Effects of the combination of loxoprofen sodium and sodium hyaluronate on osteoarthritis and knee function

Purpose: To determine the treatment efficacy of the combination of loxoprofen sodium and sodium hyaluronate in osteoarthritis (OA), and its role in knee joint function. Methods: 98 patients with OA admitted to Guang'an People's Hospital, Sichuan, China were allocated into control group (CNG, given loxoprofen sodium n, = 51) and study group (SG, given loxoprofen sodium and sodium hyaluronate, n = 47). Both groups were compared in terms of the levels of inflammatory factor, Lysholm, VAS, WOMAC scores, treatment effects, serum MDA, NO, SOD levels, adverse effects, and blood rheology indices. Results: The study group had higher SOD levels, and higher BALP and BGP than CNG (p < 0.05). SG had lower TRACP-5b and blood rheological indices than CNG (p < 0.05). The difference in the incidence of adverse reactions was not statistically significant between the two groups (p > 0.05). Conclusion: The combination of loxoprofen sodium and sodium hyaluronate effectively improves the function and blood rheological indices of knee joints. It reduces the occurrence of adverse reactions and the level of pain in patients with OA, and improves OA prognosis. However further clinical trials are required prior to application in clinical practice

Dual-Stream Pyramid Registration Network

We propose a Dual-Stream Pyramid Registration Network (referred as Dual-PRNet) for unsupervised 3D medical image registration. Unlike recent CNN-based registration approaches, such as VoxelMorph, which explores a single-stream encoder-decoder network to compute a registration fields from a pair of 3D volumes, we design a two-stream architecture able to compute multi-scale registration fields from convolutional feature pyramids. Our contributions are two-fold: (i) we design a two-stream 3D encoder-decoder network which computes two convolutional feature pyramids separately for a pair of input volumes, resulting in strong deep representations that are meaningful for deformation estimation; (ii) we propose a pyramid registration module able to predict multi-scale registration fields directly from the decoding feature pyramids. This allows it to refine the registration fields gradually in a coarse-to-fine manner via sequential warping, and enable the model with the capability for handling significant deformations between two volumes, such as large displacements in spatial domain or slice space. The proposed Dual-PRNet is evaluated on two standard benchmarks for brain MRI registration, where it outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches by a large margin, e.g., having improvements over recent VoxelMorph [2] with 0.683->0.778 on the LPBA40, and 0.511->0.631 on the Mindboggle101, in term of average Dice score.Comment: To appear in MICCAI 2019 (Oral

OpenDelta: A Plug-and-play Library for Parameter-efficient Adaptation of Pre-trained Models

The scale of large pre-trained models (PTMs) poses significant challenges in adapting to downstream tasks due to the high optimization overhead and storage costs associated with full-parameter fine-tuning. To address this, many studies explore parameter-efficient tuning methods, also framed as "delta tuning", which updates only a small subset of parameters, known as "delta modules", while keeping the backbone model's parameters fixed. However, the practicality and flexibility of delta tuning have been limited due to existing implementations that directly modify the code of the backbone PTMs and hard-code specific delta tuning methods for each PTM. In this paper, we present OpenDelta, an open-source library that overcomes these limitations by providing a plug-and-play implementation of various delta tuning methods. Our novel techniques eliminate the need to modify the backbone PTMs' code, making OpenDelta compatible with different, even novel PTMs. OpenDelta is designed to be simple, modular, and extensible, providing a comprehensive platform for researchers and practitioners to adapt large PTMs efficiently.Comment: Accepted to ACL 2023 Demo trac

In vivo total or partial hepatectomy followed by ex vivo liver resection and autotransplantation for malignant tumors: a single center experience

BackgroundEx vivo liver resection and autotransplantation (ELRAT) may provide an opportunity for R0 resection of conventionally unresectable hepatobiliary cancers and hepatic metastases. To date, few studies of the surgery for malignant tumors have been conducted and there are no known reports of in vivo partial hepatectomy followed by ELRAT (IPH-ELRAT) for malignant tumors.MethodsBetween December 2021 and November 2022, ten patients with malignant hepatobiliary primary cancers or hepatic metastases underwent ELRAT at our institution. We shared the surgical skills and postoperative prognoses of these patients were assessed.ResultsThe types of tumors were biliary tract cancer (BTC, n=8), hepatic metastasis of colonic carcinoma (n=1), and hepatic metastasis of small-bowel stromal tumor (n=1). Five patients underwent in vivo total hepatectomy followed by ex vivo liver resection and autotransplantation (ITH-ELRAT), The other five received in vivo partial hepatectomy followed by ex vivo liver resection and autotransplantation (IPH-ELRAT). Four patients underwent inferior vena cava replacement using artificial blood vessels. The survival rate of all ten patients one month after surgery was 100%. Nine patients (90%) are currently alive, with a median follow-up of 8.5 months (range 6–16.5 months). To date, seven of the nine surviving patients have had no cancer recurrence, including six with BTC.ConclusionsWe report the world first five cases that received IPH-ELRAT for malignancies. We also demonstrated relatively favorable outcomes in patients who underwent ELRAT. ELRAT may be a recommendable surgical option for selected patients with conventionally unresectable hepatobiliary malignant tumors

Tai Chi Chuan and Baduanjin Mind-Body Training Changes Resting-State Low-Frequency Fluctuations in the Frontal Lobe of Older Adults: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Age-related cognitive decline is a significant public health concern. Recently, non-pharmacological methods, such as physical activity and mental training practices, have emerged as promising low-cost methods to slow the progression of age-related memory decline. In this study, we investigated if Tai Chi Chuan (TCC) and Baduanjin modulated the fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (fALFF) in different frequency bands (low-frequency: 0.01–0.08 Hz; slow-5: 0.01–0.027 Hz; slow-4: 0.027–0.073 Hz) and improved memory function. Older adults were recruited for the randomized study. Participants in the TCC and Baduanjin groups received 12 weeks of training (1 h/day for 5 days/week). Participants in the control group received basic health education. Each subject participated in memory tests and fMRI scans at the beginning and end of the experiment. We found that compared to the control group: (1) TCC and Baduanjin groups demonstrated significant improvements in memory function; (2) TCC increased fALFF in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in the slow-5 and low-frequency bands; and (3) Baduanjin increased fALFF in the medial PFC in the slow-5 and low-frequency bands. This increase was positively associated with memory function improvement in the slow-5 and low-frequency bands across the TCC and Baduanjin groups. Our results suggest that TCC and Baduanjin may work through different brain mechanisms to prevent memory decline due to aging

MARVEL: A Randomized Double‐Blind, Placebo‐Controlled Trial in Patients Undergoing Endovascular Therapy: Study Rationale and Design

BACKGROUND Steroids have pleiotropic neuroprotective actions including the regulation of inflammation and apoptosis which may influence the effects of ischemia on neurons, glial cells, and blood vessels. The effect of low‐dose methylprednisolone in patients with acute ischemic stroke in the endovascular therapy era remains unknown. This trial investigates the efficacy and safety of low‐dose methylprednisolone (2 mg/kg IV for 3 days) as adjunctive therapy for patients with acute ischemic stroke undergoing endovascular therapy within 24 hours from symptom onset. METHODS The MARVEL(Methylprednisolone as Adjunctive Therapy for Acute Large Vessel Occlusion: A Randomized Double‐Blind, Placebo‐Controlled Trial in Patients Undergoing Endovascular Therapy) trial is an investigator‐initiated, prospective, randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled multicenter clinical trial. Up to 1672 eligible patients with anterior circulation large‐vessel occlusion stroke presenting within 24 hours from symptom onset are planned to be consecutively randomized to receive methylprednisolone or placebo in a 1:1 ratio across 82 stroke centers in China. RESULTS The primary outcome is the ordinal shift in the modified Rankin scale score at 90 days. Secondary outcomes include 90‐day functional independence (modified Rankin scale score, 0–2). The primary safety end points include mortality rate at 90 days and symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage within 48 hours of endovascular therapy. CONCLUSION The MARVEL trial will provide evidence of the efficacy and safety of low‐dose methylprednisolone as adjunctive therapy for patients with anterior circulation large‐vessel occlusion stroke undergoing endovascular therapy

An Innovative Concept for Spacebased Lidar Measurement of Ocean Carbon Biomass

Beam attenuation coefficient, c, provides an important optical index of plankton standing stocks, such as phytoplankton biomass and total particulate carbon concentration. Unfortunately, c has proven difficult to quantify through remote sensing. Here, we introduce an innovative approach for estimating c using lidar depolarization measurements and diffuse attenuation coefficients from ocean color products or lidar measurements of Brillouin scattering. The new approach is based on a theoretical formula established from Monte Carlo simulations that links the depolarization ratio of sea water to the ratio of diffuse attenuation Kd and beam attenuation C (i.e., a multiple scattering factor). On July 17, 2014, the CALIPSO satellite was tilted 30deg off-nadir for one nighttime orbit in order to minimize ocean surface backscatter and demonstrate the lidar ocean subsurface measurement concept from space. Depolarization ratios of ocean subsurface backscatter are measured accurately. Beam attenuation coefficients computed from the depolarization ratio measurements compare well with empirical estimates from ocean color measurements. We further verify the beam attenuation coefficient retrievals using aircraft-based high spectral resolution lidar (HSRL) data that are collocated with in-water optical measurements