Category: Nevin Manimala

Alcohol Alcohol. 2023 Mar 18:agad017. doi: 10.1093/alcalc/agad017. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

AIMS: While clinical consequences of thiamine deficiency in alcohol use disorder (AUD) are severe, evidence-based recommendations on dosage, type of administration and duration of thiamine substitution (TS), and its’ target levels remain sparse. This study aimed to compare the effect of two best practice TS regimens on thiamine blood levels (i.e. thiamine pyrophosphate, TPP) and cognitive function.

METHODS: In 50 patients undergoing in-patient alcohol-withdrawal treatment, TPP levels were determined at baseline and end of weeks 1, 2 and 8 following administration of oral TS (3 × 100 mg/day for 7 days followed by 1 × 100 mg/day thereafter) either with or without preceding intravenous TS (3 × 100 mg/day for 5 days). An extensive psychiatric assessment was conducted at baseline, including an evaluation of AUD severity and depressive symptoms. Additionally, cognitive function and depressive symptoms were repeatedly evaluated.

RESULTS: Relevant increases (mean increase by 100.2 nmol/l [CI 76.5-123.8], P < 0.001) in peripheral blood TPP levels were observed in all patients at the end of weeks 1 and 2. Furthermore, no relevant difference between the intravenous and the oral group was found (average difference between increases: 2.3 nmol/l, P = 0.912). Importantly, an association between the ‘extent of the response’ to TS and the performance in a memory task was revealed in secondary analyses.

CONCLUSION: TS was associated with improving cognitive function in patients with AUD, independently of the substitution regime. Thus, in clinical practice, oral TS might be a sufficient but obligatory medication to prevent cognitive decline in AUD in the absence of Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome.

PMID:36935203 | DOI:10.1093/alcalc/agad017

Zhonghua Fu Chan Ke Za Zhi. 2023 Mar 25;58(3):191-197. doi: 10.3760/cma.j.cn112141-20221212-00754.

ABSTRACT

Objective: To analyze the vaginal microecological status of vaginitis population and non-vaginitis population of gynecological female outpatients. Methods: A total of 30 265 women who visited the gynecological outpatient clinic of Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital from December 2018 to December 2020 completed vaginal microecological examination. After removing the follow-up patients, 23 181 women were divided into group with symptoms and signs of vaginitis (6 697 cases) and group without symptoms and signs of vaginitis (16 484 cases), according to whether the women with symptoms and signs of vaginitis or not. And the vaginal microecological status of the two groups was compared and analyzed. Results: (1) The total detection rate of vaginitis in the initial women was 34.87% (8 083/23 181), of which 46.10% (3 087/6 697) in group with symptoms and signs of vaginitis and 30.31% (4 996/16 484) in group without symptoms and signs of vaginitis, nearly 1/3 of the gynecological outpatients without signs and symptoms of vaginitis had vaginitis. (2) Among the types of simple vaginitis, vulvovaginal candidiasis (VVC) was the most frequent in group with symptoms and signs of vaginitis (16.01%, 1 072/6 697), followed by aerobic vaginitis (AV; 12.83%, 859/6 697), with significant differences compared with group without symptoms and signs of vaginitis (all P<0.001). There were no statistical differences between the two groups of bacterial vaginosis (BV) and trichomonal vaginitis (TV), indicating that BV and TV were more likely to be neglected (all P>0.05). (3) The proportion of various combinations of vaginitis among 2 632 cases of mixed vaginitis were, in descending order: BV+AV, VVC+AV, BV+AV+VVC, AV+TV, AV+TV+BV, BV+VVC. (4) Microecological analysis of 15 098 cases diagnosed with non-vaginitis had normal flora (including those with normal flora and those with normal flora but decreased function) in 14 013 cases (92.81%, 14 013/15 098), abnormal flora in 429 cases (2.84%, 429/15 098) and the BV intermediate in 656 cases (4.34%, 656/15 098); this indicated that the vast majority of the microecological tests were normal in the vaginal microbiota of those without vaginitis. Conclusions: Microecological examination could diagnose multiple pathogenic infections at once, and is especially important as a guide for the definitive diagnosis of mixed vaginitis and vaginitis with atypical clinical symptoms. Vaginal infections such as BV and TV that are easily overlooked should be concerned.

PMID:36935196 | DOI:10.3760/cma.j.cn112141-20221212-00754

Zhonghua Fu Chan Ke Za Zhi. 2023 Mar 25;58(3):185-190. doi: 10.3760/cma.j.cn112141-20221207-00743.

ABSTRACT

Objective: To explore the similarities and differences of China Society of Gynecology Endoscopy (CSGE) and American Fertility Society (AFS) intrauterine adhesion (IUA) scoring criteria on IUA grading and their predictive value of reproductive prognosis. Methods: From January 2016 to January 2019, a total of 1 249 patients were diagnosed with IUA by hysteroscopy at Beijing Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital. Totally, 378 patients with complete clinical data were enrolled, and the results diagnosed by CSGT and AFS scoring criteria were compared and analyzed.And follow-up for 2 years, the pregnancy rate and live birth rate were statistical analysis. Results: (1) The grade of IUA according to AFS and CSGE scoring criteria was less consistent (κ=0.295, P<0.001). Compared with AFS, the proportion of severe IUA cases diagnosed by CSGE was significantly lower [45.8% (173/378) vs 15.1% (57/378); RR=0.22, 95%CI: 0.15-0.30, P<0.01); the proportions of both mild and moderate IUA cases were significantly higher (RR=4.16, 95%CI: 2.38-7.14; RR=2.38, 95%CI: 1.75-3.23; both P<0.01). (2) The pregnancy rates of mild, moderate and severe IUA diagnosed according to CSGE were 11/13, 64.5% (147/228), 31.8% (7/22), live birth rates were 11/13, 54.8% (125/228) and 22.7% (5/22), respectively; there were statistically significant differences between the groups (all P<0.01). The pregnancy rates of mild, moderate and severe IUA diagnosed based on AFS were 3/3, 66.9% (97/145) and 56.5% (65/115), respectively, with no statistically significant difference between the groups (P>0.05). (3) IUA grades based on both CSGE and AFS criteria were significantly negatively correlated with pregnancy rates and live birth rates (CSGE: r=-0.210, r=-0.226; AFS: r=-0.130, r=-0.147; all P<0.05). Univariate logistic regression analysis showed that CSGE had higher OR for both pregnancy rates and live birth rates compared to AFS (3.889 vs 1.657, 3.983 vs 1.554, respectrvely). Conclusions: Compared with AFS, the IUA grade based on CSGE is better related with reproductive prognosis, suggesting that the CSGE standard might be more objective and comprehensive and has better predictive value for reproductive prognosis, thus avoiding overdiagnosis and overtreatment.

PMID:36935195 | DOI:10.3760/cma.j.cn112141-20221207-00743

Zhong Nan Da Xue Xue Bao Yi Xue Ban. 2023 Jan 28;48(1):123-129. doi: 10.11817/j.issn.1672-7347.2023.220011.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: The development and validation of the specific health literacy assessment tool for older adults is the basis for conducting the research on health literacy among older adults. The existing health literacy assessment scale for older adults in Chinese mainland has some limitations, such as too many items and poor compliance during the survey. It is necessary to develop or introduce simplified assessment tools to support large-scale surveys in the future. This study aims to modify the brief health literacy assessment scale compiled by Taiwan scholars, and to conduct the test for the reliability, validity and the measurement equivalence across gender in the older population in mainland China.

METHODS: From March to April 2021, 508 older adults from Jinan, Shandong Province, China were selected by cluster sampling method to conduct a questionnaire survey using the brief health literacy assessment scale and health-promoting lifestyle profile. After 4 weeks, 83 of them were selected for retesting. SPSS 25.0 statistical software was used for descriptive analysis, item analysis, exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and reliability test, and Mplus 8.0 was used for confirmatory factor analysis and gender measurement equivalence test.

RESULTS: Each item of the scale had good discrimination, and there were significant differences in the scores of each item between high score and low score groups (P<0.05), and the coefficient of correlation between the scores of each item and the total score was between 0.721 and 0.891. Exploratory factor analysis extracted a factor with a characteristic root greater than 1, and the cumulative variance interpretation amount was 67.94%. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the single factor structure fit was good [χ2/df was 2.260, the Tucker-Lewis index was 0.973, the comparison fit index (CFI) was 0.982, and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) was 0.071]. The multi-group confirmatory factor analysis results showed that the brief health literacy assessment scale’s configural equivalence, weak equivalence, and strong equivalence models were all accepted. The comparison results of measurement equivalence models showed that the changes of RMSEA were less than 0.015, and the changes of CFI were less than 0.01, indicating that the brief health literacy assessment scale had measurement equivalence between different gender groups. Cronbach’s α coefficient was 0.945, and the test-retest reliability was 0.946. The correlation coefficient between health literacy and health-promotion lifestyles was 0.557 (P<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: The brief health literacy assessment scale has good reliability, validity, and measurement equivalence across gender, and can be used as an effective measurement tool for the health literacy of the older people in Chinese mainland.

PMID:36935185 | DOI:10.11817/j.issn.1672-7347.2023.220011

Zhong Nan Da Xue Xue Bao Yi Xue Ban. 2023 Jan 28;48(1):92-105. doi: 10.11817/j.issn.1672-7347.2023.210803.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: Shelter hospital was an alternative way to provide large-scale medical isolation and treatment for people with mild coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Due to various reasons, patients admitted to the large shelter hospital was reported high level of psychological distress, so did the healthcare workers. This study aims to introduce a comprehensive and multifaceted psychosocial crisis intervention model.

METHODS: The psychosocial crisis intervention model was provided to 200 patients and 240 healthcare workers in Wuhan Wuchang shelter hospital. Patient volunteers and organized peer support, client-centered culturally sensitive supportive care, timely delivery of scientific information about COVID-19 and its complications, mental health knowledge acquisition of non-psychiatric healthcare workers, group activities, counseling and education, virtualization of psychological intervention, consultation and liaison were exhibited respectively in the model. Pre-service survey was done in 38 patients and 49 healthcare workers using the Generalized Anxiety Disorder 7-item (GAD-7) scale, the Patient Health Questionnaire 2-item (PHQ-2) scale, and the Primary Care PTSD screen for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (PC-PTSD-5). Forty-eight healthcare workers gave feedback after the intervention.

RESULTS: The psychosocial crisis intervention model was successfully implemented by 10 mental health professionals and was well-accepted by both patients and healthcare workers in the shelter hospital. In pre-service survey, 15.8% of 38 patients were with anxiety, 55.3% were with stress, and 15.8% were with depression; 16.3% of 49 healthcare workers were with anxiety, 26.5% were with stress, and 22.4% were with depression. In post-service survey, 62.5% of 48 healthcare workers thought it was very practical, 37.5% thought more practical; 37.5% of them thought it was very helpful to relief anxiety and insomnia, and 27.1% thought much helpful; 37.5% of them thought it was very helpful to recognize patients with anxiety and insomnia, and 29.2% thought much helpful; 35.4% of them thought it was very helpful to deal with patients’ anxiety and insomnia, and 37.5% thought much helpful.

CONCLUSIONS: Psychological crisis intervention is feasible, acceptable, and associated with positive outcomes. Future tastings of this model in larger population and different settings are warranted.

PMID:36935182 | DOI:10.11817/j.issn.1672-7347.2023.210803

Zhong Nan Da Xue Xue Bao Yi Xue Ban. 2023 Jan 28;48(1):24-33. doi: 10.11817/j.issn.1672-7347.2023.220364.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: Hyperhomocysteinaemia (Hcy) is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases. MicroRNA (miR)-18a-5p is closely related to cardiovascular diseases. This study aims to investigate the effects of miR-18a-5p on homocysteine (Hcy)-induced myocardial cells injury.

METHODS: H9c2 cells were transfected with miR-18a-5p mimic/miR-18a-5p mimic negative control (NC) or combined with Hcy for intervention, and untreated cells were set as a control group. The transfection efficiency was verified by real-time RT-PCR, and cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) assay was used to determine cell viability. Flow cytometry was used to detect apoptosis and reactive oxygen species (ROS) levels. Western blotting was performed to measure the protein levels of microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 (LC3)-I, LC3-II, Beclin1, p62, Bax, Bcl-2, and Notch2. Dual luciferase reporter assay was used to detect the interaction of miR-18a-5p with Notch2.

RESULTS: Compared with the control, treatment with Hcy or transfection with miR-18a-5p mimic alone, or combined treatment with Hcy and miR-18a-5p mimic/miR-18a-5p mimic NC significantly reduced the H9c2 cell viability, promoted apoptosis and ROS production, up-regulated the expressions of Bax and Beclin, down-regulated the expressions of Bcl-2, p62, and Notch2, and increased the ratio of LC3-II/LC3-I (all P<0.05). Compared with the combined intervention of miR-18a-5p mimic NC and Hcy group, the above indexes were more significantly changed in the combined intervention of miR-18a-5p mimic and Hcy group, and the difference between the 2 groups was statistically significant (all P<0.05). There is a targeted binding between Notch2 and miR-18a-5p.

CONCLUSIONS: MiR-18a-5p could induce autophagy and apoptosis via increasing ROS production in cardiomyocytes, and aggravate Hcy-induced myocardial injury. Notch2 is a target of miR-18a-5p.

PMID:36935174 | DOI:10.11817/j.issn.1672-7347.2023.220364

Anal Chim Acta. 2023 Apr 29;1252:341031. doi: 10.1016/j.aca.2023.341031. Epub 2023 Mar 7.

ABSTRACT

A novel method for near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy spectra standardization is presented. NIR spectroscopies have been widely used in analytical chemistry, and many methods have been developed for NIR spectra standardization. To establish a robust standardization transformation, most existing methods require spectral data sets from both primal and secondary instruments for 1-1 correspondence validation. However, this limits the usage of standardization methods. This paper investigates an interesting issue, “Can spectra data in sets be arbitrarily order?” and further develops a completely different approach from existing methods in view of statistical signal processing. The key idea is to first compensate for the distortion along the wavelength and intensity of the spectra, and then transfer the second order statistic (2OS) from the primal spectra to the secondary spectra via data sphering and an inverse sphering transform so that the 2OS can be estimated regardless of the sample statistic order. To further demonstrate how the developed method can extend the usage of the NIR spectra standardization, several application-driven experiments on classification and regression are conducted for demonstration, and a comparison to the piecewise direct standardization (PDS) is also studied.

PMID:36935146 | DOI:10.1016/j.aca.2023.341031

Dent Mater J. 2023 Mar 18. doi: 10.4012/dmj.2022-184. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

This study evaluated the effect of luting system with acidic primers on the durability of bonds with Ti-15Mo-5Zr-3Al titanium alloy (Ti-15Mo-5Zr-3Al) and its component metals. Adherend metals were Ti-15Mo-5Zr-3Al, Ti, Mo, Zr, and Al. Four primers were evaluated as adhesion promoters: Alloy Primer (ALP), Estenia Opaque Primer (EOP), M. L. Primer (MLP), and Super Bond liquid (SBL). An acrylic resin was used as the luting material. Pre- and post-thermocycling shear bond strength was determined to evaluate the bonding durability, and the results were compared using non-parametric statistical analyses (n=11/group). The post-thermocycling bond strength in MPa (median) associated with ALP, EOP, MLP, and SBL were 18.8, 19.8, 4.1, and 0.8, respectively, for Ti-15Mo-5Zr-3Al. The results showed that two primers containing 10-methacryloyloxydecyl dihydrogen phosphate (MDP) were effective for the durability of bonding of Ti-15Mo-5Zr-3Al to the resin. MDP enhanced the bonding durability of the resin bonded to either Ti, Zr, or Al.

PMID:36935125 | DOI:10.4012/dmj.2022-184

Toxicol Ind Health. 2023 Mar 19:7482337231162762. doi: 10.1177/07482337231162762. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Occupational exposure to dimethylacetamide (DMAc) has been reported to cause toxic hepatitis. Sixty spandex workers were included in this study to research the clinical manifestations and expression of cytokines and lymphocytes in DMAc-induced toxic hepatitis. Chinese drugs (reduced glutathione and Hugan tablets) were used to treat them. The manifestations including jaundice, asthenia, appetite, nausea, emesis, abdominal distension, yellow urine, and dizziness were scored. The percentages of patients rated as 0-3, 4-6, 7-9, and 10-12 points were 33.3%, 43.3%, 21.7%, and 1.7%, respectively, before treatment, and all patients showed 0-3 points after the treatment. The ultrasonic and CT imaging revealed diffuse intrahepatic hypodensity, intrahepatic calcification, signs of liver injury, and splenomegaly, which improved after therapy. Blood analysis showed that ALT, AST, TBIL, IL-6, IL-10, TNF-α, IFN-γ, CD3⁺%, and CD4⁺/CD8⁺ statistically decreased after drug treatment. Correlation analysis demonstrated positive linear correlations between ALT and TBIL, AST and TBIL, IL-10 and ATL, IL-10 and AST, IL-10 and TBIL, IFN-γ and IL-6, IFN-γ and TNF-α, and CD3⁺% and ALT. Pro-inflammatory cytokines and lymphocytes in DMAc-induced toxic hepatitis reflected an active immune state that decreased after treatment. IL-10 may inhibit the immune response in this disease, as a protective mechanism.

PMID:36935113 | DOI:10.1177/07482337231162762

Am J Epidemiol. 2023 Mar 17:kwad065. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwad065. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to quantify waning rates from seroprevalence data collected in a study of population with a high vaccination coverage and fixed vaccination schedule. Data were collected during the national Immunologic Survey in the Slovak Republic in 2018. The average waning rate after the first dose (age 1.5 – 10 years) is 9.7% per year from the geometric mean titre (GMT) value 2634 mUI/ml. The average waning rate after the second dose (age 10 – 33 years) is significantly lower, 4.8% per year from the lower GMT value 1331 mUI/ml. This decline in antibody levels suggests that vaccine-induced protection may be compromised and results in the increase in the proportion of seronegative/borderline individuals. These outcomes may provide a valuable source for critical assessment of direct and indirect effects of vaccination.

PMID:36935110 | DOI:10.1093/aje/kwad065