Bronchoscopy is a minimally invasive method for obtaining peripheral pulmonary lesions (PPL). Traditional bronchoscopy-guided transbronchial lung biopsy (TBLB) is performed under X-ray guidance, and diagnostic rate is relatively low. A new, real-time electromagnetic navigation bronchoscopy (ENB) is a minimally invasive diagnostic technique which appeared in recent years. Studies suggest ENB is a feasible and safe method for diagnosis of PPL which shows higher diagnostic yields than traditional TBLB, and its potential application in localization and treatment of PPL. This article reviews the clinical application of the technique.

AIM: To establish a sensitive method for quantitative determination of astragaloside Ⅳ (AGS-Ⅳ) in plasma and a preliminary evaluation of its pharmacokinetics parameters in intact rats. METHODS: A liquid chromatography-electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (LC-ESI-MS) was applied for determining AGS-Ⅳ in plasma by using digoxin as the internal standard (I.S.). Six rats were given AGS-Ⅳ 2.0 mg/kg by intravenous infusion for 5 min. Blood samples were drawn intermittently with each intact rat from left femoral artery at 0.025, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2, 4, 6, 10, 14 and 24 h after medication. The samples were prepared by solid phase extraction and analyzed through a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer equipped with an electrospary probe. The samples were monitored in selected ion recording (SIR) mode of positive ions by using target ions at m/z 807.5 for AS- Ⅳand at m/z 803.5 for I.S. RESULTS: Calibration curves were linear over the ranges 1-1 000 ng/mL for AGS-Ⅳ (r=0.9992). The intra-and inter-day assay variability values were less than 6% and 8%, respectively. Extraction recoveries from plasma were 92.8%-98.4% for AGS-Ⅳ and 80.0%-90.9% for digoxin, respectively. The lower limit of quantitation (LLOQ) for AGS-Ⅳ was 0.5 ng/mL. The concentration-time curves of AGS-Ⅳ for each rat were fitted to an open two-compartment model by CAPP program. The pharmacokinetics parameters of AGS-Ⅳ were as following: the elimination half-life (t1/2β), clearance rate (CL), distribution volume at steady state (Vss), and AUC0-∞ were (3.46±0.52) h, (0.47±0.02) L/h, (0.76±0.16) L/kg and (4.27±0.19) μg·mL-1·h, respectively. CONCLUSION: These results show that this method is satisfied for the measurements of pharmacokinetics study for AGS-Ⅳ.

Objective To evaluate the diagnostic value of endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle biopsy (EBUS-TBNA) in intrathoracic tuberculosis(TB).Methods We retrospectively analyzed patients underwent EBUS-TBNA with a final diagnosis of intrathoracic TB at Shanghai Chest Hospital from October 2009 to March 2013 and observed that the diagnostic efficacy by pathology and microbiology and safety of EBUS-TBNA for intrathoracic TB.Results 75 patients were diagnosed with pulmonary TB or intrathoracic tuberculous lymphadenitis,and accuracy was 80％ (60/75) by EBUS TBNA.A total of 60 patients had pathology,acid-fast bacilli(AFB) staining and mycobacterial culture test results,of whom 52 (86.67％)were diagnosed.Pathological findings were consistent with TB in 77.33％ patients (58/75),in 20.31％ (13/64) the smear were positive for AFB and in 46.67％ (28/60) were positive for cuhure.One hundred and twenty-nine mediastinal or hilar lymph nodes and 10 intrapulmonary lesions were biopsied in 75 patients,the average target number of per patient were 1.85.Pathological findings were consistent with TB in 66.19％ samples(92/139),in 13.91％ (16/115) were positive for AFB and in 38.32％ (41/107) were positive for culture.Multivariate regression revealed that short-axis diameter was an independent risk factor associated with positive pathology,smear and euhure.Additionally,more aspiration times cause higher pathology positive rate,pathology showing necrosis and positive smear were independent risk factors associated with positive cuhure.There were two patients occurred complications during operation.Conclusion EBUS-TBNA was a safe and effective method for the diagnosis of intrathoracic tuberculosis.

Aim To evaluate the mucosal-protective effects of carboxymethylpachyman( CMP) on Fluorou-racil(5-Fu)-induced mice intestinal mucositis and ex-plore its mechanisms. Methods ICR mice were as-signed randomly to four groups:normal group( n=8;re-ceiving pure water orally for 14 d) ,CMP group( n=8;200 mg·kg-1 CMP for 14 d orally),5-Fu group(n=8;25 mg·kg-1 5-Fu for 7 d,intraperitoneally( i. p. ) , and CMP+5-Fu group( n=8;200 mg·kg-1 CMP for 14 d orally and 25 mg·kg-1 5-Fu for 7 d,i. p. ). At day 14the mice were sacrificed. The intestinal propel-ling rate and the colon length were measured. ROS, GSH and IL-1βcontents,and CAT,GSH-Px activities in homogenate supernatant of PPs were measured by kits for observing the effects of CMP on mice lipid peroxida-tion and intestinal mucosal inflammatory induced by 5-Fu. Colon tissues were used for hematoxylin and eosin ( HE ) staining for the determination of the effect of CMP on mice colon histopathology, immunohistochem-istry for the protein levels of NF-κB and p-p38 . Results CMP significantly extended colon lengths,accelerate the intestinal propelling rates, reduced colonic mucosa epithelium goblet cell loss, inflammatory cells infiltra-tion,and crypt depth shallow induced by 5-Fu. CMP obviously reduced ROS and IL-1β contents, and pre-vented reductions in homogenate supernatant of PPs GSH content, CATand GSH-Px activities by 5-Fu ad-ministration,and also reduced the expression of NF-κB and p-p38 in colon tissues. However, CMP alone had no effect on the colon of normal mice. Conclusion The current study demonstrates that CMP may have sig-nificant protective effects against 5-Fu-induced intesti-nal mucositis. Its mechanism may be related to enhan-cing the antioxidant activity,anti-inflammatory and an-ti-apoptotic effects.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVEThe aim of this study is to evaluate diagnostic yield and the safety of endobronchial ultrasound-guided transbronchial needle aspiration (EBUS-TBNA) in the diagnosis ofbronchogenic carcinoma.

METHODSBetween July, 2009 and February, 2010, 95 patients with mediastinal/hilar lymphadenopathy and/or intrathoracic peritracheal or peribronchial masses previously detected with CT scan underwent EBUS-TBNA. No rapid onsite cytology was performed.

RESULTSIn all 95 patients, 60 cases were newly diagnosed lung cancer through the pathological examination and clinical follow-up certification. In 60 lung cancer cases, 112 samples were obtained from lymph nodes (LNs) and 11 samples were obtained from intrapulmonary lesions. Fifty-eight cases of patients were diagnosed, false negative in 2 cases. Sensitivity and specificity of EBUS-guided TBNA method in distinguishing benign from malignant LNs or thoracic masses were 96.67% and 100%, respectively. There was any major complication in this series, the procedure was uneventful.

CONCLUSIONEBUSTBNA seemed a safe and effective technique in making bronchogenic carcinoma diagnosis for mediastinal/hilar LNs and intra-pulmonary masses.

Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Biopsy, Fine-Needle ; methods ; Bronchi ; diagnostic imaging ; pathology ; Carcinoma, Bronchogenic ; diagnosis ; Endosonography ; methods ; Female ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms ; diagnosis ; Male ; Middle Aged

OBJECTIVETo evaluate the frequency of the nucleophosmin (NPM1) gene and the CCAAT/enhancer binding protein α gene (CEBPA) through polymerase chain reaction (PCR) array in pediatric patients with cytogenetically normal acute myeloid leukemia (CN-AML) and explore the clinical significances of these mutations.

METHODBetween August 2009 and December 2012, 30 children (<16 years old) with newly diagnosed CN-AML were included. The clinical characteristics were analyzed in these patients. PCR combined with direct sequencing was used to detect NPM1, CEBPA gene mutations. All the data were statistically analyzed using SPSS17.0 software.

RESULTThe gene mutations were detected in each of the 30 patients. NPM1 mutation was positive in three patients (10%) with type A mutation, while CEBPA mutation was positive in two patients (6.7%) with double mutations (TAD, bZIP) . Besides, FLT3/ITD mutation was positive in three patients. Patients with NPM1 or FLT3/ITD had a significantly elevated diagnostic WBC count with a median diagnostic WBC count of 102.80×10(9)/L compared with 18.56×10(9)/L for the patients without mutations(t = 2.353, P = 0.043), as well as the marrow blast percentage (94.0% vs. 80.0%, t = 3.804, P = 0.002). The complete remission was achieved in all the 3 patients with NPM1 mutations and 2 patients with CEBPA mutations. All the patients with these mutations also achieved 2-year event-free survival (EFS) and 2-year overall survival (OS), while 2-year EFS and 2-year OS of the other patients were (40.1 ± 11.2)% and (51.8 ± 10.9)% (P = 0.044, 0.091, respectively).

CONCLUSIONNPM1 and CEBPA mutations may indicate a favorable prognosis in pediatric CN-AML.

Adolescent ; CCAAT-Enhancer-Binding Proteins ; genetics ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; DNA Mutational Analysis ; Disease-Free Survival ; Female ; Genotype ; Humans ; Infant ; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute ; genetics ; mortality ; pathology ; Male ; Mutation ; Nuclear Proteins ; genetics ; Prognosis ; Retrospective Studies ; fms-Like Tyrosine Kinase 3 ; genetics

The insufficient reporting of adverse reactions of Chinese proprietary medicines is common. In addition, there is a lack of safety information in the specifications of Chinese proprietary medicines, which led to less evidence for clinical safety of Chinese proprietary medicines in clinical practice. It is urgent to carry out post-marketing clinical safety re-evaluation of Chinese proprietary medicine. Developing a clinical safety evaluation data set for Chinese proprietary medicine may reduce the insufficient reporting of safety information and the inconsistency of data reporting in similar studies, as well as include more studies in systematic reviews, so that they can provide higher-level evidence for clinical safety of Chinese proprietary medicine. This paper proposes a method for developing core data set of clinical safety evaluation of Chinese proprietary medicine: firstly, the application scope of core data set for clinical safety evaluation was determined according to the characteristics of diseases, population, research objectives, administration methods, evaluation methods, etc. Systematic reviews and semi-structured interviews should be conducted to develop the list of original items for clinical safety evaluation. Based on the list, Delphi surveys can be developed in different stakeholders. Then the final core data set can be developed via consensus meetings.

Objective: To conduct a comprehensive and systematic review of the efficacy and safety of Wenxin Keli (WXKL) in the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF) . Methods: Seven databases (PubMed, The Cochrane Library, Web ofScience, CNKI, Wanfang Database, VIP and SinoMed) were searched to identify relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from inceptions to 1 October, 2018. Two review authors independently assessed the methodological quality andanalyzed data by Cochrane handbook and the Rev Man 5.3 software. Begg.s test was conducted to assess publication biasvia Stata 14 software. Results: Twenty-four RCTs with 2246 patients were included in this review. Compared with blankcontrol, placebo or western medicine alone, WXKL alone or combined with western medicine could effectively reducerapid ventricular rate (MD=-7.14, 95％CI:-8.42——5.87), the frequency and duration of AF. It could also shorten thesinus rhythm conversion time (MD=-3.04, 95％CI:-3.47——2.61), increase the sinus rhythm conversion rate (RR=1.19, 95％ CI: 1.09～1.29) and decrease recurrence rate of AF (RR=0.28, 95％ CI: 0.13-0.59) . Besides, WXKL alone orcombined with western medicine was beneficial for improving the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) (MD=3.44, 95％ CI: 0.87-6.01), left ventricular end diastolic diameter (LVEDD) (MD=-2.47, 95％ CI:-2.86——2.08), left atrialdiameter (LAd) (MD=-0.91, 95％CI:-1.58——0.25) and P wave dispersion (Pd) (MD=-4.04, 95％CI:-4.15——3.93) .WXKL combined with low-dose amiodarone was superior to conventional-dose amiodarone alone in improving themaximum P wave (Pmax) (MD=-8.25, 95％ CI:-10.33——6.17), and WXKL combined with conventional-doseamiodarone is more effective (MD=-13.10, 95％CI:-13.65——12.55) . Compared with the control group, the treatmentgroup had fewer adverse reactions, and the Begg.s test did not find any publication bias. Conclusion: WXKL alone orcombined with western medicine exhibited better therapeutic effects in the treatment of AF, but these results still needhigh-quality evidence to verify.

During early embryonic development, cell fate commitment represents a critical transition or "tipping point" of embryonic differentiation, at which there is a drastic and qualitative shift of the cell populations. In this study, we presented a computational approach, scGET, to explore the gene-gene associations based on single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) data for critical transition prediction. Specifically, by transforming the gene expression data to the local network entropy, the single-cell graph entropy (SGE) value quantitatively characterizes the stability and criticality of gene regulatory networks among cell populations and thus can be employed to detect the critical signal of cell fate or lineage commitment at the single-cell level. Being applied to five scRNA-seq datasets of embryonic differentiation, scGET accurately predicts all the impending cell fate transitions. After identifying the "dark genes" that are non-differentially expressed genes but sensitive to the SGE value, the underlying signaling mechanisms were revealed, suggesting that the synergy of dark genes and their downstream targets may play a key role in various cell development processes.The application in all five datasets demonstrates the effectiveness of scGET in analyzing scRNA-seq data from a network perspective and its potential to track the dynamics of cell differentiation. The source code of scGET is accessible at https://github.com/zhongjiayuna/scGET_Project.

Humans ; Acute Disease ; Pancreatitis/diagnosis* ; Follow-Up Studies ; Patient Discharge ; Disease Progression