Predictive value of the systemic immune-inflammation index for cancer-specific survival of osteosarcoma in children

BackgroundOsteosarcoma (OS) is the primary malignant bone tumor that most commonly affects children and adolescents. Recent years effective chemotherapy have improved the 5-year survival in osteosarcoma patients to up to 60%-70%. Still, there is a lack of novel therapeutic strategies to enhance further survival. Our study aimed to evaluate the clinical significance of pretreatment inflammatory-based parameters, including PLT, NLR, and SII, as prognostic indicators of survival in pediatric osteosarcoma patients.MethodsA total of 86 pediatric osteosarcoma patients between 2012 and 2021 in the Department of Orthopedics or tumor Surgery of Children's Hospital affiliated to Chongqing Medical University were retrospectively analyzed. The clinicopathological variables and systematic inflammatory biomarkers, including NLR, PLR and SII, was performed by the A Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and Cox proportional risk regression model. According to the results of multivariate analysis, a prognostic nomogram was generated, and the concordance index (C-index) was calculated to predict the performance of the established nomogram. The survival curve was plotted by the Kaplan-Meier method.ResultsUnivariate analysis showed that TNM stage, tumor size, NLR value, PLR value, SII value, neutrophil count and platelet count were related to CSS (p < 0.05). According to multivariate analysis, only TNM stage (p = 0.006) and SII values (p = 0.015) were associated with poor prognosis.To further predict survival in pediatric osteosarcoma patients, multivariate Cox regression analysis was used to predict cancer-specific survival at 1, 3 and 5 years. And constructed a nomogram model to predict children's CSS. The C-index of the nomogram is 0.776 (95%CI, 0.776–0.910), indicating that the model has good accuracy.ConclusionPreoperative SII and TNM staging are independent prognostic markers for pediatric osteosarcoma patients. SII may be used in conjunction with TNM staging for individualized treatment of pediatric osteosarcoma patients in future clinical work

Efficacy and safety of tetramethylpyrazine phosphate on pulmonary hypertension: study protocol for a randomized controlled study

Background: Tetramethylpyrazine (TMP), an active ingredient in the traditional Chinese herbal medicine Rhizoma Chuanxiong, has been used clinically for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease. The benefits of TMP are largely attributed to its anti-oxidative and vasodilative properties. However, the efficacy of TMP in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension (PH) is unknown. We hypothesized that TMP may have a therapeutic effect in patients with PH. Methods/design: A randomized, single-blinded, clinical study with a TMP treatment group and a control group will be conducted to evaluate the efficacy and safety of TMP intervention in patients with PH. The recruitment target is 120 subjects meeting the following criteria: (i) at rest and at sea level, mean pulmonary artery pressure above 20 mmHg and pulmonary capillary wedge pressure below 15 mmHg; (ii) type 1 or 4 PH in the stable phase; (iii) age 15-70 years; (iv) 6-min walk distance between 100 and 450 m; (v) World Health Organization (WHO) functional classification of pulmonary hypertension of II, III, or IV. Subjects will be assigned randomly into two groups at a ratio of 1:2 (control:TMP). Both groups will receive routine treatment, and the treatment group will also receive oral TMP (100 mg) three times a day for 16 weeks. All patients will be followed up for 4, 8, 12, and 16 weeks; symptoms and patient compliance will be recorded. Discussion: We aimed to determine the efficacy and safety of TMP for the treatment of PH.Open access journalThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

25th annual computational neuroscience meeting: CNS-2016

The same neuron may play different functional roles in the neural circuits to which it belongs. For example, neurons in the Tritonia pedal ganglia may participate in variable phases of the swim motor rhythms [1]. While such neuronal functional variability is likely to play a major role the delivery of the functionality of neural systems, it is difficult to study it in most nervous systems. We work on the pyloric rhythm network of the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion (STG) [2]. Typically network models of the STG treat neurons of the same functional type as a single model neuron (e.g. PD neurons), assuming the same conductance parameters for these neurons and implying their synchronous firing [3, 4]. However, simultaneous recording of PD neurons shows differences between the timings of spikes of these neurons. This may indicate functional variability of these neurons. Here we modelled separately the two PD neurons of the STG in a multi-neuron model of the pyloric network. Our neuron models comply with known correlations between conductance parameters of ionic currents. Our results reproduce the experimental finding of increasing spike time distance between spikes originating from the two model PD neurons during their synchronised burst phase. The PD neuron with the larger calcium conductance generates its spikes before the other PD neuron. Larger potassium conductance values in the follower neuron imply longer delays between spikes, see Fig. 17.Neuromodulators change the conductance parameters of neurons and maintain the ratios of these parameters [5]. Our results show that such changes may shift the individual contribution of two PD neurons to the PD-phase of the pyloric rhythm altering their functionality within this rhythm. Our work paves the way towards an accessible experimental and computational framework for the analysis of the mechanisms and impact of functional variability of neurons within the neural circuits to which they belong