Inflammatory bowel disease–associated intestinal fibrosis

Fibrosis is characterized by a proliferation of fibroblasts and excessive extracellular matrix following chronic inflammation, and this replacement of organ tissue with fibrotic tissue causes a loss of function. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, and intestinal fibrosis is common in IBD patients, resulting in several complications that require surgery, such as a stricture or penetration. This review describes the pathogenesis and various factors involved in intestinal fibrosis in IBD, including cytokines, growth factors, epithelial-mesenchymal and endothelial-mesenchymal transitions, and gut microbiota. Furthermore, histopathologic findings and scoring systems used for stenosis in IBD are discussed, and differences in the fibrosis patterns of ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease are compared. Biomarkers and therapeutic agents targeting intestinal fibrosis are briefly mentioned at the end

One Small Step for Generative AI, One Giant Leap for AGI: A Complete Survey on ChatGPT in AIGC Era

OpenAI has recently released GPT-4 (a.k.a. ChatGPT plus), which is demonstrated to be one small step for generative AI (GAI), but one giant leap for artificial general intelligence (AGI). Since its official release in November 2022, ChatGPT has quickly attracted numerous users with extensive media coverage. Such unprecedented attention has also motivated numerous researchers to investigate ChatGPT from various aspects. According to Google scholar, there are more than 500 articles with ChatGPT in their titles or mentioning it in their abstracts. Considering this, a review is urgently needed, and our work fills this gap. Overall, this work is the first to survey ChatGPT with a comprehensive review of its underlying technology, applications, and challenges. Moreover, we present an outlook on how ChatGPT might evolve to realize general-purpose AIGC (a.k.a. AI-generated content), which will be a significant milestone for the development of AGI.Comment: A Survey on ChatGPT and GPT-4, 29 pages. Feedback is appreciated ([email protected]

A Case of Aortopulmonary Fistula Caused by a Huge Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm

Aortopulmonary fistula is an uncommon but often fatal condition resulting as a late complication of an aortic aneurysm. The most common cause is erosion of a false aneurysm of the descending thoracic aorta into the pulmonary artery, resulting in the development of a left-to-right shunt and leading to acute pulmonary edema and right heart failure. We report an our experience with aortopulmonary fistula as a rare complication associated with thoracic aortic aneurysm and high output heart failure

Role of HbA1c in the Screening of Diabetes Mellitus in a Korean Rural Community

BackgroundRecently, the measurement of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) was recommended as an alternative to fasting plasma glucose or oral glucose tolerance tests for diagnosing diabetes mellitus (DM). In this study, we analyzed HbA1c levels for diabetes mellitus screening in a Korean rural population.MethodsWe analyzed data from 10,111 subjects from a Korean Rural Genomic Cohort study and generated a receiver operating characteristic curve to determine an appropriate HbA1c cutoff value for diabetes.ResultsThe mean age of the subjects was 56.3±8.1 years. Fasting plasma glucose and 2-hour plasma glucose after 75 g oral glucose tolerance tests were 97.5±25.6 and 138.3±67.1 mg/dL, respectively. The mean HbA1c level of the subjects was 5.7±0.9%. There were 8,809 non-DM patients (87.1%) and 1,302 DM patients (12.9%). A positive relationship between HbA1c and plasma glucose levels and between HbA1c and 2-hour plasma glucose levels after oral glucose tolerance tests was found in a scatter plot of the data. Using Youden's index, the proper cutoff level of HbA1c for diabetes mellitus screening was 5.95% (sensitivity, 77%; specificity, 89.4%).ConclusionOur results suggest that the optimal HbA1c level for DM screening is 5.95%

Reproduction of Gastric Cancer Prognostic Score by real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction assay in an independent cohort

Purpose Addition of molecular markers to the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging system would allow further refinements in predicting recurrence and help individualize treatment decisions. We aimed to validate the Gastric Cancer Prognostic Score (GCPS) in an independent cohort using an easy and cost effective quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) assay. Methods We performed qRT-PCR using 48 samples from our previous study and expanded to 128 independent patients. The GCPS was recalculated using Cox regression estimates and the performance of cutoff values for GCPS was reassessed. Results The qRT-PCR results showed a similar pattern to nanostring data by scale function data comparison. Using a new cutoff value, GCPS stratified 95 stage IB–III patients who received adjuvant chemotherapy into 74 high-risk patients and 21 low-risk patients with significantly different recurrence-free survival (P< 0.0001). The survival difference remained significant (P= 0.028) in 27 patients who did not receive adjuvant chemotherapy. Among stage I and II patients who were treated with surgery only, one AJCC stage IIA patient was defined as low-risk and showed long-term survival. Nine of 12 high-risk patients showed recurrence less than 67 months after operation. Conclusion We reproduced the GCPS with an easily applicable qRT-PCR assay and successfully predicted recurrence in patients with gastric cancer

Prevalence of Anti-Ganglioside Antibodies and Their Clinical Correlates with Guillain-Barre Syndrome in Korea: A Nationwide Multicenter Study

Background and Purpose No previous studies have investigated the relationship between various anti-ganglioside antibodies and the clinical characteristics of Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) in Korea. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and types of anti-ganglioside antibodies in Korean GBS patients, and to identify their clinical significance. Methods Serum was collected from patients during the acute phase of GBS at 20 university-based hospitals in Korea. The clinical and laboratory findings were reviewed and compared with the detected types of anti-ganglioside antibody. Results Among 119 patients, 60 were positive for immunoglobulin G (IgG) or immunoglobulin M antibodies against any type of ganglioside (50%). The most frequent type was IgG anti-GM1 antibody (47%), followed by IgG anti-GT1a (38%), IgG anti-GD1a (25%), and IgG anti-GQ1b (8%) antibodies. Anti-GM1-antibody positivity was strongly correlated with the presence of preceding gastrointestinal infection, absence of sensory symptoms or signs, and absence of cranial nerve involvement. Patients with anti-GD1a antibody were younger, predominantly male, and had more facial nerve involvement than the antibody-negative group. Anti-GT1a-antibody positivity was more frequently associated with bulbar weakness and was highly associated with ophthalmoplegia when coupled with the coexisting anti-GQ1b antibody. Despite the presence of clinical features of acute motor axonal neuropathy (AMAN), 68% of anti-GM1- or anti-GD1a-antibody-positive cases of GBS were diagnosed with acute inflammatory demyelinating polyradiculoneuropathy (AMP) by a single electrophysiological study. Conclusions Anti-ganglioside antibodies were frequently found in the serum of Korean GBS patients, and each antibody was correlated strongly with the various clinical manifestations. Nevertheless, without an anti-ganglioside antibody assay, in Korea AMAN is frequently misdiagnosed as AIDP by single electrophysiological studies.OAIID:oai:osos.snu.ac.kr:snu2014-01/102/0000004487/14SEQ:14PERF_CD:SNU2014-01EVAL_ITEM_CD:102USER_ID:0000004487ADJUST_YN:YEMP_ID:A075641DEPT_CD:801CITE_RATE:1.807FILENAME:kimjk-anti ganlioside ab-gbs-j clin neurol-2014-10(2)94.pdfDEPT_NM:의학과SCOPUS_YN:YCONFIRM: