Objective To investigate the clinical efficacy of intermittent liver-nourishing and mind-regulating acupuncture in preventive treatment of migraine. Method One hundred and twenty migraine patients were randomly allocated to treatment and control groups, 60 cases each. The treatment group received intermittent liver-nourishing and mind-regulating acupuncture and the control group took flunarizine hydrochloride capsules orally. The migraine score, the visual analogue scale (VAS) score and the headache severity rating score were recorded in the subjects before treatment and at the end of treatment and the 4-week, 8-week, 12-week, 16-week and 20-week follow-ups. The Self-Rating Anxiety Scale (SAS) score and the Self-Rating Depression Scale (SDS) were recorded before and after treatment.Result After one course of treatment, the total efficacy rate was 98.3% in the treatment group and 89.5% in the control group; there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups (P<0.05). There was a statistically significant difference in the migraine score between before treatment and at the end of treatment in the two groups (P<0.05) and between the two groups at the same follow-ups (P<0.05). There was a statistically significant difference in the VAS score between before treatment and at the end of treatment in the two groups (P<0.05) and between the two groups at the same follow-ups (P<0.05). There were statistically significant differences in the SAS and SDS scores between before treatment and at the end of treatment in the two groups (P<0.05) and between the two groups after treatment (P<0.05).Conclusion Intermittent liver-nourishing and mind-regulating acupuncture has marked efficacy in preventive treatment of migraine. It can increase the total efficacy rate and reduce the number of relapses.

Objective To investigate the efficacy of skin scraping plus movable cupping in treating neck-shoulder syndrome. Method One hundred and eighty patients with neck-shoulder syndrome were randomly allocated to treatment and control groups. The treatment group received skin scraping plus movable cupping and the control group, acupuncture. Result The total efficacy rate was 88.8% in the treatment group and 77.5% in the control group; there was a statistically significant difference between the two groups (P<0.05). Conclusion Skin scraping plus movable cupping has a good therapeutic effect on neck-shoulder syndrome.

Municipal wastewater is usually problematic for the environment. The process of oleaginous microalgal culture requires large amounts of nutrients and water. Therefore, we studied the feasibility of oleaginous microalgal culture of Scenedesmus dimorphus in bubbled column photobioreactor with municipal wastewater added with different nutrients. S. dimorphus could adapt municipal nutrient-rich wastewater by adding some nutrients as nitrogen, phosphorus, ferric ammonium citrate and trace elements, and the amounts of such nutrients have significant effects on cell growth, biomass yield and lipid accumulation. At optimum compositions of wastewater medium, the algal cell concentration could reach 8.0 g/L, higher than that of 5.0 g/L in standard BG11. Furthermore, S. dimorphus had strong capacity to absorb inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus from its culture water. There was almost no total nitrogen and phosphorus residues in culture medium after three or four days culturing when the adding mounts of nitrate and phosphate in wastewater medium were no more than 185.2 mg/L and 16.1 mg/L respectively under the experimental conditions. As a conclusion, it was feasible to cultivate oleaginous microalgae with municipal nutrient-rich wastewater, not only producing feedstock for algal biodiesel, but also removing inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus from wastewater.
Biofuels ; Cities ; Culture Techniques ; methods ; Lipids ; biosynthesis ; Microalgae ; metabolism ; Photobioreactors ; Scenedesmus ; growth & development ; metabolism ; Waste Disposal, Fluid ; methods ; Waste Products

Objective To observe the clinical efficacy of heat-sensitive moxibustion plus point-toward-point needling in treating poststroke strephenopodia.Method Eighty patients with poststroke strephenopodia were randomized into a treatment group intervened by heat-sensitive moxibustion plus point-toward-point needling and a control group intervened by rehabilitation, 40 cases in each group. In addition to the basic treatment, the treatment group was given heat-sensitive moxibustion plus point-toward-point needling, and the control group was given rehabilitation treatment. Holden's Functional Ambulation Classification (FAC), Fugl-Meyer Assessment (FMA) of the lower-limb motor function, and Tinetti Gait Assessment (TGA) were adopted for evaluation of the two groups, and the clinical efficacies were compared.ResultThe effective rate was 90.0% in the treatment group versus 77.5% in the control group, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05); after the treatment,there was a significant difference in comparing the Holden's FAC between the two groups (P<0.05); the FMA score changed significantly after the treatment in both groups (P<0.05), and there was a significant difference in comparing the FMA score between thetwo groups after the treatment (P<0.05); the TGA score changed significantly after the intervention in both groups (P<0.05), and there was a significant difference in comparing the TGA score between the two groups after the intervention (P<0.05).ConclusionHeat-sensitive moxibustion plus point-toward-point needling can produce a significant efficacy in treating poststroke strephenopodia, as it can enhance the effective rate and improve the lower-limb motor function.

Background::With an increasing number of patients with hematological malignancies being treated with umbilical cord blood transplantation (UCBT), the correlation between immune reconstitution (IR) after UCBT and graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) has been reported successively, but reports on double-negative T (DNT) cell reconstitution and its association with acute GVHD (aGVHD) after UCBT are lacking.Methods::A population-based observational study was conducted among 131 patients with hematological malignancies who underwent single-unit UCBT as their first transplant at the Department of Hematology, the First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, between August 2018 and June 2021. IR differences were compared between the patients with and without aGVHD.Results::The absolute number of DNT cells in the healthy Chinese population was 109 (70-157)/μL, accounting for 5.82 (3.98-8.19)% of lymphocytes. DNT cells showed delayed recovery and could not reach their normal levels even one year after transplantation. Importantly, the absolute number and percentage of DNT cells were significantly higher in UCBT patients without aGVHD than in those with aGVHD within one year ( F = 4.684, P = 0.039 and F = 5.583, P = 0.026, respectively). In addition, the number of DNT cells in the first month after transplantation decreased significantly with the degree of aGVHD increased, and faster DNT cell reconstitution in the first month after UCBT was an independent protective factor for aGVHD (HR = 0.46, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.23-0.93; P = 0.031). Conclusions::Compared to the number of DNT cells in Chinese healthy people, the reconstitution of DNT cells in adults with hematological malignancies after UCBT was slow. In addition, the faster reconstitution of DNT cells in the early stage after transplantation was associated with a lower incidence of aGVHD.