Primary liver cancer is the sixth most common malignancy and the third leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) constitutes the majority of primary liver cancer cases. The Liver Imaging Reporting and Data System (LI-RADS) was introduced to standardize the lexicon, acquisition, interpretation, reporting, and data collection of imaging results in patients at increased risk for HCC. LI-RADS allows effective categorization of focal liver lesions, and has been applied in the full clinical spectrum of HCC from diagnosis, biological behavior characterization, prognosis prediction, to treatment response assessment. This review aimed to summarize the recent applications of CT/MRI LI-RADS in the diagnosis, biological behavior characterization and prognosis prediction of HCC, discuss current challenges and shed light on potential future directions.
Adherence to reporting guidelines contributes to report methodology and outcomes of research distinctly and transparently. There are some checklists with specific study types related to surgery on the EQUATOR Network’s website. However, the IDEAL framework focuses on stepwise evaluation of surgical innovation through all stages with some key elements, which those existing guidelines may not mention. This likely results in the inaccuracy in reporting in studies attempting to follow the IDEAL recommendations and suggests a pressing need for IDEAL reporting guidelines. Considering these limitations, the IDEAL developed the IDEAL reporting guidelines between October 2018 and May 2019. The paper aimed to provide interpretation of IDEAL reporting guideline, and promote its understanding and use among Chinese researchers.
This study aimed to provide suggestions for future researchers to select and optimize sham acupuncture reporting guidelines in acupuncture clinical trials. Through qualitative analysis, we compared the basic information and concrete contents between Acupuncture Controls gUideline for Reporting humAn Trials and Experiments (ACURATE) and SHam Acupuncture REporting guidelines in clinical trials (SHARE) developed by researchers from China and Korea. In addition, the similarities and differences of the two guidelines were illustrated through a specific case. We found that the two guidelines had their own characteristics and emphasis in content, but both emphasized the reports of detailed information and background factors of sham acupuncture compared with the previous STRICTA and TIDieR-Placebo checklist. In terms of item division, we found that the ACURATE split the same topic into several items to emphasize the importance of each item content. SHARE emphasized the comprehensive reports of sham acupuncture by combining several items into a single item. In terms of item content, ACURATE also focused on combination therapy, the information regarding sham acupuncture provided to participants, and any differences in treatment settings between versus/sham acupuncture, which had some referential meaning for setting sham acupuncture control. SHARE also focused on sham acupuncture detailed information, practitioner, and modifications, etc. Case analysis showed that there were some "not reported" or "partially reported" items in both guidelines. Therefore, it is suggested that researchers can use the above two guidelines to complement and learn from each other to report sham acupuncture. In addition, it is necessary for researchers to verify the operability and practicability of the above two guidelines, and provide suggestions for optimizing and updating them in the future.
Chinese medicine case report, a special method, records the experience of practitioners and guides students to inherit and develop Chinese medicine. It can transfer a large amount of medical and humanistic information and contribute to the development of Chinese medicine. It is a literary style that has been widely accepted and helps to document and disseminate the culture of Chinese medicine. With the advent of big data and information, more Chinese medicine case reports have been published. However, many have insufficient quality to properly guide and apply in the clinical practice, which might be caused by little guidance of Chinese medicine case report standards published. This paper summarized the case report standards, synthesized and appraised the feasibility and problems specific for improving the quality of Chinese medicine case reports, and proposed suggestions and guidance for developing the standardization of Chinese medicine medical case reports.
According to the evidence pyramid model, systematic review (SR)/meta-analysis (MA) is one of the essential sources with a high level of clinical evidence. A high-quality SR/MA can effectively guide clinical decision-making and practice. The preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses extension for Chinese herbal medicines (PRISMA-CHM) were officially published in 2020. In this study, based on research cases, the features of PRISMA-CHM were interpreted in detail, so as to help domestic users accurately grasp the details of the reports, in order to improve the quality of the reports of SR/MA of traditional Chinese medicine.
The surgical case report（SCARE）statement is the report checklist made by European researchers in 2016, which is specialized for surgical case report. As a reference for enhancing the research quality and transparency, the SCARE statement provides a fundamental framework for surgical case reports. The last SCARE statement was revised in 2020, and this paper interprets it to provide a practical tool for domestic researchers in surgical case report.
ObjectiveTo construct a luciferase reporter fusion containing the human connective tissue growth factor (CTGF) gene promoter.MethodsThe promoter region of the human CTGF gene (-835/+214) was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using specially-designed primers, and subsequently cloned into the pGL3.0-Basic vector. Following screening and verification by single colony PCR, double digestion, and sequencing, the resulting pGL3.0-Basic-CTGF was used to transfect the human embryonic kidney cells 293T, human bronchial epithelial cells HBE and human lung epithelial cells A549, and its function in each cell line was determined by luciferase assay.ResultsSequence alignment showed 99.5% identity, suggesting successful construction of the pGL3.0-Basic-CTGF reporter fusion. Promoter activities were detected 48 hours after transfection of pGL3.0-Basic-CTGF into the 293T, HBE, and A549 cells, and the promoter activities were 2.416, 0.027, and 0.121, respectively (P<0.01). Moreover, the luciferase activity in the A549 cells was statistically higher than that in the HBE cells (P<0.01).ConclusionsThe human pGL3.0-Basic-CTGF luciferase reporter fusion has been successfully constructed. The construct exhibits promoter activity in the bronchial epithelial cells HBE and the lung epithelial cells A549, and can therefore serve as a useful tool for future research in transcriptional regulation.
Consensus reporting items for studies in primary care (CRISP) is a newly developed measurement tool developed abroad to standardize primary health care research, so as to improve the quality of reporting and enhance the applicability, comprehensiveness, transparency and operability of reporting. The report contains 24 Entries that follow the Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion (IMRaD) format, and is primarily concerned with describing the research team, the patients, the study subjects, the health status, the clinical experience, the health care team, the interventions, the study interventions, and the findings in the PHC study / implementation of results, etc. This article introduces and interprets the reporting guidelines to help researchers better understand and apply this statement to improve the quality of reporting in primary health care research
The American Thoracic Society Committee Task Force on Standards for Pulmonary Function had recommended a standardized reporting format for pulmonary function tests due to considerable variability in pulmonary function reports presented to end users, which might lead to potential confusion and miscommunication. This recommendation includes seven parts: overview, introduction, methods, report format, selecting and reporting reference values, grading the quality of pulmonary function tests and conclusions. This document presents a reporting format in test-specific units for spirometry, lung volumes, and diffusing capacity that can be assembled into a report appropriate for a laboratory’s practice. Recommended reference sources are updated, with especially emphasizing to adapt lower limit of normal (LLN) or z score instead of percent of prediction to estimate the abnormal results. This document provides detail and clear explanation on the recommendations, which might improve the interpretation, communication, and understanding of test results. However, parts of recommendation might not be used directly in our clinical practice owing to some specific conditions in China. We suggest to use appropriate normal predictions from Chinese population, to include small airway parameters such as mid-maximal expiratory flow for early detection of pulmonary function deterioration, and to include inspiratory flow volume curve, as well as strengthen the quality control data and figures in the report format.
N-of-1 trials are prospective clinical randomized cross-over controlled trials with multiple rounds of trial phase alternation designed with regard to a single patient. N-of-1 trials can provide clinical decision-makers with high-level evidence of the comparison of effect of intervention measures. Recently, an international team composed of many scholars published a SPIRIT extension for N-of-1 trials list (SPENT 2019) on the BMJ, with the purposes of clarifying the content design and improving the integrity and transparency of N-of-1 trial protocols. This article showed a detailed interpretation of the 14 main extension sub-items of the SPENT 2019 list with specific cases, aiming to further standardize the publication of domestic N-of-1 trials.