Our study aims to summarize the clinical characteristics of patients with severe or critically ill coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Five databases were electronically searched to collect studies describing clinical characteristics of severe or critically ill COVID-19 patients and published between January 1, 2020 and April 12, 2020. Three reviewers independently collected the literature, extracted the required data, and assessed the risk of publication bias of the included studies before including the studies in the meta-analysis. A total of 40 studies involving 2459 patients with severe or critically ill COVID-19 patients were included. Meta-analysis showed that a greater proportion of severe or critically COVID-19 patients were male (62.3%), and the 2 main clinical symptoms were fever (87.4%) and cough (66.3%). Other common clinical symptoms included dyspnea (45.3%), chest tightness (37.4%), fatigue (36.6%), and expectoration (31.9%). Minor symptoms included myalgia (19.5%), dizziness (11.5%), headache (11.4%), diarrhea (11.2%), pharyngalgia (11.0%), nausea, and vomiting (5.9%). Most patients showed elevated levels of C-reactive protein (83.5%) and D-dimer (73.3%), lymphopenia (70.3%), and normal leukocyte counts (56.9%). Other findings included abnormal levels of liver function (39.8%), elevated procalcitonin (36.6%), leukocytosis (21.7%), thrombocytopenia (19.0%), and leucopenia (18.2%). Most patients showed acute respiratory distress syndrome (60.8%). Other complications included acute cardiac injury (37.1%), shock (32.0%), and acute kidney injury (22.0%). The most common symptoms of severe or critically ill COVID-19 patients were fever and cough. Most patients showed lymphopenia, elevated levels of C-reactive protein and D-dimer. A large percentage of patients progress to ARDS, acute cardiac injury, acute kidney injury and shock were also common.

The concurrent use of trastuzumab and anthracycline-based neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) has been proposed to improve the pathologic complete response (pCR) rate, although there are conflicting views about its efficacy and safety. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy and cardiac safety of the concurrent use of trastuzumab and anthracycline-based NAC for human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive locally advanced breast cancer. We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane databases from inception until July 1, 2017, for relevant articles. A total of 13 studies were included in the meta-analysis. The results showed that the pCR rate was significantly higher in the concurrent use of trastuzumab and anthracycline group (45%) than that in the nonconcurrent use group (32%) (OR: 2.36, 95% CI: 1.69–3.30, P10% (OR: 1.26, 95% CI: 0.55–2.88, P=0.59), and in terms of cardiac failure (OR: 2.17, 95% CI: 0.24–19.84, P=0.49), when comparing the concurrent use of trastuzumab and anthracyclines with their nonconcurrent use. In conclusion, the concurrent use of trastuzumab and anthracycline-based NAC for certain HER2-positive locally advanced breast cancers significantly improves the pCR rates without obvious increases in the cardiotoxicity.

Considered as an essential measure in the application of soil seed bank (SSB) projects, the mixing of substrate and surface soil can effectively improve soil condition. This research is aimed at exploring the diversity characteristics of SSBs and the relationships between SSBs and soil properties. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) was adopted to describe the ordination of SSBs on soil properties’ gradients; multiple linear regressions were adopted to analyze the relationship between average growth height and soil properties, density and soil properties. Experimental groups of mixed substrate (the mixture of organic and inorganic substrates) had high diversity indexes, especially the Shannon-Wiener Index compared with those of single substrate. Meanwhile, a higher number of species and increased density were also noted in those of mixed substrate. The best test group, No.16, had the highest diversity indexes with a Shannon-Wiener of 1.898, Simpson of 0.633 and Pielou of 0.717, and also showed the highest density of 14000 germinants /m² and 21 species. In addition, an improvement of the soil’s chemical and physical properties was noted when the substrates were mixed. The mixed substrate of turfy soil and perlite could effectively enhance the soil moisture content, whilst a mixed substrate of rice husk carbon and vermiculite could improve the content of available potassium (AK) and phosphorus (AP) and strengthen soil fertility. The germinated plants also reflected obvious regularities of ordination on soil factor gradients. Three distinct cluster groups were presented, of which the first cluster was distributed in an area with a relatively higher content of AK and AP; the second cluster was distributed at places with relatively higher soil moisture content; and the third cluster of plants didn’t show any obvious relationship with soil physical and chemical properties. Through CCA analysis, AK and AP were considered the most important soil factors to influence the SSB, which was illustrated in regression analysis with a high correlation coefficient when dependent values were growth height and density respectively. The linear regression equations with: growth height = 142.728 − 1.514TC + 30.218AP − 5.083TN + 10.839AK + 1.234mc; density = −68.216 − 4.609TC + 9.566AP − 35.492TN + 19.779AK − 1.591mc.were established by multiple linear regression. (1) The mixed substrates showed a greater advantage for SSBs than single substrates, both in improving the number of species, density and diversity indexes. (2) The germinated plants reflected an obvious preference to different soil conditions, which different mixed substrates could improve accordingly. (3) AK, AP were important soil factors to influence SSBs, especially in the growth of plants and density.

// <![CDATA[ $('.header-date').hide();$('#titleAuthors').hide();$('#abstractHeader').hide(); // ]]> Lin-Jie Lu1, 2, *, Vishnu Prasad Adhikari1, *, Chun-Xia Zhao1, *, He Wu1, *, Wei Dai1, *, Xin Li1, Hong-Yuan Li1, Guo-Sheng Ren1, Kai-Nan Wu1 and Ling-Quan Kong1 1Department of Endocrine and Breast Surgery, The First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 400016, China 2Department of Thyroid and Breast Surgery, Liuzhou People’s Hospital, Liuzhou 545006, China *These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Ling-Quan Kong, email: huihuikp@163.com Keywords: breast cancer, hepatitis B virus, risk factor, etiology, breast oncohepatology Received: August 27, 2016 Accepted: June 04, 2017 Published: July 10, 2017 ABSTRACT Purpose: Chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is reported to be associated with early-onset breast cancer, while, as a hepadnavirus, hepatitis B virus(HBV) infection is more common than HCV in China. In this article, it is aimed to study the relationship between HBV infection and risk of breast cancer in China. Methods: The clinical data of 2452 cases of initially diagnosed breast cancer and 1926 cases of benign breast disease (as controls) with the consecutive reports of HBV serological markers and liver function tests, available in the Electronic Medical Records of the Breast Cancer Center of Chongqing, the southwest of China, from January 2011 to March 2015, were collected for analysis. Results: The average age of the initially diagnosed breast cancer patients was 50.3±11.3 years with the age peaking about 40- 49yeaers (39.7%). The positive rate (8.2%) of hepatitis B surface antigen in breast cancer patients was relatively higher than that (7.8%) in controls (P>0.05). While, the positive rate (66.4%)of hepatitis B core antibody in breast cancer patients was significantly higher than that (53.7%) in controls (P<0.05), so were the similar results in the age groups of 40-49 years, after multiple layer analysis stratified by age and compare HBV markers adjusting age with binary logistic regression. Meanwhile, the status of albumin, aminotransferase and aspartate transaminase (41.4 g/L, 22.9 U/L, 22.0 U/L) in breast cancer patients were significantly poorer than those (44.1 g/L,16.8 U/L, 19.2 U/L) in controls (P<0.05). Conclusions: Exposure to HBV infection may be a risk factor for breast cancer and may be also related to the earlier age onset of breast cancer (peaked around 40-49 years) among Chinese females.