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.

The value of pharmacokinetic parameters derived from dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) in distinguishing pituitary microadenoma subtypes was investigated in the present study. Pathology and follow-up outcomes were applied as the gold standard for differentiating between 76 patients with pituitary microadenomas (38 prolactin-producing tumors, 17 adrenocorticotropic hormone adenomas and 21 growth hormone-producing tumors) and 20 patients with normal pituitary glands. DCE-MRI was conducted to obtain the following quantitative permeability parameters: Volume transfer constant (K trans ), rate constant (K ep ) and extracellular extravascular volume fraction (V e ). Among the 76 cases included, 61 were visually diagnosed using conventional MRI. The K trans , K ep and V e of the microadenoma cases were 0.472±0.292/min, 0.765±0.359/min and 0.792±0.345, respectively. The K trans , K ep and V e of the normal control group were 0.902±0.238/min, 1.208±0.599/min and 0.928±0.378, respectively. The K trans and K ep of patients with microadenomas were significantly lower compared with those of the normal controls (P<0.05). However, the V e of the two groups did not significantly differ. Subtype differentiation analysis revealed that patients with growth hormone-producing tumors exhibited the highest K trans value (P<0.05). K ep significantly differed between growth hormone-producing tumors and the other two subtypes (P<0.05), but did not significantly differ among three subtypes. Receiver-operator characteristic analysis indicated that the area under the curve values of K trans and K ep were 0.884 and 0.728, respectively. Sensitivity and specificity were 95.0 and 82.6%, respectively, when K trans was set to 0.614/min as the cut-off value, and when the K ep cut-off value was set to 0.985/min, sensitivity and specificity were 60.0 and 81.3%, respectively. In conclusion, K trans and K ep derived from DCE-MRI could be applied to detect and identify microadenoma subtypes. K trans better reflects the blood perfusion alterations exhibited by patients with different microadenoma subtypes.

The early diagnosis of lung cancer is closely associated with the decline of mortality. A panel consisting of seven lung cancer-related autoantibodies (7-AABs) has been shown to be a reliable and specific indicator for the early detection of lung cancer, with a specificity of ~90% and a positive predictive value of ~85%. However, its low sensitivity and negative predictive value limit its wide application. To improve its diagnostic value, the diagnostic efficiencies of 7-AABs in combination with non-specific tumor markers were retrospectively investigated for the detection of early-stage lung cancer. A total of 217 patients with small lung nodules who presented with ground-glass opacity or solid nodules as well as 30 healthy controls were studied. The concentrations of 7-AABs and heat shock protein 90a (HSP90a) were assessed using ELISA. Automated flow fluorescence immune analysis was used for the assessment of CEA, CYFRA21-1, CA199 and CA125 levels. The results showed that 7-AABs + HSP90a possessed a remarkably improved diagnostic efficiency for patients with small pulmonary nodules or for patients with lung nodules of different types, which suggested that 7-AABs in combination with HSP90a could have a high clinical value for the improvement of the diagnostic efficiency of early-stage lung cancer.

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Background: Non-small cell lung (NSCLC) holds high mortality owing to the difficulty to early detection from other lung mass, such as tuberculosis. This study evaluates the clinical value of the combination of circulating cell-free DNA (cfDNA) quantification and metabolic tumor burden to distinguish NSCLC from tuberculosis. Methods: A total of 149 NSCLC patients, 151 tuberculosis patients and 150 healthy controls were included. Quantifying serum cfDNA fragments from ALU (115 bp) gene by RT-PCR. Metabolic tumor burden (SUV-Maxa) values were detected by preoperative the 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT). A549 cell, NCI–H460 cell, NSCLC and tuberculosis mice model were used to elucidate the specific mechanism. Results: Serum cfDNA levels and SUV-Maxa were higher in NSCLC patients than those in healthy controls and those in tuberculosis. Meanwhile, mice models showed the similar discovery. In addition, obvious correlations of cfDNA and metabolic tumor burden were only existed in NSCLC patients and mice model, rather than tuberculosis and control. Moreover, the combination of cfDNA and metabolic tumor burden displayed better effect to distinguish NSCLC from tuberculosis than alone use. Mechanistically, upregulated Glucose transporter 1 (GLU1) increased necroptosis-induce cfDNA rise by FasL/caspase 8/caspase 3 pathway and promoted metabolic tumor burden in NSCLC. Conclusions: The combination of cfDNA and metabolic tumor burden displayed better effect to distinguish NSCLC from tuberculosis, owing to upregulated GLU1 increased cfDNA levels by FasL/caspase 8/caspase 3 pathways and promoted metabolic tumor burden in NSCLC.