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This retrospective study appraised the preventive effect of statin after carotid artery stenting (CAS). Records were extracted for 100 patients with CAS surgery indicator, aged between 20 and 75 years old, and treated for statin. The cohort study included treatment group (statin and routine treatment) and control group (routine treatment), each group 50 patients. Outcomes consisted of degree of nerve defect (as measured by National Institute of Health Stroke Scale), lipid profiles (mg/dL), and CAS complications within 30 days after surgery. After treatment, there were no significant differences in National Institute of Health Stroke Scale, lipid profiles, and mortality rate between 2 groups. However, significant differences in total cholesterol (mg/dL, P = .03), low-density lipoprotein (mg/dL, P = .01), transient ischemic attack (P = .03), ischemic stroke (P = .04), and cardiac complications (P = .03) were identified within 30 days after CAS between 2 groups. The results of this study showed that prior statin treatment may be effective for the prevention of CAS complications.

Background: This study will explore the effectiveness and safety of respiratory muscle training therapy (RMTT) for the treatment of patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) after stroke. Methods: In this study, we will systematically and comprehensively search Cochrane Library, PubMed, EMBASE, WANGFANG, VIP, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database, and China National Knowledge Infrastructure for relevant literature from their inception to March 1, 2020 without any limitations to language and publication status. We will consider any randomized controlled trials focusing on the effectiveness and safety of RMTT for the treatment of patients with OSAS after stroke. The study quality will be checked using Cochrane risk of bias tool, and statistical analysis will be performed utilizing RevMan 5.3 software. Results: This study will summarize and synthesize the current evidence of RMTT for the treatment of patients with OSAS following stroke. Conclusion: The findings of this study will assess the present evidence for the benefits and harms of RMTT for treating OSAS after stroke, and will inform clinical practice and future research. PROSPERO registration number: PROSPERO CRD42020170355.

Background: To investigate the value of positron emission tomography (PET) and PET/computed tomography (CT) using fluorine-18-fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) in the diagnosis, staging, restaging and recurrence monitoring of Ewing sarcoma family of tumors (ESFTs), a meta-analysis was performed through systematically searching PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Central library to retrieve articles. Methods: After screening and diluting out the articles that met inclusion criteria to be used for statistical analysis the pooled evaluation indexes including sensitivity, specificity, and diagnostic odd ratio (DOR) as well as the summary receiver operating characteristic curve (SROC) were calculated involving diagnostic data (true positive, false positive, false negative, and true negative) extracted from original studies. Results: Screening determined that out of 2007, 23 studies involving a total of 524 patients were deemed viable for inclusion in the meta-analysis. The results of the analysis showed that the sensitivity and specificity were at 86% and 80%, respectively. Additionally, a satisfactory accuracy of 18F-FDG PET and PET/CT was observed in detecting ESFT recurrence, lung metastasis, and osseous metastasis. Conclusion: This meta-analysis suggests that 18F-FDG PET and PET/CT with an extremely high accuracy could be considered a valuable method for detecting distant metastasis and post-operational recurrence of ESFT, which might have a profound impact on the development of treatment protocols for ESFT.