Objective To compare the serum levels of interleukin(IL)‐1β,IL‐6 ,tumor necrosis factor alpha(TNF‐α) and inter‐feron gamma(IFN‐γ) in patients with Parkinson′s disease(PD) and healthy controls .To analyze the correlations of serum inflamma‐tory factors with disease duration and severity .Methods Peripheral blood samples were collected from 56 PD patients and 120 healthy controls .Serum levels of IL‐1β,IL‐6 ,TNF‐αand IFN‐γwere measured using highly sensitive enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) kits .Results Serum levels of IL‐1β,IL‐6 ,TNF‐α were significantly higher in PD patients than in healthy controls (all P<0 .01) ,serum levels of IFN‐γ were not significantly different between PD patients and healthy controls (P=0 .86) .Serum levels of these inflammatory cytokines were not significantly correlated with the disease ,duration ,Hoen & Yahr ,Schwab & Eng‐land scores(P>0 .05) .Conclusion Our results indicate that serum inflammatory factors are altered in PD patients .However ,serum inflammatory factors were not correlated with disease duration and severity .

Chinese herbal nature combination (CHNC) is the particular combination of nature, taste and channel tropism, which can be used to express the effect of Chinese herbal medicine in the clinical application concisely. The complex system model for the relationship between CHNC and viscera was constructed in this paper based on the thinking model of viscera theory. The model is able to reveal the functional features of CHNC. The model will promote research on the relationship between CHNC and viscera and provide new ideas for clinical applications of CHNC.

BACKGROUND: In subjects with different inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (sVCAM-1) in sera increases, and its change may become an important monitoring index of immunological function, but its change rule has been unclear in acute cerebral infarction.OBJECTIVE: To observe the change of sVCAM-1 in sera of subjects with cerebral infarction and its clinical significance, and compare between the subjects with cerebral hemorrhage and normal population.DESIGN: A case controlled analysis.SETTING: Second Department of Brain, Research Institute of Surgery,Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University of Chinese PLA.PARTICIPANTS: A total of 132 inpatients were selected from Second Department of Brain, Research Institute of Surgery, Daping Hospital, Third Military Medical University of Chinese PLA between May 2002 and April 2004. Among them, 89 subjects with cerebral infarction were classified into large infarction group (n=25,＞ 10 cm3), medium infarction group (n=31,4-10 cm3) and small infarction group (n=33, ＜ 4 cm3) respectively according to the size of infarct focus. There were 43 subjects in cerebral hemorrhage group, and 30 healthy persons were as normal control group.METHODS: Blood samples were isolated from subjects with cerebral infarction at hour 24, days 3, 7 and 14 after onset of the disease, while the blood samples were extracted from subjects with cerebral hemorrhage at hour24 and day 14 after the onset of the disease. 4 mL venous blood was obtained from the three groups. The serum concentration of sVCAM-1 was determined with double antibody sandwich method (DASM) in all the examinees.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: ①Dynamic change of the serum concentration of sVCAM-1 in the course of acute cerebral infarction, and compared with the other two groups. ②Comparison of the serum concentration of sVCAM-1 in different size of infarct focus. ③Change of the serum concentration of sVCAM-1 in acute cerebral infarction subjects complicated with infection.RESULTS: A total of 162 subjects were involved in the result analysis. ①The serum concentration of sVCAM-1 at the 24th hour after cerebral infarction was significantly higher in subjects with cerebral infarction than in subjects with cerebral hemorrhage group and normal control group [(1 184.5±68.3) ,(693.9±41.7), (576.1±39.8) μg/L,P＜0.01].Serum sVCAM-1 in the cerebral infarction subjects increased from the 24th hour to the 7th day after infarction gradually, while from the 7th day to the 14th day decreased gradually. However, the serum sVCAM-1 in the cerebral infarction subjects at day 14 was still markedly higher than that in the cerebral hemorrhage group and the normal control group (P ＜ 0.01 ). ②The serum concentration of sVCAM-1 was significantly higher in the large cerebral infarction group as compared with medium and small cerebral infarction groups [(1 217.4±59.3) ,(1 132.6±51.9) ,(983.7±54.2) μg/L,P ＜ 0.01]. ③The serum concentration of sVCAM-1 was significantly higher at days 3, 7and 14 in cerebral infarction subjects complicated with infection than in subjects without infection (P ＜ 0.01 ).CONCLUSION: The sVCAM-1 participates pathological change process of cerebral infarction, which can be regarded as monitoring index of cerebral infarction change. To block its production and expression can provide a new approach for improving the prognosis of cerebral infarction.

BACKGROUND: The number of dementia patients ceaselessly increases with the extension of the life expectancy and the ageing of the population; hence the survival rate of patients with post-stroke dementia(PSD) has become an important issue of public health. Although it is generally believed that dementia could shorten human life expectancy, there is rare report regarding the impact of PSD on the survival rate of the patients in developing countries.OBJECTIVE: To investigate the impacts of ischemic dementia on the survival rate of the patients to explore the risk factors that would affect the survival rate of patients after cerebral infarction(CI).DESIGN: A prospective randomized controlled study based on patients.SETTING: The second department of neurology of a field surgery institute in a military university hospital of Chinese PLA.PARTICIPANTS: Totally 619 cases of acute CI including 313 males and 306 females aged between 55 and 85 years old[mean of (70. 3 ±9.5) years old] were selected form the Department of Neurology of the Daping Hospital of the Third Military Medical University of Chinese PLA between 1st May 1998 and 28th December 1999.INTERVENTIONS: Data including human factor, vascular factor and CI characters of 619 cases of ischemic cerebral stroke were collected and they also received neuropsychological test. Dementia was diagnosed in CI patients at admission and 3 months after CI according to DSM-Ⅳ criteria. Two-year follow up was conducted for the analysis of survival rate in PSD patients and survival-correlated predicting factors.and survival rate in CI patientsRESULTS: Totally 146 total patients(23.6% ) were diagnosed as PSD at 3 month after CI, of which 39 cases were pre-stroke dementia and 107 cases were CI-correlated dementia. The survival rate of PSD patients was 49.3%after(19.4 ±8.3) months of follow-up. The survival rate of patients with CI-correlated dementia was 53.7% while the non-dementia patients was 92.0% after(21.3 ± 9.1 ) months of follow-up. There was significant correlation between PSD and survival rate as indicated by multifactor analysis ( RR = 4. 91, 95% CI = 3.85 - 13.49) . The rest predicting factors included age(RR=1. 12, 95% CI=1.06-1.18), BarthelIndex(BI, RR=1.63,95% CI=1.15-2.31), auricular fibrillation(AF, RR=1.47, 95%CI = 1.17 - 1.85) and CI history( RR = 2. 81, 95% CI = 1.53 - 5.16).CONCLUSION: Dementia could reduce the survival rate of CI patients and it could be set as a predicting factor for post-infarction survival rate.

The eighteen incompatible medicaments is the incompatibilities in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). However, in some special occasion, the incompatible medicaments can also be used in one prescription in the clinical applications. In order to reveal the theoretical basis for applications of incompatible medicaments in prescriptions, we analyzed ancient prescriptions and found that there are contrary Chinese herbal nature combina-tions (CHNCs) which have the same meridian tropism as well as the opposite nature and taste in prescriptions. In clinical applications, one of the non-contrary CHNCs was selected as the main response to syndrome differentia-tion. The contrary CHNCs in the same meridian tropism were used to restrict each other and therefore have the protective effects. The features found in this paper will be beneficial to further research on the rational applica-tion of incompatible medicaments.

This study was aimed to explain the relationship between chemical component and therapy objective and to identify effective component group (ECG). The objective of this study is to build a new method to identify the ECG. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) formula and one of its treated diseases were selected as the re-search object. The entity grammar systems (EGS) were used as the theoretical framework. A grammatical method for ECG identification was constructed. The component-disease relationship was inferred and the ECG was identi-fied with these inference results. In this paper, 16 compounds which act to 12 proteins in Type 1 diabetes melli-tus (T1D) disease network were identified from Bai-Hu Tang plus Xiao-Ke Fang and 9 chemical compounds were determined as the candidate effective components group. The results indicated that this method can be used to identify ECG and provide a new way to elucidate the molecular mechanism of TCM formula.

Objective To investigate the clinical effects,complications and cautions for transcatheter supperselective internal maxillary artery and facial artery embolization for treatment of intractable epistaxis.Methods Eight patients with intractable epistaxis underwent transcatheter supperselective internal maxillary artery and facial artery embolization.Results Immediate hemostasis was obtained in all patients,while varying degrees of headache were observed,but no serious complications occurred.Conclusion Transcatheter supperselective internal maxillary artery and facial artery embolization is a safe,effective method for the treatment of intractable epistaxis.

Objective To investigate the clinical value of dual phase 18F-FDG PET/CT in the diagnosis of recurrent and metastatic bladder cancer after surgery. Methods The imaging data from 84 patients underwent the dual phase 18F-FDG PET/CT after surgery with known histories of bladder cancer were analyzed. Among the 84 patients, 16 had symptoms of recurrence, 24 had symptoms of metastasis and 44 didn′t have any symptom. The median interval time between the primary tumor resection and the PET/CT scan was 11.5 months (0.5 ~ 240 months). According to the PET/CT imaging procedures, all patients underwent whole body PET/CT scan at 60 minutes after IV injection of 18F-FDG. Additional delayed pelvic PET/CT images were acquired after forced diuresis by using oral 40 mg furosemide. The 18F-FDG PET/CT findings were compared with histopathologic examination results and (or) the clinical follow-up. All patients were followed up for more than six months. Results Results of detecting recurrence and metastasis of bladder cancer showed that the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive predictive value and negative predictive value of the dual phase FDG PET/CT imaging protocol were 91.7%(22/24), 95.0%(57/60), 94.0%(79/84), 88.0%(22/25), 96.6%(57/59) and 90.0%(27/30), 96.3%(52/54), 94.0%(79/84), 93.1%(27/29), 94.5%(52/55), respectively. Conclusion Dual phase FDG PET/CT can be used to detect the recurrence and metastasis with high accuracy, contributing to the restaging and follow-up in bladder cancer after surgery.

Functional analysis concisely summarizes and concentrates on the therapeutic characteristics and features of Chinese herbal medicine. Standardization of the terms for Chinese herbal functions not only plays a key role in modern research and development of Chinese herbal medicine, but also has far-reaching clinical applications. In this paper, a new method for standardizing the terms for Chinese herbal function was proposed. Firstly, functional targets were collected. Secondly, the pathological conditions and the mode of action of every functional target were determined by analyzing the references. Thirdly, the relationships between the pathological condition and the mode of action were determined based on Chinese medicine theory and data. This three-step approach allows for standardization of the terms for Chinese herbal functions. Promoting the standardization of Chinese medicine terms will benefit the overall clinical application of Chinese herbal medicine.

Objective To evaluate the complementary value of 11C-choline (CHO) PET/CT to 18F-FDG PET/CT in the staging of locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and diagnosis of HCC.Methods From December 2007 to January 2010,15 patients with locally advanced NPC and 76 patients with HCC were prospectively enrolled into this study.The research was approved by the ethics committee,and all patients signed informed consents.Whole body 18 F-FDG PET/CT scans were performed on all patients and regional 11C-CHO PET/CT was conducted in 43 patients (15 with NPC,28 with HCC).A lesion with increased uptake of either 11 C-CHO or 18F-FDG was considered positive.SUVmax,tumor/brain (T/B) ratio and tumor/liver (T/L) ratio were calculated for semi-quantitative analysis.Two-sample t test,x2 test,Fisher exact test and linear correlation analysis were used for statistical analysis.Results (1) The lesion SUVmax of 18 F-FDG was higher compared to 11C-CHO (12.81 ± 5.00 vs 6.84 ± 2.76 ; t =6.416,P ＜0.01) in NPC patients.However,11C-CHO PET/CT had a much higher T/B ratio than 18F-FDG (18.62 ±7.95 vs 1.38 ±0.59 ; t =8.801,P ＜ 0.01).Significant correlation was found between the 2 tracers with regard to NPC lesion uptake (r =0.712,P ＜0.01).Compared with 18F-FDG PET/CT,11C-CHO PET/CT had better delineation of intracranial invasion in 50.0％ of patients (12/12 vs 6/12; x2 =8.000,P ＜0.05),skull base invasion in 4/14 patients and orbital invasion in 3/3 patients.(2) 18F-FDG PET/CT showed positive findings in 63.1％ (48/76) of HCC patients.In 28 HCC patients with negative findings on 18F-FDG PET/CT,11 C-CHO PET/CT was positive in 71.4％ (20/28) of patients.The dual-tracer PET/CT improved the diagnostic sensitivity (89.5％,68/76) of HCC compared with 18F-FDG PET/CT (63.1％,48/76) alone (x2 =14.559,P ＜0.01).11C-CHO PET/CT was more sensitive than 18F-FDG PET/CT for the detection of well differentiated HCC (6/9 vs 35.7％ (5/14) ; P =0.214).For the detection of moderately differentiated HCC,the sensitivity of 11C-CHO and 18F-FDG PET/CT was similar to each other (6/7vs 72.0％ (18/25),P =0.648).11C-CHO PET/CT was more sensitive than 18F-FDG for the detection of HCC lesions ＜5.0 cm (72.7％ (16/22) vs 42.1％ (16/38) ; x2 =5.249,P ＜0.05),especially for lesions ＜ 2.0 cm (5/7 vs 0/7; P =0.021).Conclusions 11 C-CHO PET/CT could improve the accuracy in T staging of NPC.It might also play a complementary role for 18 F-FDG PET/CT in the detection of HCC.