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BACKGROUND Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) causes joint pain and limited mobility, which affects the quality of life. The use of Chinese herbal medicine to treat KOA has achieved certain effects, and Wutou decoction (WTD) is one of them. But there is no high-level evidence to support this result. The purpose of this work is to evaluate WTD's efficacy and safety in the management of KOA. METHODS We will search articles in 7 electronic databases including Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), Wanfang Data (WF), Chinese Scientific Journals Database (VIP), Chinese databases SinoMed (CBM), PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library databases. All the publications, with no time restrictions, will be searched without any restriction of language and status, the time from the establishment of the database to September 2020. Two reviewers will independently assess the quality of the selected studies, NoteExpress and Excel software will be used to extract data, and the content will be stored in an electronic chart. Different researchers will separately screen the titles and abstracts of records acquired potential eligibility which comes from the electronic databases. Full-text screening and data extraction will be conducted afterward independently. Statistical analysis will be conducted using RevMan 5.4 software. RESULTS This study will evaluate the current efficacy and safety of WTD in the treatment of KOA, to provide high-quality, evidence-based clinical recommendations. CONCLUSION This study will provide reliable evidence on whether WTD is safe and effective in treating KOA. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER INPLASY202090022.

The role of cytokines in diabetic retinopathy (DR) and effects of fenofibrate on cytokines were explored by observing changes in serum IL-1β, TNF-α, VEGF, and Lp-PLA2 in different stages of DR and the intervention effect of oral fenofibrate on cytokines. In total, 190 patients with type 2 DR were enrolled and divided into 3 groups: diabetic without retinopathy (NDR) group (n = 30), nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR) group (n = 80), and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) group (n = 80). According to whether or not to accept fenofibrate treatment, NPDR and PDR groups were further divided into the NPDR control (NPDR1) group (n = 40) and the NPDR treatment (NPDR2) group (n = 40), and the proliferative diabetic retinopathy control (PDR1, n = 40) group and the proliferative diabetic retinopathy treatment (PDR2) group (n = 40). At 12 weeks after fenofibrate treatment, serum IL-1β, TNF-α, VEGF, and Lp-PLA2 levels were detected. In PDR and NPDR patients, levels of serum cytokines such as IL-1β (120.56 ± 27.32 pg/mL vs 112.34 ± 19.45 pg/mL vs 82.9 ± 13.8 pg/mL), TNF-α (125.86 ± 25.57 pg/mL vs 109.48 ± 20.15 pg/mL vs 80.7 ± 12.8 pg/mL), VEGF (166.65 ± 37.74 pg/mL vs 148.54 ± 36.27 pg/mL vs 88.97 ± 24.86 pg/mL), and Lp-PLA2 (172.34 ± 45.22 μg/L vs 154.66 ± 40.98 μg/L vs 125.88 ± 38.87 μg/L) were significantly higher than in diabetes patients without retinopathy. After fenofibrate treatment, serum IL-1β, TNF-α, VEGF, and Lp-PLA2 significantly decreased in NPDR and PDR patients. Serum IL-1β, TNF-α, VEGF, and Lp-PLA2 play an important role in occurrence and development of diabetic retinopathy. Fenofibrate can reduce cytokine levels in DR patients and improve inflammatory response.

BACKGROUD The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of early parenteral iron supplementation combined erythropoietin for prevention of anemia in preterm infants. METHODS In total, 96 preterm infants were randomly assigned to 3 groups: a control group receiving standard parenteral nutrition (group 1: n = 31), an iron-supplemented group (group 2: IS, n = 33), and an iron-supplemented combined erythropoietin group (group 3: IS+EPO, n = 32). The primary objective was to assess hemoglobin (Hb) levels. The secondary objectives included assessment of red blood cell counts (RBC), mean cell volume (MCV), serum iron, ferritin, percentages of reticulocyte (RET), total iron binding capacity (TIBC) and oxidative stress, which was assessed by measuring plasma levels of malondialdehyde and superoxide dismutase at baseline and at 2 weeks. The blood routine indices including Hb, RBC, MCV, and percentages of RET were measured at corrected age of 1 and 3 months. RESULTS At 2 weeks of life, the percentages of reticulocyte in group 2 and group 3 were significantly higher than those in group 1 (2.1±0.4, 2.5±0.3, and 1.7±0.3, respectively, P

Genetic etiology hypothesis is widely accepted in the development of congenital scoliosis (CS). The delta-like 3 (DLL3) gene, a member of the Notch signaling pathway, was implicated to contribute to human CS. In this study, a case–control association study was conducted to determine the association of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in the DLL3 gene with CS in a Chinese Han Population. Five known tagging SNPs of the DLL3 gene were genotyped among 270 Chinese Han subjects (128 nonsyndromic CS patients and 142 matched controls). CS patients were divided into 3 types: type I—failure of formation (29 cases), type II—failure of segmentation (50 cases), and type III—mixed defects (49 cases). The 5 SNPs were analyzed by the allelic and genotypic association analysis, genotype–phenotype association analysis, and haplotype analysis. Allele frequencies of 5 tagging SNPs (SNP1: rs1110627, SNP2: rs3212276, SNP3: rs2304223, SNP4: rs2304222, and SNP5: rs2304214) in CS cases and controls were comparable and there were no available inheritance models. The SNPs were not associated with clinical phenotypes. Moreover, the 5 makers in the DLL3 gene were found to be in strong linkage disequilibrium (LD). Both global haplotype and individual haplotype analyses showed that the haplotypes of SNP1/SNP2/SNP3/SNP4/SNP5 did not correlate with the disease (P >0.05). Together, these data suggest that genetic variants of the DLL3 gene are not associated with CS in the Chinese Han population.