The rapid evolution of genomic technologies over the last years has led to the development of different methods for the detection, measurement and analysis of cell-free DNA fragments (cfDNA) which are shed into the bloodstream by apoptotic cells and circulate at a low concentration in plasma. In cancer patients, the proportion of tumor-derived cfDNA is defined as circulating tumor DNA. This analysis, commonly known as liquid biopsy, allows to access tumor DNA through a simple blood sampling and therefore without the need of an invasive tissue biopsy. For this reason, this tool may have several clinical applications in terms of diagnosis, prognosis, and monitoring of minimal residual disease. However, there are still several critical issues that need to be resolved. In this review, we will discuss some of the controversies around this method and its potential clinical applications.[This corrects the article DOI 10.1097/HS9.0000000000000686.].Blast traumatic brain injury (bTBI) presents a serious threat to military personnel and often results in psychiatric conditions related to limbic system dysfunction. In this study, the functional outcomes for anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors and neuronal activation were evaluated in male and female mice after exposure to an Advanced Blast Simulator (ABS) shock wave. Mice were placed in a ventrally exposed orientation inside of the ABS test section and received primary and tertiary shock wave insults of approximately 15 psi peak pressure. Evans blue staining indicated cases of blood-brain barrier breach in the superficial cerebral cortex four, but not 24 h after blast, but the severity was variable. Behavioral testing with the elevated plus maze (EPM) or elevated zero maze (EZM), sucrose preference test (SPT), and tail suspension test (TST) or forced swim test (FST) were conducted 8 days-3.5 weeks after shock wave exposure. There was a sex difference, but no injury effect, for distance travelled in the Eraumatic stress disorder in women.

Telemedicine is being widely implemented in the COVID-19 pandemic to avoid infection risk. However, its effectiveness has not been evaluated, especially in developing countries, where it is invaluable for healthcare access. This study assesses physicians’ and patients’ perspectives of the usefulness and challenges of telemedicine in the gastroenterology department to identify its pitfalls.

A cross-sectional telephonic survey was conducted on patients presenting to the gastroenterology department at a tertiary care hospital in Pakistan. An online survey was sent to physicians in the department.

A total of 160 patients participated, with a mean age 49.8 years, and 42.8% (n=68) males. There were 23.8% (n=38) initial visits and 76.3% (n=122) follow-ups. More than 85% of patients agreed telemedicine saved cost and time, 46.5% (n=74) said it improved healthcare access, and 76.3% (n=122) wanted to use it again. More than 80% were satisfied with the physician-patient interaction. Of the 7 physicians who participated, most felt telemedicine was inadequately facilitated, but felt comfortable with technology. Most felt it did not negatively affect healthcare, but thought it was complex for patients and that lack of physical interaction is a limitation. Nearly half were in favor of continuing its use after the pandemic.

Telemedicine is an effective alternative to in-person visits. Patients find it convenient, with adequate interaction. Physicians have reservations that need addressal, such as poor administration. Most patients and half of physicians are welcome to using telemedicine in the post-COVID era.

Telemedicine is an effective alternative to in-person visits. Patients find it convenient, with adequate interaction. Physicians have reservations that need addressal, such as poor administration. Most patients and half of physicians are welcome to using telemedicine in the post-COVID era.

To compare the performance of clinical factors, FS-T2WI, DWI, T1WI+C based radiomics and a combined clinic-radiomics model in predicting the type of serous ovarian carcinomas (SOCs).

In this retrospective analysis, 138 SOC patients were confirmed by histology. Significant clinical factors (

< 0.05, and with the area under the curve (AUC) > 0.7) was retained to establish a clinical model. The radiomics model included FS-T2WI, DWI, and T1WI+C, and also, a multisequence model was established. A total of 1,316 radiomics features of each sequence were extracted; the univariate and multivariate logistic regressions, cross-validations were performed to reduce valueless features and then radiomics signatures were developed. Nomogram models using clinical factors, combined with radiomics features, were developed in the training cohort. The predictive performance was validated by receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis and decision curve analysis (DCA). A stratified analysis was conducted to ate preoperative risk stratification for SOCs.

Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (neo-CRT) plus surgery has greatly improved the prognosis of locally advanced esophageal cancer (EC) patients. But which factors may influence the pathological tumor response and long-term survival remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to identify the prognostic biomarkers of locally advanced EC patients receiving neo-CRT.

We reviewed the data of 72 patients with cT2-4N0-3M0 EC who underwent neo-CRT at our hospital. The patients received intensity-modulated radiation therapy with a total radiation dose of 41.4-60.0 Gy. Most patients received platinum + paclitaxel-based combination regimens every three weeks for 2-4 cycles. The recorded data included age, sex, smoking history, alcohol use, histology, tumor location, clinical TNM stage, tumor length, gross tumor volume (GTV), GTV of primary tumor (GTVp), GTV of lymph nodes (GTVn), radiation dose, and number of chemotherapy cycles. Overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), and pathological complete responstionally, patients with GTV > 60.50 cm

didn’t benefit from increased radiation dose or increased number of chemotherapy cycles.

60.50 cm3 didn’t benefit from increased radiation dose or increased number of chemotherapy cycles.The treatment of patients with glioma still faces many difficulties. To further optimize treatment, it is necessary to identify more accurate markers as treatment targets and predict prognostic indicators. RNASE2 was identified as a differentially expressed gene (DEG) in glioma tissues using bioinformatics analysis. In glioma microarrays, 31.21% (54/173) and 68.79% (119/173) patients showed low and high RNASE2 protein expression levels, respectively. RNASE2 protein levels were considerably correlated with age, WHO grade, relapse, and death. Both mRNA and protein levels were associated with the overall survival of patients with glioma. To investigate the role of RNASE2, it was overexpressed or silenced in glioma cells. RNASE2 overexpression promoted cell proliferation, migration, and invasion. In addition, its overexpression promoted the growth of subcutaneous tumors and lung metastasis of glioma cells. Key protein levels in the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway were upregulated by RNASE2 overexpression. In contrast, RNASE2 knockdown had the opposite effects. Furthermore, LY294002 blocked the effects of RNASE2 on the cell function of glioma cells. In conclusion, RNASE2 is a novel marker associated with the diagnosis and prognosis of patients with glioma, and it promotes the malignant progression of gliomas through the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway.There are few studies on the prognostic impact of CEA level at the time of recurrence in recurrent colorectal cancer. The objective of this study was to evaluate the prognostic value of serum CEA levels at the time of recurrence in patients with recurrent colorectal cancer. Between 2007 and 2014, 962 consecutive recurrent patients for colorectal cancer were analyzed. These patients were divided into two groups according to CEA level at the time of recurrence (r-CEA) high r-CEA (≥5 ng/ml) (n = 428) and normal r-CEA ( less then 5 ng/ml) (n = 534). The prognostic effects of r-CEA were evaluated by one-to-one propensity score matching (PSM) to adjust factors between groups. After matching, a total of 778 patients, 389 per group, were analyzed. After matching, the 5-year disease-free survival rate for the high r-CEA group was significantly lower than that for the normal r-CEA group. The 5-year overall survival rate was 56.5% in the high r-CEA group and 66.0% in the normal r-CEA group (p = 0.008). The 5-year cancer-specific survival rate was 61.7% in the high group and 67.5% in the normal group (p = 0.035). In a multivariate analysis of prognostic factors, high preoperative CEA level at the time of recurrence, poor histologic grade, and lymphatic invasion were associated with poorer overall survival. The high r-CEA level group showed significantly poorer prognosis than the normal r-CEA group. Therefore, the r-CEA level can be used as a prognostic factor in recurrent colorectal cancer. Aggressive adjuvant treatment needs to be considered for patients with an initially high CEA level and lymph node positivity who are prone to recurrence.Accurate prostate segmentation in transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) is a challenging problem due to the low contrast of TRUS images and the presence of imaging artifacts such as speckle and shadow regions. To address this issue, we propose a semi-automatic model termed Hybrid Segmentation Model (H-SegMod) for prostate Region of Interest (ROI) segmentation in TRUS images. H-SegMod contains two cascaded stages. The first stage is to obtain the vertices sequences based on an improved principal curve-based model, where a few radiologist-selected seed points are used as prior. The second stage is to find a map function for describing the smooth prostate contour based on an improved machine learning model. Experimental results show that our proposed model achieved superior segmentation results compared with several other state-of-the-art models, achieving an average Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC), Jaccard Similarity Coefficient (Ω), and Accuracy (ACC) of 96.5%, 95.2%, and 96.3%, respectively.Colorectal cancer (CRC) ranks third in the United States for incidence or mortality. Surgical resection is the primary treatment for patients at an early stage, while patients with advanced and metastatic CRC receive combined treatment with chemotherapy, radiotherapy, or targeted therapy. C-RAF plays a key role in maintaining clonogenic and tumorigenic capacity in CRC cells and it might be a potential therapeutic target for CRC. Sorafenib is a popular oral multi-kinase inhibitor, including a B-RAF inhibitor that targets the RAF-MEK-ERK pathway. Sorafenib, as a single agent, has tumor-suppressing efficacy, but its clinical application is limited due to many complex drug resistance mechanisms and side effects. GW5074 is one of the C-RAF inhibitors and has the potential to enhance the efficacy of existing cancer chemotherapies. In this study, we investigated whether the combination of sorafenib with GW5074 could reduce the dosage of sorafenib and enhance its tumor-suppressive effect in two CRC cell lines, HCT116 and LoVo cells.