Objective: To investigate the characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndromes and their elements in patients with posthepatitic cirrhosis by analyzing the relationships between signs and symptoms and biochemical parameters. Methods: A total of 440 patients with hepatitis B cirrhosis treated in Shanghai Public Health Center and Shuguang Hospital, Longhua Hospital and Central Hospital of Putuo District Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine during January 2002 to January 2006 were enrolled in this study. Signs and symptoms and biochemical information of patients were collected by using a self-designed questionnaire regarding the four examinations of TCM. Signs and symptoms were firstly analyzed to find the frequency of occurrence. Then, the patients were divided into two groups according to non-existent or existent sign and symptom and the correlations between the signs and symptoms which occurred most frequently and their biochemical parameters were analyzed. Results: Sixteen symptoms which occurred most frequently were fatigue, colored urine, liver palms, opaque complexion, string-like pulse, weakness at waist and knees, dry month and bitter taste in the mouth, profuse dreaminess and poor sleepiness, heaviness of limbs, abdominal distention, yellow eyes, fine pulse, impetuosity and susceptibility to rage, splenomegaly, poor appetite, and distension and fullness in the chest and hypochondrium. A previous study on syndrome differentiation of 900 patients with posthepatitic cirrhosis showed 4 syndrome patterns: internal accumulation of dampness-heat, liver-kidney yin deficiency, internal accumulation of blood stasis-heat, and liver depression and spleen deficiency. Further analysis showed that internal accumulation of dampness-heat syndrome was characterized by obvious hepatic inflammation, poor synthesis function and more asctites. Liver-kidney yin deficiency syndrome was characterized by low-level hepatic inflammation, poor synthesis function and more ascites. Internal accumulation of blood stasis-heat syndrome was characterized by low-level hepatic inflammation, poorer synthesis function, ascites and splenomegalia, and liver depression and spleen deficiency syndrome was characterized by slight hepatic inflammation, synthesis function injury, decreased internal portal vein diameter and less ascites. Conclusion: Different syndrome patterns have different pathological features, showing the complexity and polymorphism of syndrome construction.

Objective To explore the effect of lentiviral vector-mediated somatostatin (SST) expression on seizures induced by hippocampal kindling in rats.Methods Adult Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into the sham group (Sham),epilepsy group (EP),Lenti-pSyn-EGFP (LV-EGFP) group and Lenti-pSyn-SST-2A-EGFP (LV-SST) group.The rats in LV-EGFP group were subsequently electrically hippocampal kindled and LV-EGFP (5 μl) was injected into dentate gyrus (DG).The rats in LV-SST group were kindled and LV-SST (5 μl) was injected into the dentate gyrus (DG),medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) or amygdala (Amy).Seizure severity was evaluated and immunohistochemical staining was employed to detect the expression of SST,neuron specific nuclear protein (NeuN) and microtubule associated protein 2 (MAP2).Results The current values to the first stage V seizure of LV-SST (DG) group,LV-SST (MEC) group or LV-SST (Amy) group ((143.8±3.8)μA,(142.5±4.1)μA,(142.5±5.3) μA,respectively) were significantly increased compared with that of epilepsy (EP) group ((136.3±5.3)μA),and V stage current values of LV-SST groups in each stimulation day were higher than that of EP group except the fifth stimulation day (P<0.05).After kindling,SST expression and NeuN-positive neurons of EP group and LV-SST groups were less than that of Sham group in CA1,CA3 and DG.SST and NeuN neurons loss in LV-SST groups were less than that of EP group (P<0.05) and MAP2 immunohistochemistry stainings in LV-SST groups were higher than that in EP group.Conclusion Lentiviral vector-mediated somatostatin expression suppresses seizures and can rescue the neuronal damage of seizure induced by kindling in hippocampus,which may provide a new method of gene therapy for temporal lobe epilepsy.