-CONTENT:r_(s)=-0.17;p=0.48)or ROB(TIDieR:rs=0.11;p=0.31;CERT:rs=0.04;p=0.86;i-CONTENT:rs=0.12;p=0.60).Conclusion:RCTs of non-pharmacological interventions following concussion demonstrate moderate to good reporting completeness,but are often missing key components,particularly modifications,motivational strategies,and qualified supervisor.Reporting completeness improved after TIDieR and CERT publication,but publication in highly cited journals and low ROB do not guarantee reporting completeness.

Association between physical activity and risk of gastroesophageal reflux disease:A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background:Lifestyle plays an important role in preventing and managing gastroesophageal reflux disease(GERD).In response to the conflicting results in previous studies,we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to investigate this association.Methods:Relevant studies published until January 2023 were retrieved from 6 databases,and the prevalence of symptomatic gastroesophageal reflux(GER)or GERD was determined from the original studies.A random effects model was employed to meta-analyze the association by computing the pooled relative risk(RR)with 95%confidence intervals(95%CIs).Furthermore,subgroup and dose-response analyses were performed to explore subgroup differences and the association between cumulative physical activity(PA)time and GERD.Results:This meta-analysis included 33 studies comprising 242,850 participants.A significant negative association was observed between PA and the prevalence of symptomatic GER(RR=0.74,95%CI:0.66-0.83;p<0.01)or GERD(RR=0.80,95%CI:0.76-0.84;p<0.01),suggesting that engaging in PA might confer a protective benefit against GERD.Subgroup analyses consistently indicated the presence of this association across nearly all subgroups,particularly among the older individuals(RR_(<40 years):RR_(≥40 years)=0.85:0.69,p<0.01)and smokers(RR_(smoker):RR_(non-smoker)=0.67:0.82,p=0.03).Furthermore,a dose-response analysis revealed that individuals who engaged in 150 min of PA per week had a 72.09%lower risk of developing GERD.Conclusion:Maintaining high levels of PA decreased the risk of GERD,particularly among older adults and smokers.Meeting the recommended PA level of 150 min per week may significantly decrease the prevalence of GERD.

Colorectal cancer screening:A review of current knowledge and progress in research

Colorectal cancer(CRC)is one of the most prevalent malignancies worldwide,being the third most commonly diagnosed malignancy and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths globally.Despite the progress in screening,early diagnosis,and treatment,approximately 20%-25%of CRC patients still present with metastatic disease at the time of their initial diagnosis.Furthermore,the burden of disease is still expected to increase,especially in individuals younger than 50 years old,among whom early-onset CRC incidence has been increasing.Screening and early detection are pivotal to improve CRC-related outcomes.It is well established that CRC screening not only reduces incidence,but also decreases deaths from CRC.Diverse screening strategies have proven effective in decreasing both CRC incidence and mortality,though variations in efficacy have been reported across the literature.However,uncertainties persist regarding the optimal screening method,age intervals and periodicity.Moreover,adherence to CRC screening remains globally low.In recent years,emerging technologies,notably artificial intelligence,and non-invasive biomarkers,have been developed to overcome these barriers.However,controversy exists over the actual impact of some of the new discoveries on CRC-related outcomes and how to effectively integrate them into daily practice.In this review,we aim to cover the current evidence surrounding CRC screening.We will further critically assess novel approaches under investigation,in an effort to differentiate promising inno-vations from mere novelties.