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Background: Volatile substance use is an increasing public health issue. Previous studies have always focused on adolescents. However, volatile substance use also occurs in young adults, something we often ignore, especially among housewife mothers. Methods and results: Here, we present a 32-year-old housewife mother with two years of inhaling volatile solvents. She was admitted to our unit for dizziness, slurred speech, and increased sleepiness. Magnetic resonance imaging showed broadly abnormal signals in the brain's bilateral corticomedullary junction, thalamus, basal ganglia, and dentate nucleus. Substance use-induced toxic encephalopathy was diagnosed. Conclusions: No previous reports of toxic encephalopathy due to volatile solvents use in housewife mothers have been made. Awareness of the risks associated with volatile solvents use in housewife mothers is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A tandem carbonyl reduction and hydrodefluorination of β‐trifluoromethyl enones with hydrosilanes under transition‐metal‐free conditions was developed for the synthesis of a variety of valuable gem‐difluorovinyl alcohols. The hydrosilane could act as both a reductive agent and a C(sp3)‐F bond‐breaking promoter under mild reaction conditions. Synthetically useful organofluorides, such as gem‐fluorophosphine alkene, gem‐difluorovinyl ketone, and fluorinated dihydrofuran derivatives could be readily constructed by further transformations of the obtained gem‐difluorovinyl alcohols. Moreover, the method features mild reaction conditions, operational simplicity, excellent functional group tolerance, and scalability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throttle-type self-excitation dust separator was chosen as the study object. Through the study of dust separator's throttle strength value a, total pressure loss value h and throttle liquid-level difference value ΔH, the dust separator resistance characteristics, based on adjustment of liquid phase, was explored. The primary conclusions are as follows: there-is linear relationship between a value and gas velocity value v. And the slope of a-v curve is affected by the equipment resistance coefficient in dust separator. The slope value reduces with the increase of equipment resistance value. The dust separator h-v curve is made up of straight line and parabola. When the initial throttle strength value a0>0 and the gas velocity v is on the small side, the h-v curve exhibits a parabolic distribution obviously. Whereas if the initial throttle strength value a0<0 or a0>0 and the gas velocity v is on the great side, the h-v curve exhibits a linear distribution. The equilibrium condition of force is changed by the self-fluidity of liquid-phase; as the result, the resistance characteristics of dust separator are adjusted by that. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gallbladder mixed neuroendocrine-non-neuroendocrine neoplasm generally consists of a gallbladder neuroendocrine tumor and a non-neuroendocrine component. The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2019 established a guideline requiring each component, both neuroendocrine and non-neuroendocrine, to account for a minimum of 30% of the tumor mass., Methods: Patients after surgery resection and diagnosed at microscopy evaluation with pure gallbladder neuroendocrine carcinoma (GBNEC), gallbladder mixed adeno-neuroendocrine carcinoma (GBMANEC, GBNEC≥30%), and gallbladder carcinoma mixed with a small fraction of GBNEC (GBNEC <30%) between 2010 and 2022 at West China Hospital of Sichuan University were collated for the analyses. Demographic features, surgical variables, and tumor characteristics were evaluated for association with patients' overall and recurrence-free survival (OS and RFS)., Results: The study included 26 GBNEC, 11 GBMANEC, 4 gallbladder squamous-cell carcinoma (GBSCC), and 7 gallbladder adenocarcinoma (GBADC) mixed with a small fraction of GBNEC. All patients had stage III or higher tumors (AJCC 8th edition). The majority of included patients (79.17%) underwent curative surgical resection (R0), with only ten patients having tumoral resection margins. In the analysis comparing patients with GBNEC percentage (GBNEC≥30% vs. GBNEC<30%), the basic demographics and tumor characteristics of most patients were comparable. The prognosis of these patients was also comparable, with a median OS of 23.65 months versus 20.40 months (P=0.13) and a median RFS of 17.1 months versus 12.3 months (P=0.24). However, patients with GBADC or GBSCC mixed with GBNEC <30% had a statistically significant decreased OS and RFS (both P<0.0001)) compared with GBNEC and GBMANEC. Patients with GBNEC who exhibited advanced tumor stages and lymphovascular invasion had a higher risk of experiencing worse overall survival (OS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS). However, a 30% GBNEC component was not identified as an independent risk factor., Conclusion: Patients with GBNEC were frequently diagnosed at advanced stages and their prognosis is poor. The 30% percentage of the GBNEC component is not related to the patient's survival., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024 Hu, Wang, Ma, Hu, Gu, Liu, Lv, Yang, Dai, Zou, Jin and Li.)

Objective: The efficacy of platinum-based chemotherapy (PtCh) for pancreatic cancer (PC) patients with DNA damage repair gene mutations (DDRm) compared to those without DDRm remains uncertain., Methods: After a thorough database searching in PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science, a total of 19 studies that met all the inclusion criteria were identified. The primary outcomes were overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) for PC patients with DDRm versus those without DDRm after PtCh., Results: Patients with advanced-stage PC who have DDRm tend to have longer OS compared to patients without DDRm, regardless of their exposure to PtCh (HR=0.63; I 2 = 66%). Further analyses indicated that the effectiveness of PtCh for OS was modified by DDRm (HR=0.48; I 2 = 59%). After the first- line PtCh (1L-PtCh), the PFS of advanced-stage PC with DDRm was also significantly improved (HR=0.41; I 2 = 0%). For patients with resected PC, regardless of their exposure to PtCh, the OS for patients with DDRm was comparable to those without DDRm (HR=0.82; I 2 = 71%). Specifically, for patients with resected PC harboring DDRm who received PtCh (HR=0.85; I 2 = 65%) and for those after non-PtCh (HR=0.87; I 2 = 0%), the presence of DDRm did not show a significant association with longer OS., Conclusion: 1L-PtCh treatment is correlated with favorable survival for advanced-stage PC patients with DDRm. For resected-stage PC harboring DDRm, adjuvant PtCh had limited effectiveness. The prognostic value of DDRm needs to be further verified by prospective randomized controlled trials., Systematic Review Registration: https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/, identifier CRD42022302275., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Hu, Hu, Kung, Lv, Yu and Li.)

Objective: To explore the effects of p,p'-DDE and beta-BHC on the apoptosis of Sertoli cells in vitro via activation of Caspase., Methods: Sertoli cells were treated in vitro for 24 hours with a serial concentrations of p,p'-DDE (10, 30 and 50 micromol/L), beta-BHC (10, 30 and 50 micromol/L) and p,p'-DDE + beta-BHC (10, 30 and 50 micromol/L). The inhibitory group was first treated with 100 micromol/L Caspase-3 inhibitor Ac-DEVD-CHO treating for 2 hours before 50 micromol/L p, p'-DDE + 50 micromol/L beta-BHC 24 hours-treatment. The vitality of Sertoli cells was determined by MTT and the apoptosis rate was measured by AO/EB double fluorescence staining. The expressions of Caspase-3, Caspase-8 and Caspase-9 were determined by RT-PCR., Results: Average optical density (A) values were 0.498 +/- 0.039, 0.481 +/- 0.065, 0.397 +/- 0.032 and 0.286 +/- 0.049 in p,p'-DDE groups (10, 30, 50 and 70 micromol/L), and 0.518 +/- 0.103, 0.490 +/- 0.060, 0.454 +/- 0.054 and 0.302 +/- 0.030 in beta-BHC groups (10, 30, 50 and 70 micromol/L). In the mixture-treated groups (10, 30 and 50 micromol/L), the average A values were 0.483 +/- 0.048, 0.473 +/- 0.058 and 0.337 +/- 0.052. Compared with the solvent control group (0.527 +/- 0.022) , 50 micromol/L group of p, p'-DDE, beta-BHC or their mixture caused a significant decrease of Sertoli cell viability (t values were 4.599, 2.716, 6.537 respectively, P < 0.05). AO/EB double fluorescence staining analysis showed that apoptosis rates of Sertoli cells were significantly increased with all treated groups. The expressions of Caspase-3, Caspase-8 and Caspase-9 were upregulated as the concentrations of p,p'-DDE, beta-BHC and their mixture were increased., Conclusion: p,p'-DDE, beta-BHC and their mixture could induce the apoptosis of Sertoli cells in vitro which was associated with activation of Caspase-3 mediated by cleavage of Caspase-8 and Caspase-9.