medical breakthrough

After the termination of zero-COVID-19 policy, the populace in China has experienced both Omicron BA.5 and XBB waves. Considering the poor antibody responses and severe outcomes observed among the elderly following infection, we conducted a longitudinal investigation to examine the epidemiological characteristics and antibody kinetics among 107 boosted elderly participants following the Omicron BA.5 and XBB waves. We observed that 96 participants (89.7%) were infected with Omicron BA.5, while 59 (55.1%) participants were infected with Omicron XBB...

Degenerative orthopaedic diseases pose a notable worldwide public health issue attributable to the global aging population. Conventional medical approaches, encompassing physical therapy, pharmaceutical interventions, and surgical methods, face obstacles in halting or reversing the degenerative process. In recent times, exosome-based therapy has gained widespread acceptance and popularity as an effective treatment for degenerative orthopaedic diseases. This therapeutic approach holds the potential for "cell-free" tissue regeneration...

Diathermy is a therapeutic technique utilizing electromagnetic waves that is widely used in the medical field, especially for orthopedic injuries such as musculoskeletal disorders. Shortwave diathermy (SWD), microwave diathermy (MWD), sonic therapy or ultrasound (US), and long-wave diathermy are the various types, out of which shortwave diathermy is most commonly used in medical fields. However, diathermy has not been explored much in dentistry. This literature review aims to discuss the various applications of diathermy and its potential use in dentistry with the existing scarce literature and further emphasize its role as a recommendation in the management of orofacial pain in dental practice...

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a progressive retinal disease that primarily affects the macula, leading to central vision loss and impaired color vision. Among its most severe forms is geographic atrophy (GA), which results in irreversible central blindness. While numerous risk factors, including age, smoking, and genetics, contribute to the development of AMD, effective treatment options for GA have been limited. This article centers on Izervay [avacincaptad pegol (ACP)], an FDA-approved drug designed to address the unmet medical needs of patients with GA secondary to AMD...

BACKGROUND: Lung cancer, characterized by its high morbidity and lethality, necessitates thorough research to enhance our understanding of its pathogenesis and discover novel therapeutic approaches. Recent studies increasingly demonstrate that lung cancer cells can modulate the tumor microenvironment, promoting tumor growth, and metastasis through the release of exosomes. Exosomes are small vesicles secreted by cells and contain a variety of bioactive molecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, and metabolites...

This article describes the public health impact of Alzheimer's disease (AD), including prevalence and incidence, mortality and morbidity, use and costs of care and the ramifications of AD for family caregivers, the dementia workforce and society. The Special Report discusses the larger health care system for older adults with cognitive issues, focusing on the role of caregivers and non-physician health care professionals. An estimated 6.9 million Americans age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's dementia today...

In the recently updated German S2k Guideline "Diagnostics and Therapy of Venous Thrombosis and Pulmonary Embolism," a new chapter was incorporated about recurrent venous thromboembolism (VTE) in patients on anticoagulation treatment. Despite the high efficacy of anticoagulation in most patients, approximately 2% experience a recurrent VTE event while receiving anticoagulant drugs. The proper diagnosis of the recurrent VTE is important and possible only with the knowledge of localization and thrombus burden of the primary VTE event...

Atrial fibrillation (AF) is the most common sustained cardiac arrhythmia, significantly impacting patients' quality of life and increasing the risk of death, stroke, heart failure, and dementia. Over the past two decades, there have been significant breakthroughs in AF risk prediction and screening, stroke prevention, rhythm control, catheter ablation, and integrated management. During this period, the scale, quality, and experience of AF management in China have greatly improved, providing a solid foundation for the development of the guidelines for the diagnosis and management of AF...

As the detection rate of pancreatic cystic lesions(PCL)increases,artificial intelligence(AI)has made breakthroughs in the imaging workflow of PCL,including image post-processing,lesion detection,segmentation,diagnosis and differential diagnosis.AI-based image post-processing can optimize the quality of medical images and AI-assisted models for lesion detection,segmentation,diagnosis and differential diagnosis significantly enhance the work efficiency of radiologists.This article reviews the application progress of AI in PCL imaging and provides prospects for future research directions...

In the quest for effective lung cancer treatments, the potential of 3,6-diaminoacridine-9-carbonitrile (DAC) has emerged as a game changer. While DAC's efficacy against glioblastoma is well documented, its role in combating lung cancer has remained largely untapped. This study focuses on CTX-1, exploring its interaction with the pivotal EGFR-TKD protein, a crucial target in lung cancer therapeutics. A meticulous molecular docking analysis revealed that CTX-1 exhibits a noteworthy binding affinity of -7.9 kcal/mol, challenging Erlotinib, a conventional lung cancer medication, which displayed a binding affinity of -7...

BACKGROUND: Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) hold immense promise in guiding treatment strategies for advanced gastric cancer (GC). However, their clinical impact has been limited due to challenges in identifying epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-CTCs using conventional methods. METHODS: To bridge this knowledge gap, we established a detection platform for CTCs based on the distinctive biomarker cell surface vimentin (CSV). A prospective study involving 127 GC patients was conducted, comparing CTCs enumeration using both EpCAM and CSV...

PURPOSE: To detect the Marchiafava Bignami Disease (MBD) using a distinct deep learning technique. BACKGROUND: Advanced deep learning methods are becoming more crucial in contemporary medical diagnostics, particularly for detecting intricate and uncommon neurological illnesses such as MBD. This rare neurodegenerative disorder, sometimes associated with persistent alcoholism, is characterized by the loss of myelin or tissue death in the corpus callosum. It poses significant diagnostic difficulties owing to its infrequency and the subtle signs it exhibits in its first stages, both clinically and on radiological scans...

Valproic acid (VPA) is utilized in the management of a variety of seizure and mood disorders. A rare side effect of this medication is dose-dependent thrombocytopenia. In this case, we report a patient with a treatment-resistant epilepsy GABRB3 genetic variant phenotype who was admitted for sepsis and found to have significant thrombocytopenia with clinical manifestations of epistaxis and easy bruising, which was found to be due to VPA use rather than secondary to other clinical pathologies. The patient's clinical condition improved with supportive treatment including fluid rehydration...

Cancer poses a formidable challenge in the field of medical science, prompting the exploration of innovative and efficient treatment strategies. One revolutionary breakthrough in cancer therapy is Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, an avant-garde method involving the customization of a patient's immune cells to combat cancer. Particularly successful in addressing blood cancers, CAR T-cell therapy introduces an unprecedented level of effectiveness, offering the prospect of sustained disease management...

INTRODUCTION: Seizures represent a significant comorbidity in children with acute encephalitis syndrome (AES). Despite this, there is a notable absence of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) directly comparing antiseizure medications (ASMs) in children with AES. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This RCT aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of phenytoin and levetiracetam in controlling seizures among children with AES. Both ASMs were administered with a loading followed by maintenance dose...

Painful pelvic and spinal bone metastases are a considerable challenge for doctors and patients. Conventional therapies include morphine-equivalent medication (MeM) and local radiotherapy (RT), but these interventions are not always successful. More recently, hyperthermia (HT) has been applied to complement RT and MeM, and this complex approach has shown promising synergistic results. The objective of our study was to present the results of RT combined with a special kind of HT (modulated electrohyperthermia, mEHT), in which some of the thermal effect is contributed by equivalent nonthermal components, drastically reducing the necessary power and energy...

Deep learning is revolutionizing radiology report generation (RRG) with the adoption of vision encoder-decoder (VED) frameworks, which transform radiographs into detailed medical reports. Traditional methods, however, often generate reports of limited diversity and struggle with generalization. Our research introduces reinforcement learning and text augmentation to tackle these issues, significantly improving report quality and variability. By employing RadGraph as a reward metric and innovating in text augmentation, we surpass existing benchmarks like BLEU4, ROUGE-L, F1 CheXbert, and RadGraph, setting new standards for report accuracy and diversity on MIMIC-CXR and Open-i datasets...

The origins of cancer vaccines date back to the 1800s. Since then, there have been significant efforts to generate vaccines against solid and hematologic malignancies using a variety of platforms. To date, these efforts have generally been met with minimal success. However, in the era of improved methods and technological advancements, supported by compelling preclinical and clinical data, a wave of renewed interest in the field offers the promise of discovering field-changing paradigms in the management of established and resected disease using cancer vaccines...

Despite breakthroughs in modern medical care, the incidence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is even more prevalent globally. Increasing epidemiologic evidence indicates that emerging cardiovascular risk factors arising from the modern lifestyle, including psychosocial stress, sleep problems, unhealthy diet patterns, physical inactivity/sedentary behavior, alcohol consumption, and tobacco smoking, contribute significantly to this worldwide epidemic, while its underpinning mechanisms are enigmatic. Hematological and immune systems were recently demonstrated to play integrative roles in linking lifestyle to cardiovascular health...

The history of nasal polyposis originates even before Hippocrates described a nasal mass that he likened to a sea polyp. References to sinonasal disease and treatment can be found in ancient texts, such as the Ebers Papyrus and the Edwin Smith Papyrus of Ancient Egypt, as well as in the foundational texts of Ayurvedic medicine. Greek philosophers marked a significant shift away from the belief that illness was a result of divine intervention and embraced medical theory. Over the subsequent millennia, the understanding of nasal polyposis expanded, resulting in notable progress in surgical procedures and medical treatments...