Yingying Chen

Background/Objectives: The objective of this study is to evaluate the association between retinal ischemic perivascular lesions (RIPLs) and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) among patients diagnosed with severe carotid artery stenosis (SCAS). Methods: Consecutive patients (123 patients) with SCAS were included and underwent swept-source optical coherence tomography angiography (SS-OCTA). Retinal structural and blood flow parameters of the macular region were calculated and compared between patients with and without CVD. The prevalence of RIPLs confirmed on B-scan images was compared between patients with and without CVD. The relationship between RIPLs and CVD in patients with SCAS was explored using multivariate logistic regression analysis. Subgroup analysis was conducted to evaluate the relationship between ipsilateral RIPLs, contralateral RIPLs, and bilateral RIPLs and CVD. Results: Of the 123 patients with SCAS, 61 patients (49.6%) had a history of CVD. The CVD group had lower vessel density in the superficial and deep retinal vascular complexes, thinner inner retinal thickness, and thicker outer retinal thickness compared with the non-CVD group. A higher prevalence of RIPLs was found in the CVD group compared to the non-CVD group (55.7% vs. 30.6%, p = 0.006). The presence of RIPLs was significantly associated with CVD in SCAS patients (OR = 3.953 [1.695–9.219], p = 0.001) after adjusting for covariates. Subgroup analysis revealed greatest risk of bilateral RIPLs for CVD (OR = 7.383 [1.749–30.393], p = 0.006), followed by contralateral RIPLs (OR = 4.024 [1.432–11.306], p = 0.008) and ipsilateral RIPLs (OR = 2.951 [1.258–6.921], p = 0.013). Conclusions: The presence of RIPLs is significantly associated with CVD in SCAS patients. Findings of this research demonstrated that evaluation of RIPLs may help identify high-risk SCAS patients and facilitate special medical care for this group of patients.

Retinal ischemia/reperfusion injury (RI/R) is a common pathological process in ophthalmic diseases, which can cause severe visual impairment. The mechanisms underlying RI/R damage and repair are still unclear. Scholars are actively exploring effective intervention strategies to restore impaired visual function. With the development of nucleic acid nanomaterials, tetrahedral framework nucleic acids (tFNAs) have shown promising therapeutic potential in various fields such as stem cells, biosensors, and tumour treatment due to their excellent biological properties. Besides, miRNA‐22‐3p (miR‐22), as an important regulatory factor in neural tissue, has been proven to have positive effects in various neurodegenerative diseases. By stably constructing a complex of tetrahedral framework nucleic acids miR22 (tFNAs‐miR22), we observed that tFNAs‐miR22 had a positive effect on the repair of RI/R injury in retinal neural tissue. Previous studies have shown that tFNAs can effectively deliver miR‐22 into damaged retinal neurons, subsequently exerting neuroprotective effects. Interestingly, we found that there was a certain synergistic effect between tFNAs and miR‐22. tFNAs‐miR22 can selectively activated the ERK1/2 signalling pathway to reduce neuronal apoptosis, accelerate cell proliferation, and restore synaptic functional activity. In this study, we established a simple yet effective small molecule drug for RI/R treatment which may become a promising neuroprotectant for treating this type of vision impairment disease in the future.

Comparison of visual acuity between phacoemulsification and extracapsular cataract extraction: a systematic review and meta-analysis AiLing Li, Qiongmin He, Lijuan Wei, Yingying Chen, Shuxiong He, Qiongkang Zhang, Yijie Yan

Purpose To determine whether the GNAQ/11 mutation correlated with the outcome of patients with uveal melanoma (UM) when genetic heterogeneity was considered. Methods We performed a retrospective study of sixty-seven patients with UM. The heterogeneity of GNAQ/11 was examined by using droplet digital PCR. The correlation between metastasis and heterogeneity of the GNAQ/11 mutation was analysed. Disease free survival curves were constructed using the Kaplan-Meier method, and the Wilcoxon log-rank test was used to compare the curves. Results The GNAQ/11 mutation ratio was varied between each case. Among these patients, 28.35% of them harboured homogeneous mutation of GNAQ/11, 62.69% present heterogeneous mutation and 8.96% didn’t present either GNAQ or GNA11 mutation. The tumour with heterogeneous mutation of GNAQ/11 has a higher metastatic rate than that with homogeneous mutation (13/29 vs 1/18, p=0.027). In Kaplan-Meier analysis, metastasis-free survival was not significantly associated with either homogeneous or heterogeneous mutation of GNAQ/11. Conclusion The mutation ratio of GNAQ/11 in UM was quite variable. The tumour with heterogeneous mutation of GNAQ/11 is more likely to develop a poor prognosis than that with homogeneous mutation of GNAQ/11.