The current study aimed to investigate whether prognostic nutritional index (PNI) is an independent predictor of acute kidney injury (AKI) and mortality of patients in the coronary care unit (CCU). In the present two‑stage observational study of patients in the CCU, 6,444 patients from the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC) III database were first enrolled (test cohort), after which 412 patients from Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University were recruited in the validation cohort. AKI was defined based on the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes AKI criteria. The primary endpoint was the incidence of AKI stratified by severity, while the second endpoint included in‑hospital mortality and 2‑year mortality. In the test cohort, 4,457 (69.2%) patients developed AKI during hospitalization. Following multivariable adjustment, the highest quartile of the PNI value was associated with a 1.8‑fold increased risk of AKI compared with the lowest quartile. For the prediction of AKI, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve outperformed the acute physiology score III score and clinical model in patients with or without preexisting chronic kidney disease, and this was further validated in the hospital cohort used in the present study. A total of 2,219 patients suffered mortality during the 2‑year follow‑up, and PNI was indicated to independently predict the risk of in‑hospital mortality and 2‑year mortality in the test cohort and in the validation cohort. Decision curve analysis indicated that the PNI values were clinically useful; Therefore, the current study demonstrated that the PNI value is an independent predictor of AKI and mortality in patients within the CCU.

Nerve regeneration remains a challenge to the treatment of peripheral nerve injury. Electrical stimulation (ES) is an assistant treatment to enhance recovery from peripheral nerve injury. A conductive nerve guide conduit was prepared from hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC)/soy protein isolate (SPI)/PANI sponge (HSPS) and then the HSPS conduits were used to repair 10 mm sciatic nerve injury in rat model with or without ES, using HSPS+brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and autografts as controls. The nerve repairing capacities were evaluated by animal experiments of behavioristics, electrophysiology, toluidine blue staining, and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in the regenerated nerves. The results revealed that the nerve regeneration efficiency of HSPS conduits with ES (HSPS+ES) group was the best among the conduit groups but slightly lower than that of autografts group. HSPS+ES group even exhibited notably increased in the BDNF expression of regenerated nerve tissues, which was also confirmed through in vitro experiments that exogenous BDNF could promote Schwann cells proliferation and MBP protein expression. As a result, this work provided a strategy to repair nerve defect using conductive HSPS as nerve guide conduit and using ES as an extrinsic physical cue to promote the expression of endogenous BDNF.

Solitary fibrous tumor (SFT) is a rare mesenchymal neoplasm originating in the central nervous system (CNS), with imaging features currently not well known. The purposes were to describe and characterize clinical features and imaging findings of CNS SFT. We retrospectively reviewed computed tomographic (CT; n = 10) and magnetic resonance (MR) images (n = 18) of 22 patients with SFT (13 males and 9 females; mean, 47.6 years) with associated clinical records. Each lesion was found as a solitary, well-defined mass, ranging in size from 12 to 70 mm (mean, 38 mm). The tumor shape was roundlike in 16 cases (72.7%) and irregular in 6 cases (27.2%). The cerebellopontine angle zone was the most affected area (n = 6). On precontrast CT scans, 10 cases showed predominantly hyperattenuation (n = 9) and isoattenuation (n = 1). No lesion contained calcification, and 2 cases showed bone invasions. All 18 tumors examined by MR imaging showed homogeneous hypointensive (n = 5) or isointensive (n = 7) signal intensity and heterogeneous mixed isointense and hypointense signal intensity (n = 6) on T1-weighted images, whereas most tumors were predominantly isointense (n = 13) and hypointense (n = 4) to the cortex on T2-weighted images; on postcontrast CT and MR images, enhancement was marked homogeneous (n = 10) or heterogeneous (n = 12). Fourteen tumors had thickening of the meninges adjacent to the tumor. Although SFT is a rare neoplasm in the CNS, it should be considered in the differential diagnosis. The most affected area is the cerebellopontine angle zone. Solitary fibrous tumor tends to have some imaging features, such as high attenuation on CT, isointense to hypointense signal intensity on MR images, and marked enhancement.

Three-dimensional (3D) printing is widely used in medicine. Most research remains focused on forming rigid anatomical models, but moving from static models to dynamic functionality could greatly aid preoperative surgical planning. This work reviews literature on dynamic 3D heart models made of flexible materials for use with a mock circulatory system. Such models allow simulation of surgical procedures under mock physiological conditions, and are; therefore, potentially very useful to clinical practice. For example, anatomical models of mitral regurgitation could provide a better display of lesion area, while dynamic 3D models could further simulate in vitro hemodynamics. Dynamic 3D models could also be used in setting standards for certain parameters for function evaluation, such as flow reserve fraction in coronary heart disease. As a bridge between medical image and clinical aid, 3D printing is now gradually changing the traditional pattern of diagnosis and treatment.