Background:Telomerase activity is closely associated with the expression of human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) mRNA; although it can be induced in hepatocytes during liver regeneration, its dynamic change in patients with liver failure has remained unclear.Objectives:We investigated the variation and significance of hTERT mRNA expression in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) of the patients with liver failure.Patients and Methods:In this clinical experimental study, 76 Chinese patients were enrolled in the study between 2010 and 2012. The level of PBMCs hTERT mRNA was detected by relative quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) in the samples taken before treatment and at seven-day intervals during a 28-day treatment period. The patients were divided into survivor and non-survivor groups according to the 3-months mortality after treatment. The dynamic variation of PBMCs hTERT mRNA was analyzed and its association with prognosis was assessed by the area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve.Results:The median level of PBMCs hTERT mRNA in survivors increased with treatment time and was significantly higher than the corresponding level in non-survivors after 14 days of treatment (P < 0.001). Subgroup analyses showed that the levels of PBMCs hTERT mRNA were remarkably higher in patients with acute-on-chronic liver failure than in those with chronic liver failure (P < 0.05). In patients with the same clinical type of liver failure, the level was markedly higher in survivors than in non-survivors after 14 days of treatment (P < 0.05); however, the levels were not significantly different between subgroups with different clinical type but the same prognosis. The sensitivity and specificity of PBMCs hTERT mRNA was high in evaluating the prognosis at day 14 and became much higher at days 21 and 28 post treatment. The expression of PBMCs hTERT mRNA had high sensitivity and specificity in evaluating the prognosis as early as day 14 post treatment and was significantly superior to the prognostic value of serum alpha-fetoprotein.Conclusions:The expression of PBMCs hTERT mRNA is closely associated with patient outcome, which indicates that hTERT mRNA in PBMCs might be useful as a prognostic biomarker of liver failure.

The study aimed to explore the relationship between eosinophils and the prognosis of varicella in adults. We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients who were hospitalized in The Fifth People's Hospital of Suzhou with a diagnosis of adult varicella during the period between 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2020. Of the 359 patients, 228 (63.51%) had eosinopenia. The proportion of patients with mild type disease was significantly lower in the eosinopenia group than in the noneosinopenia group (50.44% vs. 65.65%, P=0.006). The proportion of the patients with common type disease was significantly higher in the eosinopenia group than in the noneosinopenia group (39.47% vs. 28.24%, P=0.039).The proportion of the patients with severe type disease was higher in the eosinopenia group, although the difference did not reach statistical significance (10.09% vs. 6.11%, P = 0.243).

Background: Pneumonia (COVID-19) caused by the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak attracted global attention. However, early prognostic biomarkers on clinical outcomes about COVID-19 patients is not clear by now. Methods: We collected the clinical data of the 85 COVID-19 patients confirmed in the local hospital. The patients' clinical baseline data, serological data, outcome data were retrospectively analyzed. This study aimed to figure out monitoring values for early prediction of clinical outcome. Results: Dynamic monitoring of laboratory examination indicators during hospitalization showed that the second week is a critical time window of disease progression. Beginning on the 8th day, severely reduced lymphocytes accompanied by a severe increase in inflammation indicators and abnormally high fibrinogen occurred in serious patients. Plasma fibrinogen was increased (5.23 vs 3.87 g/L, P < 0.001), and lymphocyte count (0.71 vs 1.42 109/L, P < 0.0001) was significantly reduced. On the 8th day of disease course, when the lymphocyte count was lower than 1.23×109/L, the time of negative conversion of viral nucleic acid was prolonged (P = 0.051), and imaging showed that the chest CT absorption time was prolonged (P < 0.01). When fibrinogen was greater than 4.24, the time to viral nucleic acid negative conversion was prolonged (P < 0.01), and imaging showed that chest CT absorption time was prolonged (P < 0.001).Conclusion: the Lymphocyte count might be related to clinical outcome events. It could act as laboratory indicators of disease severity.