Efficacy and Safety of Ivarmacitinib, a Selective JAK1 Inhibitor, in Patients With Active Ankylosing Spondylitis: Results From an Adaptive Seamless Phase 2/3 Trial.

Objective: This randomized, double-blind, adaptive phase 2/3 trial aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of ivarmacitinib, a novel selective JAK1 inhibitor, in patients with active ankylosing spondylitis (AS).

Methods: In phase 2, patients were randomized (1:1:1:1) to receive ivarmacitinib at a dose of 2, 4, or 8 mg or placebo once daily for 12 weeks. Based on interim analysis, ivarmacitinib 4 mg was selected as the recommended dose.

Tocilizumab Monotherapy or Combined With Methotrexate for Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Treatment options are needed for patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who experience inadequate response to conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs). The efficacy and safety profiles of subcutaneous tocilizumab monotherapy, tocilizumab combined with methotrexate, and methotrexate alone have not yet been evaluated in the same large-scale study.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of subcutaneous tocilizumab monotherapy, tocilizumab-methotrexate, and methotrexate alone for patients with RA.

AMS-MLP: adaptive multi-scale MLP network with multi-scale context relation decoder for pepper leaf segmentation.

Introduction: Pepper leaf segmentation plays a pivotal role in monitoring pepper leaf diseases across diverse backgrounds and ensuring healthy pepper growth. However, existing Transformer-based segmentation methods grapple with computational inefficiency, excessive parameterization, and inadequate utilization of edge information.

Methods: To address these challenges, this study introduces an Adaptive Multi-Scale MLP (AMS-MLP) framework.

Ivarmacitinib, a selective Janus kinase 1 inhibitor, in patients with moderate-to-severe active rheumatoid arthritis and inadequate response to conventional synthetic DMARDs: results from a phase III randomised clinical trial.

Objective: To assess the efficacy/safety of ivarmacitinib, a selective Janus kinase (JAK) 1 inhibitor, in patients with moderate-to-severe active rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who had an inadequate response to conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs).

Methods: Patients were randomised (1:1:1) to receive either placebo (n=188), ivarmacitinib 4 mg (n=189) or ivarmacitinib 8 mg (n=189) once daily, with background csDMARDs allowed. After 24 weeks, patients on placebo switched to ivarmacitinib 4 mg for an additional 28 weeks, while those on ivarmacitinib continued their initial dosage.

S2DA-Net: Spatial and spectral-learning double-branch aggregation network for liver tumor segmentation in CT images.

Accurate liver tumor segmentation is crucial for aiding radiologists in hepatocellular carcinoma evaluation and surgical planning. While convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have been successful in medical image segmentation, they face challenges in capturing long-term dependencies among pixels. On the other hand, Transformer-based models demand a high number of parameters and involve significant computational costs.

Revealing the changes in signaling pathways caused by tofacitinib in patients with rheumatoid arthritis through RNA sequencing and the correlation with clinical parameters.

Objectives: The current study is to accelerate the understanding of how tofacitinib works in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) due to the lack of relevant information.

Method: We selected ten patients with active RA and obtained the expression profile for their peripheral blood mononuclear cells before and after the tofacitinib treatment by RNA sequencing. The gene set enrichment analysis was conducted, and the significantly enriched gene sets were identified.

Comparing tocilizumab biosimilar BAT1806/BIIB800 with reference tocilizumab in patients with moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis with an inadequate response to methotrexate: a phase 3, randomised, multicentre, double-blind, active-controlled clinical trial.

Background: Biosimilars provide an opportunity to address unmet medical need by expanding access to biological treatments. This study aimed to show equivalent efficacy, and comparable safety, immunogenicity, and pharmacokinetic profiles of a proposed tocilizumab biosimilar BAT1806/BIIB800, to reference tocilizumab, in participants with rheumatoid arthritis with an inadequate response to methotrexate.

Methods: This phase 3, multicentre, randomised, double-blind, active-controlled, equivalence study comprised a 24-week initial treatment period (results reported here) and a 24-week secondary treatment period.

Telitacicept in patients with active systemic lupus erythematosus: results of a phase 2b, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Objectives: This phase 2b, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial evaluated the efficacy and safety of telitacicept, a novel fusion protein that neutralises signals of B lymphocyte stimulator and a proliferation-inducing ligand, in active systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

Methods: Adult patients with active SLE (n=249) were recruited from 29 hospitals in China and randomised 1:1:1:1 to receive subcutaneous telitacicept at 80 mg (n=62), 160 mg (n=63), 240 mg (n=62) or placebo (n=62) once weekly in addition to standard therapy. The primary endpoint was the proportion of patients achieving an SLE Responder Index 4 (SRI-4) response at week 48.

Latent Tuberculosis Infection and Associated Factors in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: a Multicenter, Cross-Sectional Study.

The objectives of this study were to screen for latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) among patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) using the T-SPOT.TB assay and to identify factors affecting the assay results. SLE patients were enrolled from 13 tertiary hospitals in eastern, central, and western China from September 2014 to March 2016 and were screened using the T-SPOT.

BAF-Net: Bidirectional attention fusion network CNN and transformers for the pepper leaf segmentation.

The segmentation of pepper leaves from pepper images is of great significance for the accurate control of pepper leaf diseases. To address the issue, we propose a bidirectional attention fusion network combing the convolution neural network (CNN) and Swin Transformer, called BAF-Net, to segment the pepper leaf image. Specially, BAF-Net first uses a multi-scale fusion feature (MSFF) branch to extract the long-range dependencies by constructing the cascaded Swin Transformer-based and CNN-based block, which is based on the U-shape architecture.

High-throughput RNA-sequencing reveals novel targets of tofacitinib in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

Objectives: Although tofacitinib has been confirmed to have good efficacy and safety in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), the relevant mechanism at the whole transcriptome level has not yet been revealed. In this study, peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from patients with active RA before and after tofacitinib treatment were analysed using whole transcriptome sequencing technology.

Methods: Fourteen patients with active RA were selected to detect the alterations of mRNAs, lncRNAs, circRNAs, and miRNAs in PBMCs before and after tofacitinib treatment using whole transcriptome sequencing.

Efficacy and Safety of CMAB008 Compared with Innovator Infliximab in Patients with Moderate-to-Severe Rheumatoid Arthritis Receiving Concomitant Methotrexate: A Randomized, Double-blind, Multi-center, Phase III Non-inferiority Study.

Objectives: The aim of this work is to verify the non-inferior efficacy and safety of CMAB008 compared with innovator infliximab in rheumatoid arthritis patients combined with methotrexate.

Methods: We conducted a randomized, double-blinded, parallel, positive control design, multicenter study, with a stable dose of methotrexate. Patients were enrolled randomly with a ratio of 1:1 to receive intravenously CMAB008 3 mg/kg or innovator infliximab 3 mg/kg at weeks 0, 2, 6, 14, 22 and 30.

Transcriptome sequencing reveals ovarian immune response and development during female sperm storage in viviparous black rockfish (Sebastes schlegelii).

Black rockfish (Sebastes schlegelii) is a viviparous teleost fish whose spermatozoa were transferred into the female ovary cavity and stored for up to five months and then fertilized with the matured eggs. There is no clarity about the molecular characteristics of ovarian follicles during female sperm storage in Sebastes schlegelii. In this study, histological observation, transcriptomic analysis and hormone level detection were performed in ovaries at stages of pre-mating (PRM), post-mating (POM) and pre-fertilization (PRF).

GCHA-Net: Global context and hybrid attention network for automatic liver segmentation.

Liver segmentation is a critical step in liver cancer diagnosis and surgical planning. The U-Net's architecture is one of the most efficient deep networks for medical image segmentation. However, the continuous downsampling operators in U-Net causes the loss of spatial information.

Efficacy and safety of HLX01 in patients with moderate-to-severe rheumatoid arthritis despite methotrexate therapy: a phase 3 study.

Background: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of HLX01, a rituximab biosimilar, as combination therapy with methotrexate in Chinese patients with active rheumatoid arthritis who had inadequate responses to methotrexate.

Methods: In this double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial, biologic-naïve patients with moderate-to-severe active rheumatoid arthritis and inadequate responses to methotrexate were randomized 2:1 to receive 1000 mg HLX01 or placebo intravenously on days 1 and 15. On the first day of weeks 24 and 26, patients in both groups received 1000 mg HLX01 via intravenous infusion.

Effects of Cryopreservation on Sperm with Cryodiluent in Viviparous Black Rockfish ().

Black rockfish is an economically important fish in East Asia. Little mention has been paid to the sperm cryopreservation in black rockfish. In this study, the optimal cryodiluent was selected from 48 combinations by detecting various sperm parameters.

Maintenance of Patient-Reported Outcomes in Baricitinib-Treated Patients with Moderate-to-Severe Active Rheumatoid Arthritis: Post Hoc Analyses from Two Phase 3 Trials.

Introduction: Baricitinib has been shown to improve patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who are inadequate responders (IR) to conventional synthetic and biologic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs and bDMARDs, respectively). We assessed the ability of baricitinib 2-mg to maintain minimal clinically important differences (MCIDs) in PROs until week 24 among week 4 and 12 responders.

Methods: Data were from two phase 3 trials, RA-BUILD (NCT01721057; csDMARD-IR patients) and RA-BEACON (NCT01721044; bDMARD-IR patients).

Prevalence and risk factors of active tuberculosis in patients with rheumatic diseases: a multi-center, cross-sectional study in China.

Evidence of active tuberculosis (ATB) in patients with rheumatic diseases are research priorities but limited data from China have been reported. Research targeting patients not taking anti-TNF biologics are especially insufficient. We aimed to investigate the prevalence and risk factors of ATB in this at-risk population.

Association of homocysteine with ankylosing spondylitis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Hyperhomocysteinemia is associated with autoimmune diseases such as ankylosing spondylitis (AS), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Current findings regarding plasma/serum homocysteine (HCY) levels in AS patients are inconsistent. This study aims to systematically evaluate the association between circulating HCY levels and AS.

Differentially expressed lncRNAs in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from middle-aged female patients with rheumatoid arthritis-associated interstitial lung disease.

Objectives: Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is frequently associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and has a large impact on the prognosis of RA, particularly among females, with an increased prevalence and severity compared with that of males. Here, we aimed to investigate the lncRNA profiles in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from middle-aged female patients with RA-ILD to determine whether they could help diagnose RA-ILD.

Method: We collected PBMCs from middle-aged female healthy controls, and RA and RA-ILD patients, excluding those with known risk factors of RA-ILD, such as being elderly or male, smoking, and having a history of other diseases.