Background: Relevant studies focusing on epidemiological of profiles hypertensive disorders of pregnancy from global data that report the cause-specific prevalence and trends of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy at global, regional and national levels from 1990 to 2019 by age and sociodemographic index are still limited. Methods: For hypertensive disorders of pregnancy, point prevalence, annual incidence, and years lived with disability numbers and age standardized rates per 100,000 population were compared at regional and national levels by age and sociodemographic index using data from the global Burden of Disease 2019 Study, covering populations from 204 countries and territories. Estimates are reported with uncertainty intervals to exhibit the changing trends during a specific period. Results: The incidence of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy increased from 16.30 million to 18.08 million globally, with a total increase of 10.92 % from 1990 to 2019. The age-standardized incidence rate decreased, with an estimated annual percent change of -0.68 (95 % confidence interval [CI] -0.49 to -0.86). The number of deaths due to hypertensive disorders of pregnancy was approximately 27.83 thousand in 2019, representing a 30.05 % decrease from 1990. Based on the incidence and prevalence, the number of deaths and years lived with disability were highest in the group aged 25–29 years, followed by the groups aged 30–34 and 20–24 years, while the lowest estimated incidence rate was observed in the group aged 25–29 years and higher incidence rates were observed in the youngest and oldest groups. Positive associations between incidence rates and the sociodemographic index and human development index were found for all countries and regions in 2019. Age-standardized incidence rates were higher in countries/regions with lower sociodemographic indices and human development indices. Conclusions: Our study provides a comprehensive overview of the global burden of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. The death and incidence rates are decreasing in most countries and all regions except for those with low sociodemographic and human development indexes. This difference is mainly due to the increasing attention to prenatal examinations and health education. Further investigations should focus on forecasting the global disease burden of specific hypertensive disorders of pregnancy and modifiable risk factors.

Background: Peptic ulcer disease (PUD) is a common digestive disorder, of which the prevalence decreased in the past few decades. However, the decreasing tendency has plateaued in recent years due to changes in risk factors associated with the etiology of PUD, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug use. In this study, we investigated the epidemiological and the sociodemographic characteristics of PUD in 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2019 based on data from the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries and Risk Factors (GBD) Study. Methods: Demographic characteristics and annual prevalence, incidence, mortality, disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and age-standardized death rate (ASR) data associated with PUD were obtained and analyzed. According to the sociodemographic index (SDI), the numbers of patients, ASRs, estimated annual percentage changes and geographical distributions were assessed with a generalized linear model and presented in world maps. All evaluations of numbers and rates were calculated per 100,000 population with 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs). Results: In 2019, the global prevalence of PUD was approximately 8.09 [95% UI 6.79–9.58] million, representing a 25.82% increase from 1990. The age-standardized prevalence rate was 99.40 (83.86–117.55) per 100,000 population in 2019, representing a decrease of 143.37 (120.54–170.25) per 100,000 population from 1990. The age-standardized DALY rate in 2019 was decreased by 60.64% [74.40 (68.96–81.95) per 100,000 population] compared to that in 1990. In both sexes, the numbers and ASRs of the prevalence, incidence, deaths and DALYs were higher in males than in females over 29 years. Regionally, South Asia had the highest age-standardized prevalence rate [156.62 (130.58–187.05) per 100,000 population] in 2019. A low age-standardized death rate was found in the high-income super-region. Among nations, Kiribati had the highest age-standardized prevalence rate [330.32 (286.98–379.81) per 100,000 population]. Regarding socioeconomic status, positive associations between the age-standardized prevalence, incidence, death rate, DALYs and SDI were observed globally in 2019. Conclusions: Morbidity and mortality due to PUD decreased significantly from 1990 to 2019, while a gradual upward inclination has been observed in recent 15 years, which might be associated with changes in risk factors for PUD. Attention and efforts by healthcare administrators and society are needed for PUD prevention and control.

Background. It has been reported that circRNAs are differentially expressed in a wide range of cancers and could be used as a new biomarker for diagnosis. However, the correlation between circRNAs and gastric cancer (GC) it is still unclear. Materials and Methods. In this study, by using real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reactions (qRT-PCRs), we detected the expression level of hsa_circ_0001649 in tissue and serum samples from GC patients. Results. We found that hsa_circ_0001649 expression was significantly downregulated in GC tissue compared with their paired paracancerous histological normal tissues (PCHNTs) (P<0.01). We next analyzed the expression level of hsa_circ_0001649 in serum samples between preoperative and postoperative GC patients. We found that its level in serum was significantly upregulated after surgery (P<0.01). The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was 0.834. Moreover, the expression level of hsa_circ_0001649 was significantly correlated with pathological differentiation (P=0.039). Conclusion. Our test suggested that hsa_circ_0001649 was significantly downregulated in GC and may become a novel potential biomarker in the diagnosis of GC.

Cancer is a devastating disease, and there is no particularly effective treatment at present. Recently, a new treatment, cold atmospheric plasma (CAP), has been proposed. At present, CAP is confirmed to have selective killing effect on tumor by many studies in vitro and in vivo. A targeted literature search was carried out on the study of cold atmospheric plasma. Through analysis and screening, a narrative review approach was selected to describe therapeutic effects of cold atmospheric plasma on solid tumor. According to the recent studies on plasma, some hypothetical therapeutic schemes of CAP are proposed in this paper. The killing mechanism of CAP on solid tumor is expounded in terms of the selectivity of CAP to tumor, the effects of CAP on cells, tumor microenvironment (TME) and immune system. CAP has many effects on solid tumors, and these effects are dose-dependent. The effects of optimal doses of CAP on solid tumors include killing tumor cells, inhibiting non-malignant cells and ECM in TME, affecting the communication between tumor cells, and inducing immunogenic death of tumor cells. In addition, several promising research directions of CAP are proposed in this review, which provide guidance for future research.

A simple approach using Nelumbo nucifera seeds for synthesizing silver nanoparticles with potential antibacterial and cytotoxic activities was described.

Malignant tumours of the appendix are quite rare, especially appendiceal adenocarcinomas, which may be difficult to detect preoperatively or intraoperatively. We collected data for 1404 patients with adenocarcinoma of the appendix from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program (SEER) database to explore the potential associations between clinicopathological factors and overall survival. Furthermore, a novel nomogram for predicting prognosis was developed based on our analysis of the SEER data. The nomogram prediction model included seven prognostic factors derived based on different clinical estimates. When compared with the traditional tumour-node-metastasis (TNM) staging system, the nomogram prediction model showed superior discriminatory power (Harrell’s C-index, 0.741 vs. 0.686) and a greater degree of similarity to actual 5-year overall survival after calibration (Akaike Information Criterion index, 5270.781 vs. 5430.141). Finally, we provide recommendations for the management of patients with adenocarcinoma of the appendix. Notably, we found the depth of adenocarcinoma invasion may be used as an indicator to determine the optimal surgical approach. For mucinous adenocarcinomas of the appendix, because these tumours are characterized by unique biological behaviour, intraoperative hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) is recommended. However, whether systematic chemotherapy should be administered to patients with adenocarcinoma of the appendix requires further investigation.