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Few nationwide investigations on hair selenium (Se) and Keshan disease (KD) have been conducted. KD is closely associated with Se deficiency. Hair Se is an important biomarker for selenium nutrition. This research aimed to provide evidence for assessment of KD prevention, control, and elimination at the molecular level from the etiological perspective of selenium nutrition. The hair Se of the residents living in the KD endemic and non-endemic areas were determined through atomic fluorescence spectrometer. The median of the hair Se levels of the inhabitants living in KD endemic counties was significantly lower than that in KD non-endemic counties (0.34 vs 0.39 mg/kg, U = −10.03, P < 0.0001). The proportion of Se-deficient or Se-marginal residents in KD endemic counties was significantly higher than that in KD non-endemic counties (56.9% vs 36.6%, U = −9.57, P < 0.0001). The medians of the hair Se levels in KD endemic provinces of Shannxi, Heilongjiang, and Gansu were the lowest (0.35mg/kg), and in the category of Se-marginal status. The hair Se level featured a positive Spearman correlation with per capita disposable income (rs = 0.20, P < 0.0001). In conclusion, the median of the hair Se contents of residents living in KD endemic counties was significantly lower than that in KD non-endemic counties. The hair Se contents of nearly 57% of inhabitants living in KD endemic regions were in Se-deficient or Se-marginal status. The KD endemic provinces of Shannxi, Heilongjiang, and Gansu should be given high priority in KD prevention and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cervical spinal cord injury (SCI) causes extensive impairments for individuals which may include dextrous hand function. Although prior work has focused on the recovery at the person-level, the factors determining the recovery of individual muscles are poorly understood. Here, we investigate the muscle-specific recovery after cervical spinal cord injury in a retrospective analysis of 748 individuals from the European Multicenter Study about Spinal Cord Injury (NCT01571531). We show associations between corticospinal tract (CST) sparing and upper extremity recovery in SCI, which improves the prediction of hand muscle strength recovery. Our findings suggest that assessment strategies for muscle-specific motor recovery in acute spinal cord injury are improved by accounting for CST sparing, and complement person-level predictions. How the segmental innervation of upper limb muscles recovers after spinal cord injury is not fully understood. Here the authors show associations between corticospinal tract sparing and upper extremity recovery in spinal cord injury. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare the proposed rapid NT-MRCP protocol and the conventional NT-MRCP protocol with respect to image quality as well as the acquisition time. Materials and methods: Between January 2019 and May 2019, a total number of 67 consecutive patients with suspected pancreaticobiliary diseases were included in this prospective study and underwent 3D rapid MRCP and 3D conventional MRCP sequences. Both acquisition protocols were set from the same navigator-triggered 3D SPACE sequence. The acquisition time was recorded. Two blinded radiologists performed qualitative analyses with respect to overall image quality, motion artifacts, and CBD visibility using a four-point scale. Quantitative evaluation included the contrast, signal-noise ratio (SNR), and contrast-noise ratio (CNR) between the common bile duct (CBD) and periductal tissues. A paired t test was used to assess differences in the qualitative and quantitative evaluations between the two acquisition methods. Results: All MRCP studies were completed successfully. The mean acquisition time of rapid NT-MRCP (96.64 ± 30.55 s) was significantly lower than that of the conventional NT–MRCP (271.42 ± 61.63 s; p < 0.001).The contrast ratio, SNR, and CNR of the CBD were significantly higher for conventional NT-MRCP than with rapid NT-MRCP images (0.95 ± 0.02 vs. 0.93 ± 0.03, p < 0.001; 10.36 ± 4.63 vs. 8.90 ± 4.71, p = 0.011; 14.01 ± 6.02 vs. 12.22 ± 6.36, p = 0.020, respectively). The rapid MRCP depicted the overall image quality, artifacts, CBD visibility, right and left hepatic duct, segment 2 branch, main pancreatic duct, and cystic duct significantly better compared with conventional MRCP (p < 0.05). There were no statistically significant differences between the two methods regarding visibility of anterior, posterior, and segment 3 branches (p > 0.05). Conclusions: In conclusion, the proposed rapid MRCP protocol yielded significantly higher overall image quality and better visualization of the pancreaticobiliary tree with a significantly reduced imaging time without deterioration of image quality compared with the conventional MRCP at 3T. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Axillary lymph node (ALN) metastasis is used to select treatment strategies and define the prognosis in breast cancer (BC) patients and is typically assessed using an invasive procedure. Noninvasive, simple, and reliable tools to accurately predict ALN status are desirable. We aimed to develop and validate a point-based scoring system (PSS) for stratifying the ALN metastasis risk of BC based on clinicopathological and quantitative MRI features and to explore its prognostic significance., Methods: A total of 219 BC patients were evaluated. The clinicopathological and quantitative MRI features of the tumors were collected. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to create the PSS. The performance of the models was evaluated using receiver operating characteristic curves, and the area under the curve (AUC) of the models was calculated. Kaplan-Meier curves were used to analyze the survival outcomes., Results: Clinical features, including the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage, T stage, human epidermal growth factor receptor-2, estrogen receptor, and quantitative MRI features, including maximum tumor diameter, K ep , V e , and TTP, were identified as risk factors for ALN metastasis and were assigned scores for the PSS. The PSS achieved an AUC of 0.799 in the primary cohort and 0.713 in the validation cohort. The recurrence-free survival (RFS) and overall survival (OS) of the high-risk (> 19.5 points) groups were significantly shorter than those of the low-risk (≤ 19.5 points) groups in the PSS., Conclusion: PSS could predict the ALN metastasis risk of BC. A PSS greater than 19.5 was demonstrated to be a predictor of short RFS and OS., (© 2023. The Author(s).)