Ziqing Yu

The burden of digestive cancers is increasing worldwide. The Global Cancer Observatory (GLOBOCAN) 2020 and the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2019 are two primary cancer databases, which have a significant impact on policy formulation and resource allocation. We aim to compare the incidence and mortality of digestive cancers between them. Digestive cancer (esophageal, stomach, colorectal, liver, gallbladder and pancreatic cancer) incidence was obtained from the Cancer Today and GBD 2019 result tool. The top five countries with the most or minor difference between GLOBOCAN 2020 and GBD 2019 in age-standardized incidence rates (ASIRs) of digestive cancers were identified. A systematic search on the incidence of specific digestive cancer in selected countries from PubMed and Embase was conducted, and 20 of 281 publications were included. The most significant differences in digestive cancers incidence were commonly found in Asian countries (70%), particularly Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar, located in Southeast Asia. The ASIRs for most digestive cancers, except liver cancer, in GLOBOCAN 2020 were higher than those in GBD 2019. Gallbladder cancer had the highest average ratio, followed by liver cancer. The most commonly used standard population was Segi's standard population, followed by the World Health Organization standard population. The data sources nor the processing methods of GLOBOCAN 2020 and GBD 2019 were not similar. Low- and middle-income countries without population-based cancer registries were more likely to have selection bias in data collection and amplify regional variations of etiological factors. Better judgments on the quality of cancer data can be made.

Background: Focal cartilage lesions of the knee remain a difficult entity to treat. Current treatment options include arthroscopic debridement, microfracture, autograft or allograft osteochondral transplantation, and cell-based therapies such as autologous chondrocyte transplantation. Osteochondral transplantation techniques restore the normal topography of the condyles and provide mature hyaline cartilage in a single-stage procedure. However, clinical outcomes comparing autograft versus allograft techniques are scarce. Purpose: To perform a comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis of high-quality studies to evaluate the results of osteochondral autograft and allograft transplantation for the treatment of symptomatic cartilage defects of the knee. Study Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis; Level of evidence, 2. Methods: A comprehensive search of the literature was conducted using various databases. Inclusion criteria were level 1 or 2 original studies, studies with patients reporting knee cartilage injuries and chondral defects, mean follow-up ≥2 years, and studies focusing on osteochondral transplant techniques. Exclusion criteria were studies with nonknee chondral defects, studies reporting clinical outcomes of osteochondral autograft or allograft combined with other procedures, animal studies, cadaveric studies, non–English language studies, case reports, and reviews or editorials. Primary outcomes included patient-reported outcomes and failure rates associated with both techniques, and factors such as lesion size, age, sex, and the number of plugs transplanted were assessed. Metaregression using a mixed-effects model was utilized for meta-analyses. Results: The search resulted in 20 included studies with 364 cases of osteochondral autograft and 272 cases of osteochondral allograft. Mean postoperative survival was 88.2% in the osteochondral autograft cohort as compared with 87.2% in the osteochondral allograft cohort at 5.4 and 5.2 years, respectively ( P = .6605). Patient-reported outcomes improved by an average of 65.1% and 81.1% after osteochondral autograft and allograft, respectively ( P = .0001). However, meta-analysis revealed no significant difference in patient-reported outcome percentage change between osteochondral autograft and allograft ( P = .97) and a coefficient of 0.033 (95% CI, –1.91 to 1.98). Meta-analysis of the relative risk of graft failure after osteochondral autograft versus allograft showed no significant differences ( P = .66) and a coefficient of 0.114 (95% CI, –0.46 to 0.69). Furthermore, the regression did not find other predictors (mean age, percentage of female patients, lesion size, number of plugs/grafts used, and treatment location) that may have significantly affected patient-reported outcome percentage change or postoperative failure between osteochondral autograft versus allograft. Conclusion: Osteochondral autograft and allograft result in favorable patient-reported outcomes and graft survival rates at medium-term follow-up. While predictors for outcomes such as mean age, percentage of female patients, lesion size, number of plugs/grafts used, and treatment location did not affect the comparison of the 2 cohorts, proper patient selection for either procedure remains paramount to the success and potentially long-term viability of the graft.

Digital biological analysis compartmentalizes targets of interest, such as nucleic acids, proteins, and cells, to a single event level and performs detection and further investigation. Microfluidic-based digital biological analysis methods, including digital PCR, digital protein analysis, and digital cell analysis, have demonstrated superior advantages in research applications and clinical diagnostics. However, most of the methods are still based on a one-step "divide and detect" strategy, and it is challenging for these methods to perform further parallel manipulation of reaction partitions to achieve "divide, manipulate, and analyze" capabilities. Here, we present a parallel multistep digital analysis (PAMDA) SlipChip for the parallel multistep manipulation of a large number of droplets for digital biological analysis, demonstrated by the quantification of SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acids by a two-step digital isothermal amplification combined with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR). This PAMDA SlipChip utilizes a "chain-of-pearl" channel with a self-partitioning droplet formation mechanism that does not require the precise alignment of microfeatures for fluidic loading as the traditional SlipChip design. This device can first generate 2400 3.2 nanoliter droplets to perform digital loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) and then deliver reagents containing Cas12a protein and crRNA to each individual partition in parallel to simultaneously initiate digital CRISPR detection by a simple multistep slipping operation. This PAMDA SlipChip not only provides a promising tool to perform digital CRISPR with a flexible assay and workflow design but can also be applied for a broad range of applications in digital biological analysis that require multistep manipulation of partitions in parallel.