Assistance

The pattern of body weight gain during the commercial growing of broiler chickens is important to understand growth and feed conversion ratio of each flock.The application of sound analysis techniques has been widely studied to measure and analyze the amplitude and frequency of animal sounds. Previous studies have shown a significant correlation (P ≤ 0.001) between the frequency of vocalization and the age and weight of broilers. Therefore, the aim of this study was to identify and validate a model that describes the growth rate of broiler chickens based on the peak frequency of their vocalizations and to explore the possibility to develop a tool capable of automatically detecting the growth of the chickens based on the frequency of their vocalizations during the production cycle...

The tyrosinase (TYR) gene is the major melanogenesis-related gene for skin (fur) or plumage color in mammals and birds. Genetic variation in the promoter region of a gene may affect gene expression and phenotypes. This study compared the TYR promoter region between pooled DNA (n = 8) of chickens (Gallus gallus) with black and white skin using direct sequencing. The single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) c.-2228A>T was found to have the opposite allele distribution in the two groups. The results of genotyping in a larger population (n = 188) revealed that SNP c...

PURPOSE: To test the cost-effectiveness of cetuximab plus irinotecan, fluorouracil, and leucovorin (FOLFIRI) as first-line treatment in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) from a Chinese medical insurance perspective. RESULTS: Baseline analysis showed that the addition of cetuximab increased quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) by 0.63, an increase of $17,086 relative to FOLFIRI chemotherapy, resulting in an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of $27,145/QALY...

Several scoring systems are available to estimate prognosis and assist in selecting treatment methods for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients with brain metastasis, including recursive partitioning analysis (RPA), basic score for brain metastases (BS-BM), and diagnosis-specific graded prognostic assessment (DS-GPA). Lung-molGPA is an update of the DS-GPA that incorporates EGFR and/or ALK mutation status. The present study tested the applicability of these four indexes in 361 lung adenocarcinoma patients with brain metastasis...

Oculocutaneous albinism (OCA) is an autosomal recessive disorder characterized by hypopigmentation of the skin, hair, and eyes accompanied with ophthalmologic abnormalities. Molecular genetic test can confirm the diagnosis of the four subtypes of OCA (OCA1-4). Herein, we report a Chinese family with two patients affected by OCA. Mutations of TYR, OCA2, TYRP1, and SLC45A2 were examined by using PCR-sequencing. Large deletions or duplications of TYR and OCA2 were examined by Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification (MLPA) assay...

Anorectal disorders are common and present with overlapping symptoms. They include several disorders with both structural and functional dysfunction(s). Because symptoms alone are poor predictors of the underlying pathophysiology, a diagnosis should only be made after evaluating symptoms and physiologic and structural abnormalities. A detailed history, a thorough physical and digital rectal examination and a systematic evaluation with high resolution and/or high definition three-dimensional (3D) anorectal manometry, 3D anal ultrasonography, magnetic resonance defecography and neurophysiology tests are essential to correctly identify these conditions...

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of pleural abrasion in treatment of spontaneous pneumothorax with video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) for bullae resection. Methods: The clinical data of 158 patients with initial spontaneous pneumothorax who underwent video-assisted thoracic wedge resections with or without pleural abrasion in Henan Provincial People's Hospital from June 2010 to June 2015 were retrospectively analyzed. The patients were assigned to two equal groups according to whether pleural abrasion was applied or not: experimental group (with pleural abrasion) and control group (without pleural abrasion); and there were 79 patients in each group...

Objective: To investigate the long-term efficacy and prognostic factors of pediatric relapsed Wilms tumor (WT) after retreatment. Method: Sixteen children in Shanghai Children's Medical Center with relapsed Wilms tumor were enrolled consecutively in this study between April 2006 and June 2016. All patients were diagnosed according to pathology, imaging and medical and surgical oncologist's assistance. Relapse treatment included surgical excision, chemotherapy and selective radiation therapy. The clinical features, long-term outcomes and prognostic factors of patients were analyzed retrospectively...

Objective: To explore the safety and validity of endoscopic cricopharyngeal myotomy in patients with cricopharyngeal achalasia. Methods: A total of 19 patients with cricopharyngeal achalasia suffered from sustained dysphagia were enrolled in this study. The patients were divided into transcervical cricopharyngeal myotomy(CPM) group and endoscopic CPM (ECPM) group. Swallowing function and complications were evaluated.SPSS7.0 software was used to analyze the data. Results: The swallowing function improved significantly in seven patients in ECPM group, and 9 patients improved in CPM group...

BACKGROUND: With improvements in living donor liver transplantation (LDLT) techniques and the increased experience of surgeons in laparoscopic major liver resection, laparoscopic donor hepatectomy is performed increasingly. Therefore, expert opinion on this procedure is required. OBJECTIVE: The study aimed to report the current status and summarize the expert opinion on laparoscopic donor hepatectomy. METHODS: An expert consensus meeting was held on September 8, 2016, in Seoul, Korea...

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Personalised nutrition has potential to revolutionise dietary health promotion if accepted by the general public. We studied trust and preferences regarding personalised nutrition services, how they influence intention to adopt these services, and cultural and social differences therein. METHODS: A total of 9,381 participants were quota-sampled to be representative of each of 9 EU countries (Germany, Greece, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, the UK, and Norway) and surveyed by a questionnaire assessing their intention to adopt personalised nutrition, trust in service regulators and information sources, and preferences for service providers and information channels...

Patients' susceptibility to coronal and root caries (RC) is modulated by a range of biological, environmental, social, psychological, and behavior-related factors. These factors, considered either in isolation or combined into specific models, contribute to the overall patient susceptibility/risk of new lesion occurrence and/or of existing lesion progression, allowing the oral healthcare team to define specific and individualized preventive and curative regimens. Various caries susceptibility/risk assessment (CRA) protocols/models have been developed to assist the oral healthcare practitioner/team in a logical systematic approach to synthesize information about the caries disease process with its multifactorial etiology...

The review focuses on recent aspects (last three years) of glycosylation analyses that provide relevant information about cancer. It includes recent development in glycan and protein enrichment methods for discovery of cancer markers. It will however focus on the recent technological developments in mass spectrometry (MS), bioinformatics and separation methods as they apply toward identifying cancer markers. More specifically, it will cover advances in matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI), electrospray ionization (ESI), capillary electrophoresis (CE), and liquid chromatography (LC) coupled to mass spectrometry...

OBJECTIVES: The decision to proceed with surgical treatment for pectus excavatum (PE) is rarely clear-cut. Patients interested in treatment are referred for evaluation by numerous different specialists, but psychosocial counselling is currently not included in this process. Our objective was to assess whether PE patients would be interested in formal assistance with the decision-making process surrounding PE surgery using narrative therapy principles. METHODS: Ninety-seven untreated PE patients at 5 different institutions in 4 countries completed a questionnaire consisting of 13 questions, with 3 questions specifically evaluating interest in narrative therapy...

The introduction of uniportal video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery into the field of minimally invasive thoracic surgery has its revolutionary effect by bringing the surgical trauma to the minimum. As a result, less postoperative pain and complications may be achieved through this technology. This may convince us as thoracic surgeons to become more liberal and to extend the indications of performing 'single-staged' bilateral video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery. Herein, we described our technique in bilateral pulmonary resections...

OBJECTIVES: Chylothorax is an infrequent but relatively serious complication after lung cancer surgery. Finding the leakage site and identifying the thoracic duct (TD) are the key points of surgical intervention for chylothorax. In this study, for the first time, we demonstrated near-infrared fluorescence imaging with indocyanine green (ICG) in video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) intervention for chylothorax in humans. METHODS: This study included 4 patients diagnosed with chylothorax after lung cancer surgery who underwent VATS intervention; 0...

OBJECTIVES: It remains unclear whether 3D systems are manoeuvrable in video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) for patients with thoracic diseases. The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to evaluate the efficacy and safety of 3D VATS compared with 2D VATS. METHODS: A systemic research of the literature was performed using the PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang and CQVIP databases through December 2016...

OBJECTIVES: Continuous-flow left ventricular assist devices (CF-LVADs) are widely used to treat patients with end-stage heart failure. Although continuous flow is different from physiological flow, patients show improved outcomes after CF-LVAD implantation. A novel rotational speed (RS) modulation system used with CF-LVAD (EVAHEART) has been developed, which can change RS in synchronization with the native cardiac cycle. We conducted the present study to investigate the influence of the system on pulsatility in peripheral perfusion...

OBJECTIVES: This study was aimed to investigate potential benefits of thoracoscopic surgery for intralobar pulmonary sequestration in adult patients in terms of short-term surgical outcomes when compared with open surgery. METHODS: Data of 110 consecutive adult patients undergoing thoracoscopic surgery or open surgery for intralobar sequestration from January 2000 to December 2015 at our institution were reviewed. A total of 42 video-assisted thoracic surgery cases and 68 open surgery cases were identified...

OBJECTIVES: To estimate the effects of pulmonary fissure completeness on postoperative cardiopulmonary complications (PCCs) and hospital stay in patients undergoing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery lobectomy for early-stage non-small-cell lung cancer. METHODS: We performed a single-centre retrospective analysis based on the prospectively maintained data of our institution during the study period. Demographic differences between the PCC group and the non-PCC group were initially examined...