Objective To investigate the empathic abilities and the association between empathic abilities and executive function in schizophrenic patients. Methods Empathy with the Interpersonal Reactivity Index-C (IRI-C) and executive function with Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) , Stroop Color-Word Task (Stroop), Spatial n-back Task (n-back) were applied to 74 schizophrenic patients and 69 healthy controls. Results Compared with healthy controls, schizophrenic patients showed significantly lower total scores ((46. 8 ± 10. 0) vs (51.5 ±9.7), P<0.01),and subscores in Perspective Taking ((9.5 ±4.2) vs (12.2 ±3.9) , P<0. 01), Fantasy ((12.5 ±4.2) vs (15.5 ±3.8), P<0.01) and Empathic Concern((15. 9 ±4.2) vs (17. 3 ±3.4), P< 0.05) ,but higher subscore((8.8 ±5. 1) vs (6.5 ±3.7), P<0.01) in personal distress of IRI-C. A significant difference(P<0.01) were fund on the scores of WCST, Stroop task and n-back task between schizophrenic patients and healthy controls. Pearson correlation analysis showed that the total scores of IRI-C was negatively correlated with the response administered (Ra), the number of responses errors (Re) and non-perseverative errors (nRpe) of WCST (r= -0.293, r= -0.253, r= -0.272, P<0.05) respectively, that empathic concern sub-score of IRI-C was negatively correlated with Ra, Re, perseverative responses (Rp) and perseverative errors (Rpe) of WCST (r= -0.326, r= -0.300, r= -0.294, r= -0.287, P<0.01 -0.05) respectively , but positively correlated with Rfp. of WCST (r=0.279, P<0.05), and that the fantasy subscore of IRI-C was negatively correlated with the reaction time of B part(r= -0.299, P<0.01) and C part (r= -0.322, P<0.01) of the Stroop task. Conclusion Schizophrenics have a general impairment of empathy and executive function,and affective empathy is related to the executive function, suggesting that the impairment of executive function maybe the one of pathological mechanism for the empathic deficit of patients with schizophrenia.

Background and purpose:Bone metastases leads to the destruction of bones by changing the level of bone turnover markers.The purpose of this study was to assess the clinical application value of bone turnover markers in bone metastases for non-small cell lung cancer,which included the diagnosis and spread behavior of bone metastases.Methods:AKP,β-CTx,OST and BALP were measured in 76 NSCLC with bone metastases patients and 44 normal people.Results:The level ofAKP,β-CTx and BALP in patients with bone metastasis was significantly higher than in the subjects without bone metastases.There were significant correlations among the bone turnover markers.The levels of BALP and OST were significantly positively correlated with the extent of bone metastasis.Patients with high-levels of CTx and low-levels of BALP had a higher risk of pathologic fracture.Conclusion:In patients with bone metastases from NSCLC,bone turnover markers can help make diagnoses and evaluate severity of disease.It potentially has a wide range of uses in clinical practice.