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We propose a novel magnetic actuated multi modules drug sustained-release minirobot (DSM) manipulated by an external rotating electromagnetic field. The structure of the DSM is mainly divided into three parts, a shell, an internal propeller and a drug chamber. The shell can effectively protect the intestinal tract and reduce the various resistance during the work, the built-in propeller not only realizes active locomotion but also saved internal space, which provides the feasibility for the development of functional modules of the robot. The drug chamber pushes the carried drugs out of the chamber similar to a syringe. With structural optimization, we have realized the sustained-release and quantitative drug delivery based on the characteristics of mini-magnets' individual starting frequency and pitch related calculations. The main challenge to achieve these functions is to manipulate two magnets in the same magnetic field to drive different functional modules, without mutual interference between the two magnets. In this research, a series of simulations and experiments to evaluate DSM's motion performance, drug delivery function, and dose control during drug delivery. In the experiment, two different drug delivery points were set up to make DSM spray the drug on the fester areas twice respectively. Finally, an in-vitro experiment using the DSM prototype was executed with fresh pig large intestine in a curved shape pipe mold.

d-allulose is a low-calorie rare sugar. It has been reported that d-allulose supplementation significantly inhibits diet-induced hepatic fat accumulation. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. This study elucidates the mechanism underlying the suppressive effect of d-allulose on hepatic fat accumulation in terms of miRNA regulation.Male C57BL/6 mice are divided into three experimental groups-normal diet and distilled water (CC group), high-fat diet (HFD) and distilled water (HC group), and HFD and 5% d-allulose solution (HA group)-and fed the respective diets for 8 weeks. Weight gain is significantly lower in the HA group than that in the HC group, although the caloric intake is the same in both. Histological analysis of liver tissues reveals excessive lipid accumulation in the HC group; this is greatly attenuated in the HA group. Real-time PCR and western blot analyses demonstrate that, compared to the HC group, the HA group exhibits decreased hepatic PPARγ and CD36 expression. Hepatic miR-130 expression levels are higher in the HA group than those in the CC and HC groups.These results indicate that miRNA changes associated with PPARγ may underlie the suppression of hepatic lipid accumulation induced by d-allulose intake.

To date, few clinical observations have been reported for changes of alternative angiogenic factors (other than vascular endothelial growth factor [VEGF]) in human gliomas under bevacizumab (Bev). The elucidation of the mechanism of action and resistance is imperative to overcome resistance to Bev and develop a more effective therapy. This study aims to investigate the status and change of alternative angiogenic factors regarding Bev usage.The present study used 56 glioblastoma tissues obtained at 3 different settings: tumors of initial resection (naive Bev group), tumors resected following Bev therapy (effective Bev group), and recurrent tumors after Bev therapy (refractory/autopsied Bev group). The expression of alternative angiogenic factors including basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), placental growth factor (PlGF), Angiopoietin1 (Ang-1), Angiopoietin2(Ang-2) and EphrinA2 were investigated via immunohistochemistry. In large tumor vasculature (diameter >15μm), the expression of PlGF was significantly higher in the effective Bev group than naive Bev group. The expression of Ang-2 was persistently suppressed in the refractory/autopsied Bev group. In microtumor vasculature (diameter

The aim of this study is to evaluate the recent outcomes of retrograde intrarenal surgery (RIRS) with a disposable ureteroscope in comparison to RIRS with a reusable ureteroscope. One hundred thirty patients with renal stones of 15-40 mm were analyzed. The patient characteristics and surgical outcomes of 64 patients treated with a disposable ureteroscope LithoVue® (disposable-scope group) were compared with those of 66 patients treated with a reusable scope previously (reusable-scope group). In the disposable-scope group, the mean stone diameter (24.9 vs. 22.0 mm, p=0.01) and stone volume (2.8 vs. 1.8 cc, p

Endovascular robotic systems have been applied in robot-assisted interventional surgery to improve surgical safety and reduce radiation to surgeons. However, this surgery requires surgeons to be highly skilled at operating vascular interventional surgical robot. Virtual reality (VR) interventional training systems for robot-assisted interventional surgical training have many advantages over traditional training methods. For virtual interventional radiology, simulation of the behaviors of surgical tools (here mainly refers to catheter and guidewire) is a challenging work. In this paper, we developed a novel virtual reality interventional training system. This system is an extension of the endovascular robotic system. Because the master side of this system can be used for both the endovascular robotic system and the VR interventional training system, the proposed system improves training and reduces the cost of education. Moreover, we proposed a novel method to solve catheterization modeling during the interventional simulation. Our method discretizes the catheter by the collision points. The catheter between two adjacent collision points is treated as thin torsion-free elastic rods. The deformation of the rod is mainly affected by the force applied at the collision points. Meanwhile, the virtual contact force is determined by the collision points. This simplification makes the model more stable and reduces the computational complexity, and the behavior of the surgical tools can be approximated. Therefore, we realized the catheter interaction simulation and virtual force feedback for the proposed VR interventional training system. The performance of our method is experimentally validated.

We aimed to develop a reliable identification algorithm combining diagnostic codes with several treatment factors for inpatients with acute ischemic stroke (AIS) to conduct pharmacoepidemiological studies using the administrative database MID-NET® in Japan.We validated 11 identification algorithms based on 56 different diagnostic codes (International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision; ICD-10) using Diagnosis Procedure Combination (DPC) data combined with information on AIS therapeutic procedures added as "AND" condition or "OR" condition. The target population for this study was 366 randomly selected hospitalized patients with possible cases of AIS, defined as relevant ICD-10 codes and diagnostic imaging and prescription or surgical procedure, in three institutions between April 1, 2015 and March 31, 2017. We determined the positive predictive values (PPVs) of these identification algorithms based on comparisons with a gold standard consisting of chart reviews by experienced specialist physicians. Additionally, the sensitivities of them among 166 patients with the possible cases of AIS at a single institution were evaluated.The PPVs were 0.618 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.566-0.667) to 0.909 (95% CI: 0.708-0.989) and progressively increased with adding or limiting information on AIS therapeutic procedures as "AND" condition in the identification algorithms. The PPVs for identification algorithms based on diagnostic codes I63.x were 0.8. However, the sensitivities progressively decreased to a maximum of ~0.2 after adding information on AIS therapeutic procedures as "AND" condition.The identification algorithms based on the combination of appropriate ICD-10 diagnostic codes in DPC data and other AIS treatment factors may be useful to studies for AIS at a national level using MID-NET®.