Objective To study the effect and mechanism of Xuebijing injection on sepsis-induced acute lung injury (ALI) in mice by regulating autophagy. Methods A total of 80 BALB/c male mice were randomly divided into control group, model group, Xuebijing group and Xuebijing+3-methyladenosine (3-MA) group, with 20 mice in each group. The control group received sham operation, while sepsis-induced ALI model was established in the later three groups by cecal ligation and puncture, on that basis, the Xuebijing group was given 10 mL/kg Xuebijing by intraperitoneal injection and the Xuebijing+3-MA group was given 10 mL/kg Xuebijing and 10 mg/kg autophagy inhibitor 3-mA by intraperitoneal injection. The cumulative survival rates of the four groups were observed 72 h after modeling, and the pathological changes of lung tissues, lung wet weight /dry weight ratios, inflammatory cytokines [tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), interleukin (IL)-1 β, and IL-18] contents, numbers of autophagosome, and the protein expression levels of autophagy genes [microtubule-associated protein light chain3 (LC3)-Ⅱ/LC3-Ⅰand Beclin-1] were detected. Results In the control group, the 72-hour cumulative survival rate was 100%, the lung wet weight /dry weight ratio was 3.89±0.85, the TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-18 contents were (0.83±0.14) ng/mg, (0.74±0.15) ng/mg, and (84.51±13.25) pg/mg, respectively, the number of autophagosome was (0.41±0.09)/field, and the expression levels of LC3-Ⅱ/LC3-Ⅰ and Beclin-1 were 0.20±0.04 and 0.17±0.03, respectively. In the model group, the lung tissue showed typical ALI pathological changes, the 72-hour cumulative survival rate (50%) was lower than that in the control group, and the lung wet weight /dry weight ratio (6.77±0.94), contents of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-18 [(3.15±0.76) ng/mg, (2.88±0.62) ng/mg, (274.62±45.58) pg/mg], autophagosome number [(3.14±0.55)/field], and expression levels of LC3-Ⅱ/LC3-Ⅰ and Beclin-1 (0.69±0.09, 0.35±0.06) were higher than those in the control group (P<0.05). In the Xuebijing group, the ALI pathological changes alleviated, the 72-hour cumulative survival rate (75%), autophagosome number [(5.77±0.75)/field], and expression levels of LC3-Ⅱ/LC3-Ⅰ and Beclin-1 (0.98±0.13, 0.62±0.08) were higher than those in the model group (P<0.05), and the lung wet weight /dry weight ratio (4.23±0.76) and contents of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-18 [(1.52±0.32) ng/mg, (1.29±0.30) ng/mg, (121.36±26.51) pg/mg] were lower than those in the model group (P<0.05). In the Xuebijing+3MA group, the ALI pathological changes aggravated, the 72-hour cumulative survival rate (55%), autophagosome number [(0.78±0.16)/field], and expression levels of LC3-Ⅱ/LC3-Ⅰ and Beclin-1 (0.37±0.05, 0.32±0.05) were lower than those in the Xuebijing group (P<0.05), and the lung wet weight /dry weight ratio (6.31±0.91) and contents of TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-18 [(2.88±0.56) ng/mg, (2.41±0.58) ng/mg, (252.35±37.65) pg/mg] were higher than those in the Xuebijing group (P<0.05). Conclusion Xuebijing injection can reduce ALI induced by sepsis in mice, and activation of autophagy is the molecular mechanism.
Accurate segmentation of pediatric echocardiograms is a challenging task, because significant heart-size changes with age and faster heart rate lead to more blurred boundaries on cardiac ultrasound images compared with adults. To address these problems, a dual decoder network model combining channel attention and scale attention is proposed in this paper. Firstly, an attention-guided decoder with deep supervision strategy is used to obtain attention maps for the ventricular regions. Then, the generated ventricular attention is fed back to multiple layers of the network through skip connections to adjust the feature weights generated by the encoder and highlight the left and right ventricular areas. Finally, a scale attention module and a channel attention module are utilized to enhance the edge features of the left and right ventricles. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method in this paper achieves an average Dice coefficient of 90.63% in acquired bilateral ventricular segmentation dataset, which is better than some conventional and state-of-the-art methods in the field of medical image segmentation. More importantly, the method has a more accurate effect in segmenting the edge of the ventricle. The results of this paper can provide a new solution for pediatric echocardiographic bilateral ventricular segmentation and subsequent auxiliary diagnosis of congenital heart disease.
ObjectiveTo provide recommendations for the management of intensive care unit patients without novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).MethodsWe set up a focus group urgently and identified five key clinical issues through discussion. Total 23 databases or websites including PubMed, National Guideline Clearing-House, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and so on were searched from construction of the library until February 28, 2020. After group discussion and collecting information, we used GRADE system to classify the evidence and give recommendations. Then we apply the recommendations to manage pediatric intensive care unit in the department of critical care medicine in our hospital. ResultsWe searched 13 321 articles and finally identified 21 liteteratures. We discussed twice, and five recommendations were proposed: (1) Patients should wear medical surgical masks; (2) Family members are not allowed to visit the ward and video visitation are used; (3) It doesn’t need to increase the frequency of environmental disinfection; (4) We should provide proper health education about the disease to non-medical staff (workers, cleaners); (5) Medical staff do not need wear protective clothing. We used these recommendations in intensive care unit management for 35 days and there was no novel coronavirus infection in patients, medical staff or non-medical staff. ConclusionThe use of evidence-based medicine for emergency recommendation is helpful for the scientific and efficient management of wards, and is also suitable for the management of general intensive care units in emergent public health events.