Objective To observe the effect of Jianpi Tiaozhong Xiaopi Recipe ( JTXP) for the treatment of functional dyspepsia ( FD) with spleen deficiency and Qi stagnation. Methods A total of qualified 110 cases were evenly randomized into Chinese medicine group and western medicine group. Chinese medicine group was given modified JTXP orally, and western medicine group was given Mosapride and Lansoprazole orally. After treatment for one continuous month, therapeutic effect was evaluated and the improvement of clinical symptoms before and after treatment was observed. After follow-up for half a year, the recurrence of FD was observed. Results ( 1) After treatment for one month, the scores of abdominal distension and fullness, gastric vague pain, poor ap petite, belching and hiccup were obviously decreased in both groups compared with those before treatment ( P<0.05) , and the relief of the symptoms in Chinese medicine group was superior to that in western medicine group (P<0.05). (2) The total effective rate was 94.5% in Chinese medicine group and was 81.8% in western medicine group, the difference being significant ( P<0.05). ( 3) The results of follow up showed that recurrence of FD was shown in 3 cases (5.8%) of Chinese medicine group and in 8 cases (17.8%) of western medicine group, the difference being significant ( P<0.05). ( 4) During the treatment, no obvious adverse reaction was shown in both groups. Conclusion JTXP exerts certain therapeutic effect for the treatment of FD with spleen deficiency and Qi stagnation.

A high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed and validated for the quantitative determination of catechin in rat plasma and its pharmacokinetic study after intragastric administration of Catechu and Xiongdanjiangre Wan into SD rats. Plasma samples were prepared by protein precipitation using methanol- 5％ aqueous zinc sulfate (70:30, v/v) as precipitant. Chromatographic separation was achieved on Hypersil C18 column (250 mm × 4.6 mm, 10 μm) with acetonitrile water triethylamine (6:94:0.3, v/v/v, pH 4.0±0.1, adjusted with phosphoric acid) as mobile phase, followed by a UV detection at 207 nm. Good linearity was obtained over the range of 0.143-7.15 mg/L of catechin, with correlation coefficient of 0.9992.The method was simple, sensitive, accurate and reproducible and has been successfully applied to the pharmacokinetic study of catechin in rat plasma.

Objective To observe the therapeutic effect of oral use of Yibai Tongfeng Pills for the treatment ofgouty arthritis with damp-heat obstruction. Methods One hundred and sixteen gouty arthritis patients were randomized into treatment group (N = 62) and control group (N = 54). The treatment group was treated with Yibai Tongfeng Pills orally, and the control group was treated with oral use of Colchicine Tablets and Sodium Bicarbonate Tablets at acute stage and with oral use of Benzbromarone Tablets at remission stage. Twelve weeks constituted one treatment course. Clinical efficacy of the two groups was evaluated after treatment, and the changes of C-reactive protein(CRP), white blood cell(WBC) and uric acid(UA) levels in the blood of the two groups were observed before and after treatment. Results (1) The total effective rate of the treatment group was 93.55%and that of the control group was 83.33%, the difference being significant(P<0.05).(2) After treatment, the scores of syndrome manifestations of the two groups were obviously decreased(P < 0.05 compared with those before treatment), and the decrease in the treatment group was superior to that in the control group(P<0.05) . (3) After treatment, CRP, WBC and UA levels in the blood of the two groups were much improved(P < 0.05 compared with those before treatment), and the improvement of CRP in the treatment group was superior to that in the control group(P<0.05), while the differences of the improvement of WBC and UA between the two groups were insignificant (P > 0.05). Conclusion Yibai Tongfeng Pills are effective for the treatment of gouty arthritis with damp-heat obstruction by improving syndrome manifestations and rapidly decreasing CRP level.

Radiological evaluation is a key step for donor's preoperative evaluation in living donor liver transplantation(LDLT).There are many powerful functions in multi-slice computed tomography (MSCT)which can suit all-in-one radiological evaluation before donor's operation.By referring to the articles from home and abroad in recent years,from viewpoint of surgeon,this artical reviews the application status of multi-slice CT for preoperative assessment in LDLT,which can help to provide theory support for choice of radiological examination in LDLT donor.

The use of actigraphy, which can be used to estimate sleep-wake patterns from activity levels, has become common in sleep research. Actigraphy is a simple, cost-effective and non-invasive method for healthcare providers and researchers to assess patients sleep quality and screen for potential sleep disorders in recent years. But, there is no wide recognition and application of actigraphy in China up till now. This review summarized the application of actigraphy in evaluation of sleep and diagnosis of sleep disorders.
Actigraphy ; China ; Humans ; Sleep ; Sleep Wake Disorders ; diagnosis

Objective To analyze the role of cysteinyl aspartate specific proteinase-1 (caspase-1) in a mouse model of D-galactosamine (D-GalN) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced acute liver failure (ALF) and to study the possible mechanism. Methods C57BL/ 6 mice were randomly divided into four groups including control group, Z-WEHD-FMK (caspase-1 inhibitor) treatment group, ALF model group and Z-WEHD-FMK-treated ALF group. The mouse model of ALF was established by intraperitoneally injec-ting the mice with D-GalN (450 mg/ kg) and LPS (10 μg/ kg). The damages in liver tissues were evaluated based on the histopathological examination and the levels of alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate trans-aminase (AST) in serum samples. Western blot assay was performed to analyze the expression of caspase-1 and the phosphorylation of glycogen synthase kinase 3β (GSK-3β). The qRT-PCR was used to measure the expression of inflammatory cytokines at transcriptional level. Results The expression of caspase-1 at both mRNA and protein levels were gradually increased during the development of ALF. Compared with the mice with ALF, those in the Z-WEHD-FMK-treated ALF group showed less severe liver damages on histopatholog-ical examination and decreased levels of ALT and AST in serum samples [ALT: (479. 2±39. 5) U/ L vs (998. 5±60. 4 ) U/ L, P<0. 05; AST: ( 478. 5±28. 6) U/ L vs ( 1 180. 7±91. 4) U/ L, P<0. 05]. The expression of TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-18 and IL-33 at transcriptional level were significantly suppressed in mice with ALF upon the Z-WEHD-FMK intervention. Results of the Western blot assay indicated that Z-WEHD-FMK suppressed the activities of GSK-3β by enhancing its phosphorylation. Conclusion This study demon-strated that caspase-1 could promote the activation of GSK-3β resulting in the development of inflammation responses and liver damages during the development of ALF in mice.

Objective To investigate the effects of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α( PPARα) on macrophage-mediated inflammatory responses with the interference of lipopolysaccharide and the possible mechanism.Methods The bone marrow stem cells were isolated from the femora of mice.The granulocyte-macrophage colony stimulating factor ( GM-CSF) was used to stimulate the in vitro differentiation from bone marrow stem cells into primary macrophages.An in vitro model with cultured cells expressing in-flammatory cytokines was established by treating the primary macrophages with lipopolysaccharide ( LPS) .A specific chemical agonist, Wy-14643, was used to activate PPARα. Autophagy inhibitors including 3-methyladenine (3-MA) and small interfering RNA against Atg7 ( Atg7 siRNA) were used to inhibit the autophagy.Western blot assay was performed to detect the expression of autophagy-related proteins ( Atg5, Atg7, Beclin-1 and LC3).The transcriptional levels of TNF-α, IL-1β, IL-6, Atg5, Atg7 and Beclin-1 were analyzed by qRT-PCR.Results Compared with the macrophages treated with LPS alone, those pretreated with various concentrations of Wy-14643 (10 μmol/L, 25 μmol/L and 50 μmol/L) showed inhibited ex-pression of proinflammatory cytokines ( TNF-α,IL-1βand IL-6) and enhanced expression of autophagy-relat-ed proteins (Atg5, Atg7 and Beclin-1) at mRNA level in a dose-dependent manner.The expression of auto-phagy-related proteins (Atg5, Atg7, Beclin-1 and LC3) by macrophages was promoted with the pretreatment of Wy-14643 as indicated by Western blot assay.The transcriptional levels of TNF-α, IL-1βand IL-6 were increased in Wy-14643 pretreated-macrophages after stimulation with 3-MA or Atg7 siRNA .Conclusion PPARαsuppressed the macrophage-mediated inflammatory responses by promoting autophagy, suggesting that the PPARα-autophagy pathway might be one of the signaling pathways regulating LPS induced-inflamma-tory responses.

This study was aimed to provide references for techniques in future application of traditional and natural drugs for tumor prevention and treatment. Domestic and foreign literatures on applications of gene chip technology in antitumor studies with natural and traditional medicine from 2000 to 2014 were reviewed. Corresponding database was established from aspects of published articles, drug intervention types, study fields, sample sources, chip technology platforms, repeatability of gene chip experiments, criteria of differential genes, and validation of gene chip experiments. Application experiences of gene chip in antitumor natural and traditional drugs were summarized. Shortcomings of gene chip technology application were analyzed deeply. The results showed that experimental gene screening was limited at the cellular level. More attentions should be paid to experiments at the animal and clinical levels. Scholars had paid more attention to expression level of mRNA and less attention to gene regulation level and epigenetic research of microRNA chip and DNA methylation chip. Gene chip experiments were lack of repeatability, which directly affected the evaluation results of difference gene and reduced reliability of gene screening. Screening results of genes should be verified not only at the mRNA level, but also increased at the protein level. It was concluded that gene chip was one of the most mature technologies to detect the level of gene expression, which was widely used in the research field of traditional and natural antitumor drug studies. Researchers should try to avoid deficiencies mentioned above in experiments related to gene chip technology.

This article was aimed to review and make a commentary on modern medicine and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatment for intracerebral hemorrhage. This article introduced applications and evaluations on medi-cations to reduce intracranial pressure, blood pressure control medications, ultra-early hemostatic medications, hy-pothermia and neuroprotective agents from modern medicine treatment on acute intracerebral hemorrhage. The article also introduced the current large-scale TCM clinical trials for acute intracerebral hemorrhage treatment and some systematic reviews on medications in order to provide theoretical evidences for the clinical treatment of acute intrac-erebral hemorrhage.

Objective To investigate the changes of extracellular histones during the course of acute liver failure in mice as well as its therapeutic potential.Methods WT mice (C57BL/6) were randomly (random number) allocated to inducing acute liver failure by lethal doses of GalN/LPS injected i.p.Hepatic function,apoptosis of hepatocytes and histological indexes were measured at different intervals following GalN/LPS challenge.The levels of extracellular histones were determined by using ELISA and Western blot methods.Meanwhile,GalN/LPS-treated mice were administered with anti-histone H3 and antihistone H4 neutralized antibodies,respectively.Results Administration of GalN/LPS to mice caused acute liver failure,characterized by significant elevation of plasma ALT levels and massive hepatocyte apoptosis or necrosis.All mice died within 9-12 hours.The levels of nucleosomes and extracellular histones H3 and H4 were increased considerably in a time-dependent manner.The survival rates in GalN/LPS-treated mice were improved remarkably following administration of anti-histone H3 and H4 neutralized antibodies (P =0.037,P =0.025),likely due to the significant inhibition of TNF-production.Conclusions Extracellular histones are an important mediator implicated in the pathogenesis of acute liver failure.Anti-histones show promising potential in the treatment of acute liver failure,which deserves further investigation in the future.