Background AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) has become the most devastating disease which humankind has ever encountered. Human immune-deficiency virus (HIV) is transmitted through blood, sexual behavior and mother-to-baby, with more efficient transmission through blood transfusion. HIV risk among blood transfusion was severe due to lack of effective and correctly applied screening method and rigorous management, especially in some developing countries. Since the first HIV screening reagent was approved by FDA to screen the blood in 1985, the fourth generation test has been produced till now. Initially, HIV test was primarily used to screen the blood supply, it also became an important aspect of HIV prevention, especially screening among people donating blood. Today, HIV testing is seen as an integral part of both the nation’s prevention and treatment efforts. Objective To assess the effectiveness of any intervention tests for HIV screening among people donating blood, and find appropriate tests for HIV screening to decrease the risk of HIV transmission by blood transfusion. Search strategy MEDLINE, Cochrane Controlled Trials Register (CENTRAL/CCTR), AIDSLINE, EMBASE, CBM were be searched with the terms: "HIV", "AIDS", "screening", "test", "blood donor", "blood bank" and the detailed screening method. The websites of WHO, UNAIDS, CDC, FDA, and their related links were searched. Letters were mailed to various agencies and experts in this field to acquire unpublished reports. Inclusion criteria RCT and CCT for screening HIV among blood. donors will be included. Observational studies such as cohort studies, cased-control studies, and historical controlled studies will be used for sensitivity analysis. Method of the review According to the principles of Cochrane Review, selection of trials for inclusion, quality assessment of studies, data extraction and syntheses were conducted by reviewers.
Master protocol with adaptive design is a new complex innovative trial design that combines an adaptive treatment strategy and master protocol. It is more flexible and adjustable. In the complex clinical trial environment, the dynamics emphasized in this design are consistent with the idea of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome differentiation and treatment. In this study, we summarized its concept, characteristics and advantages, and we also discussed its application in TCM clinical research. We hope this paper can provide more thinking and suggestions for TCM clinical trials.
The master protocol platform trial is a trial in which multiple treatments or different combinations of treatments are consistently evaluated in the context of a single disease, possibly within several sub-studies for different disease subtypes, allowing multiple treatments to enter or exit the trial platform based on a certain decision algorithm. Compared with the traditional clinical trial design, the master protocol platform trial as a scientific innovative model of clinical trial can accelerate drug evaluation to deal with the contradiction between the awaited evaluation of numerous drugs and lack of effective therapy for diseases. By using the large-scale randomized controlled clinical trial for COVID-19 inpatients (RECOVERY) led by the University of Oxford in the UK in 2020 as an illustration, this paper introduced the concept, design principle, and basic trial process of the master protocol platform trial to provide methodological references for clinical research of drugs.
ObjectiveTo observe and analyze the clinical characteristics of children who died of intraocular retinoblastoma (RB). MethodsA retrospective clinical study. Fourteen children (23 eyes) with intraocular RB who died after receiving treatment in Beijing Children's Hospital from 2009 to 2017 were included in the study. Among the children, there were 7 males (10 eyes) and 7 females (13 eyes); 5 had unilateral and 9 had bilateral tumor. Age were 17.2±15.5 months. All children underwent RetCam examination. RB was staged according to the international intraocular RB classify. Among the 23 eyes, 1 eye was in stage B, 2 eyes were in stage C, 12 eyes in stage D, and 8 eyes in stage E. Treatment methods included a systemic (vincristine, etoposide and carboplatin) chemotherapy (VEC chemotherapy), enucleation surgery, and vitrectomy. The basic conditions including age, time of diagnosis, pathological diagnosis, treatment and main causes of death were retrospectively analyzed. ResultsAmong the 14 cases, the first symptom was leukemia in 12 cases, red eye in 1 case, and squintin in 1 case. Systemic VEC chemotherapy was used for 1-6 courses of treatment; 5 cases were enucleated, 3 cases underwent histopathological examination; 3 cases were treated with vitrectomy. Among the 3 cases who underwent histopathological examination, the sclera and optic nerve, optic nerve and optic disc were invasted respectively. Seven patients died of tumor metastasis and/or intracranial lesions (50.0%, 7/14); the median survival time was 19 months. Four patients died of treatment (28.6%, 4/14), including 3 patients died of chemotherapy-related side effects, and 1 died of organ failure after enucleation surgery (7.1%); the median survival time was 3.5 months. Early abandonment of treatment died in 3 cases (21.4%, 3/14); the median survival time was 15 months. ConclusionIntracranial metastasis is the main cause of death in children with intraocular RB.
Background In the latter of 20th century, a global growth in allergic diseases has been witnessed, accompanying with spring-out of therapeutic drugs. However, trials did not clarify the comparative effectiveness and pharmaceutical economics of these agents. Severe adverse drug effects have been reported increasingly in the last few years. These made it difficult for clinical practice and selection of national essential drugs. Objective To assess astemizole, loratadine, cetirizine and tefenadine for allergic rhinitis (AR) and urticaria in terms of effectiveness, heart-related drug adverse effects and pharmaceutical economics. Search strategy Cochrane Library, Medline, Embase and Chinese Biomedical Database will be searched. Additional database should be searched for safety and economic studies. Selection Criteria The publication languages are restrained to English and Chinese. 1) Effectiveness: high-quality randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and systematic Reviews (SRs)/ meta-analysis for AR and uritcaria are included, with comparisons restrained to among these four drugs; 2) Safety: a hierarchy of evidences of these four drugs for allergic diseases are included. 3) Economical evaluation: cost-effectiveness and cost-utility assessment of these four drugs for AR and urticaria should be included. Methods of review data extraction sheet and quality appraisal table are separately designed. QUOROM STATEMENT and Jadad Scale are applied, respectively, to SRs and RCTs. Two reviewers independently select the studies, appraise the quality and extract the data. Any disagreement is solved by discussion. Data analysis Fixed effect model is first applied. Sensitivity analysis is employed to study the heterogeneity between trials. Randomized effect model is alternatively used when compromised.
In order to reduce osmotic damage and chemical toxicity of cryoprotectants (CPA) to oocytes during unloading process, the microfluidic chip was used to remove CPA from porcine MⅡ oocytes in this study. Firstly, the effects of unloading time, composition and concentration of diluting solutions of microfluidic method on survival rate and developmental capacity of oocytes were studied, then microfluidic method was compared with traditional one-step and two-step CPA unloading protocols. The results showed that when the total time is 8 minutes, the survival rate and morula rate of oocytes treated with microfluidic method could achieve 95.99% ± 4.64% and 74.17% ± 1.18%, respectively, which were not significantly different from fresh control group (98.53% ± 2.94%; 78.22% ± 1.34%). In addition, 1 mol/L sucrose diluting solutions were more beneficial than other solutions, and it was also showed that microfluidic method achieved better survival, cleavage rate of oocytes than traditional methods. Microfluidic CPA removal protocol can reduce the damage to oocytes during unloading process, and may further improve the cryopreservation effect of oocytes.
ObjectiveTo investigate effects of vitamin K2 in combination with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) on proliferation, migration, and invasiveness of hepatocellular carcinoma cells in vitro. MethodsHuman hepatocellular carcinoma PLC/RAF/5 cells were cultured in vitro and exposed to vitamin K2 (10 μmol/L) and 5-FU (10 μg/mL) alone or in combination for 24 h. The cell proliferation, migration, and invasiveness were measured by CCK-8 assay, wound-scratch assay, and Matrigel invasion chamber assay, respectively. ResultsThe abilities of proliferation, migration, and invasion of PLC/RAF/5 cells were significantly decreased after either alone vitamin K2 or 5-FU treatment (all P<0.05) as compared with the control cells, and above effects were further enhanced by the vitamin K2 in combination with 5-FU treatment as compared with either alone drug treatment (all P<0.05). ConclusionCombination use of vitamin K2 and 5-FU might be an effective method for inhibiting growth, migration, and invasiveness of hepatocellular carcinoma cells.
ObjectiveTo compare the clinical efficacy and complications of intra-arterial chemotherapy (IAC) and intravenous chemotherapy (IVC) for unilateral advanced retinoblastoma (RB). MethodsA retrospective clinical study. From January 2020 to January 2021, 40 patients (40 eyes) unilateral group cT2 RB patients diagnosed at Baoding Children’s Hospital and Beijing Children’s Hospital were recruited in this study. There were 22 males (22 eyes) and 18 females (18 eyes). All were monocular. All the patients were assigned to two groups according to different treatment modalities they received: IVC group and IAC group. There were 26 eyes and 14 eyes, respectively. When the tumor invades the optic nerve, choroid, sclera, anterior chamber and iris, enucleation was performed. The globe salvage rate, tumor extraocular metastasis rate, solid tumor control rate, treatment-related complications and pathological high-risk factors after enucleation were observed. The globe salvage rate and solid tumor control rate were compared between the groups by chi square test. ResultsThe globe salvage rate of IAC group and IVC group were 88.5% (23/26) and 50.0% (7/14), respectively. Solid tumor control of IAC group and IVC group were 84.6% (22/26) and 42.9% (6/14), respectively. There were statistically significant differences in globe salvage rate and solid tumor control between the two groups (χ2=7.18, 7.56; P＜0.05). Compared with IVC group, IAC group had less systemic complications, mild ocular and periocular side effects. Among 26 cases in IAC group and 14 cases in IVC group, 3 and 7 cases underwent enucleation respectively. The results of pathological examination showed that there were 2 cases and 3 cases with pathological high-risk factors in the two groups, respectively. During the follow-up period, 2 cases in IAC group had extraocular metastasis, there was no extraocular metastasis in IVC group. ConclusionCompared with IVC, IAC has the advantages of high tumor control rate, high globe salvage rate, less and mild complications, however, there is still tumor recurrence.
Background Hepatitis B is one of the major infectious diseases of mankind, and up to now, there is no effective way to handle it. Recent clinical trials have shown the potential advantages of Kurorinone an extract of Chinese herb, in treament of chronic HBV infection. Objectives Systermically review the safety and efficacy of Kurorinone in treatment of chronic HBV infection. Search strategy With the searching terms including Kurorinone, its products’ name, hepatitis B and chronic carrier status, the trials registers of the Cochrane Hepato- Biliary Group, the Cochrane Complementary Medicine Field, and the central database of the Cochrane Library as well as MEDILINE, EMBASE and Chinese Biomedical CD Database were searched from their date of inception onward. 20 Chinese medical journals and relevant academic conference proceedings have been searched by hand. The reference lists of identified documents were checked as the complementary search. Inclusion Criteria All RCTs that tested Kurorinone for chronic HBV infection were included in this review. Method of the review According the demand of Cochrane systematic review, selection of trial for inclusion, assessment of methodological quality, data extraction and data syntheses would be conducted for each included trial.
Precision medicine is a personalized medical system based on patients' individual biological information, clinical symptoms and signs, forming a new clinical research model and medical practice path. The basic idea of traditional Chinese medicine and the concept of precision medicine share many similarities. The basket trial developed for precision medicine is also suitable for clinical trials and evaluation of the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine syndrome differentiation and treatment systems. Basket trials are used to evaluate the efficacy of a drug in the treatment of multiple diseases or disease subtypes. It has the advantages of sharing a master protocol, unifying management of subsidiary studies, simplifying the test implementation process, unifying statistical analysis, saving resources, reducing budgets and accelerating the drug evaluation progress. This is similar to the concept of using the "same treatment for different diseases" found in traditional Chinese medicine. This paper introduced the concept and method of basket trials and explored their application and advantages in clinical research into traditional Chinese medicine. This study is expected to provide references for the methodological innovation of clinical research into traditional Chinese medicine.