ObjectiveTo observe the changes in plasma interleukin-33 (IL-33) in patients with sepsis and its regularity, the association between IL-33 and the infection, and the significance of IL-33 in predicting the prognosis of sepsis.Methods A prospective single-center single-blind clinical study was conducted. Forty patients with sepsis in intensive care unit (ICU) of Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University from May 2012 to January 2013 were enrolled. The patients were divided into general sepsis, severe sepsis and septic shock groups according to the severity of systemic infection and presence of organ dysfunction. The sepsis patients were again divided into 28-day death group and survival group. Ten healthy volunteers and 11 patients with systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) were enrolled as healthy control and SIRS groups. The levels of procalcitonin (PCT), IL-33, IL-6, IL-1β, tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α), and IL-33 receptor sST2 were determined with enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) within 3 hours, and 24 hours and 5 days after enrollment to ICU. The acute physiology and chronic health evaluationⅡ (APACHEⅡ) score was calculated. The clinical outcome, length of stay in ICU, and duration of mechanical ventilation were recorded. The relationship between IL-33 and each parameter was analyzed by Spearman analysis. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve was drawn to evaluate IL-33 in predicting the outcome of sepsis.Results Plasma IL-33 in sepsis patients within 3 hours after admission was significantly increased compared with that of the healthy controls and SIRS group (ng/L: 15.43±7.22 vs. 0.67±0.24, 1.25±1.09, bothP< 0.01). Compared with SIRS group, PCT in sepsis group was significantly increased [μg/L: 52.23 (19.69, 73.37) vs. 1.22 (0.69, 3.73),Z = -2.447,P< 0.001]. With exacerbation of illness, APACHEⅡ score, the values of PCT and IL-33 were gradually increased in general sepsis, severe sepsis and septic shock groups, while the length of stay in ICU and the duration of mechanical ventilation were gradually prolonged (P< 0.05 orP< 0.01). The concentration of IL-33 (ng/L) of sepsis patients admitted to ICU within 3 hours, and 24 hours and 5 days of the illness was 15.43±7.22, 11.82±6.16, 5.55±2.25, respectively (F = 4.823,P = 0.004). There was a positive correction between IL-33 within 3 hours after ICU admission and APACHEⅡ score (r = 0.351,P = 0.031), PCT (r = 0.412,P = 0.005), IL-6 (r = 0.535,P = 0.030), IL-1β (r = 0.674,P = 0.030), TNF-α (r = 0.250,P= 0.030), sST2 (r = 0.620,P< 0.001), and length of stay in ICU (r = 0.296,P = 0.013), duration of mechanical ventilation (r = 0.385,P = 0.011). Decreased plasma IL-33 level could be found in the survivors (n = 37,F = 7.798,P< 0.01), and its level in non-survivors (n = 3) was increased (F = 37.283,P> 0.05). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) of IL-33 and PCT in ROC curve were 0.821, 0.829. When the cut-off value of IL-33 was 13.79 ng/L, the sensitivity was 74.2%, the specificity was 79.6%; when the cut-off value of PCT was 4.70μg/L, the sensitivity was 87.5%, and the specificity was 81.4%.Conclusions The concentration of IL-33 3 hours after ICU admission was obviously increased in sepsis patients, and it was positively correlated with PCT, therefore it is valuable in the diagnosis of the infection. In addition plasma IL-33 is related to the severity of sepsis. Its trend of change is valuable in predicting the outcome and in distinguishing sepsis from SIRS.

As natural components of the environment,air and water,geomagnetic field plays an important role,which is closely related to growth and evolution for living organisms. Being off earth magnetic field,biological effects would be fetched out. Settled in the Moon and long-term interplanetary space flight,human being and other biological objects would experience extremely low magnetic fields. In addition,weaker magnetic fields exist in some artificial environment,such as artificial magnetic shielding experimental room,submarine etc. Since 1970s,biological effects of hypomagnetic environment and zero-magnetic environment have continuously studied. This paper will briefly review the research progress about biological effects of hypomagnetic environment..

Brucellosis is a zoonosis with worldwide distribution.There is an upward trend in the incidence of this disease in recent years,and multiple systems and organs are affected.Complication of bone and joint is the most commonly seen of Brucellosis.Although cardiovascular complication is rare,it is the major reason for Brucellosis-related mortality.The author summarized domestic and foreign studies on Brucella endocarditis.

OBJECTIVE: To optimize the supercritical CO2 extraction technology of volatile component from Tibet inual and Zingiber officianle. METHODS: The extraction technology was optimized by orthogonal experiment with the content of alantolactone and the yield of volatile oil as indexes while with extracting pressure, extracting temperature, extracting time and entrainer volume as factors. RESULTS: The optimal extraction technology was as follows: 225 mL entrainer was extracted at 40 ℃ with extracting pressure of 35 Mpa for 1 hour. CONCLUSION: The extraction technology is reasonable, practical and controllable for the industrial production.

A quantitative method using ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography was established to simultaneously determine ten ginsenoside active ingredients including ginsenoside Rg6, F4, Rk3, Rh4, 20(S) -Rg3, 20(R) -Rg3, Rk1, Rg5, 20(S)-Rh2 and 20(R)-Rh2 in steamed notoginseng. The ten ginsenosides of steamed notoginseng with different head numbers, parts, and steaming time were determined by this method. An Acquity BEH C18 chromatographic column (2.1 mm x 100 mm, 1.7 microm) was used to perform the determination, which was maintained at 35 degrees C throughout the analysis. Mobile phase was composed of water and acetonitrile with flow rate at 0.3 mL x min(-1) under gradient elution, and detection wavelength was set to 203 nm for monitoring the separation. The results demonstrate ginsenoside Rg6, F4, Rk3, Rh4, 20 (S)-Rg3, 20 (R) -Rg3, Rk1, Rg5, 20 (S)-Rh2 and 20(R) -Rh2 have shown good linearity (R2 > or = 0.999 8) within 0.46-115, 2.06-515, 1.632408, 3.216-804, 1.392-348, 1.4-350, 0.496-248, 3.012-1 506, 0.82-205 and 0.832-208 mg x L(-1), and their average recoveries were 97.00%, 97.96%, 98.86%, 95.27%, 98.67%, 98.02%, 95.53%, 96.63%, 99.57% and 103.6%, respectively. The proposed approach was quick and accurate and portrayed excellent repeatability and determination efficiency. The quality of steamed notoginseng was effectively controlled, which served as a foundation for establishing a normalized processing technique and quality standard for ensuring the reliability and consistency of its clinical efficacy.
Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; methods ; Ginsenosides ; analysis ; Panax notoginseng ; chemistry ; Reproducibility of Results ; Steam

As traditional Chinese medicine components have become a hotspot in the field of traditional Chinese medicine study, they have followed a development trend of diversity and false identification. In studies on a new modem product, we shall encourage the diversified development mode, but avoid the false concept identification of traditional Chinese medicine components. In this paper, by analyzing the current development of traditional Chinese medicine components and problems, we discussed the standardization of traditional Chinese medicine components, with the aim of reducing and avoiding the situations to study non-traditional Chinese medicine components as traditional Chinese medicine components.
Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; methods ; standards ; Reference Standards

As one of the species of soil-transmitted helminths (STH), hookworm infection is widely prevalent in tropical and subtropical developing countries. Hookworm is harmful to human health mainly including anemia, digestive tract symptoms, female infection can also cause menopause, abortion, infection in infants and young children can lead growth retardation. With the development of economy and implementation of mass drug administration strategies, the infection of hookworm in human body has decreased continuously, but there are still a large number of mild infection cases which clinical symptoms are not obvious, easy to cause missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis. Several zoonotic hookworm species can cause large-scale infections in cats, dogs and other animals, so as to increase the risk of human hookworm infection. Therefore, it is important to find a highly sensitive and rapid detection techniques to identify hookworm species. In this paper, the existing detection techniques of hookworm were reviewed and their application were prospected to provide ideas for hookworm detection at present situation.

Objective To establish an ICP-MS method for the determination of heavy metals,including copper(Cu),arsenium(As),cadmium(Cd) and plumbum(Pb),in five kinds of Chinese medicinal material.Methods The samples were digested by closed-vessel microwave.The four heavy metals were directly analyzed by ICP-MS,with elements 72Ge,115In,and 209Bi as the internal standards.Results For all of the analyzed heavy metals,the correlative coefficient of the calibration curves was in the range of 0.999 5～ 0.999 7.The recovery rates were in the range of 92.3 % ～ 108.0 %,and RSD were in the range of 2.4 % ～ 5.8 %.Conclusion The method is convenient,rapid,accurate and can be applied to determine four heavy metals,including Cu,As,Cd and Pb,in Chinese medicinal material.

Objective To investigate the mechanism of high-glucose-induced injury to human peritoneal mesothelial cells(HPMC). Methods (1)The cultured HPMCs were exposed to culture medium containing different concentrations of glucose(1. 5% , 2. 5% , 4. 25% )for 48 hours and 4. 25% mannitol and normal culture medium were as control. Then apoptosis was observed by flow cytometry and caspase-3 activity was measured by ApoAlert?CPP33/Caspase-3 Assay kits. (2) The cultured HPMCs were exposed to 4.25% glucose culture medium containing different concentrations of caspases inhibitor, Z-VAD. fmk (25, 50, 100 ?mol/L) for 48 hours and 4. 25% glucose culture medium containing DMSO was as control. Then apoptosis was observed by flow cytometry and caspase-3 activity was measured by ApoAlert?CPP33/ Caspase-3 Assay kits as well. Results (1) Glucose increased caspase-3 activity in a concentration-dependent manner. Compared to control, caspase-3 activity was significantly higher in 4. 25% glucose group and 2. 5% glucose group, but not significantly different in 1. 5% glucose group and 4. 25% mannitol group. (2) Apoptotic rate of HPMC was significantly lower in Z-VAD. fmk group than that in control. Z-VAD. fmk decreased the number of apoptotic cells in a concentration-dependent manner. Also, caspase-3 activity of HPMC was significantly lower in Z-VAD. fmk group than that in control. Conclutions (1) High-glucose can induce apoptosis and caspase-3 activation of HPMC in a dose-dependent manner. (2) Z-VAD. fmk inhibits high glucose-induced apoptosis of HPMC in a dose-dependent manner. (3)High glucose induces apoptosis of human peritoneal mesothelial cells by caspase-3 activation.

Objective:To summarize the ultrasound features of renal arteriovenous fistula(RAVF)under various ultrasound imaging modes,so as to avoid missed diagnosis of RAVF on initial ultrasound examination.Methods:The clinical data of 6 patients with RAVF,including the ultrasound evidence,the timing of ultrasound diagnosis,the modes of ultrasound diagnosis, and the agreement between ultrasound diagnosis and selective renal arterial angiography,were retrospectively analyzed.Results: 2D ultrasound had 1 case of correct diagnosis,1 case of misdiagnosis and 4 cases of missed diagnosis.Color Doppler and spectral Doppler both had all the 6 cases correctly diagnosed.Ultrasound angiography in 3 cases demonstrated that the contrast agent reached the renal veins earlier than reached the renal parenchyma;large fistula lumen was associated with ischemia of downstream areas.3D ultrasound vividly reflected the structure of fistula lumen volume,and provided us with the profiles of blood signal in fistula at different planes and angles,improving our knowledge of blood flow on the fistula.Conclusion: Ultrasound is the first line screening method for RAVF.Color Doppler plays a decisive role in the diagnosis of RAVF and pulsed spectral Doppler plays a synergetic role and contributes to differential diagnosis.Contrast-enhanced ultrasound may help to discover the abnormality of venous circulation and the ischemic parenehyma area due to shunting.2D ultrasound has a poor diagnostic value and is liable to lead to misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis.