A novel computational drug repurposing approach for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) treatment using Semantic Web technologies

Influence of “Hospital-Community-Family” Integrated Management on Blood Pressure, Quality of Life, Anxiety and Depression in Hypertensive Patients

Objective

To explore the Influence of “hospital-community-family” integrated management on blood pressure, quality of life, anxiety and depression in hypertensive patients.

Methods

A total of 60 patients with hypertension were treated in our hospital from July 2019 to July 2021. The patients were randomly divided into control group (n =30) and study group (n =30). The former accepts routine management, while the latter accepts “hospital-community-family” integrated management. Nursing satisfaction, blood pressure, disease awareness rate, anxiety and depression scores, disease control ability and quality of life scores were compared.

Results

First of all, we compared the nursing satisfaction: the study group was very satisfied in 25 cases, satisfactory in 4 cases, general in 1 case, the satisfaction rate was 100.00%, while in the control group, 10 cases were very satisfied, 8 cases were satisfied, 7 cases were general, and 5 cases were dissatisfied, the satisfaction rate was 83.33%; The nursing satisfaction of the study group was higher than that of the control group (P <0.05). Secondly, we compared the level of blood pressure. There was no significant difference before management (P >0.05) but the blood pressure decreased after treatment. In the control group, the level of blood pressure in the study group was lower than that in the control group (P <0.05). In terms of disease awareness rate the scores of hypertension related knowledge hypertension harmfulness community management methods regular reexamination and blood pressure monitoring in the study group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P <0.05). There was no significant difference in anxiety and depression scores before treatment (P >0.05), but decreased after treatment. Compared with the control group, the anxiety and depression scores of the study group were lower (P <0.05). In terms of disease control ability, the total scores of diet management, medication management, behavior management and information management in the study group were higher compared to the control group (P <0.05). Finally, we compared the scores of qualities of life. Before management, there exhibited no significant difference (P >0.05). After management, the scores of quality of life decreased. Compared to the control group, the scores of physiological function, psychological function, social function and health self-cognition in the study group were lower than those in control group (P <0.05).

Conclusion

The application of integrated “hospital, community and family” management can vertically integrate medical resources and establish a truly effective hierarchical treatment model. Integrated “hospital-community-family” management can improve patient compliance with treatment, enhance patients' self-management ability and confidence, and improve the management efficiency of medical staff.

The Imaging Characteristics of Lens Subluxation on the Ultrasound Biomicroscopy

Background

To evaluate the imaging characteristics of the lens subluxation with the use of ultrasound biomicroscopy.

Methods

From October 2018 to September 2019, 55 eyes diagnosed with lens subluxation were enrolled in the group. All patients underwent detailed eye examination and panoramic ultrasound biomicroscopy.

Results

The most common sites of lens suspensory ligament injury were superior temporal side (32.73%) and superior nasal side (23.63%). The most common range of subluxation in all patients was 30°. Comparing the measurement indicators of all patients, ciliary body thickness (CBT) in affected eyes was smaller than that in healthy eyes (0.79 ± 0.21, 1.04 ± 0.16), the distance between ciliary process and crystal equator increased (1.91 ± 0.70, 1.17 ± 0.32), and iris-ciliary processes distance (ICPD) increased (1.04 ± 0.51, 0.80 ± 0.17) (P < 0.05). The range of subluxation in patients with lens subluxation was positively correlated with the distance between ciliary processes and the crystal equator.

Conclusions

The ultrasound biological microscope has a good application significance in the diagnosis of lens subluxation. From this study, we suggest that the three indexes of CBT, ICPD, and the distance between the ciliary process and crystal equator are of high reference value in ultrasound biomicroscopy among patients with lens subluxation.

Recent Progress in Traditional Chinese Medicines and Their Mechanism in the Treatment of Allergic Rhinitis

Objective

To conduct a systematic review on the mechanism of action and use of traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) in allergic rhinitis treatment.

Background

Allergic rhinitis (AR) is a type I allergic disease of the immune system induced by immunoglobulin E mediated inflammation and is characterized by sneezing, nasal itching, paroxysmal nasal obstruction, mucosal edema, cough, and rhinorrhea. More than 500 million people have been affected by rhinitis worldwide in the past 20 years, leading to negative effects on health, quality of life, and social relationships. Currently, the trending medicines used in the case of AR include intranasal corticosteroids and oral H1 antihistamines, which are given as combinatorial medicines supplemented with immune therapy. These medications have been found to be very effective in either the short term or long term; however, they have been found to possess some serious side effects. Search Methodology. The information in this article on classical and traditional Chinese medications used to treat AR was derived from original papers and reviews published in Chinese and English language journals. Two Chinese databases (Wanfang and CNKI) and three English databases (Cochrane Library, PubMed, and Embase) were utilized for data gathering.

Results

Traditional Chinese remedies have been identified to influence the production of cytokines such as IL-5 and IL-6, which are key mediators of eosinophilic inflammation, TNF-α, which stimulates TH2 cells at the site of inflammation, and NF-кB, which is required for cytokine and IgE antibody production. TCM has also been shown to be successful in lowering histamine levels, preserving histological changes by decreasing the thickness of the lamina propria, and downregulating the expression of Orai1, STIM1, and TRYC1, showing low expression of Ca⁺² channel proteins.

Conclusion

In this review, we discussed a series of classical, traditional Chinese medications, including Centipeda minima, Scutellaria baicalensis, licorice root (Glycyrrhiza uralensis), and others, as potential antiallergic agents and investigate their in vivo effect upon the production of cytokines and release of histamines for allergic rhinitis treatment.

Anti-DDI Resource: A Dataset for Potential Negative Reported Interaction Combinations to Improve Medical Research and Decision-Making

Potential drug-drug interactions (DDIs) are a core concern across medical decision support systems. Among healthcare practitioners, the common practice for screening these interactions is via computer software. However, as real-world negative reporting is missing, counterexamples that serve as contradictory evidence may exist. In this study, we have developed an anti-DDI resource, a set of drug combinations having negative reported interactions. This resource was created from a set of the top 200 most-used drugs, resulting in 14365 prospective negative reported DDI pairs. During analysis and filtering, 2110 DDIs (14.69%) were found in publicly free DDI resources, another 11130 (77.48%) were filtered by a rule-based inference engine incorporating ten mechanisms of interaction, and 208 were identified through commercial resources. Additionally, 90 pairs were removed due to recent FDA approvals or being unapplicable in clinical use. The final set of 827 drug pairs represents combinations potentially having negative reported interactions. The anti-DDI resource is intended to provide a distinctly different direction from the state of the art and establish a ground focus more centered on the evaluation and utilization of existing knowledge for performing thorough assessments. Our negative reported DDIs resource shall provide healthcare practitioners with a level of certainty on DDIs that is worth investigating.

A Data-Driven Medical Decision Framework for Associating Adverse Drug Events with Drug-Drug Interaction Mechanisms

Adverse drug events (ADEs) occur when multiple drugs interact within an individual, thus causing effects that were not initially predicted. Such toxic interactions lead to morbidity and mortality. Contemporary research surrounding ADEs has tended to focus on the detection of potential ADEs without great concern for elucidating the associations of drug-drug interaction (DDI) mechanisms that can predict potential adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Such associations are of great practical importance for everyday pharmacovigilance efforts. This study presents a data-driven framework for conducting knowledge-driven data analysis that combines a semantic inference system and enrichment analysis in order to identify potential ADE mechanisms. The framework was used to rank mechanisms according to their relevance for DDIs and also to categorize ADEs based on the number of DDI mechanism associations identified through enrichment analysis. Its validity is demonstrated through using both commercial and publicly available DDI resources. The results of this study solidly prove the framework's effectiveness and highlight potential for future research by way of incorporating additional and broader data to deepen and expand its capabilities.

Improving bioinformatics software quality through incorporation of software engineering practices

BACKGROUND

Bioinformatics software is developed for collecting, analyzing, integrating, and interpreting life science datasets that are often enormous. Bioinformatics engineers often lack the software engineering skills necessary for developing robust, maintainable, reusable software. This study presents review and discussion of the findings and efforts made to improve the quality of bioinformatics software.

METHODOLOGY

A systematic review was conducted of related literature that identifies core software engineering concepts for improving bioinformatics software development: requirements gathering, documentation, testing, and integration. The findings are presented with the aim of illuminating trends within the research that could lead to viable solutions to the struggles faced by bioinformatics engineers when developing scientific software.

RESULTS

The findings suggest that bioinformatics engineers could significantly benefit from the incorporation of software engineering principles into their development efforts. This leads to suggestion of both cultural changes within bioinformatics research communities as well as adoption of software engineering disciplines into the formal education of bioinformatics engineers. Open management of scientific bioinformatics development projects can result in improved software quality through collaboration amongst both bioinformatics engineers and software engineers.

CONCLUSIONS

While strides have been made both in identification and solution of issues of particular import to bioinformatics software development, there is still room for improvement in terms of shifts in both the formal education of bioinformatics engineers as well as the culture and approaches of managing scientific bioinformatics research and development efforts.