Surgical site infection (SSI) is one of the most common surgical complications in the world, particularly in developing countries. This study aimed to estimate the incidence and distribution of SSI in mainland China. Eighty-four prospective observational studies (82 surveillance studies, 1 nested case control study, and 1 cohort study) were selected for inclusion in this meta-analysis. The average incidence of SSI in mainland China was 4.5% (95% CI: 3.1–5.8) from 2001 to 2012 and has decreased significantly in recent years. The remote western regions had a higher incidence of 4.6% (95% CI: 4.0–5.3). The most common surgical procedure was abdominal surgery (8.3%, 95% CI: 6.5–10.0). SSI occurred frequently in the elderly (5.1%, 95% CI: 2.2–8.0), patients confined to hospital for over 2 weeks (5.7%, 95% CI: 0.9–10.0), superficial incision wounds (5.6%, 95% CI: 4.4–6.8), dirty wounds (8.7%, 95% CI: 6.9–10.6), operations lasting for over 2 hours (7.3%, 95% CI: 4.9–9.7), general anaesthesia operations (4.7%, 95% CI: 2.7–6.6), emergency surgeries (5.9%, 95% CI: 4.2–7.7), and non-intra-medication operations (7.4%, 95% CI: 1.0–13.7).

Naringin, an active flavonoid isolated from citrus fruit extracts, exhibits biological and pharmacological properties, such as antioxidant activity and antidiabetic effect. Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signalling pathway has been shown to participate in hyperglycaemia-induced injury. The present study tested the hypothesis that naringin protects against high glucose (HG)-induced injuries by inhibiting MAPK pathway in H9c2 cardiac cells. To examine this, the cells were treated with 35 mM glucose (HG) for 24 hr to establish a HG-induced cardiomyocyte injury model. The cells were pre-treated with 80 lM naringin for 2 hr before exposure to HG. The findings of this study showed that exposure of H9c2 cells to HG for 24 hr markedly induced injuries, as evidenced by a decrease in cell viability, increases in apoptotic cells and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production, as well as dissipation of mitochondrial membrance potential (MMP). These injuries were significantly attenuated by the pre-treatment of cells with either naringin or SB203580 (a selective inhibitor of p38 MAPK) or U0126 (a selective inhibitor of extracellular signal regulated kinase 1/2, ERK1/2) or SP600125 (a selective inhibitor of c-jun N-termanal kinase, JNK) before exposure to HG, respectively. Furthermore, exposure of cells to HG increased the phosphorylation of p38 MAPK, ERK1/2 and JNK. The increased activation of MAPK pathway was ameliorated by pre-treatment with either naringin or N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), a ROS scavenger, which also reduced HG-induced cytotoxicity and apoptosis, leading to increase in cell viability and decrease in apoptotic cells. In conclusion, our findings provide new evidence for the first time that naringin protects against HGinduced injuries by inhibiting the activation of MAPK (p38 MAPK, ERK1/2 and JNK) and oxidative stress in H9c2 cells.Hyperglycaemia, the most important feature of diabetes mellitus (DM), is believed to be a risk factor for the development of diabetic cardiovascular complications, such as diabetic cardiomyopathy (DCM) [1,2]. The mechanisms responsible for the deteriorative effects of hyperglycaemia on cardiomyocytes are complicated. Multiple factors, such as reactive oxygen species (ROS) production [3][4][5][6][7][8], decline of antioxidant defence systems [6-10], pro-inflammatory cytokine [11][12][13], activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) [14][15][16] and mitochondrial damage [17,18] have been reported to contribute to hyperglycaemia-induced injuries. Sustained hyperglycaemia has been identified as a principle mediator of ROS generation in diabetes [3,4,14,19], which leads to oxidative myocardial injury [14,20]. Furthermore, hyperglycaemia significantly increases phosphorylation of p38 MAPK and extracellular signal regulated kinase (ERK) 1/2 (members of MAPK) in left ventricle tissue of diabetic rats [14], the increased activation of MAPK is associated with the development of diabetic cardiomyopathy [14]. In streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats, hyperglycaemia...

Backgrounds/ObjectiveSchistosomiasis is still a major public health problem in China, despite the fact that the government has implemented a series of strategies to prevent and control the spread of the parasitic disease. Advanced warning and reliable forecasting can help policymakers to adjust and implement strategies more effectively, which will lead to the control and elimination of schistosomiasis. Our aim is to explore the application of a hybrid forecasting model to track the trends of the prevalence of schistosomiasis in humans, which provides a methodological basis for predicting and detecting schistosomiasis infection in endemic areas.MethodsA hybrid approach combining the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and the nonlinear autoregressive neural network (NARNN) model to forecast the prevalence of schistosomiasis in the future four years. Forecasting performance was compared between the hybrid ARIMA-NARNN model, and the single ARIMA or the single NARNN model.ResultsThe modelling mean square error (MSE), mean absolute error (MAE) and mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of the ARIMA-NARNN model was 0.1869×10−4, 0.0029, 0.0419 with a corresponding testing error of 0.9375×10−4, 0.0081, 0.9064, respectively. These error values generated with the hybrid model were all lower than those obtained from the single ARIMA or NARNN model. The forecasting values were 0.75%, 0.80%, 0.76% and 0.77% in the future four years, which demonstrated a no-downward trend.ConclusionThe hybrid model has high quality prediction accuracy in the prevalence of schistosomiasis, which provides a methodological basis for future schistosomiasis monitoring and control strategies in the study area. It is worth attempting to utilize the hybrid detection scheme in other schistosomiasis-endemic areas including other infectious diseases.

HOX antisense intergenic RNA (HOTAIR), a long non-coding RNA, plays an important role in the development of many types of cancers. Its function in acute leukemia (AL), however, has not been examined. The present study investigated the role of HOTAIR and its downstream genes in AL, and determined whether it could act as a molecular marker for prediction of leukemia development and prognosis. Real-time quantitative PCR was used to examine the expression of each gene in the HOTAIR signaling pathway in AL patients. The relationship between expression of HOTAIR and downstream genes and AL prognosis was analyzed. Expression of HOTAIR in patients with acute monocytic leukemia (M5) was increased as compared to controls (P<0.05). Compared to patients with low HOTAIR expression, overall survival and event-free survival of patients with high HOTAIR expression was significantly reduced. In addition, the expression of downstream genes in the HOTAIR signaling pathway including EZH2, LSD1, DNMT3A and DNMT3B was significantly increased in AL patients, and showed a significant positive correlation with high expression of HOTAIR (P<0.05). In conclusion, HOTAIR was closely related with a poor prognosis in AL patients. It may be involved in the development of leukemia by mediating methylation of DNA and histones.