MicroRNAs(miRNAs) are a newly discovered class of small noncoding RNAs that rcgulate gene expression by translational repression or mRNA degradation.It has become evident that miRNAs are involved in many important biological processes,including tissue differentiation and development,showing a tissue specificity and development-stage specificity.In the other hand,miRNAs play critical roles in neovascularization and a variety of pathophysiological processes,such as pathological angiogenesis,oxidative stress response,immune response and inflammation.Currently,miRNAs of the retina,lens and cornea have been established,and they would be potential therapeutic targets in the eye diseases.Here,the distribution of miRNAs in the eye and their role in ocular diseases were summarized.

Rectal cancer is one of the common malignant tumors in China,and the incidence rate is rising year by year.Comprehensive treatment based on surgical operation is the major treatment of low rectal cancer.The treatment concept requires not only radical resection of tumor,but also preservation of the anal and urogenital function,to improve the quality of patients' life.By improving the accuracy of preoperative staging of rectal cancer,neoadjuvant therapy,and following the principle of total mesorectal excision,patients can benefit in terms of increased resection rate,decreased operation complication incidence,increased sphincter preservation,decreased local recurrence and increased overall survival rate.With the development of medical technology,minimally invasive surgery of low rectal cancer has been developed rapidly.In this paper,new progress in the surgical treatment of low rectal cancer will be reviewed.

Objective To observe the therapeutic effect of Chinese herbal and western medicines(CHM & WM)combined with acupoint pulse-laser stimulation(APLS)for calculus of upper urinary tract.Methods Sixty cases of calculus of upper urinary tract were allocated to the treatment group(Group A,n=36)and the control group (Group B,n=24).Group A was treated with CHM & WM combined with APLS and Group B with CHM alone.Results The therapeutic effect rate was 94.4% and 75.0% in Group A and Group B respectively (P

Alzheimer's disease(AD) is one of the most common causes of mental deterioration in elderly individuals, accounting for around 45~60% of the overall cases of dementia over 65 years of age. Although there is presently no "cure" for AD, a large number of potential therapeutic interventions have emerged to correct cholinergic dysfunctions. Currently, cholinergic therapy, particularly cholinesterase inhibition, represents the most realistic approach to the symptomatic treatment of AD. Modest efficacy for mild to moderate AD has been shown in well-designed clinical trials for tacrine, donepezil, rivastigmine, and galantimine. Among other treatment options, estrogen replacement therapy in postmenopausal women is under active investigation, but recent studies showed somewhat disappointing results. Epidemiological and clinical data suggest that nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are beneficial in the treatment and prevention of AD. But prednisone and COX-2 inhibitor, celecoxib showed no clinical benefit in recent studies. Alpha-tocopherol and gingko biloba showed some beneficial effect in delaying the progression of AD and enhancing cognitive functions. Immunization with beta amyloid peptide was considered to be the only method to prevent and halt disease progression in patients with AD. Recently, phase II clinical trial using synthetic beta amyloid peptide (AN-1792) was discontinued because some patients showed neuro-inflammation which may be caused by autoimmune responses.
Aged ; alpha-Tocopherol ; Alzheimer Disease* ; Amyloid ; Autoimmunity ; Celecoxib ; Cholinesterases ; Cognition ; Dementia ; Disease Progression ; Estrogen Replacement Therapy ; Female ; Ginkgo biloba ; Humans ; Immunization ; Methods ; Prednisone ; Rivastigmine ; Tacrine

AIM: By introducing the thinking and experience of professor Deng Tietao to treat myasthenia gravis, to improve the therapeutic effect and prognosis.benefiting vital qi had been the main line throughout the whole process of phasized that while we grasp spleen-asthenia, we must give consideration to other organs at the same time, regulate and treat the patient with multistrengthening muscle and increasing strength (radix astragali, radix codonopsis pilosulae, rhizoma atractylodis macrocephalae, rhizoma cimicifugae, pericarpium citri reticulatae, radix fici simplicissimae, etc.), the disease had been treated with different dosage of drugs according to the py for one or two years, even though the symptoms had disappeared completely.RESULTS: Because of grasping the root cause, therapy with multi-means and modified prescription according to the varied symptoms, it had a satisfactory effect. An excellent therapeutic effect had been obtained with the decoction for strengthening muscle and increasing strength, which is created by Deng himself.CONCLUSION: Deng's theory holds that myasthenia gravis is mainly due to spleen-asthenia, and related to other four organs (with a predominance of kidney), and the therapy should be strengthening the spleen-qi, so the prescription was selected for strengthening muscle and increasing strength (which is created by Deng himself), with radix astragali being in a lager quantity. Moreover, he paid more attention to psychological therapy and dietary regulation. The Deng's theory is of considerable clinical significance in guiding treatment of myasthenia gravis.

The pathological changes of hallux valgus are diversity, including adduct of metatarsus primus, increasing of the intermetatarsal angle between the first and second metatarsal bones, increasing of hallux valgus angle, dislocation of sesamoides, lost of soft tissue balancing. X-ray is the most important method to measure the pathological changes of hallux valgus. The multiformity of hallus valgus pathological changes makes manner of repairing variety. The main methods include operation on soft tissue, osseous surgery, fusion of joint and figuration of joints. The selection of the surgical methods should be individualization according to the idiographic pathological changes of hallux valgus patients.

Objective To investigate the distribution of syndromes in hospitalized hypertensive patients with maintenance hemodialysis. Methods A investigation-table of Chinese medicine was established and used in 105 eases for survey in clinic to discover the regularity. Results The occurrence rate from high to low of asthenia syndrome symptoms was: deficiency syndrome of both yin and yang, yin asthenia, deficiency of both vital energy and yin, yang asthenia, and the deficiency of qi. The occurrence rate from high to low of evil domination was: turbid damp, stagnation of qi, blood stasis, and fluid stagnation. Conclusions The clinical feature of hypertensive patients with maintenance hemodialysis was mainly asthenia of healthy energy combining with sthenia evil.

BACKGROUND: Alienation is derived from dissimilation in philosophy.It is practically defined as the subjective state of individuals who develop negative feelings such as social isolation, uncontrollable and meaningless sense, oppression, and self-alienation because they are alien to others, the.society, nature and themselves, and even feel controlled.OBJECTIVE: To investigate alienation from psychological perspective,aiming to construct and verify the theoretical hypothesis of alienation,thereby working out alienation scale for adolescent students.DESIGN: Cross-sectional investigation.SETTING:National Key Research Center of Basic Psychology and National Key Liberal Arts of Southwest Normal University.PARTICIPANTS: The investigation was carried out from March to June 2000. The method of cohort stratified random sampling was adopted and the questionnaire was administered to adolescent students in Chongqing City and Lanzhou City. Inclusion criteria: volunteer students of grade one in junior high school to grade four in colleges. Exclusion criteria: Those who had incomplete data or had differences of more than 6 points in the total scores for three matched lie-testing questions in the questionnaire. A total of 1502 pieces of questionnaire were collected (including 1 066 questionnaires used for exploratory factor analysis and 436 questionnaires for verifying factor analysis); the age of the students covered the whole range of adolescence, and the boy-to-girl ratio in each grade was matched.METHODS:We combined literature analysis, investigation research and interview. The details are as follows: First, theoretical hypothesis was put forward based on literature analysis; then related variances were collected through interviews and open questionnaires, which were compared with the items in scales used home and abroad at present so as to work out predicting questions for adolescence alienation questionnaire. Finally, 52 items were screened out and used to construct the preliminary questionnaire. The formal alienation scale was made after standardized designation of behavioral variances, and verified for alienation analysis in adolescent students.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Behavioral apparent variances were collected based on interviews and open questionnaires, and used as psychological potential variances after statistical processing.RESULTS:Data of 1502 pieces of questionnaire were analyzed.① The correlation coefficient of each item in the scale was over 0.35. ② The correlation coefficient of each item with the dimension was over 0.30, with statistical significance(P ＜ 0.01). ③ The reliability coefficient of each item was over 0.39 with great significance(P ＜ 0.01). ④ Alienation was displayed in three dimensions: social alienation, interpersonal alienation and surrounding alienation, which were associated with the correspondingdimensions of related scales (P ＜ 0.05-0.01). ⑤Alienation could be divided into 9 levels: sense of meaninglessness, sense of self alienation, isolation, nature alienation, parent alienation, environmental alienation, sense of uncontrollability and social alienation. Parameters that accorded with the theoretical hypothesis and used for verifying analysis were proved rational.Based on the analysis of the 9 first-rank factors, second-rank structural model of 3 unrelated factors were obtained using main component analysis and the maximum variance cross rotation with the optimal coefficients of simulated parameters of: X2/df=4.87;GFI=0.94;A GFI=0.90;RMR=0.0S;NFI=0.93;NNFI=0.92;CFI=0.95;IFI=0.95.CONCLUSION: Alienation scale has been proved to be reliable and valid. It can be used to assess alienation in adolescent students and has potential value of application in healthy psychological development and psychological education.

BACKGROUND: International research discovers that the risk factors of stroke have certain correlation with microalbuminuria(MAU) but the results are inconsistent.OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relationship between the incidence of MAU in patients with acute cerebral infarction and the risk factor of stroke and the recurrence of cerebral infarction.DESIGN: A case-control study based on patients with acute cerebral infarction and individuals with risk factors of cerebral infarction, and the healthy elderly as controls.SETTING: Inpatient department of neurology in a university hospital.PARTICIPANTS: Totally 214 cases with cerebral infarction or risk factors of cerebral infarction aged between 50 and 80 years old were selected from the Department of Neurology of the First Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University between January 2000 and December 2001. Acute cerebral infarction group (infarction group, attack within one week, n =78), cerebral infarction risk factor group(risk group, n = 56), such as, hypertension, diabetes,coronary heart disease (CHD), transient ischemic attack(TIA) or stroke history(more than 6 months), and healthy elderly(control group, n=28) .Thereinto, combined group( n = 109) included 78 cases of acute cerebral infarction and 31 cases with TIA or stroke history of risk factors.METHODS: Seralbumin, serum creatine(SCr), blood sugar, total cholesterol, total triacylglycerol(TG), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol(LDL-C) were detected after more than 12 hours of fasting. The albumin in the first urine in the morning was detected by radio-immunity analysis.the incidence of neo-vascular affair in 2 years of follow-up including recurtute indicator: incidence of MAU in each group.RESULTS: Patients with MAU accounted for 35% of acute cerebral infarction, which were significantly higher than that of risk group(15% ) and control group(3.5%, P ＜ 0.01). Six independent risk factors predicting MAU existed in infarction group and combined group, which were diabetes, seralbumin level, age, CHD, hypertension, and HDL-C( P ＜ 0. 05, or P ＜ 0.01).After(1.5 ±0. 9) years of follow-up, 23% of patients of infarction group suffered from recurrent vascular accident, which was significantly higher than that of risk group(12% ) and control group(0%, P ＜ 0.01 ). 36% of MAU patients in infarction group suffered from recurrent vascular accident, which was significantly different from that of patients with a great deal of albuminuria(41% ) and normal albuminuria(10%, P ＜ 0. 05). MAU is the independent predicting indicator for the recurrence of stroke after the control of diabetes and hypertension in patients of infarction group and risk group with the risk rate of 3.8 (95% CI, 1.2-13.5; P ＜0.05) or 4. 7(95%CI,1.4-16.7, P ＜ 0.01).CONCLUSION: MAU is quite common in acute cerebral infarction patients. After the adjustment of basic risk factors, MAU is the independent risk factor of the recurrence of cerebral infarction.

Animals ; Hepacivirus ; genetics ; Hepatitis C ; immunology ; prevention & control ; therapy ; virology ; Humans ; Mutation ; Viral Hepatitis Vaccines ; immunology