Endometrial Cytology as a Method to Improve the Accuracy of Diagnosis of Endometrial Cancer: Case Report and Meta-Analysis

More and more researchers have reported that dilatation and curettage (D&C) or Pipelle had low accuracy, high misdiagnosis, and insufficient rate. Endometrial cytology is often compared with histology and seems to be an efficient method for the diagnosis of endometrial disorders, especially endometrial cancer. We report a case of misdiagnosed endometrial cancer by D&C, but with a positive cytopathological finding. Following that, a meta-analysis including 4,179 patients of endometrial diseases with cyto-histopathological results was performed to assess the value of the endometrial cytological method in endometrial cancer diagnosis. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of the cytological method in detecting endometrial atypical hyperplasia or cancer was 0.91[95% confidence interval (CI) 0.74–0.97] and 0.96 (95% CI 0.90–0.99), respectively. The pooled positive likelihood ratio and negative likelihood ratio was 25.4 (95% CI 8.1–80.1) and 0.10 (95% CI 0.00–0.30), respectively. The diagnostic odds ratio which was usually used to evaluate the diagnostic test performance reached 260 (95% CI 36–1905). So we recommend that D&C and Pipelle are still practical procedures to evaluate the endometrium, cytological examinations should be utilized as an additional endometrial assessment method

An Efficacious Endometrial Sampler for Screening Endometrial Cancer

Recently, the research on early detection of precancerous change and endometrial carcinoma has been focusing on minimally invasive procedures for screening. On this basis, we aim to verify the feasibility of endometrial samplers for screening endometrial cancer using Li Brush. We recruited patients undergoing hysterectomy for different diseases from the Inpatient Department of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Before surgery, endometrial cells were collected by Li Brush. The cytopathologic diagnosis from Li Brush and the histopathologic diagnosis from hysterectomy in the same patient were compared to calculate sensitivity (Se), specificity (Sp), false-negative rate (FNR), false-positive rate (FPR), positive predictive value (PV+) %, and negative predictive value (PV-). The research enrolled 293 women into this self-controlled trial. According to the hypothesis test of paired four lattices, we obtained the following indicators: Se 92.73, Sp 98.15, FNR 7.27, FPR 1.85, PV+92.73, and PV−98.15%. The endometrial sampler Li Brush is an efficacious instrument for screening endometrial cancer

Down-Regulation of EBV-LMP1 Radio-Sensitizes Nasal Pharyngeal Carcinoma Cells via NF-κB Regulated ATM Expression

BACKGROUND:The latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1) encoded by EBV is expressed in the majority of EBV-associated human malignancies and has been suggested to be one of the major oncogenic factors in EBV-mediated carcinogenesis. In previous studies we experimentally demonstrated that down-regulation of LMP1 expression by DNAzymes could increase radiosensitivity both in cells and in a xenograft NPC model in mice. RESULTS:In this study we explored the molecular mechanisms underlying the radiosensitization caused by the down-regulation of LMP1 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. It was confirmed that LMP1 could up-regulate ATM expression in NPCs. Bioinformatic analysis of the ATM ptomoter region revealed three tentative binding sites for NF-κB. By using a specific inhibitor of NF-κB signaling and the dominant negative mutant of IkappaB, it was shown that the ATM expression in CNE1-LMP1 cells could be efficiently suppressed. Inhibition of LMP1 expression by the DNAzyme led to attenuation of the NF-κB DNA binding activity. We further showed that the silence of ATM expression by ATM-targeted siRNA could enhance the radiosensitivity in LMP1 positive NPC cells. CONCLUSIONS:Together, our results indicate that ATM expression can be regulated by LMP1 via the NF-κB pathways through direct promoter binding, which resulted in the change of radiosensitivity in NPCs

Crossing Minimization Problems of Drawing Bipartite Graphs in Two Clusters

The crossing minimization problem is a classic and very important problem in graph drawing (Pach, Toth 1997); the results directly a#ect the e#ectiveness of the layout, especially for very large scale graphs. But in many cases crossings cannot be avoided. In this paper we present two models for bipartite graph drawing, aiming to reduce crossings that cannot be avoided in the traditional bilayer drawings. We characterize crossing minimization problems in these models, and prove that they are NP-complete

Crossing minimization problems of drawing bipartite graphs in two clusters

Abstract. Crossing minimization problem is a classic and very important problem in graph drawing [1]; the results directly affect the effectiveness of the layout, especially for very large scale graphs. But in many cases crossings cannot be avoided. In this paper we present two models for bipartite graph drawing, aiming to reduce crossings that cannot be avoided in the traditional bilayer drawings. We characterize crossing minimization problems in these models, and prove that they are N Pcomplete.

Effects of SiO2/Al2O3 Ratios on Sintering Characteristics of Synthetic Coal Ash

This article explores the effects of SiO2/Al2O3 ratios (S/A) on sintering characteristics and provides guidance for alleviating ash depositions in a large-scale circulation fluidized bed. Five synthetic coal ash (SCA) samples with different S/As were treated in a muffle furnace for 12 h at different temperatures (from 773 K to 1373 K, in 100 K intervals). The morphological and chemical results of the volume shrinkage ratio (VSR), thermal deformation analysis by dilatometer (DIL), scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were combined to describe the sintering characteristics of different samples. The results showed that the sintering procedure mainly occurred in the third sintering stage when the temperature was over 1273 K, accompanied with significant decreases in the VSR curve. Excess SiO2 (S/A = 4.5) resulted in a porous structure while excess Al2O3 (S/A = 0.5) brought out large aggregations. The other three samples (S/A = 1.5, 2.5, 3.5) are made up of an amorphous compacted structure and are composed of low fusion temperature materials (e.g., augite and wadsleysite.). Sintering temperatures first dramatically decrease to a low level and then gradually rise to a high level as S/A increases, suggesting that Al2O3-enriched additives are more effective than SiO2enriched additives in alleviating depositions

An Experimental Study on the Macroscopic Spray Characteristics of Biodiesel and Diesel in a Constant Volume Chamber

The objective of this study was to investigate the macroscopic spray characteristics of different 0%–100% blends of biodiesel derived from drainage oil and diesel (BD0, BD20, BD50, BD80, BD100), such as spray tip penetration, average tip velocity at penetration, spray angle, average spray angle, spray evolution process, spray area and spray volume under different injection pressures (60, 70, 80, 90, 100 MPa) and ambient pressures (0.1, 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 0.9 MPa) using a common rail system equipped with a constant volume chamber. The characteristic data was extracted from spray images grabbed by a high speed visualization system. The results showed that the ambient pressure and injection pressure had significant effects on the spray characteristics. As the ambient pressure increased, the spray angle increased, while the spray tip penetration and the peak of average tip velocity decreased. As the injection pressure increased, the spray tip penetration, spray angle, spray area and spray volume increased. The increasing blend ratio of biodiesel brought about a shorter spray tip penetration and a smaller spray angle compared with those of diesel. This is due to the comparatively higher viscosity and surface tension of biodiesel, which enhanced the friction effect between fuel and the injector nozzle surface and inhibited the breakup of the liquid jet

Construction and validation of a risk model of proteinuria in patients with omicron COVID‐19: retrospective cohort study

Background To explore the risk factors of proteinuria in Omicron variant patients and to construct and verify the risk predictive model.Methods 1091 Omicron patients who were hospitalized from August 2022 to November 2022 at Tianjin First Central Hospital were defined as the derivation cohort. 306 Omicron patients who were hospitalized from January 2022 to March 2022 at the same hospital were defined as the validation cohort. The risk factors of proteinuria in derivation cohort were screened by univariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis, and proteinuria predicting scoring system was constructed and the receiver operating characteristic(ROC)curve was drawn to test the prediction ability. The proteinuria risk model was externally validated in validation cohort.Results 7 factors including comorbidities, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), serum sodium (Na), uric acid (UA), C reactive protein (CRP) and vaccine dosages were included to construct a risk predictive model. The score ranged from −5 to 16. The area under the ROC curve(AUC) of the model was 0.8326(95% CI 0.7816 to 0.8835, p < 0.0001). Similarly to that observed in derivation cohort, the AUC is 0.833(95% CI 0.7808 to 0.9002, p < 0.0001), which verified good prediction ability and diagnostic accuracy in validation cohort.Conclusions The risk model of proteinuria after Omicron infection had better assessing efficiency which could provide reference for clinical prediction of the risk of proteinuria in Omicron patients