BackgroundAt present, the severity of patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) has been a focal point.MethodsTo assess the factors associated with severity and prognosis of patients infected with SARS‐CoV‐2, we retrospectively investigated the clinical, imaging and laboratory characteristics of confirmed 280 cases of novel coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) from 20 January to 20 February 2020.ResultsThe median age of patients in the mild group was 37.55 years, whilst that in the severe group was 63.04 years. The proportion of patients aged over 65 years in the severe group was significantly higher than that of the mild group (59.04% vs. 10.15%, P < 0.05). 85.54% of severe patients had diabetes or cardiovascular diseases, which was significantly higher than that of the mild group (51.81% vs. 7.11%, P = 0.025; 33.73% vs. 3.05%, P = 0.042). Patients in the mild group experienced earlier initiation of antiviral treatment (1.19 ± 0.45 vs. 2.65 ± 1.06 days in the severe group, P < 0.001). Our study showed that comorbidity, time from illness onset to antiviral treatment and age >=65 were three major risk factors for COVID‐19 progression, whilst comorbidity and time from illness onset to antiviral treatment were two major risk factors for COVID‐19 recovery.ConclusionsThe elderly and patients with underlying diseases are more likely to experience a severe progression of COVID‐19. It is recommended that timely antiviral treatment should be initiated to slow the disease progression and improve the prognosis.

Thyroid nodules are very common all over the world, and China is no exception. Ultrasound plays an important role in determining the risk stratification of thyroid nodules, which is critical for clinical management of thyroid nodules. For the past few years, many versions of TIRADS (Thyroid Imaging Reporting and Data System) have been put forward by several institutions with the aim to identify whether nodules require fine-needle biopsy or ultrasound follow-up. However, no version of TIRADS has been widely adopted worldwide till date. In China, as many as ten versions of TIRADS have been used in different hospitals nationwide, causing a lot of confusion. With the support of the Superficial Organ and Vascular Ultrasound Group of the Society of Ultrasound in Medicine of the Chinese Medical Association, the Chinese-TIRADS that is in line with China's national conditions and medical status was established based on literature review, expert consensus, and multicenter data provided by the Chinese Artificial Intelligence Alliance for Thyroid and Breast Ultrasound.

A Pilot Studyonoelastography is now routinely used in medical sonography since Ophir et al 1 first described the principles of strain imaging in 1991. The technique can assess the elastic properties of tissues, and static elastography has found clinical application in diagnosing lesions of the breast, 2 thyroid, 3 lymph nodes, 4 and prostate gland. 5 The basic principle of sonoelastography is to produce displacement within the tissue by physical compression. By comparing the images taken before and after the application of compression, sonoelastography can show different degrees of displacement. 1 However, the stiffness of the tissue can only be obtained by comparing it with surrounding normal tissues. The degree of the compression applied by the operator may alter the results of sonoelastography. -Mei Chen, MD, PhD, Li-Gang Cui, MD, PhD, Ping He, MD, PhD, Wei-Wei Shen, MD, MS, Ya-Jun Qian, MD, MS, Jin-Rui Wang, MD, BS Received June 4, 2012, Xiang ORIGINAL RESEARCHObjectives-The purpose of this study was to investigate the feasibility of using quantitative shear wave elastography for assessing the functional integrity of the Achilles tendon and to summarize the changes in elasticity of ruptured Achilles tendons in comparison with normal controls.Methods-Thirty-six normal and 14 ruptured Achilles tendons were examined with shear wave elastography coupled with a linear array transducer (4-15 MHz). The elasticity value of each Achilles tendon in a longitudinal view was measured.Results-The mean elasticity value ± SD for the normal Achilles tendons was 291.91 ± 4.38 kPa (note that there are saturated measurement phenomena for the normal Achilles tendon, so the actual value will be >300 kPa), whereas the ruptured Achilles tendons had an elasticity value of 56.48 ± 68.59 kPa. A statistically significant difference was found in relation to the findings in healthy volunteers (P = .006).Conclusions-Our results suggest that shear wave elastography is a valuable tool that can provide complementary biomechanical information for evaluating the function of the Achilles tendon.

The combination of camptothecin (CPT) and fluoropyrimidine derivatives acts synergistically at a 1:1 molar ratio. Practically, the greatest challenge is the development of a single liposomal formulation that can both encapsulate and maintain this drug combination at an exact 1:1 ratio to achieve coordinated pharmacokinetics. Consequently, a new type of liposome-like nanocapsule (NC) is developed from a highly symmetric Janus camptothecin-floxuridine conjugate (JCFC) amphiphile, which is synthesized by coupling two hydrophobic CPT molecules and two hydrophilic floxuridine (FUDR) molecules to multivalent pentaerythritol via a hydrolyzable ester linkage. JCFC NCs possess remarkably high drug-loading contents, and no premature release because of the highly stable co-delivery of the drug combination without the need for any carrier. It is shown that JCFC NCs consistently provide synergy and avoid antagonism in a broad panel of tumor cell lines. In vivo delivery of JCFC NCs leads to longer blood retention half-life, higher tumorous accumulation and cellular uptake of drugs, and greatly enhanced efficacy in murine tumor models compared to CPT, FUDR, and CPT + FUDR. This liposomal strategy can be extended to other hydrophilic and hydrophobic anticancer drugs that are coupled to pentaerythritol to self-assemble into nanocapsules for drug self-delivery, pointing to potential clinical translation in near future.

Multi-modality images provided more information in radiomics study. Combining use of B-US and SE-US could improve the LN metastasis estimation accuracy for PTC patients.