Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a common vascular disease that results in two major clinical manifestations: deep venous thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism (PE). Several genetic risk factors, especially factor V Leiden and prothrombin G20210A mutations have been reported to be related to VTE in Caucasians, but the relationship remains controversial in other populations. Thus, the objective of the present study was to compare the frequency of the two mutations and also to investigate whether acquired risk factors other than genetic mutations may play a different role in Chinese VTE patients. Thirty-five patients were diagnosed with DVT concomitant PE, 178 patients with DVT, 54 patients with PE and 102 control subjects were recruited. The mutation was determined by the polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method. Of all subjects, none was a carrier of factor V Leiden or prothrombin G20210A mutations. The frequency of surgery was significantly higher in the PE group than that in other groups. There was no significant difference among the three groups in other known risk factors. The data presented here indicate that factor V Leiden and prothrombin G20210A mutations are very rare in the Chinese population, and the genetic risk profile of VTE in the Chinese population is different from that in Caucasians.

ObjectivesTo evaluate the diagnostic performance of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) as a single non-invasive method in detecting prostate cancer (PCa) and to deduce its clinical utility.MethodsA systematic literature search was performed to identify relevant original studies. Quality of included studies was assessed by QUADAS-2 (Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies). Data were extracted to calculate sensitivity and specificity as well as running the test of heterogeneity and threshold effect. The summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve was drawn and area under SROC curve (AUC) served as a determination of the diagnostic performance of DWI for the detection of PCa.ResultsA total of 21 studies were included, with 27 subsets of data available for analysis. The pooled sensitivity and specificity with corresponding 95 % confidence interval (CI) were 0.62 (95 % CI 0.61–0.64) and 0.90 (95 % CI 0.89–0.90), respectively. Pooled positive likelihood ratio and negative likelihood ratio were 5.83 (95 % CI 4.61–7.37) and 0.30 (95 % CI 0.23–0.39), respectively. The AUC was 0.8991. Significant heterogeneity was observed. There was no notable publication bias.ConclusionsDWI is an informative MRI modality in detecting PCa and shows moderately high diagnostic accuracy. General clinical application was limited because of the absence of standardized DW-MRI techniques.Key points• DWI provides incremental information for the detection and evaluation of PCa• DWI has moderately high diagnostic accuracy in detecting PCa• Patient condition, imaging protocols and study design positively influence diagnostic performance• General clinical application requires optimization of image acquisition and interpretation

Our results indicate that ustekinumab is safe for patients with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis over a period of 5 years, and it is effective after 12 weeks. There was no significant superiority in efficacy between the 45 mg and 90 mg doses for short-term therapy. Results of the long-term safety evaluation are consistent with short-term reports of ustekinumab safety. More long-term studies and RCTs are needed to validate these results.

Objective: This study aimed to characterize the miRNA expression profiles from plasma samples of our local breast cancer patients in comparison to healthy control by using miRNA PCR Array. Methods: In this study, plasma miRNA profiles from eight early-stage breast cancer patients and nine age-matched (± 2 years) healthy controls were characterized by miRNA array-based approach, followed by differential gene expression analysis, Independent T-test and construction of Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curve to determine the capability of the assays to discriminate between breast cancer and the healthy control. Results: Based on the 372-miRNAs microarray profiling, a set of 40 differential miRNAs was extracted regarding to the fold change value at 2 and above. We further sub grouped 40 miRNAs of breast cancer patients that were significantly expressed at 2-fold change and higher. In this set, we discovered that 24 miRNAs were significantly upregulated and 16 miRNAs were significantly downregulated in breast cancer patients, as compared to the miRNA expression of healthy subjects. ROC curve analysis revealed that seven miRNAs (miR-125b-5p, miR-142-3p, miR-145-5p, miR-193a-5p, miR-27b-3p, miR-22-5p and miR-423-5p) had area under curve (AUC) value > 0.7 (AUC p-value < 0.05). Overlapping findings from differential gene expression analysis, ROC analysis, and Independent T-Test resulted in three miRNAs (miR-27b-3p, miR-22-5p, miR-145-5p). Cohen’s effect size for these three miRNAs was large with d value are more than 0.95. Conclusion: miR-27b-3p, miR-22-5p, miR-145-5p could be potential biomarkers to distinguish breast cancer patients from healthy controls. A validation study for these three miRNAs in an external set of samples is ongoing.