Little is known about the maternal-to-neonatal intrapartum transmission of COVID-19 via vaginal route. In this study, we report the adverse pregnancy outcomes in pregnant women infected with COVID-19 pneumonia and the risk of intrapartum transmission of COVID-19 via vaginal route. None of the three neonates were infected with COVID-19 delivered via natural birth. Only one neonate was delivered prematurely. No neonatal death and stillbirth were observed in pregnant women infected with COVID-19. Moreover, all of the neonates had normal birth weight, birth length, and normal Apgar score.

A retrospective analysis in patients with EGFR-mutant lung adenocarcinoma: is EGFR mutation associated with a higher incidence of brain metastasis?

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) play important roles in intercellular communication through the delivery of their cargoes, which include proteins, lipids, and RNAs. Increasingly, multiple studies have reported the association between EV small non-coding RNAs and cancer, due to their regulatory functions in gene expression. Hence, analysis of the features of small non-coding RNA expression and their incorporation into EVs is important for cancer research. We performed deep sequencing to investigate the expression of small RNAs in plasma EVs from lung adenocarcinoma (ADC) patients, lung squamous cell carcinoma (SQCC) patients, and healthy controls. Then, eighteen differently expressed miRNAs in plasma EVs was validated by QRT-PCR. The small RNA expression profiles of plasma EVs were different among lung ADC, SQCC patients, and healthy controls. And many small RNAs, including 5′ YRNA hY4-derived fragments, miR-451a, miR-122-5p, miR-20a-5p, miR-20b-5p, miR-30b-5p, and miR-665, were significantly upregulated in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) EVs. And the cell viability assays indicated that hY4-derived fragments inhibited the proliferation of lung cancer cell A549. By comparing the cellular and EV expression levels of six miRNAs in NSCLC cells, we found that miR-451a and miR-122-5p were significantly downregulated in NSCLC cell lysates, while significantly upregulated in NSCLC EVs. The differently expressed EV small RNAs may serve as potential circulating biomarkers for the diagnosis of NSCLC. Particularly, YRNA hY4-derived fragments can serve as a novel class of biomarkers, which function as tumor suppressors in NSCLC. Additionally, miR-451a and miR-122-5p may be sorted into NSCLC EVs in a selective manner.

COVID-19 has created havoc in the world by causing thousands of demises in a short period of time. Up till now, several attempts have been made for potential therapeutics against SARS-COV2. In this retrospective, single-center study, we extracted data from 122 COVID-19, RT-PCR confirmed patients. who were treated with a new treatment strategy of lianhuaqingwen with Arbidol Hydrochloride. The patients were either asymptomatic or had mild symptoms for COVID-19 disease. Of 122 patients 21 (17.21%) patients developed severe conditions of COVID-19, while total 111 (90.9%) experienced mild symptoms such as fever in 93 (76.22%) patients, cough in 23 (20.17%) and muscle pain were observed in total 8 (7%) patients. Furthermore our newly applied drugs combination (Lianhuaqingwen and Arbidol Hydrochloride) showed therapeutic effects in 5–7 days in patients with mild symptoms with 98% recovery rate. These results indicate that COVID-19 patients with mild symptoms can be treated with Lianhuaqingwen and Arbidol Hydrochloride. However, extensive clinical investigations are required to confirm the effectiveness of these drugs.