Objective To uncover the possible factors of rapid increasing incidence of syphilis. Methods The clinical data of 100 patients firstly diagnosed as syphilis and their spouses were analyzed. Results There were 65 couples (130 cases) both were infected with syphilis, accounting for 65%. Among these cases, 25 males firstly diagnosed, 15 of them were primary syphilis; and 40 females firstly diagnosed as syphilis, 32 of them were secondary syphilis. Among 65 syphilis couples, 48 spouses were quickly diagnosed as syphilis through contact tracing, but the other 17 spouses were not diagnosed as syphilis until 1~3 months later, and most of them were latent syphilis, accounting for 83.2%(54/65). Chancre, which may be noticed by the patients themselves, was not so common in this group of patients, accounted for only 28.5%(37/130), and mainly in males. Conclusions The infections rate of syphilis between spoused is high, especially latent syphilis, and chancre is low, which might be one of the factors for the rapid spreading of the disease.

Objective To explore the accuracy and security of introcavitary-ECG guiding peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) tip positioning.Methods The observation group was defined as the 50 preterm infants who was cathetered PICC between June 2014 to May 2015 while the control group as the other 50 cases was cathetered between August 2012 to May 2014 to review.The latter group was cathetered traditionally and positioned by X-ray while the former was cathered by ECG-monitoring and positioned by the change of P wave on ECG-Ⅱ.X-ray was also used to confirm the PICC tip positioning when the cathere was fixed in the control group.Results The success rate of first puncture in control group was 74％(37/50),significatly lower than the observation group,which was 94％(47/50) (x2=7.440,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions The technology of ECG makes benefits in increasing the success rate of first puncture,reducing cathetering time,improving work efficiency,reducing the risk of nursing operation and garanteeing security of nurses and patients.

In this paper, we propose a new active contour algorithm, i. e. hierarchical contextual active contour (HCAC), and apply it to automatic liver segmentation from three-dimensional CT (3D-CT) images. HCAC is a learning-based method and can be divided into two stages. At the first stage, i.e. the training stage, given a set of abdominal 3D-CT training images and the corresponding manual liver labels, we tried to establish a mapping between automatic segmentations (in each round) and manual reference segmentations via context features, and obtained a series of self-correcting classifiers. At the second stage, i.e. the segmentation stage, we firstly used the basic active contour to segment the image and subsequently used the contextual active contour (CAC) iteratively, which combines the image information and the current shape model, to improve the segmentation result. The current shape model is produced by the corresponding self-correcting classifier (the input is the previous automatic segmentation result). The proposed method was evaluated on the datasets of MICCAI 2007 liver segmentation challenge. The experimental results showed that we would get more and more accurate segmentation results by the iterative steps and the satisfied results would be obtained after about six rounds of iterations.
Algorithms ; Humans ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; Liver ; diagnostic imaging ; Models, Theoretical ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Sphingolipids as an important regulator play a critical role in the cell biological functions. Among them, ceramide (Cer) and sphingosine (Sph) induce apoptosis and inhibit cell proliferation; on the contrary sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) promotes cell survival and proliferation. The balance between ceramide/sphingosine and S1P forms a so-called "sphingolipid-rheostat", which decides the cell fate. Sphingosine kinases, which catalyze the phosphorylation of sphingosine to S1P, are critical regulators of this balance. Here, we review the role of sphingosine kinase 1 (SphK1) in regulating fundamental biological processes and tumorigenesis and the potential of SphK1 as a new target for cancer therapeutics.

Liver fibrosis is a pathological process of the excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix, especially collagen al (I) in liver. Ultimately, hepatic fibrosis leads to cirrhosis or hepatic failure. Liver fibrosis and early cirrhosis can be reversed, thus control of the development of liver fibrosis is very important for preventive treatment of cirrhosis and hepatic failure. This is a review of potential targets for anti-hepatic fibrosis based on plenty of publications, including TGF-β1 and integrin α(v) and so on, aimed at providing novel therapeutic targets in liver fibrosis.

Backgroud Numerous studies have confirmed the effectiveness of slowing the progression of atherosclerosis by blood pressure (Bp)control in patients with hypertension and several studies also showed the efficacy of intensive glycemic control in decreasing progression of carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. However, few studies have compared the relative importance of glycemic vs. Bp control in patients with diabetes and hypertension. We aimed to investigate the association between Bp and glycemic control and subclinical carotid atherosclerosis in older patients with hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Methods In a cross-sectional study, B-mode high-resolution ultrasonography of the carotid artery was performed in 670 subjects (508 males and 162 females) aged 60 years or over who had self-reported hypertension and diabetes but no history of coronary heart disease or stroke. Subjects were categorized by their systolic blood pressure: tight control, < 130 mmHg; usual control, 130-139 mmHg; or uncontrolled, > 140 mmHg, and by their hemoglobin Alc (HbAlc) level: tight control, < 6.5%; usual control, 6.5%-7.5%; or uncontrolled, > 7.5%, respectively. Results The mean CIMT was 8.20±0.11 mm, and carotid plaque was found in 52.5% (352/670) subjects. Overall, 62.1% of the subjects had subclinical carotid atherosclerosis, defined as having either carotid plaque or elevated CIMT (≥ 1.1 mm). The mean CIMT was significantly different between Bp control categories (7.60 ± 0.09 mm, 7.90 ± 0.08 mm, and 8.60±0.12 nun, respectively, P = 0.03) but not between glycemic control categories (8.20 ± 0.10 ram, 8.1 ± 0.08 mm, and 8.40 ± 0.14 mm, respectively, P = 0.13) using ANCOVA analysis. Multivariable logistic regression adjusting for potential confounding factors showed that usual or uncontrolled Bp control were associated with having carotid plaque (OR = 1.08 and OR = 1.42, respectively), or elevated CIMT [Odd ratio (OR) = 1.17, 95% confidence interval (CI)1.04-2.24, and OR = 1.54, 95% CI 1.36-2.96, respectively compared to tight Bp control; but did not show glycemic control as independent predictor of either having carotid plaque or elevated CIMT. Conclusions In older patients with hypertension and diabetes, blood pressure control, but not glycemic control is associated with subclinical carotid atherosclerosis.

Objective To evaluate the safety and efficacy of epirubicin (EPI) and gemcitabine (GEM) alternating sequential intravesical chemotherapy after transurethral resection in the treatment of non-muscle invasive bladder cancer.Methods 240 patients with primary non-muscle invasive bladder urothelial carcinoma were randomly divided into 2 groups.There were 120 cases for each group,EPI group was given EPI 50 mg (once a week),bladder perfusion,while the EPI+GEM group was given EPI 50 mg (once every other week),GEM 1000 mg (once every other week),alternating sequential perfusion.The follow-up time ranged from 6 to 24 months when the time of tumor recurrence and adverse reactions of chemotherapy were observed and recorded.Results The 2-year tumor free survival rate for EPI group recurrence was 60.0 ％ (72/120),and 75.0 ％ (90/120) for EPI+GEM group.There were statistical significance between the differences of the 2 groups (x2 =5.489,P ＜ 0.05).3 cases in EPI group and 2 cases in EPI+GEM group progressed to muscle invasive bladder cancer,and there was no statistical significance between the differences of bladder cancer progression rates for the 2 groups (2.5 ％ and 1.7 ％) (x2 =0.000,P ＜ 0.05).The main adverse reaction during the treatment was gastrointestinal discomfort (15 cases and 6 cases respectively),no serious haematological toxicity and other adverse reactions were frequent urination,urgency,dysuria and hematuria.The differences between the occurrence rates of adverse reactions for the 2 groups were 25.0 ％ and 11.7 ％,which were statistically significant (x2 =6.252,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion For non-muscle invasive urothelial bladder carcinoma,the curative effect is better to use EPI and GEM sequential intravesical chemotherapy than to use EPI alone,which can not only reduce the 2 years recurrence rate after the operation,but also reduce the incidence rate of adverse reactions.Yet,this method cannot change the progress of bladder cancer.

This study aimed to investigate the synergistic effect of lidamycin (LDM) and rituximab on human B cell lymphoma Ramos cells. Cell proliferation was measured using MTS assay, cell apoptosis was analyzed by Annexin V-FITC/PI assay, the expression of apoptosis related proteins was analyzed by Western blotting, and the in vivo lymphoma inhibition was verified using BALB/c mice inoculated via tail vein using Ramos cells which stably expressed pEGFP-N1 plasmid. The results showed that, after the pretreatment with rituximab for 48 h, rituximab and LDM showed significantly synergistic effects on cell proliferation. Cells in combined treatment group had a higher apoptosis rate than that in LDM treatment group. Compared with the LDM treatment group, the expression of apoptosis-related proteins such as Cleaved caspase-3, Cleaved caspase-7, Cleaved caspase-9 and Cleaved PARP in combined treatment groups increased, and expression of cIAP-2 and Bcl-2 decreased. The result of in vivo experiment showed that, in the combined treatment group, the survival time of BALB/c mice was significantly longer than the mice in control group and LDM treatment group, and the degree of tumor accumulation and metastasis to lymph nodes and spleen was lower.

Sphingosine kinase 1 (SphK1) plays critical roles in cell biological functions. Here we investigated the effects of SphK1 inhibitor SKI II on hepatoma HepG2 cell cycle progression and invasion. Cell survival was determined by SRB assay, cell cycle progression was assayed by flow cytometry, the ability of cell invasion was measured by Matrigel-Transwell assay and protein expression was detected by Western blotting. The results showed that SKI II markedly inhibited HepG2 cell survival in a dose-dependent manner, induced G1 phase arrest in HepG2 cell and inhibited cell invasion. SKI II markedly decreased the expressions of G1-phase-related proteins CDK2, CDK4 and Cdc2 and the levels of cell invasion-associated proteins MMP2 and MMP9. The results showed that SKI II inhibited cell cycle progression and cell invasion, implying SphK1 as a potential target for hepatoma treatment.