Rejected

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a clinically common and expensive disease. Patients frequently take sick leaves because of pain and dysfunction, and their unpleasant life and work experiences cause psychological depression and anxiety and affect their quality of life. Sleep disturbance is a common problem among patients with low back pain (LBP) with more than 50% complaining about poor sleep quality. This study aimed to explore the correlations between anxiety, sleep quality, and pressure-pain threshold (PPT) and their differences between patients with CLBP and asymptomatic people.

Although individuals infected with HIV for the first time manifest a series of acute syndromes, most patients show mild or no symptoms, which complicates the initial clinical diagnosis. Early diagnosis is important for effective prevention and management of patients. Metagenomic next-generation sequencing technology (mNGS) can rapidly detect a wide range of pathogenic microorganisms, even in atypical cases. However, to date, few studies have reported the application of mNGS to diagnose acute HIV infection with aseptic meningitis.

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is one of the most common sexual dysfunctions in men. The prevalence of ED has been increasing in recent years, which has critically affected male reproductive health and quality of life. According to various guidelines, phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors are the most commonly recommended drugs for treating ED. However, many patients turn to alternative therapies because of adverse reactions, such as headache, and the poor efficacy of these drugs. Acupuncture is a long-established treatment in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and has been approved by the World Health Organization for improving penile erection as well as other discomforts in patients. However, previous systematic reviews have not discussed the characteristics and the related mechanisms of acupuncture treatment. Therefore, this study focuses on summarizing the characteristics and advantages of TCM in acupuncture treatment for ED based on relevant literature and on predicting and analyzing the related mechanisms.

Previous studies have reported that children who were admitted to the ICU experienced a significant decrease in sleep quality compared to home. We investigated the effects of dexmedetomidine as an adjunct to sufentanil on the sleep in children admitted to the ICU on the first night after major surgery.

Naringenin (NRG) is a plant-derived flavonoid. Due to its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic activities it is beneficial to human health and is often used as a functional food ingredient; however, it has poor water solubility and low bioavailability. Therefore, the efficacy of NRG can be improved by enhancing its water solubility to increase gastrointestinal absorption. Conventional methods for the formulation of NRG are very complex and use toxic organic solvents, making them impractical for the production of functional foods. The objective of this study was to develop a safe and effective NRG-based functional food material. Previously, we established a technology to prepare amorphous solid dispersions (SDs) from functional food ingredients with poor water solubility and used hot-melt extrusion technology that is comparatively simple and does not involve the use of organic solvents. In this study, we prepared NRG SD and evaluated them both physicochemically and biochemically. NRG SD had superior water solubility and gastrointestinal absorption relative to native NRG and showed higher analgesic efficacy in rats than crystalline NRG. NRG SD was administered to mice in a mixed diet for 28 days, and organ weights and hematological/clinical biochemical parameters were assessed. NRG SD did not demonstrate severe adverse effects. The results suggest that NRG SD is a safe and highly efficacious formulation that can be used as a functional food material in the future.

The adjuvant-induced arthritis (AIA) model is widely used in research to investigate arthritis pathogenesis. Hind paw inflammation is the main outcome in this model with high loss of mobility function partly related to pain. However, analgesics such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or opioid drugs interfere with the inflammation process related to arthritis, thus reducing their beneficial use in this model. Therefore, we investigated the effect of nefopam on arthritis development in order to improve pain management in the AIA model.

This cross-sectional study assessed the quality of life and related factors of Vietnamese women during perimenopause in terms of vasomotor, psychosocial, physical, and sexual aspects.

Sphenoid wing meningiomas present close contact with intracranial arteries and have great potential for vascular complications. Here, we describe the case of a patient who presented a medial left giant lesser sphenoid wing meningioma involving the supraclinoid carotid artery. One week after surgery, she developed vasospasm whose treatment using milrinone achieved excellent results.

SARS-CoV-2 infection has various manifestations including neurological and musculoskeletal system involvement. COVID-19 infection causes peripheral nerve lesions including small fibre neuropathy. Complex regional pain syndrome is a debilitating neurological condition manifested by predominantly pain associated with other sensory, motor, autonomic and tropic involvement. Identification and early treatment of CRPS has better prognosis. Here, we report a 21-year-old woman presented with pain, hyperalgesia, and swelling of left upper and lower limb following SARS-CoV-2 infection managed as possible complex regional pain syndrome.

Intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD), being the predominant root cause of lower back pain, has led to an enormous socioeconomic burden in the world. Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent nonapoptotic and nonpyroptotic programmed cell death associated with an increase in reactive oxygen species (ROS), which has been implicated in the pathogenesis of IDD. Activation transcription factor 3 (ATF3) is widely reported to promote ferroptosis and apoptosis in multiple diseases, but its roles and underlying regulatory mechanism in IDD have not been identified. FAoptosis is defined as a mixed cell death consisting of ferroptosis and apoptosis. The loss- and gain-of-function experiments demonstrated that ATF3 positively regulated -butyl hydroperoxide- (TBHP-) induced nucleus pulposus cell (NPC) FAoptosis, ROS production, inflammatory response, and extracellular matrix (ECM) degradation. Furthermore, silencing ATF3 ameliorated the progression of IDD , whereas its overexpression showed the opposite phenotype. Bioinformatics analysis and molecular experiments corroborated that ATF3 is a direct target of miR-874-3p, suggesting that the upregulation of ATF3 in IDD might be caused at least in part due to the downregulation of miR-874-3p in IDD, thereby relieving the inhibition of ATF3 by miR-874-3p. The findings revealed that ATF3 has the potential to be used as a promising therapeutic target against IDD.