Objective To systematically review the correlation between obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) and the incidence of carotid atherosclerosis. Methods PubMed, EMbase, CNKI, WanFang Data, CBM, and VIP databases were electronically searched to collect studies on the correlation between OSAS and carotid atherosclerosis and carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) from inception to August 2021. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data, and assessed the risk of bias of the included studies. Meta-analysis was then performed using Stata 16.0 software and RevMan 5.3 software. Results A total of 32 studies, including 2 915 patients were included. The results of the meta-analysis showed a higher incidence of carotid atherosclerotic plaque in OSAS patients than in the control group (OR=5.56, 95%CI 0.27 to 8.38, P<0.000 01); subgroup analysis revealed that, compared with the control group, patients who were male (OR=5.38, 95%CI 2.79 to 10.38, P<0.000 01) or had mild-to-moderate OSAS (OR=3.9, 95%CI 1.66 to 9.15, P=0.002) or severe OSAS (OR=19.86, 95%CI 6.49 to 60.82, P<0.000 01) had a higher risk of carotid atherosclerosis. The CIMT of the OSAS group was significantly higher than that of the control group (SMD=1.24, 95%CI 0.97 to 1.51, P<0.000 01). There was a positive correlation between the apnea hypopnea index (AHI) and CIMT in OSAS patients (r=0.52, 95%CI 0.44 to 0.60, <0.000 1), and the CIMT increased with OSAS severity. Conclusion OSAS is associated with a high incidence of carotid atherosclerotic plaque that is highly correlated with CIMT, which increases with an increase in the AHI. These findings are required to be verified in prospective high-quality studies to overcome the limitations of quantity and quality of studies included in this systematic review.
Transcranial electrical stimulation (TES) is a non-invasive neuromodulation technique with great potential. Electrode optimization methods based on simulation models of individual TES field could provide personalized stimulation parameters according to individual variations in head tissue structure, significantly enhancing the stimulation accuracy of TES. However, the existing electrode optimization methods suffer from prolonged computation times (typically exceeding 1 d) and limitations such as disregarding the restricted number of output channels from the stimulator, further impeding their clinical applicability. Hence, this paper proposes an efficient and practical electrode optimization method. The proposed method simultaneously optimizes both the intensity and focality of TES within the target brain area while constraining the number of electrodes used, and it achieves faster computational speed. Compared to commonly used electrode optimization methods, the proposed method significantly reduces computation time by 85.9% while maintaining optimization effectiveness. Moreover, our method considered the number of available channels for the stimulator to distribute the current across multiple electrodes, further improving the tolerability of TES. The electrode optimization method proposed in this paper has the characteristics of high efficiency and easy operation, potentially providing valuable supporting data and references for the implementation of individualized TES.
Sepsis is life-threatening organ dysfunction caused by a dysregulated host response to infection, and is the leading cause of death in intensive care unit patients due to limited therapies currently. As is known to all, endotoxin is important in the pathogenesis of sepsis, whereby infection triggers a systemic inflammatory response, resulting in release of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines, which are thought to be responsible for the tissue damage that occurs in sepsis patients. Therefore, removing endotoxins is considered as an effective way to improve the conditions of sepsis patients. Both Toraymaxin (PMX) and adsorptive membrane such as oXiris can remove endotoxins by adsorption, and in this review we will summarize current studies, included in vitro study, animal study, and clinical research to show the benefit from endotoxin removal by oXiris, and also give some suggestions about oXiris clinical practice from experienced experts.
Tumor-treating fields (TTFields) is a novel treatment modality for malignant solid tumors, often employing electric field simulations to analyze the distribution of electric fields on the tumor under different parameters of TTFields. Due to the present difficulties and high costs associated with reproducing or implementing the simulation model construction techniques, this study used readily available open-source software tools to construct a highly accurate, easily implementable finite element simulation model for TTFields. The accuracy of the model is at a level of 1 mm3. Using this simulation model, the study carried out analyses of different factors, such as tissue electrical parameters and electrode configurations. The results show that factors influncing the distribution of the internal electric field of the tumor include changes in scalp and skull conductivity (with a maximum variation of 21.0% in the treatment field of the tumor), changes in tumor conductivity (with a maximum variation of 157.8% in the treatment field of the tumor), and different electrode positions and combinations (with a maximum variation of 74.2% in the treatment field of the tumor). In summary, the results of this study validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed modeling method, which can provide an important reference for future simulation analyses of TTFields and clinical applications.
This article reviews Chinese nomenclature of renal replacement therapy and extracorporeal blood purification currently utilized to manage acute kidney injury and other organ dysfunction syndromes in critically ill patients, based on the recent reports of a consensus expert conference of Nomenclature Standardization Initiative Alliance. We provide a detailed description of the performance characteristics of membranes, filters, transmembrane transport of solutes and fluid, flows, and methods of measurement of delivered treatment, common definitions, components, techniques, and operations of the machines and platforms as well as the renal replacement therapy techniques in detail with the relevant technologies, procedures, operations, and recent developments in other extracorporeal therapies, including therapeutic plasma exchange, multiple organ support therapy, liver support, lung support, and blood purification in sepsis. We believe this nomenclature review will serve future use of terminology in publications, research, clinical operations and therapy platforms to enable consistent data collection and comparison.