Regarding the article "Clinical application of chromosomal microarray analysis for the prenatal diagnosis of chromosomal abnormalities and copy number variations in fetuses with congenital heart disease" published in Prenatal Diagnosis in 2018 (volume 38, pages 406-413, article first published online: 7 March 2018), the author has recognized there are some typos in affiliation of the published article.

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There are 16.5 million newborns in China annually. However, the incidence of congenital heart disease (CHD) has not been evaluated. In 2004, we launched an active province-wide hospital-based CHD registry in the Guangdong Province of southern China. In this study, we examined the incidence of CHD and its subtypes from 2004 to 2012 and compared our findings to the literature. Our results indicate there is an increasing trend of CHD incidence. The increase in incidence occurred mainly for single lesion and the most common subtypes (e.g., ventricular or atrial septal defect, patent ductus arteriosus). There were no increases found for multiple lesions or more complex subtypes. The proportion of CHD cases that were detected early (e.g., 1 week) increased over time. The incidence of CHD stabilized in 2010–2012 with the average cumulative incidences of 9.7, 9.9, and 11.1 per 1,000 live births at 1 week, 1 month, and 1 year, respectively. The incidences of CHD subtypes were comparable with recent international results. The data did not support previous reports that Asian children have a higher incidence of pulmonary outflow obstructions and lower incidence of transposition of the great arteries. However, there was a lower incidence of left ventricular outflow tract obstructions observed in our series. The increase in CHD incidence observed over time was due to improved detection and diagnosis. The true incidence of CHD in China was approximately 11.1 per 1,000 live births, which is higher than previously reported.

An investigation into the role of intravenous fluid tonicity in determining intracranial pressure (ICP) after brain injury is described. The authors compare the results of infusion of a hypotonic fluid (Ringer's lactate, 270 mOsm/liter) to those of a hypertonic fluid (hypertonic sodium lactate, 500 mOsm/liter) in a porcine model of focal cryogenic brain injury. Hemodynamic parameters (ICP, regional cerebral blood flow (CBF), and oxygen delivery) and serum osmolarity were measured every 3 hours for 24 hours after injury. At sacrifice, the water content of the lesioned and nonlesioned cortex was determined by specific gravity. The cryogenic injury produced a significant increase in ICP and a significant decrease in CBF in all experimental groups. Maintenance infusion of hypertonic sodium lactate for 24 hours resulted in significantly lower ICP, higher CBF and oxygen delivery, and higher serum osmolarity than Ringer's lactate infusion. Cortical water content in the area of the lesion was similar in both groups, but in the uninjured hemisphere it was significantly lower in the hypertonic group. These data suggest that hypertonic maintenance fluid improves intracranial compliance by dehydrating uninjured cortex. Improved CBF in the hypertonic group may be due to dehydration of cerebrovascular endothelium and erythrocytes. By reducing ICP and improving CBF, hypertonic fluid administration may thus reduce secondary brain injury after head trauma.

Abstract. Inspired by the mechanism of small-world phenomenon, some smallworld optimization operators, mainly including the local short-range searching operator and random long-range searching operator, are constructed in this paper. And a new optimization algorithm, Small-World Optimization Algorithm (SWOA) is explored. Compared with the corresponding Genetic Algorithms (GAs), the simulation experiment results of some complex functions optimization indicate that SWOA can enhance the diversity of the population, avoid the prematurity and GA deceptive problem to some extent, and have the high convergence speed. SWOA is shown to be an effective strategy to solve complex tasks.

Prenatal exposure to toxic trace elements, including heavy metals, is an important public health concern. Few studies have assessed if individual and multiple trace elements simultaneously affect cardiac development. The current study evaluated the association between maternal blood lead (Pb), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), mercury (Hg), and selenium (Se) levels and congenital heart defects (CHDs) in offspring. This hospital-based case-control study included 112 case and 107 control infants. Maternal peripheral blood draw was made during gestational weeks 17-40 and used to determine trace element levels by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Multivariable logistic regression was used to assess associations and interactions between individual and multiple trace elements and fetal CHDs, adjusted for maternal age, parity, education, newborn gender, migrant, folic acid or multivitamin intake, cigarette smoking, maternal prepregnancy body mass index, and time of sample collection. Control participants had medians of 2.61μg/dL Pb, 1.76μg/L Cd, 3.57μg/L Cr, 896.56μg/L Cu, 4.17μg/L Hg, and 186.47μg/L Se in blood. In a model including all measured trace elements and adjusted for confounders, high levels of maternal Pb (OR=12.09, 95% CI: 2.81, 51.97) and Se (OR=0.25, 95% CI: 0.08, 0.77) were harmful and protective predictors of CHDs, respectively, with positive and negative interactions suggested for Cd with Pb and Se with Pb, respectively. Similar associations were detected for subgroups of CHDs, including conotruncal defects, septal defects, and right ventricle outflow tract obstruction. Our results suggest that even under the current standard for protecting human health (10μg/dL), Pb exposure poses an important health threat. These data can be used for developing interventions and identifying high-risk pregnancies.

Surgical correction in patients with TAPVC with a biventricular anatomy can achieve an acceptable outcome. Risk factors such as a younger age at the time of repair, infracardiac and mixed TAPVC, and preoperative PVO were associated with a poorer prognosis.