Objective To study the effect of gambogic acid on apoptosis and autophagy in human hepatoma cells HepG2, and to detect its possible mechanism. Methods After exposure of HepG2 cells to gambogic acid at different concentration for 24 h, cell proliferation rates was determined by MTT assay, apoptosis rate was detected by the flow cytometry (FCM), formation of autophagic vacuoles was observed by the monodansyl cadaverine (MDC) fluorescence staining, expression level of apoptosis-related proteins Bax, bcl-2 and autophagy related protein Beclin 1 was detected by Western blot. Results HepG2 cell growth was inhibited by the gambogic acid dose dependence. After exposure to gambogic acid at 0, 2.0, 4.0 and 8.0 μmol/L for 24 h, cell apoptosis rate was significantly increased to 5.31 %, 29.18 %, 31.50 % and 46.09 %(P <0.05), MDC average fluorescence intensity was also significantly increased to 6.3 ±1.1, 82.6 ±4.5, 132.9±15.7 and 157.7±9.0 (P<0.01). Western blot showed that gambogic acid could promote the expression of apoptosis protein Bax (0.17 ±0.02, 0.75 ±0.06, 0.78 ±0.05, 0.89 ±0.10, P <0.05), and decrease the expression of anti-apoptosis protein bcl-2 (1.18 ±0.04, 0.90 ±0.06, 0.64 ±0.08, 0.57 ±0.05, P <0.05), meanwhile, it could also increase the expression of autophagy related protein Beclin (0.67±0.03, 0.92±0.04, 0.95±0.07, 1.04±0.06, P<0.05). Conclusion Gambogic acid can inhibit the growth of human hepatoma HepG2 cells by inducing apoptosis and autophagic cell death.

Objective To estimate the efficacy of Xiaoyin decoction combined with calcipotriol ointment in patients with mild to moderate vulgaris psoriasis of blood heat type as well as their effects on the expression of interleukin (IL)-17,-22 and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) α.Methods Sixty patients with mild to moderate vulgaris psoriasis of blood heat type were enrolled in this study,and equally divided into 2 groups to be treated with Xiaoyin decoction and placebo respectively for 12 weeks.Calcipotriol ointment was applied in both groups of patients.Thirty healthy volunteers served as the controls.Bicolor flow cytometry was conducted to determine the proportion of peripheral blood Th17 cells,and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) to measure the serum levels of IL-17,IL-22 and TNF-α,in the controls and patients before and after treatment.Clinical efficacy was evaluated by psoriasis area and severity index (PASI) score.Results Increased proportion of Th17 cells and serum levels of IL-17,IL-22 and TNF-α were observed in the patients with psoriasis before treatment compared with the controls (all P ＜ 0.05).After treatment,a significant decrease was noted in the proportion of Th17 cells ((8.32 ± 1.28)％ vs.(14.24 ± 1.97)％,P ＜ 0.05) and serum levels of IL-17,IL-22 and TNF-α in the Xiaoyin decoction group (all P ＜ 0.05 ),but not in the placebo group.The PASI score was significantly different between the Xiaoyin decoction and placebo group after treatment (1.83 ± 1.28 vs.2.91 ± 1.42,P ＜ 0.05).The total response rate was 93.33％ in the Xiaoyin decoction group,significantly higher than that in the placebo group (73.33％,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions There is an abnormality in the proportion of Th17 cells and serum levels of IL-17,IL-22 and TNF-α,which may be ameliorated by the combined treatment with Xiaoyin decoction and calcipotriol ointment.

Objective To evaluate the efficacy and safety of Qingpeng ointment in the treatment of eczema.Methods A multi-center,randomized,double-blind and placebo-controlled clinical trial was conducted.A total of 246 patients with eczema were randomly assigned with a ratio of 2∶1 to the treatment group and control group to topically apply Qingpeng ointment and placebo respectively twice daily for 3 weeks.Total symptom scores were calculated for the patients at the baseline,on week 1,2 and 3 during the treatment according to the individual scores for pruritus,lesions including erythema,papules,papulovesicles or vesicles,desquamation,crusting,infiltration and lichenification.The occurrence of adverse events was recorded.Results Totally,228 patients completed the trial,including 154 patients in the treatment group and 74 patients in the control group.After 3 weeks of treatment,a statistical difference was observed in the response rate (85.71％ vs.41.89％,Z=47.16,P＜ 0.01) and cure rate (31.82％ vs.12.16％,Z=12.30,P＜ 0.01) between the treatment and control group.There was no significant difference in the incidence of adverse events between the two groups (2.48％ vs.2.56％,x2 =0,P ＞ 0.05).Conclusion Qingpeng ointment displays a promising efficacy for the treatment of mild to moderate eczema with a rapid onset and high safety.

Objective To investigate the feasibility of developing a grading diagnostic model for schistosomiasis-induced liver fibrosis based on B-mode ultrasonographic images and clinical laboratory indicators. Methods Ultrasound images and clinical laboratory testing data were captured from schistosomiasis patients admitted to the Second People’s Hospital of Duchang County, Jiangxi Province from 2018 to 2022. Patients with grade I schistosomiasis-induced liver fibrosis were enrolled in Group 1, and patients with grade II and III schistosomiasis-induced liver fibrosis were enrolled in Group 2. The machine learning binary classification tasks were created based on patients’radiomics and clinical laboratory data from 2018 to 2021 as the training set, and patients’radiomics and clinical laboratory data in 2022 as the validation set. The features of ultrasonographic images were labeled with the ITK-SNAP software, and the features of ultrasonographic images were extracted using the Python 3.7 package and PyRadiomics toolkit. The difference in the features of ultrasonographic images was compared between groups with t test or Mann-Whitney U test, and the key imaging features were selected with the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression algorithm. Four machine learning models were created using the Scikit-learn repository, including the support vector machine (SVM), random forest (RF), linear regression (LR) and extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost). The optimal machine learning model was screened with the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC), and features with the greatest contributions to the differentiation features of ultrasound images in machine learning models with the SHapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) method. Results The ultrasonographic imaging data and clinical laboratory testing data from 491 schistosomiasis patients from 2019 to 2022 were included in the study, and a total of 851 radiomics features and 54 clinical laboratory indicators were captured. Following statistical tests (t = −5.98 to 4.80, U = 6 550 to 20 994, all P values < 0.05) and screening of key features with LASSO regression, 44 features or indicators were included for the subsequent modeling. The areas under ROC curve (AUCs) were 0.763 and 0.611 for the training and validation sets of the SVM model based on clinical laboratory indicators, 0.951 and 0.892 for the training and validation sets of the SVM model based on radiomics, and 0.960 and 0.913 for the training and validation sets of the multimodal SVM model. The 10 greatest contributing features or indicators in machine learning models included 2 clinical laboratory indicators and 8 radiomics features. Conclusions The multimodal machine learning models created based on ultrasound-based radiomics and clinical laboratory indicators are feasible for intelligent identification of schistosomiasis-induced liver fibrosis, and are effective to improve the classification effect of one-class data models.