Clinical characteristics of current COVID-19 rehabilitation outpatients in China

To understand the clinical characteristics of omicron in COVID-19 Rehabilitation Clinic after the current shift of dynamic zeroing policy, we consecutively collected the patients’ data who visited in COVID-19 Rehabilitation Clinic of a Grade-A tertiary hospital in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, from January 3 to January 10, 2023, analyzed related data and then compared the pneumonia between elderly and non-elderly groups. The results showed that 95.68% of the patients in COVID-19 Rehabilitation Clinic had symptoms, 70.10% had a dry cough, 12.36% had abnormal complete blood count or C-reactive protein, 19.35% had electrolyte disorder, and 2% had abnormal troponin or creatine kinase-MB. 40.45% of patients had abnormal lung CT findings, among them 86.49% of elderly patients had abnormal lung CT findings, and the utilization rate of glucocorticoids in COVID-19 Rehabilitation Clinic was only 5.98%, although people are all susceptible to getting the COVID-19 infection, the elderly are more prone to getting pneumonia, and the glucocorticoids utilization rate is relatively insufficient. It is needed to be stressed that Chinese medical staff should pay more attention to the elderly patients who are vulnerable to getting pneumonia during this period

Camptothecin-20(s)-O-[N-(3’α,12’α-dihydroxy-24’-carbonyl-5’β-cholan)]-lysine, a Novel Camptothecin Analogue, Induces Apoptosis towards Hepatocellular Carcinoma SMMC-7721 Cells

Camptothecin-20(s)-O-[N-(3’α,12’α-dihydroxy-24’-carbonyl-5’β-cholan)]-lysine (B2) is a novel camptothecin analogue. Our previous study had shown that it displayed higher cytoxicity activity towards hepatocellular carcinoma SMMC-7721 cells than camptothecin (CPT) in vitro. In this paper, the underlying mechanism of anti-proliferation of B2 towards SMMC-7721 cells was further examined. Cell growth inhibition of B2 was determined using the 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay; morphological changes were observed under Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope (LSCM); cell cycle distribution, apoptotic population, changes in mitochondrial membrane potential, intracellular calcium concentration and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production were determined by flow cytometry (FCM). Activities of caspase-3 and caspase-9 were measured, and the expression level of Bcl-2 and Bax proteins were analyzed by Western blot. The results suggested that B2 inhibited SMMC-7721 cell growth by causing cell cycle arrest at the S and G2/M phases, and induced apoptosis involving a mitochondrial pathway. B2 appears to cause a high induction of apoptosis on SMMC-7721 cells in vitro, which suggests it might be a potential drug for cancer therapy