OBJECTIVE To discuss the diagnosis and treatment of cholesterol granuloma of the middle ear and the choice and effect of surgical methods. METHODS A retrospective analysis was conducted on 18 cases of cholesterol granuloma of the middle ear confirmed by surgery and pathology. Different choices of surgical methods were made according to the lesion extension of this disease. RESULTS All patients were followed up for at least 6 months. Two cases with eustachian tube obstruction had ventilation tube inserted for a long time. One case who had recurrence and metastasis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in the middle ear was transferred to oncology department for further treatment. Post-operative dry ears were obtained in the other cases whose pure tone thresholds were improved to different degrees. CONCLUSION Etiology of cholesterol granuloma of middle ear remains controversial. It's supposed to result from the bleeding, occlusion of ventilation and disturbance of drainage of the air cavity because of the middle ear inflammation, and bone marrow exposure. The middle ear and mastoid surgery can completely remove the disease tissues, and establish ventilation system of mastoid-tympani-eustachian, which is the key point of the middle ear surgery.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the verbal communication skills of post-lingual cochlear implantees with categories of auditory performance (CAP) and speech intelligibility rating(SIR), and to explore their relationships with the duration of hearing loss, the postoperative time and preoperative hearing aid usage. METHOD: A retrospective analysis was conducted on 23 cases of post-lingual patients with cochlear implantation. CAP and SIR were applied in the evaluation of verbal communication skills. IBM SPSS Statistics 19 was used in statistical analysis. RESULT: The average score of CAP was 6.13, and statistical analysis showed CAP score was not significantly correlated with the duration of hearing loss, the postoperative time or the time of wearing a hearing aid preoperatively. The average SIR score of all these post-lingual patients was 4.91. CONCLUSION It showed that CAP score was not significantly correlated with these three factors. This may due to the low accuracy of CAP or the small sample size in the present study. SIR was not suitable for the evaluation of post-lingual cochlear implantees.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Cochlear Implantation ; Female ; Hearing ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Retrospective Studies ; Speech Intelligibility ; Young Adult

Objective To evaluate the auditory and verbal abilities of cochlear implantees using question_naires ,to explore basic rules of the development of auditory and verbal abilities ,and to analyze their relationships with some influencing factors .Methods A retrospective analysis of 107 cases of pre-lingually deaf children with cochlear implantation was conducted with Infant-Toddler Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale/Meaningful Audi_tory Integration Scale (IT -MAIS/MAIS) ,categories of auditory performance (CAP) and speech intelligibility rat_ing (SIR) for the evaluation of auditory and verbal abilities .An analysis was performed to assess influencing fac_tors ,such as postoperative time ,age at implantation ,physical age at follow -up ,time with hearing aids before im_plantation .SAS 9 .1 .3 was used in statistical analysis .ResuIts A total of 107 pre-lingually deaf children (48 males and 59 females) participated in this study .The postoperative time ranged from 0 to 49 months ,with an average of 9 .0 ± 10 .9 months .The results showed the postoperative time and age at implantation had significant influences on the scores of IT -MAIS/MAIS ,and postoperative time and physical age at follow -up had significant influences on the scores of CAP/SIR (P<0 .05) ,and hearing aids (HA) usage before implantation had no significant influences on these three questionnaires (P>0 .05) .ConcIusion The ages at implantation ,postoperative time and physical age had significant influences on the auditory and verbal abilities of pre-lingually deaf children with cochlear implanta_tion .Further studies are needed to explore their relationships with hearing aids usage before implantation .

Objective To observe the degree of joint flexion and extension of elbow and knee joints of moderate skeletal fluorosis patients before and after treatment and to assess the effects of Gun's MaQian decoction in treating moderate skeletal fluorosis. Methods 54 moderate skeletal fluorosis patients were randomly recruited into a treatment group and a control group. The treatment group was treated with Gun's MaQian decoction initially, and changed to be treated with GuKangNing capsule after 8 weeks' treatment. The control group was treated with placebo at first, and also changed to be treated with GuKangNing capsule after 8 weeks. Results Joint flexion and extension of elbow was improved greatly in both groups after the treatment, while the treatment group showing better effects than the control group (P<0.05). The improvement of joint flexion and extension of knee had not showed a statistical significance after the treatment. A 24 weeks follow-up to the joint flexion and extension of both elbow and knee revealed obvious improvement and the difference between the two groups were significance (P<0.05). Conclusion Gun's MaQian decoction can improve the flexion and extension of elbow and knee in moderate skeletal fluorosis patients.

Objective:To determine the correlations of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with atrial fibrillation (AF) in the Chinese Han population from the central plains.Methods:A total of 168 hospitalized patients,including 56 AF and 112 controls,were recruited in this case-control study.The clinical data were obtained from the medical records.All 5 SNPs,rs337711 in KCNN2,rs11264280 near KCNN3,rs17042171 near PITX2,rs6771157 and rs6795970 in SCN10A,were genotyped using amplification refractory mutation system-polymerase chain reaction or direct sequencing.The x2 test was used to compare categorical variables and preliminarily examine correlations between the genotype frequencies and AF.Subsequently,a logistic regression model was constructed to determine the associations between the SNPs and AF based on the above screened results.Odds ratios (ORs) and 95％ confidence interval (CI) were calculated to assess the strength of the correlations.Moreover,we downloaded the genotype data from the HapMap Project for linkage disequilibrium analysis ofrs17042171.Results:AF patients were likely to be of older age and longer left atrial diameter and had more coronary artery disease and higher hypertension compared with the control group (P＜0.05).Among the 5 SNPs,the frequency distribution of genotype AA for rs17042171 was significantly different between the AF and control groups (P＜0.05).After adjusting for several covariates,there was still a high risk ratio in patients with the AA genotype compared with the AC+CC genotype (OR:5.591,95％CI 2.176 to 14.365,P-B＜0.008).Similarly,stratification analysis on the AA genotype demonstrated significant differences between rs17042171 and persistent AF.However,there were not significant correlations between AF and the control groups for the other 4 SNPs (P＜0.05).Conclusion:Rs17042171,near PITX2 on chromosome 4q25,is associated with AF susceptibility in the Chinese Han population from the central plains,suggesting that this SNP can provide a new strategy for clinical diagnosis in AF patients.

Humans ; Transcriptome/genetics* ; East Asian People ; Genetic Predisposition to Disease ; Genome-Wide Association Study ; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive/genetics* ; Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide/genetics*

Animals ; Rats ; Neuroprotective Agents/pharmacology* ; Amyloid beta-Peptides ; PC12 Cells ; Polyunsaturated Alkamides/pharmacology* ; Apoptosis ; Cell Survival ; Peptide Fragments