Medicine (Baltimore)

Mpox (MPX) has escalated into a public health emergency of international concern, necessitating urgent prophylactic and therapeutic measures. The primary goal of this investigation was to systematically extract Wan Quan's expertise in treating smallpox, as documented in Exclusive Methods for Treating Pox (Dou Zhen Xin Fa in Chinese), with the aim of identifying potential prescriptions, herbs, and components for alternative MPX therapies or drugs. This research utilized data mining to identify high-frequency Chinese Medicines (CMs), high-frequency CM-pairs, and CM compatibility rules...

We proceeded with this study to investigate the relationship between hypothyroidism and lipid profile disturbance. A cross-sectional study at Al- Mowasat University Hospital in Damascus was conducted from March 2021 to March 2022, and included 324 adults. For each participant with abnormal thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), free thyroxine (FT4) was requested. The participants were categorized into 3 groups: euthyroid (226 participants), subclinical hypothyroidism (SCH) (75 participants), and overt hypothyroidism (23 participants)...

BACKGROUND: In recent years, the age of onset for coronary heart disease (CHD) has become one of the leading causes of death worldwide. The medical treatments occasionally cause side effects; therefore, there is still an urgent need to develop new therapeutic modalities for CHD in clinical practice. "Heart Arthralgia Syndrome (HAS)" is a general term for CHD with arthralgia symptoms proposed by our team based on clinical experience. At present, there is little in-depth research on the treatment of HAS by TCM...

Osteosarcoma is the most common bone malignancy. There are many studies on the prognostic factors of children and adolescents, but the characteristics and prognostic factors of adult osteosarcoma are rarely studied. The aim of this study was to construct a nomogram for predicting the prognosis of adult osteosarcoma. Information on all osteosarcoma patients aged ≥ 18 years from 2004 to 2015 was downloaded from the surveillance, epidemiology and end results database. A total of 70% of the patients were included in the training set and 30% of the patients were included in the validation set...

To explore the effect of comfort nursing in the perioperative period of free flap transplantation to repair defects of malignant head and neck tumors. This retrospective study included 242 patients with postoperative defects of malignant head and neck tumors repaired using free flap transplantation from December 2017 to December 2022. Among them, 113 patients received routine nursing and were included in the control group, and 129 patients received comfort nursing and were included in the observation group...

BACKGROUND: Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) has been suggested as an effective mind-body approach for relieving stress in patients with chronic diseases. As of yet, there is no conclusive research on MBSR's role in reducing affective disorders among cancer patients. A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to determine whether MBSR has an impact on loneliness, anxiety, and depression in cancer patients. METHODS: Systematic searches were conducted in PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library from the start of these databases to January 2nd, 2022 to identify relevant randomized controlled trials...

Pernicious placenta previa (PPP) accompanied by placenta accreta spectrum (PAS) is a life-threatening placental implantation that causes a variety of complications, including antepartum hemorrhage, postpartum hemorrhage, hemorrhagic shock, preterm birth, and neonatal asphyxia. Along with continuous improvements in medical technology, interventional procedures have been widely used to prevent intraoperative hemorrhage associated with PPP. The commonly used interventional procedures include abdominal aorta clamping, prophylactic balloon occlusion of the internal or common iliac arteries, and uterine artery embolization...

This study evaluated the effects of antibiotics on the implantation rate (IR) as well as the optimal time interval from endometrial biopsy to subsequent embryo transfer (ET) to explore proper chronic endometritis (CE) management. We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data of patients who had failed 1 or 2 ET cycles and underwent hysteroscopy. CE was diagnosed when 3 or more cluster of differentiation138 - positive plasma cells were found per high-power field. We divided the patients into 3 groups: those with CE who received antibiotics (group 1), those with CE who did not receive antibiotics (group 2), and those without CE (group 3)...

BACKGROUND: A large body of research has investigated the use of statins in rheumatoid arthritis (RA); however, the therapeutic effects of statins remain uncertain. Thus, we designed a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the role of statins in patients with RA. METHODS: Databases searched to detect clinical randomized controlled trials or clinical controlled trials on the interaction between statins and RA before January 2020 included PubMed, Web of Sciences, Embase, Cochrane Library, CNKI, Wan Fang Database...

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a chronic and clinically complex disease, characterized by pathological disturbances in mood and energy. Cytokines can access the brain and their signaling pathways affect brain functions, such as neurotransmitter metabolism, neuroendocrine function, neural/synaptic plasticity, and mood neural circuitry. JAK 1 is the most common phosphorylation protein combined with the tyrosine kinase cytokine receptors; therefore, we investigated the association between the Janus family kinase 1 (JAK1) gene polymorphisms (rs2780895, rs4244165, and rs17127024) and susceptibility to BD...

To assess and compare the severity of corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection in patients with and without a history of influenza vaccination. In this cross-sectional study descriptive statistics were used to analyze COVID-19-related parameters, including demographics, comorbidities, and severity. Normally distributed data with mean, standard deviation, and 95% confidence interval (CI) were reported, while non-normally distributed data was presented with median and inter-quartile range. Categorical data was summarized using frequencies and percentages...

The aim of this study is to identify the main moderators in the relationship between antecedents/predictors (doctors, privacy, accessibility, and availability, perceived waiting time to be called back by the doctor after the examinations and/or tests) and the perceived quality of healthcare (PQHC) in the emergency department (ED). Patients admitted to the ED of a public hospital in Lisbon, Portugal, between January and December 2016 were included in this study, with a representative sample size of 382 patients...

BACKGROUND: As strong analgesics, opioids provide the analgesic component of general anesthesia, but they have bidirectional effects on the immune system, promoting the production of pro-inflammatory factors. The idea of opioid-free anesthesia is to replace the analgesic effect of opioids in the treatment of acute pain with comparably effective drugs that do not affect the immune system and thereby decrease the production of inflammatory factors. Therefore, this study aims to observe the effect of opioid-free esketamine anesthesia based on quadratus lumborum block on inflammatory factors in patients undergoing lower abdominal or pelvic surgery...

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to use network pharmacology to predict the therapeutic mechanism of oroxyli semen (OS) on triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and validate it through in vitro experiments. METHODS: The active ingredients and target proteins of OS were retrieved from the Traditional Chinese Medicine Systems Pharmacology database, and the TNBC-related target genes were obtained from the GeneCards database. The overlapping genes were used to construct a protein-protein interaction (PPI) network via the String database...

To investigate sexual dimorphism of serum pigment epithelium-derived factor (PEDF) and its influencing factors in healthy individuals. A total of 162 healthy people (69 males, 93 females) who underwent health examinations in our department were selected. Serum PEDF, estradiol and other metabolic indices were measured, and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and homeostasis model assessment of β-cell function (HOMA-β) were calculated to evaluate insulin resistance and β-cell function, respectively...

Cervical cancer is the fourth most frequently diagnosed cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer death in women. This study explored the effectiveness and safety of ultrasound-CT guided 3D intracavitary and interstitial brachytherapy (US-CT-3D-IGBT) in the treatment of larger cervical cancer with bleeding. A retrospective study was conducted on 31 patients with larger cervical squamous cell carcinoma (tumor short diameter >4 cm) with vaginal bleeding. US-CT-3D-IGBT was used to deliver a single high-dose prescription of high-risk clinical target volume (HR-CTV) 1000 to 1200 centigray (cGy) to the cervical tumor, followed by conventional intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) synchronous chemoradiotherapy (45-50 gray (Gy)/25-28 fraction(f)) with weekly cisplatin 25 mg/m2...

RATIONALE: Lesions caused by traffic accidents are often microscopic and minimal; therefore, their diagnosis can be easily overlooked. Moreover, when it is a rarely reported type of lesion, it can be even more easily undiagnosed. Isolated popliteal injuries are uncommon and have rarely been reported. PATIENT CONCERNS: In this case study, we describe a right partially isolated popliteus tendon rupture that was undiagnosed for 2 years in a patient with posterior knee pain after an in-car traffic accident...

RATIONALE: Bipolar cup dissociation following hip hemiarthroplasty is a rare complication of which only a few cases have been reported, and it usually requires revision surgery because of difficulties in closed reduction. PATIENT CONCERNS: We report the case of a 57-year-old man who underwent bipolar hemiarthroplasty 2 months ago caused by a left femoral neck fracture. Postoperatively, bipolar dislocation occurred thrice, and the patient showed bipolar cup dissociation during closed reduction maneuver at the recent visit...

BACKGROUND: Trichomonas vaginalis (TV) is a sexually transmitted pathogen. The study was conducted to determine its prevalence among 300 adult patients in 4 public health facilities in the Nsukka District of Enugu State, Nigeria. METHOD: The researchers collected high vagina swabs and urine samples were collected from 150 men and 150 women, respectively. The specimens were scrutinized for color, odor of discharge and urine, and motile trichomoniasis. RESULTS: The prevalence of the TV was 45...

To observe the clinical phenomenon of amblyopia vision improvement in patients with monocular amblyopia over 18 years old after non-amblyopia diseases, analyze the conditions and causes of vision improvement, explore the plasticity of the adult optic nerve, and provide a clinical basis for the treatment of adult amblyopia. A total of 74 patients with monocular amblyopia combined with non-amblyopia visual acuity decline from 2018 to 2021 were collected. The patient's age, initial best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA), pattern visual evoked potential examination results, and visual acuity regression were recorded...