Objective:To study the expression of angiotensin-converting enzyme(ACE),extracellular signal-regulated kinase(ERK),and the changes of atrial fibrosis in patients with rheumatic heart disease(RHD) and atrial fibrillation(AF) treated with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor(ACEI).Methods:Atrial tissues were obtained from the right appendage during open surgery in 35 patients with RHD.The mRNA of ACE and ERK2 were semi-qualified by reverse transcription-ploymerase chain reaction(RT-PCR) and normalized to the glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate dehydrogenase(GAPDH).Western blotting analysis was employed to examine the expressions of ACE and phosphorylated ERK(pERK).Atrial collagen volume fraction(CVF) was detected by Masson's stain.Results:The mRNA of ACE and ERK2 or the protein of ACE and pERK were significantly increased,and CVF was significantly increased in patients with chronic atrial fibrillation(CAF) compared with sinus rhythm group(SR)( P 0.05).Conclusion:The expressions of ACE,ERK2 and pERK increase,and fibrosis is more severe in RHD patients with CAF as compared with those with SR.Compared with CAF patients treated without ACEI,the expressions of ERK2 and pERK significantly decrease( P 0.05)in CAF patients treated with ACEI.This suggests that the increasing expression of ERK2 and pERK resulting from local renal angiotensin-converting enzyme system activation mediates the development of atrial fibrosis,and ACEI may contribute to lesser atrial fibrosis in RHD patients with AF.

According to the sera aquaporin-4 antibody (AQP4), neuromyelitis optica (NMO) can be classified into two types as AQP4 antibody positive (AQP4+) and negative (AQP4-). However, the NMO patients with AQP4- are prone to delayed treatment, and may have a different pathogenesis compared to that in patients with AQP4+. Scientific researches and the clinical trials on NMO with AQP4- will deepen the understanding of NMO pathogenesis and help to make an early accurate diagnosis and rational therapy for NMO with AQP4-. This review aims to summarize the progress in clinic diagnosis for NMO patients with AQP4-.

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a progressive disorder characterized by abnormally elevated blood pressure of the pulmonary circulation. PH progresses rapidly to right ventricular (RV) failure and even death without treatment. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) is an accurate and reproducible tool for the assessment of RV morphology and function, which plays an important role in the prognosis of patients with PH. The aim of this study is to review the clinical application and research progress of CMR in evaluation of PH.

The acupuncture medical literature during the Republic of China is divided into four categories, including theoretical literature, acupuncture channels and acupoints drawing literature, translations, and teaching materials and medical cases. It is found that the theoretical literature focuses on inheriting the traditional theories as well as combining traditional Chinese and Western medicine. The drawings are becoming more and more precise, and in these drawing works anatomy begins to appear at that time. Translations are the achievements of communication between TCM and Western medicine, which promote the scientization of acupuncture greatly. Teaching materials are also influenced by Western medicine, presenting a rough frame of modern acupuncture disciplinary system. As important clinic data, medical cases have great clinical value. Overall, acupuncture medical literature during the Republic of China is widely published, which is influenced greatly by the Western medicine and presents a significant tendency of scientization.
Acupuncture Points ; Acupuncture Therapy ; history ; Books ; history ; China ; History, 20th Century ; Humans ; Translations

Acupuncture scientization was a consensus of most of acupuncture scholars who had long-term perspectives in the 20th century, among them Ms. ZHULian was the important one. Ms. ZHU Lian built a systemic new acupuncture" academic structure in practice and theory aspects. At the same time, as the main architect of Institute of Acupuncture-moxibustion of China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ms. ZHU Lian was the first one who began to carry out the acupuncture clinical trail and laboratory experiment in modern way, which meant "acupuncture therapy" was transformed into "acupuncture science" by Ms. ZHULian's endeavor.
Acupuncture ; education ; history ; standards ; Acupuncture Therapy ; history ; methods ; standards ; China ; History, 20th Century ; History, 21st Century ; Humans ; Science ; history

Objective To investigate psychological pressure sources of emergency nurses who were assigned to emergency intensive care unit(EICU)and put forward countermeasures.Methods We collected data by phenomenological method of qualitative study.Thirteen nurses who had worked in EICU for at least six months were interviewed.The collected data we analyzed by Colaizzi analysis method.Result The psychological pressure had its sources from 4 main aspects: nursing skills,increasing labor intensity,communications with patients and shortage of staff.Conclusion Nursing administration should actively take measures to relieve the psychological pressures of the emergency nurses who were assigned to EICU so as to improve the nurses’working enthusiasm and the nursing quality of EICU.

Genetic factors are the important reasons for birth defects.Among genetic factors,chromosome abnormality is the most common.Prenatal diagnosis can effectively avoid fetus of abnormal chromosome being born.Noninvasive prenatal diagnosis has more advantage than invasive prenatal diagnosis,such as non-invasive,painless and safe.It is bound to become the main method of prenatal diagnosis.However,non-invasive prenatal diagnosis is still in its infancy stage and the accuracy and sensitivity of detection are pending and need further clinical validation.This article will present a variety of non-invasive prenatal diagnostic methods using cell-free fetal DNA (RNA) and their advantages and disadvantages will be discussed.

BACKGROUND: Primary hypertension is in the category of "dizziness"and "dementia" in Chinese medicine. It is discovered in recent years that vascular dangerous factors, like hypertension affect the risk constitution of Alzheimer disease.OBJECTIVE: To probe into relationship between cognition and syndrome differentiation of primary hypertension.DESIGN: Case-control analysis was designed.SETTING: Jiangsu Staff University of Medical Science and Yangzhou Wenhe Hospital.PARTICIPANTS: Totally 90 cases of primary hypertension were employed from May to June 2000. They were from some city in the north of Jiangsu province, graduated from middle school and cooperated with the investigation. Totally 30 cases were collected from physical-check group and taken in the control.METHODS: The cases of primary hypertension were differentiated as excess-syndrome group (excessive phlegm and damp and hyperactivity of liver yang), deficiency-syndrome group (yin deficiency of liver and kidney and deficiency of yin and yang), excess within deficiency group (complicated with blood stasis and with turbid phlegm) and the control group. Neuropsychological method was used to evaluate the cognition.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Indexes of neuropsychology: Fuld object-memory Evaluation (FOM), rapid verbal retrieve (RVR), block design WISE (BD), digit span WISE (DS), Hachinski ischemic score (HACH), mini-mental state examination (MMSE) and activity of daily living scale among groups.RESULTS: The data of 90 cases of primary hypertension and 30 cases in physical-check group entered result analysis. Compared with the control group, significant difference was not indicated in every statistical index in excess-syndrome group (P ＞ 0.05). In deficiency-syndrome group, except MMSE and ADL, the rest observed indexes indicated statistical difference.In excess within deficiency group, statistical difference presented in every observed index (P ＜ 0.01), in which the results in the complication of turbid phlegm was worse than blood stasis (FOM was 11.3±3.7,13.5±2.5 respectively; DS was 6.4±3.9,8.3±3.5, respectively)CONCLUSION: Primary hypertension affects mental state of patient, in which, cognition is declined mildly in deficiency-syndrome group. Dementia symptoms present in excess within deficiency group which is severe in phlegm type compared with blood stasis type. Differentiation of syndromes in Chinese medicine integrated with neuropsychological assessment benefits early discovery and diagnosis of dementia.

Periodontal ligament may have independent response to orthodontic stimulation and thus initiate alveolar bone osteogenesis and osteoclasts. Orthodontic-induced alveolar bone remodeling has no bone loss,while inflammation can lead to alveolar bone loss,suggesting that force signal and inflammatory factors may induce the differentiation of undifferentiated cells in the periodontal ligament via different pathways. The strength of the force and the nature of the force (basal tension and fluid shear force) may affect the differentiation of periodontal ligament cells,and may produce antagonistic or synergistic effect with the inflammatory factors through complex autocrine and paracrine regulation,resulting in local bone reconstruction,which is manifested as bone deposition and bone absorption. Studies have shown that Wnt signaling is an important regulatory pathway for osteoblast differentiation. Inflammatory factors can block the differentiation of stem cells into osteoblasts. The Wnt pathway is closely related to the effects of force and inflammatory factors on the differentiation of periodontal ligament cells.

Inflammatory bowel disease(IBD),including ulcerative colitis(UC)and Crohn’s disease(CD),is characterized by chronic non-specific inflammation of intestinal tract,which is incurable and easily relapsing. Recently,the role of gut microbiota in IBD has become a hot spot of study. This article reviewed the advances in study on intestinal microbiota in intestinal homeostasis and IBD.