Abstract: The main clinical treatment options for solid tumor include surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy. However, these treatments all have limitations. Surgery is generally not feasible for the majority of patients with advanced or metastatic disease, whereas chemotherapy, owing to its limited targeting specificity, is frequently accompanied by severe systemic toxicity. In addition, targeted therapy and immunotherapy are only beneficial for selected subsets of patients. Therefore, there is a compelling need for combination strategies to overcome these challenges. As an emerging non-invasive modality for cancer treatment, sonodynamic therapy (SDT) mainly exploits sonosensitizer-nanoparticle conjugates (SNCs) to generate abundant reactive oxygen species (ROS) under ultrasound (US) irradiation, thereby inducing apoptosis of malignant tumor cells. SDT has the advantages of noninvasiveness, geographic targeting, deep penetration, and minimal side effects. The SNCs in this review refer to multifunctional nanoplatforms loaded with sonosensitizers and therapeutic antitumor agents, combining SDT with other modalities. This review focuses on the critical components of SNCs and recent developments in SNCs-assisted SDT in anticancer therapy, elaborates on the potential mechanisms of SDT, as well as the related outcomes. Moreover, this review highlights the promising benefits of synergistic treatment achieved by combining SDT with other therapeutic strategies. Despite the promising potential of SDT in cancer medicine, this review acknowledges the challenges of this strategy and proposes a positive direction for SNC-assisted SDT in anticancer medicine. Read More

Abstract: Osteocytes, the most prolific and longest lived resident cell population embedded in the mineralised skeletal matrix, have evolved from putative passive placeholders to active conductors of skeletal metabolism and regeneration. After bone fracture, the local osteocyte microenvironment, comprising the complex lacuno-canalicular fluid network, pericellular matrix, mechanical stress distribution, metabolic gradients and inflammatory signalling, is radically remodelled, in space and time. This research summarises the available data for the structural and functional mechanisms by which the osteocyte microenvironment may influence bone healing following fracture. We address the function of osteocytes in the translation of physical and chemical stimuli into particular bone repair, integrating classical concepts of mechanotransduction, apoptotic cascades of osteocytes, vascular-osteogenic link and immune-inflammatory control. Moreover, this paper highlights recent experimental and technological approaches developed to mimic or modulate the osteocyte niche, including mechanobiological stimulation, microfluidic platforms, and biomimetic scaffolds. Finally, we discuss in depth the significant translational restrictions and planned research paths in targeted treatments and multi-cellular regenerative systems. Read More

Abstract: This study explores the “last-mile” implementation challenges of the Sanming healthcare reform in rural areas and how the lack of medicine, medical staff, and access to healthcare affects villagers’ experience of healthcare services. The study is based on qualitative fieldwork that took place in the summer of 2025 in three villages in Sanming, which included semi-structured individual interviews and informal group discussions with eight participants: elderly villagers, a village head, a former medical insurance bureau director, a township hospital manager, and a medical staff member. The results highlight three interrelated challenges. Firstly, there is a constant lack of medical staff in rural areas and frequent staff rotation. And medicine is also limited in supply due to centralized procurement. Secondly, the capacity of township facilities to handle complex and urgent conditions is limited by their diagnostic capacity, equipment, and delayed emergency transfers. Third, the lack of trust in grassroots providers, low health literacy, traditional treatment preferences, and dissatisfaction with insurance payments also limit the effective use of services. The reform efforts are constrained by the disconnect between the standardized policy design and local needs at the grassroots level. The study suggests that the implementation of reform should focus on stable rural labor force, locally responsive medicine supply, increase emergency capacity, and services that villagers can understand and use. Read More

Abstract: Since emerging in the 1950s, medical artificial intelligence (AI) has been deeply integrated into all segments of healthcare systems. It delivers prominent advantages in medical image diagnosis, pathological analysis, intelligent surgery, drug research and development and other fields, effectively lifting the efficiency, accuracy and overall quality of medical services, and becoming a core driving force for the digital and intelligent transformation of the healthcare industry. Nevertheless, the extensive application and technological iteration of AI have also brought new governance challenges. Focusing on ethical risks arising from AI-assisted medical services, this paper analyzes the relevant ethical dilemmas, root causes and corresponding solutions. When diagnostic and therapeutic errors occur in AI-aided medical activities, liabilities involve three stakeholders: technology developers, medical institutions and patients. The complicated liability structure renders the traditional single-subject liability model inapplicable, creating obstacles to liability identification. In addition, medical AI features complex technical frameworks and the "black box" algorithm effect: its internal processing logic cannot be fully interpreted by humans, leading to untraceable decision-making processes. Meanwhile, safety and ethical problems including medical data leakage, algorithmic bias and clinicians’ over-reliance on technology have become increasingly prominent in China. To address the above ethical risks, this paper compares and draws on mature regulatory practices of the United States, the European Union and Japan for medical AI. It puts forward targeted suggestions to improve the liability system and regulatory mechanism of medical AI, clarify the rights and obligations of all stakeholders, standardize the clinical application of artificial intelligence, and strike a balance between technological innovation and medical safety. This research provides references for the … Read More

Abstract: Conventional medical-device evaluation often involves animal experiments and clinical investigations, both of which require substantial time and resources and are subject to ethical and practical constraints. Both require significant investment and a long period of time, have numerous ethical constraints, and once the testing plan is set, it is difficult to make changes. It is even more challenging to conduct innovative tests. With the acceleration of device updates, this verification model has become increasingly strained. Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases impose a substantial clinical burden, and the performance of related medical devices directly affects treatment outcomes and postoperative recovery. The pressure on public health prevention and control is constantly increasing. At the clinical level, the performance of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular devices directly affects the treatment outcome and postoperative recovery quality of critically ill patients, and they are indispensable equipment in intensive care. The introduction of the extracorporeal circulation circuit system has opened up a new way for verification work. This system can simulate the real hemodynamic conditions of the human cardiovascular system, and the experimental parameters can be adjusted as needed, precisely compensating for the shortcomings of traditional methods. This article focuses on the engineering implementation and application of this platform. Based on experimental records and long-term practical experience, the author explains the hardware composition, operating characteristics, and simulation accuracy of the system, and combines detection examples of interventional and circulatory support devices to examine their actual test results. During the experiment, some problems have also been gradually exposed: there is still a deviation between physiological simulation and the real environment, the performance stability of the supporting consumables is poor, and the … Read More