Summary Objective To identify disease relevant genes and pathways associated with knee Osteoarthritis (OA) progression in human subjects using medial and lateral compartment dominant OA knee tissue. ...Design Gene expression of knee cartilage was comprehensively assessed for three regions of interest from human medial dominant OA ( n = 10) and non-OA ( n = 6) specimens. Histology and gene expression were compared for the regions with minimal degeneration, moderate degeneration and significant degeneration. Agilent whole-genome microarray was performed and data were analyzed using Agilent GeneSpring GX11.5. Significant differentially regulated genes were further investigated by Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) to identify functional categories. To confirm their association with disease severity as opposed to site within the knee, 30 differentially expressed genes, identified by microarray, were analyzed by quantitative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction on additional medial ( n = 16) and lateral ( n = 10) compartment dominant knee OA samples. Results A total of 767 genes were differentially expressed ≥two-fold ( P ≤ 0.05) in lesion compared to relatively intact regions. Analysis of these data by IPA predicted biological functions related to an imbalance of anabolism and catabolism of cartilage matrix components. Up-regulated expression of IL11, POSTN, TNFAIP6, and down-regulated expression of CHRDL2, MATN4, SPOCK3, VIT, PDE3B were significantly associated with OA progression and validated in both medial and lateral compartment dominant OA samples. Conclusions Our study provides a strategy for identifying targets whose modification may have the potential to ameliorate pathological alternations and progression of disease in cartilage and to serve as biomarkers for identifying individuals susceptible to progression.
The relationship between tuberculosis (TB) and subsequent chronic kidney disease (CKD) remains unclear. Therefore, we examined the risk of CKD among patients with TB in a nationwide study.
We ...conducted a retrospective cohort study using data from the National Health Insurance system of Taiwan. The cohort included 8735 patients who were newly diagnosed with TB. Patients were recruited between 1998 and 2002, and the date of diagnosis was defined as the index date. Each patient was randomly matched with four people from the general population without TB, according to age, gender and the index year. The occurrence of CKD was followed up until the end of 2011. The relative risks of CKD were estimated using the Cox proportional hazard model after adjusting for age, gender, index year and comorbidities.
The overall incidence of CKD was 1.27-fold greater in the TB cohort than in the non-TB cohort. The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of CKD associated with TB was higher in women (1.72; 95% confidence interval CI: 1.33-2.22), those aged <50 years (1.67; 95% CI: 1.15-2.41) and those without comorbidities (1.39; 95% CI: 1.06-1.83). In addition, patients with more comorbidities among hypertension, diabetes and hyperlipidemia have a greater risk of developing CKD in both cohorts, and the adjusted HRs were higher in the TB cohort than in the non-TB cohort.
TB patients had a significantly higher risk of developing CKD than the general population. The detailed mechanisms need further investigation.
Person re-identification (Re-ID) aims at retrieving a person of interest across multiple non-overlapping cameras. With the advancement of deep neural networks and increasing demand of intelligent ...video surveillance, it has gained significantly increased interest in the computer vision community. By dissecting the involved components in developing a person Re-ID system, we categorize it into the closed-world and open-world settings. The widely studied closed-world setting is usually applied under various research-oriented assumptions, and has achieved inspiring success using deep learning techniques on a number of datasets. We first conduct a comprehensive overview with in-depth analysis for closed-world person Re-ID from three different perspectives, including deep feature representation learning, deep metric learning and ranking optimization. With the performance saturation under closed-world setting, the research focus for person Re-ID has recently shifted to the open-world setting, facing more challenging issues. This setting is closer to practical applications under specific scenarios. We summarize the open-world Re-ID in terms of five different aspects. By analyzing the advantages of existing methods, we design a powerful AGW baseline, achieving state-of-the-art or at least comparable performance on twelve datasets for four different Re-ID tasks. Meanwhile, we introduce a new evaluation metric (mINP) for person Re-ID, indicating the cost for finding all the correct matches, which provides an additional criteria to evaluate the Re-ID system for real applications. Finally, some important yet under-investigated open issues are discussed.
The interface between transition metal compounds provides a rich playground for emergent phenomena. Recently, significantly enhanced superconductivity has been reported for single-layer FeSe on ...Nb-doped SrTiO3 substrate. Yet it remains mysterious how the interface affects the superconductivity. Here we use in situ angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy to investigate various FeSe-based heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy, and uncover that electronic correlations and superconducting gap-closing temperature (Tg) are tuned by interfacial effects. Tg up to 75 K is observed in extremely tensile-strained single-layer FeSe on Nb-doped BaTiO3, which sets a record high pairing temperature for both Fe-based superconductor and monolayer-thick films, providing a promising prospect on realizing more cost-effective superconducting device. Moreover, our results exclude the direct correlation between superconductivity and tensile strain or the energy of an interfacial phonon mode, and highlight the critical and non-trivial role of FeSe/oxide interface on the high Tg, which provides new clues for understanding its origin.
The most recent version of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) Clinical Practice Guidelines for the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) was published in ...2018, and covered the diagnosis, management, treatment and follow-up of early, intermediate and advanced disease. At the ESMO Asia Meeting in November 2018 it was decided by both the ESMO and the Taiwan Oncology Society (TOS) to convene a special guidelines meeting immediately after the Taiwan Joint Cancer Conference (TJCC) in May 2019 in Taipei. The aim was to adapt the ESMO 2018 guidelines to take into account both the ethnic and the geographic differences in practice associated with the treatment of HCC in Asian patients. These guidelines represent the consensus opinions reached by experts in the treatment of patients with intermediate and advanced/relapsed HCC representing the oncology societies of Taiwan (TOS), China (CSCO), India (ISMPO) Japan (JSMO), Korea (KSMO), Malaysia (MOS) and Singapore (SSO). The voting was based on scientific evidence, and was independent of the current treatment practices, the drug availability and reimbursement situations in the individual participating Asian countries.
We report the first genome-wide association study in 1000 bipolar I patients and 1000 controls, with a replication of the top hits in another 409 cases and 1000 controls in the Han Chinese ...population. Four regions with most strongly associated single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were detected, of which three were not found in previous GWA studies in the Caucasian populations. Among them, SNPs close to specificity protein 8 (SP8) and ST8 α-N-acetyl- neuraminide α-2,8-sialyltransferase (ST8SIA2) are associated with Bipolar I, with P-values of 4.87 × 10(-7) (rs2709736) and 6.05 × 10(-6) (rs8040009), respectively. We have also identified SNPs in potassium channel tetramerization domain containing 12 gene (KCTD12) (rs2073831, P=9.74 × 10(-6)) and in CACNB2 (Calcium channel, voltage-dependent, β-2 subunit) gene (rs11013860, P=5.15 × 10(-5)), One SNP nearby the rs1938526 SNP of ANK3 gene and another SNP nearby the SNP rs11720452 in chromosome 3 reported in previous GWA studies also showed suggestive association in this study (P=6.55 × 10(-5) and P=1.48 × 10(-5), respectively). This may suggest that there are common and population-specific susceptibility genes for bipolar I disorder.
Only a few studies have investigated the use of PCT in the diagnosis of bone and joint infection, and these studies have had relatively small sample sizes. We performed a systematic review and ...meta-analysis of the diagnostic performance of serum procalcitonin (PCT) in the identification of osteomyelitis and septic arthritis in patients who present with fever and orthopedic symptoms. EMBASE, MEDLINE, and Cochrane databases and the reference lists of relevant articles were searched, with no language restrictions, through February 2012. All original studies that reported the use of serum PCT alone or in comparison with other biomarkers for diagnosis of osteomyelitis and septic arthritis were included. Seven studies qualified for inclusion. These studies enrolled a total of 583 patients with suspected bone or joint infection, 131 of whom had confirmed osteomyelitis or septic arthritis. Analysis of the PCT data indicated a bivariate pooled sensitivity of 0.67 (95 % CI: 0.37–0.88), specificity of 0.90 (95 % CI: 0.78–0.96), a positive likelihood ratio (LR+) of 6.48 (95 % CI: 2.28–14.6), and a negative likelihood ratio (LR−) of 0.37 (95 % CI: 0.16–0.84). Use of a lower PCT cut-off value (0.2–0.3 ng/mL) improved the LR + to 6.66 and the LR− to 0.15. Analysis of the three studies that also measured serum C-reactive protein (CRP) indicated that CRP had an LR + of 1.39 (95 % CI: 1.17–1.65) and an LR− of 0.40 (95 % CI: 0.12–1.36). Our results indicate that PCT may be more suitable as an aid for rule-in diagnosis rather than for exclusion of septic arthritis or osteomyelitis and that use of a lower cut-off value for serum PCT may improve its diagnostic performance.
The aim of this study was to explore the use of mini-implants for skeletal anchorage, and to assess their stability and the causes of failure. Forty-five mini-implants were used in orthodontic ...treatment. The diameter of the implants was 2
mm, and their lengths were 8, 10, 12 and 14
mm. The drill procedure was directly through the cortical bone without any incision or flap operation. Two weeks later, a force of 100–200
g was applied by an elastometric chain or NiTi coil spring. Risk factors for the failure of mini-implants were examined statistically using the Chi-square or Fisher exact test as applicable. The average placement time of a mini-implant was about 10–15
min. Four mini-implants loosened after orthodontic force loading. The overall success rate was 91.1%. The location of the implant was the significant factor related to failure. In conclusion, the mini-implants are easy to insert for skeletal anchorage and could be successful in the control of tooth movement.
We aimed to determine the effect of dementia and Parkinson's disease on one, three and 12-month mortality following surgery for fracture of the hip in elderly patients from an Asian population.
Using ...a random sample of patients taken from the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database, this retrospective cohort study analyzed the data on 6626 elderly patients who sustained a fracture of the hip between 1997 and 2012 who had ICD-9 codes within the general range of hip fracture (820.xx). We used Cox regression to estimate the risk of death associated with dementia, Parkinson's disease or both, adjusting for demographic, clinical, treatment, and provider factors.
Among 6626 hip fracture patients, 10.20% had dementia alone, 5.60% had Parkinson's disease alone, and 2.67% had both. Corresponding one-year mortality rates were 15.53%, 11.59%, and 15.82%, compared with 9.22% for those without neurological illness. Adjusted hazard ratio for one-year mortality was 1.45 (95% confidence intervals (CI) 1.17 to 1.79) for those with dementia, and 1.57 (95% CI 1.07 to 2.30) with both dementia and Parkinson's disease versus patients with neither. There was no significant association with death for Parkinson's disease alone. Age, male gender and comorbidities were also associated with a higher risk of mortality.
Dementia, with or without Parkinson's disease, is an independent predictor of mortality following surgery for fractures of the hip. Age, male gender and comorbidities also increase the risk of death. Parkinson's disease alone has no significant effect. Cite this article: Bone Joint J 2018;100-B:1220-6.
Abstract Background Sarcopenia is a syndrome characterized by progressive and generalized loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength. This study aims to explore the prevalence of sarcopenia in ...overweight and obese gastric cancer (GC) patients and figured out the impacts of sarcopenia on the postoperative complication of overweight and obese GC patients. Methods According to the recommended body-mass index (BMI) for Asian populations by WHO, we conducted a prospective study of overweight and obese gastric cancer patients (BMI ≥ 23kg/m2 ) under curative gastrectomy from August 2014 to December 2015. Including lumbar skeletal muscle index, handgrip strength and gait speed as the sarcopenic components were measured before surgery. Patients were followed up after gastrectomy to gain the actual clinical outcomes. Factors contributing to postoperative complications were analyzed by univariate and multivariate analysis. Results Total of 206 overweight or obese patients were enrolled in this study, 14 patients were diagnosed sarcopenia and were demonstrated having significantly association with higher risk of postoperative complications, higher hospital costs, and higher rate of 30-days readmission compared with the non-sarcopenic ones. On the basis of univariate and multivariate analysis, sarcopenia was an independent risk factor for postoperative complication of overweight and obese patients with gastric cancer ( P = 0.002). Conclusion Sarcopenia is an independent predictor of postoperative complications in overweight or obese patients with gastric cancer after radical gastrectomy.
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