Objective To investigate the clinical efficacy of target fire red-hot needling in treating articular deformity due to rheumatoid arthritis.Methods Ninety-six rheumatoid arthritis patients with articular swelling and deformity were randomly allocated to treatment and control groups, 48 cases each. The treatment group received target scattered fire red-hot needling and the control group, conventional acupuncture. After two courses of treatment, pre-/post-treatment changes in the self-reported pain score, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP) and immunoglobulins (IgA, IgG and IgM) were observed in the two groups and the clinical therapeutic effects were compared between the two groups. Results The total efficacy rate was 89.6% in the treatment group and 50.0% in the control group; there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups (P<0.01). There were statistically significant pre-/post-treatment differences in ESR, CRP, IgA, IgG and IgM in the treatment groups (P<0.05). There were statistically significant pre-/post-treatment differences in ESR, CRP, and IgG in the treatment groups (P<0.05). There were statistically significant post-treatment differences in ESR, CRP, IgA, IgG and IgM in the treatment and control groups (P<0.05).Conclusion Target fire red-hot needling is an effective way to treat articular deformity due to rheumatoid arthritis.

Objective: To investigate the clinicopathologic features of cardiac myxofibrosarcomas. Methods: The clinical data, pathomorphologic and immunohistochemical features were evaluated in five cases of cardiac myxofibrosarcoma collected from January 2009 to December 2014, with relevant literature review. Results: Five patients with cardiac myxofibrosarcoma, including four women and one man [age range 39-61 years; mean (50.4±9.0) years] were included. All tumors were broadbased and located mainly in the left atrium, with one case extending through the atrial wall and pericardium to the left lower lung lobe. The morphological grade was low in one case, intermediate in one, and high in three. Using Fédération Nationale des Centres de Lutte Contre le Cancer (FNLCC) grading system, one case was grade 1 and four cases were grade 2. Immunohistochemical analysis revealed diffuse and strong expression for vimentin in all cases. Smooth muscle actin and muscle specific actin were variably expressed. Complete tumor excision was performed in one case, and tumor debulking was performed in the other four cases. Clinical follow-up was available in three cases. One patient with en bloc excision of the tumor mass survived 13 months and the other two with tumor debulking died one month after surgery. Conclusions The most common location for cardiac myxofibrosarcoma is the left atrium. Some myxofibrosarcoma may be histologically bland and misdiagnosed as myxoma due to histological similarities. Thus caution should be exercised in their microscopic differentiation. Precise imaging, multidisciplinary approach and adequate initial surgery may contribute to improving the clinical outcomes of myxofibrosarcoma.

OBJECTIVETo improve the diagnostic accuracy of fetal pulmonary venous abnormalities through the analysis of the fetal pulmonary vein anatomy.

METHODS234 cases of congenital cardiac abnormalities were detected by echocardiography during pregnancy in An Zhen Hospital, Capital Medical University from May 2010 to August 2015. Autopsy was then performed. The type of fetal pulmonary venous malformation, cardiac abnormalities, systemic venous malformations, and other internal organs deformities were documented.

RESULTSThere were ninteen cases of pulmonary venous malformations among the 234 cases of fetal congenital heart disease. These included two cases of congenital pulmonary venous hypoplasia (CPVH) or atresia, four cases of partial anomalous pulmonary venous drainage (PAPVD), seven cases of total anomalous pulmonary venous drainage (TAPVD), five cases of atresia of common pulmonary vein (CPV), one case of congenital pulmonary venous hypoplasia with total anomalous pulmonary venous drainage. There were eleven cases with single ventricle, eight cases with right aortic arch, seven cases with single atrium and six cases with pulmonary valve stenosis. Eleven cases had pulmonary hypoplasia and nine cases had abnormal spleen.

CONCLUSIONSThere are many variations in pulmonary venous abnormalities associated with severe and complex cardiac abnormalities and internal organs malformation. Care should be exercised during autopsy examination to look for all branches of the pulmonary vein.

Autopsy ; Female ; Fetal Diseases ; Heart Defects, Congenital ; diagnosis ; Humans ; Pregnancy ; Pulmonary Veins ; abnormalities ; Spleen ; pathology

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy and the fifth leading cause of cancer-related mortality in the world. Breast cancer is a global health problem that poses a heavy burden on patients and their families as well as socioeconomic development. As an important component in the management of breast cancer, radiotherapy plays a vital role in its comprehensive treatment. This review describes advances made toward the application of adjuvant radiotherapy in the treatment of breast cancer.

Various types of medical devices used in assisted reproductive technologies (ART) should be detected for their safety by strict biological assays. Mouse embryo assay(MEA)has been recognized as one of the most important and standardized methods with the threshold more than 80% of blastocyst formation rate (BR) after 96 h culture of fertilized eggs. The disadvantage using BR for embryonic quality control has been concerned as it is ubiquitously dependent of embryonic morphology and the detailed data including molecular and genetic information is obviously missing and incomplete. This leads to the urgent requirement for more sensitive and efficient assessments for the quality control of ART. This study evaluated the reliability of an immunofluorescent MEA by counting total cell and differential number of the cells in the inner cell mass (ICM) and trophectoderm (TE) in the blastocyst. This method improved the traditional MEA, provided a sensitive and powerful platform to assess embryonic developmental viability and should be suggested as a standard assay to be globally used for the quality control of medical devices and pre-clinical procedures in ART.
Animals ; Blastocyst ; Embryonic Development ; Equipment Safety ; Mice ; Reproducibility of Results ; Reproductive Techniques, Assisted ; instrumentation