Background: Bone turnover markers (BTMs) have been studied for application in clinical medicine. However, BTMs in children are challenging, and few studies explore these BTMs in children. The application of BTMs is complicated mainly due to pre‐analytical factors, variable reference intervals of age‐ and sex‐related BTMs for adolescents and children in different regions and laboratories. Therefore, laboratory testing of BTMs is critical for understanding pediatric bone development and metabolism, which provides additional information about bone development and diseases.Methods: Literature search was conducted using the MeSH term “child” combined with the terms that bone turnover markers such as “osteocalcin,” “Procollagen type I N‐terminal propeptide,” “procollagen type I C‐terminal propeptide,” “osteocalcin,” “N‐terminal cross‐linked telopeptide,” and “C‐terminal cross‐linked telopeptide,” Several databases including Web of Science, Google Scholar, and PubMed were searched to obtain the relevant studies.Results: BTMs represent the combined effects of skeletal development, growth, and remodeling in children, which can be used in clinical pediatrics to assist in the diagnosis and prognosis of bone metabolic disorders.Conclusion: BTMs are clearly helpful for diagnosis and monitoring of bone growth and development as well as bone metabolic disorders.

Objectives. To determine the bone metabolic marker changes from childhood to adolescence and to provide reference values for monitoring bone development in children in Southwest China. Methods. We surveyed 703 participants attending physical examinations from April 2019 and August 2021. Twenty-eight participants were excluded for lack of laboratory tests, and 14 people were excluded for diseases that might affect bone metabolism. A total of 661 children were selected for the study. According to the main developmental periods, the children were divided into preschool, preadolescence, and adolescence groups. Serum bone turnover markers including β-isomerized C-terminal telopeptide of type I collagen (β-CTx), N-terminal midfragment of osteocalcin (N-MID), and procollagen type 1 N-propeptide (P1NP) as well as growth and development indices such as serum calcium (Ca), phosphorus (Pi), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), and vitamin D were measured. The changes in bone metabolism-related markers and the correlations between the indices were analyzed. Results. During the development in boys, the levels of β-CTx and N-MID increased with age from preschool to adolescence, while the levels of P1NP decreased and then increased. In girls, the levels of β-CTx and N-MID plateaued in early adolescence and showed little change in subsequent adolescence, while the levels of P1NP exhibited a downward trend. The correlations between bone metabolism markers and vitamin D were not significant. Conclusions. The levels of bone metabolism markers differed between boys and girls. Reference intervals can be used as essential tools to examine the levels of bone metabolism markers reasonably.

Objective: To evaluate the consistency between the results of Sysmex UF‐5000 system and Atellica® UAS 800 Urine Sediment Analyzer.Methods: A total of 636 random urine samples were collected from inpatients and outpatients from March to September 2021. Urine was collected for analysis by the Sysmex UF‐5000, Atellica UAS 800 systems, and manual microscopic examination. The results of manual microscopy as the gold standard, the coincidence rate and false‐negative rate of Sysmex UF‐5000 and Atellica UAS 800 systems in the detection of red blood cells, white blood cells, and casts were calculated.Results: The coincidence rates of red blood cells, white blood cells, and cast, crystals, and other sediment components for the Sysmex UF‐5000 system were 85.37%, 87.89%, 91.67%, 88.36%, and 71.86%. The false‐negative rates were 28.47%, 3.75%, 68.97%, 37.25%, and 30.63%. The coincidence rates of red blood cells, white blood cells, and cast, crystals, and other sediment components for the Atellica UAS 800 system were 85.06%, 90.25%, 59.12%, 91.67%, and 67.45% and the false‐negative rates were 60.42%, 21.25%, 36.21%, 19.64%, and 35.80%.Conclusion: Two instruments are superior in the detection of red blood cells and white blood cells. The Atellica UAS 800 system with image review has a good coincidence rate in the identification of crystals and casts. The identification of various sediment components in urine by both instruments meets the laboratory requirements. Two instruments with different methodologies have their own characteristics, and we should reasonably use them according to the conditions of the laboratory.

Background: We aimed to assess the association between red cell distribution width-to-platelet ratio (RPR) and hepatic fibrosis in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Methods: The 388 subjects fulfilling the diagnostic criteria of Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. Red cell distribution, platelet, and other clinical and laboratory parameters were measured. Results: NAFLD patients with advanced fibrosis had significantly higher RPR than those without fibrosis (P < .001). Spearman correlation analysis showed that RPR were significantly correlated with age, sex, creatinine, hemoglobin, white blood cell, and advanced fibrosis (all with P < .05). Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that RPR was an independent factor predicting advanced fibrosis (fibrosis-4 calculator ≥1.3) in NAFLD patients (OR: 5.718, 95%CI: 3.326–9.830, P < .001). Conclusions: Our findings suggested that RPR were significantly associated with advanced fibrosis in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease patients.

Introduction: Intraamniotic infection is crucial in preterm prelabor rupture of membranes(PPROM), a clinical condition resulting from the invasion of vaginal opportunistic microbes into the amniotic cavity. Although previous studies have suggested potential associations between infection and PPROM, the role of vaginalopportunistic bacteria in PPROM has received limited attention.Methods: This study aimed to confirm the vaginal bacterial etiology of PPROM. We investigated vaginal microbiotas using automatic analysis of vaginal discharge, microbiological tests, and 16s rRNA genehigh-throughput sequencing.Results: The research findings revealed that the proportion of parabasal epitheliocytes, leukocytes, toxic leukocytes, and bacteria with diameters smaller than 1.5 um was significantly higher in the PPROM group than that in the normal full-term labor (TL) group. The top three vaginal opportunistic bacterial isolates in all participants were 9.47% Escherichia coli, 5.99% Streptococcus agalactiae, and 3.57% Enterococcus faecalis. The bacterial resistance differed, but all the isolates were sensitive to nitrofurantoin. Compared with the vaginal microbiota dysbiosis (VMD) TL (C) group, the VMD PPROM (P) group demonstrated more operational taxonomic units, a high richness of bacterial taxa, and a different beta-diversity index. Indicator species analysis revealed that Lactobacillus jensenii, Lactobacillus crispatus, and Veillonellaceae bacterium DNF00626 were strongly associated with the C group. Unlike the C group, the indicator bacteria in the P group were Enterococcus faecalis, Escherichia coli, and Streptococcus agalactiae.Discussion: These findings provide solidevidence that an abnormal vaginal microbiome is a very crucial risk factorclosely related to PPROM. There were no unique bacteria in the vaginalmicrobiota of the PPROM group; however, the relative abundance of bacteria inthe abnormal vaginal flora of PPROM pregnancies differed. Antibiotics should bereasonably selected based on drug sensitivity testing. The findings presented in this paper enhance our understanding of Streptococcus agalactiae, Enterococcus faecalis, and Escherichia coli vaginal bacterial etiology of PPROM in Western China.