Coronavirus disease 2019 caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 has become an important public health issue in the world. More than 118 000 cases were confirmed around the world. The main clinical manifestations were respiratory symptoms and occasional gastrointestinal symptoms. However, there is no unified standard for the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19. In the retrospective analysis, we report nine cases of COVID-19, describe the history of contact, clinical manifestations, the course of diagnosis and clinical treatment before, during and after treatment.

BackgroundMetformin is the first line of oral antidiabetic drug in the biguanide class for treatment of type 2 diabetes. Increasing evidence has suggested that it is a potential anti-tumor drug. However, the mechanisms underlying inhibiting tumor development remain elusive, especially in bladder tumors.MethodsT24 and J82 cell lines were used as an in vitro model, and 24 female SD rats were used to build an N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU)-induced orthotopic rat bladder cancer model. Transfection of lentivirus-based shRNA was used to construct the STAT3-KNOCKDOWN T24 cell line. After metformin treatment, the viability of bladde cancer cells was determined by CCK8. Cell cycle distribution and apoptosis were assessed by flow cytometry. The migration and invasion abilities of cells were evaluated by wound healing and transwell asssays. The inactivation of stat3 pahtway was examined by qRTPCR, western blot and Immunofluorescence.ResultsMetformin can effectively inhibit precancerous progression to invasive cancer in an MNU-induced rat orthotopic bladder tumor model, although it could not completely suppress normal cells transforming into tumor cells. While the MNU could induce 50 % rats (4/8) to develop invasive bladder cancers, the rats co-administrated with metformin failed to develop invasive tumors but retained at precancerous or non-invasive stages, exhibiting as dysplasia, papillary tumor and/or carcinoma in situ (CIS). Accordingly, phosphorylation of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3), which is a well known oncogene, was significantly inhibited in the tumors of rats treated with metformin. In vitro experiments revealed that the metformin could efficiently inhibit STAT3 activation, which was associated with the cell cycle arrest, reduction of cell proliferation, migration and invasiveness, and increase in apoptotic cell death of bladder cancer cell lines.ConclusionsThese findings provide for the first time the evidence that metformin can block precancerous lesions progressing to invasive tumors through inhibiting the activation of STAT3 pathway, and may be used for treatment of the non-invasive bladder cancers to prevent them from progression to invasive tumors.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13046-015-0183-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Patients with schistosomal colorectal cancer (CRC) and nonschistosomal CRC have different clinicopathological features, laboratory test results and survival rates. Long-term infection with schistosomiasis in patients with CRC may affect the pathogenesis and subsequently change the mechanisms of CRC in these patients, resulting in changes in the survival rates of patients with schistosomal and nonschistosomal CRC. In China, the most common type of schistosomiasis is S. japonicum. The present study aimed to investigate the clinicopathological features and prognostic factors of schistosomal and nonschistosomal CRC. A total of 253 patients with schistosomal CRC and 2,885 patients with nonschistosomal CRC were analyzed and their symptoms, clinicopathological features and laboratory test results were retrospectively evaluated. Patients with CRC in the present study underwent radical resection at The First Affiliated Yijishan Hospital of Wannan Medical College between January 2012 and December 2018. A total of 3,138 patients with CRC were enrolled, 253 of whom were patients with schistosomal CRC. Patients were followed-up to examine differences in the 5-year survival rates between patients with schistosomal and nonschistosomal CRC to determine whether schistosomiasis impacted the prognosis of CRC. There were significant differences in age, sex, fecal occult blood positive, pathological T stage, and CA19-9, WBC, RBC and PLT levels between patients with schistosomal CRC and nonschistosomal CRC. For residents in areas with higher levels of schistosomiasis infections, especially middle-aged and elderly males, serum tumor markers and digestive tract endoscopy should be regularly evaluated to detect the presence of digestive tract tumors as early as possible.

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A series of NaYF4: Yb3+/Tm3+@NaYF4: Yb3+/Er3+ nanoparticles doped with Tm3+ and Er3+ were successfully prepared by the solvothermal method. Under a 980 nm laser excitation, intense upconversion emission peaks of...

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Approximately 200 million people worldwide currently suffer from schistosomiasis, one of the most important human parasitic diseases. Although an established infection can be treated with anthelminthics and praziquantel, vaccination would be the ideal method for integral control of schistosomiasis. Schistosoma mansoni IrV-5, recommended as a vaccine candidate by the World Health Organization/Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, produced high protection in animal models. We therefore focused on its homolog, the Schistosoma japonicum 62 kDa antigen, and analyzed it using B cell/antibody-related databases and analysis tools for the prediction of B-cell epitopes. Epitope B3 was selected for further investigation. Experiments using a murine model indicated that mice immunized with B3 resulted in lymphocytes proliferation and produced high levels of specific immunoglobulin G and G1, but did not produce impressive cytokines. The vaccination showed partial protective immunity, measured by worm burden and anti-fecundity immunity against S. japonicum. These results indicated that the epitope B3 from S. japonicum 62-kDa antigen might act as a candidate immunogen for future epitope vaccine investigation.