Health economics analysis has become increasingly important in recent years. It is essential to master the use of relevant software to conduct research in health economics. TreeAge Pro software is widely used in the healthcare decision analysis. It can carry out decision analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis, and Monte Carlo simulation. With powerful functionlity and outstanding visualization, it can build Markov disease transition models to analyze Markov processes according to disease models and accomplish decision analysis with decision trees and influence diagrams. This paper introduces cost-effectiveness analysis based on Markov model with examples and explains the main graphs.
ObjectiveTo investigate the efficacy and safety of bortezomib combined with dexamethasone and thalidomide regimens on aged patients with multiple myeloma.
MethodsA total of 166 multiple myeloma patients were selected between January 2009 and June 2013; all patients were assigned to regimens of T-VD or T-VAD named T-VD group or T-VAD group (with 25 patients in T-VD group and 29 in T-VAD group). Efficacies and toxicities were analyzed and compared after two cycles.
ResultsOverall response rate (OR) in T-VD group was 84.0%; there was 6 patients achieved complete response (OR) or very good partial response (VGPR) (24.0%). However, Overall response rate (OR) in T-VAD group was 48.3%; there was only one patient achieved CR or VGPR (3.4%); significant difference between two groups was found (χ2=7.513, P<0.05). The major adverse reactions were debilitation, nausea, vomiting, myelo-suppression, cardiac toxicity, and peripheral neuropathy. There were highest incidence of nausea and vomiting in T-VAD group compared to T-VD group (χ2=5.794, P<0.05).
ConclusionBortezomib combined with dexamethasone and thalidomide regimens is effective and safe, which can be widely used for aged patients with multiple myeloma.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) involves dysregulation of the innate immune response of complement and mononuclear phagocytes and abnormalities of local microglia. When microglia transition from a resting state to an active state, their metabolic pathway also changes, known as "metabolic reprogramming", and their glucose metabolic reprogramming is a key factor in the pathogenesis of AMD, involving multiple signaling pathways. Including phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-serine threonine kinase-rapamycin target, adenylate activated protein kinase and hypoxia-inducing factor 1 pathway. These metabolic changes regulate the inflammatory response, energy supply, and neuroprotective functions of microglia. Therapeutic strategies to regulate the reprogramming of glucose metabolism in microglia have achieved initial results. Future studies should further explore the mechanisms of microglia metabolic regulation to develop new targeted drugs and intervene in the treatment of AMD through anti-cellular aging pathways.
Lipid globules in retina and choroid are new definitions based on pathology and high-resolution optical coherence tomography (OCT). OCT examination shows that the lipid globules are low reflective circular cavities in the choroid and retina, without strong reflective boundaries around them, followed by a characteristic superreflective tail. It occurs in healthy human eyes and in age-related macular degeneration characterized by retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) atrophy. Its characteristic superreflective tail is the key to distinguishing it from other diseases. At present, the understanding of lipid globules is still in the initial stage. Although lipid globules can be observed in healthy human eyes, a certain prevalence rate indicates that they are associated with choroidal hypoperfusion and RPE atrophy. In the future, larger randomized controlled trials and longer follow-up time are needed to explore its pathogenesis, pathological characteristics and treatment prognosis.
Objective To determine whether the basal characteristics and survival of young patients undergoing surgical resection of nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) differ from those of elderly patients. And, we would discuss the special perioperative management in elderly patients with NSCLC. Methods 178 NSCLC patients who underwent surgery in our hospital between Jan. to Dec. in 2002 were divided into two groups according to age. Young group comprised 89 patients aged 50 years or younger and elderly group comprised 89 patients aged 70 years or older. The patients’ clinical data, operative style,postoperative complications and survival results were reviewed and analysed. Results The proportion of the elderly group squamous cell carcinoma patients was higher than that of the younger group （χ2=9.281,P=0.000.）,but there was no significant difference between the gender, smoking, histology, TNM stage, type of resection, post operation chemotherapy or radiotherapy（χ2≤5.569，Pgt;0.05）. The incidence of the preoperative cardiovascular disease, chronic bronchitis in the elderly group patients were higher than those of younger group（χ2=14.053，P=0.000;χ2=13.044，P=0.000）.The incidence of postoperative complications was significantly higher in elderly group than those of younger group（χ2=12842，P=0.000）. The 1, 3 and 5year survival rates were 71.43％，33.53％ and 27.83％ in elderly group, and 77.78％，46.67％ and 44.07％ in young group, respectively. However, the 1, 3 and 5year survival rates for patients in two groups showed no difference between two groups（Pgt;0.05）. Conclusion The elderly patients have higher operative risk than that of young patients. We should pay more attention to the perioperative management of elderly patients. The elderly patients could get acceptable long term survival rates through surgical treatment. Operation is still the first choice for elderly patients with NSCLC.
Objective To assess the vision-related quality of life(VRQL) in patients with age-related maculopathy (AMD) and the related factors in Shanghai. Methods The VRQL of 105 patiens with AMD and 105 without (the control group) in Shanghai was investigated via Chinese-version low vision quality of life questionnaire. Resutls The Cronbach α coefficient of the questionnaire is 0.97 in the patients with AMD, whose scores of the various quality of life were significantly lower than those in the control group. The more the exudative defect happened, or the longer the disease course developed, the lower the sccores were. All the scores of the scales and the total questionnaire were significantly related to the better or worse monocular visual acuity. The better monocular visual acuity was the first independent risk factor affecting all aspects of VRQL in pateints with AMD. Conclusions Decreased visual acutiy may gradually impair the VRQL in patients with AMD. Chinese-version questionnaire of low vision quality of life can provide the general information of the VRQL in patients with AMD.(Chin J Ocul Fundus Dis，2004，20：303-306)
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) represents a significant cause of visual impairment and blindness in individuals over 65 years old. In recent years, gene therapy has emerged as a research hotspot for wet AMD, with adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors being widely utilized due to their non-pathogenic nature, low immunogenicity, broad tissue tropism, and capacity for sustained transgene expression. Several related studies have progressed to clinical trial stages. Although challenges persist, including immunogenicity concerns, limited vector capacity, and potential long-term adverse effects, the continuous advancement of research strategies and technologies holds promise. Future developments may employ AAV delivery systems to achieve gene supplementation, gene editing, or gene silencing of angiogenesis-related signaling molecules, thereby providing novel therapeutic approaches for wet AMD.
ObjectiveTo determine the retinal thickness of normal children 3-6 years old and its relationship with the age and gender.
MethodsIn a cross-sectional study, 480 eyes of 240 normal preschool children including 115 male and 125 female, ages 3 to 6 years in the urban of Beijing, China were included. The average age was (4.93±0.77) years old. The visual acuity, slit-lamp microscopy and frequency domain optical coherence tomography (FD-OCT, Optvue, Inc. USA) were examined. The retinal thickness of the macular fovea and 500, 750, 1500 μm from temporal and nasal side around the fovea were measured. 32 eyes were excluded from the study because they couldn't cooperate. Pearson correlation analysis was used to determine the correlation between age and macular retinal thickness. Independent samples group t-test was used to compare the differences between boys and girls.
ResultsThe mean thickness of macular fovea was (169.10±20.587) μm. The mean macular thickness of boys was significantly higher than girls (t=-4.549, -6.167, -5.492, -5.163, -6.749, -7.494, -6.874; P≤0.001). The mean thickness of 500 μm and 750 μm from nasal side of macular fovea were significantly higher than temporal side (t=5.594, 15.778, 7.678, 18.180; P < 0.001). There was no significant relevance between macular thickness and age.
ConclusionsThe mean macular thickness of boys is significantly higher than girls in normal children in the urban of Beijing. There is no significant relevance between macular thickness and age.
Subtype classification of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) based on optical coherence tomography (OCT) images serves as an effective auxiliary tool for clinicians in diagnosing disease progression and formulating treatment plans. To improve the classification accuracy of AMD subtypes, this study proposes a keypoint-based, attention-enhanced residual network (KPA-ResNet). The proposed architecture adopts a 50-layer residual network (ResNet-50) as the backbone, preceded by a keypoint localization module based on heatmap regression to outline critical lesion regions. A two-dimensional relative self-attention mechanism is incorporated into convolutional layers to enhance the representation of key lesion areas. Furthermore, the network depth is appropriately increased and an improved residual module, ConvNeXt, is introduced to enable comprehensive extraction of high-dimensional features and enrich the detail of lesion boundary contours, ultimately achieving higher classification accuracy of AMD subtypes. Experimental results demonstrate that KPA-ResNet achieves significant improvements in overall classification accuracy compared with conventional convolutional neural networks. Specifically, for the wet AMD subtypes, the classification accuracies for inactive choroidal neovascularization (CNV) and active CNV reach 92.8% and 95.2%, respectively, representing substantial improvement over ResNet-50. These findings validate the superior performance of KPA-ResNet in AMD subtype classification tasks. This work provides a high-accuracy, generalizable network architecture for OCT-based AMD subtype classification and offers new insights into integrating attention mechanisms with convolutional neural networks in ophthalmic image analysis.
Objective To analyze the incidence and mortality of asthma in China from 1990 to 2019, and to explore the influence of age, period and cohort on the incidence and mortality of asthma. Methods Using the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2019 database, the incidence and mortality of asthma in China from 1990 to 2019 were analyzed, and the time variation trend of age-standardized incidence and mortality was analyzed by using Joinpoint software, and the average annual variation percentage was calculated. The age-period-cohort model was constructed to analyze the influence of age, period and birth cohort on the incidence and mortality trend of asthma. Results In 2019, the incidence of asthma in China was 264.44/100 000, and the mortality rate was 1.74/100 000. The incidence rate of asthma in males (300.94/100 000) and mortality rate (1.99/100 000) were higher than those in females (226.51/100 000 and 1.49/100 000). From 1990 to 2019, the age-standardized incidence of asthma in China showed a downward trend, but the trend was not statistically significant (P>0. 05), and the age-standardized mortality showed a downward trend, with an average annual decrease of 4.90%, with a statistically significant trend (P<0.05). The results of age effect showed that the incidence of asthma in China showed a downward trend, and the death first showed a downward trend, and then increased in the age group of 55-59. The results of period effect show that the risk of asthma is decreasing, and then it is increasing from 2015 to 2019, and the risk of asthma mortality is decreasing. The results of cohort effect show that the later people are born, the lower the risk of asthma onset and death. The death of asthma is attributed to behavioral risk, high body mass index and tobacco, and the occupational risk tends to decrease. ConclusionsFrom 1990 to 2019, the incidence and mortality of asthma in China showed a decreasing trend, and the incidence and mortality of men were higher than that of women. The risk factors of behavioral risk, high body mass index and tobacco were still on the rise, so corresponding measures should be taken to carry out early screening, early detection, and early treatment for key populations.
