The mirror neuron system is an action observation-execution mechanism which plays an important role in many neurophysiologicalprocesses, such as action observation, action imitation, motor imagery and motor learning. It is an important neural mechanism of actionobservation therapy, motor imagery therapy, mirror therapy, virtual reality therapy and brain computer interface technology.

Objective To examine self-reported symptoms by the patients receiving cancer therapy, and find out the symptoms that should be coped with and managed during the treatment. Methods A pilot study was conducted on self-reported symptoms on 185 patients receiving chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy for different cancers. The Therapy-Related Symptoms Checklist (TRSC) was used. Results Severe symptoms on the TRSC subscales: loss of appetite,feeling sluggish, weight loss, nausea and hair loss, were reported by the patients. The frequently reported symptoms by those on chemotherapy were nausea, feeling sluggish, weight loss, vomiting, and taste change. The frequently reported symptoms by those on radiotherapy were feeling sluggish, weight loss, loss of appetite, difficult sleeping, and changing taste. The symptoms of loss of appetite, feeling sluggish, weight loss, hair loss, and nausea were both frequently reported by those on radiotherapy and those on chemotherapy. Conclusion Symptom monitoring may be facilitated by TRSC, based on the severity and frequency of reported symptoms, more patients and caregivers could know which symptoms should be preferential interventions.

Objective To study the clinical features of target organ damage in children with essential hypertension.Methods From Jan.2007 to Oct.2013,86 children were enrolled who were diagnosed as essential hypertension in the Children's Hospital Affiliated to Capital Institute of Pediatrics.All children received the following examinations:fundus oculi,electrocardiogram,echocardiography,serum triglyceride,glucose,insulin,C peptide,uric acid,renal function,urine microalbumin,serum and urine β2-microglobulin.All data were collected as standard procedure and analyzed by using statistic methods.Results In all recruited children,there were 68 boys (79.1％)and 18 girls (20.9％) with the average age of (12.3 ±2.4) years old.There were 46 children(53.5％) with grade Ⅰ hypertension and 40 (46.5％) with grade Ⅱ hypertension,13.5％ (7/52 cases) of the children with retinal vessel damage,21.0％ (17/81 cases) with abnormal electrocardiogram,and 2.6％ (2/78 cases) with left ventricular hypertrophy and increased left ventricular posterior w all thickness.Thirty-seven percent (30/81 cases) of the children had a higher voltage of R wave in V5 than average values at the same ages.Renal damage mainly included increased serum creatinine and microalbuminuria,with the rates of 40.2％ (33/82 cases) and 39.7％ (23/58 cases),respectively.Metabolic disorders mainly included 87.5％ (56/64 cases) hyperuricemia,32.5％ (25/77 cases) hypertriglyceridemia,22.1％ (19/86 cases) hepatic adipose infiltration,and 36.1％ (30/83 cases) hyperinsulinemia or sugar intolerance damage.There were 58 (67.4％) children wit h obesity.Compared with normal weight children,children with obesity had a higher rate of target organ damage(98.3％ vs 82.1％,x2 =5.291,P =0.021),and hyperinsulinemia or sugar intolerance damage(45.5％ vs 17.9％,x2 =6.123,P =0.013).Children with the course longer than 6 months showed a higher rate of hyperinsulinemia or sugar intolerance damage than the children with the course less than 6 months(50.0％ vs 25.5％,x2 =5.788,P =0.021).Conclusions Target organ damage caused by adolescent essential hypertension is present at diagnosis in most of these children.Electrocardiogram and echocardiography are effective measures for early detection of cardiac damage of hypertension.Serum uric caid and urine microalbumin can be used as early warning and screening indexes.To enhance blood pressure monitoring of children with obesity will be helpful for early diagnosis of essential hypertension,which will decrease the rate of target organ damage with earlier effective interference.

Objective To evaluate effectiveness of application with FOCUS harmonic scalpel in papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) surgery.Methods 110 patients with PTC between June 2013 and December 2013 were divided into two groups randomly as harmonic scalpel group (group H) and conventional group (group C).Incision length,operative time,estimated blood loss,drainage volume within 24 h,in the second 24 h and in total after operation,the number of lymph node retrieval,post-operative complication and hospital stay were compared between two groups.Rusults There is significant different in factors of incision length [(5.5±0.4) cm in group H and (6.6±0.5) cm in group C (P ＜ 0.05)],operative time [(54.4±8.7) min in group H and (73.3±13.9) min in group C (P ＜ 0.05)],estimated blood loss [(14.2±6.0) ml in group H and (29.8±5.0) ml in group C (P ＜ 0.05)].There were no differences in drainage volume,the number of lymph node retrieval,post-operative complication and hospital stay between two group (P ＞ 0.05).Conclusion FOCUS harmonic scalpel could reduce incision length,operative time,estimated blood loss in PTC surgery.

Background and purpose: p21-activated kinase 5 (PAK5) is a recently identified member of PAKs that regulate many intracellular processes such as cytoskeleton remodeling, cell proliferation, cell differentiation, gene transcription and cell apoptosis. Recently, studies found that PAK5 was overexpressed in some cancer such as gastric and colon cancer. However, the expression status and biological function of PAK5 in osteosarcoma are not clearly known. The objective of this study was to investigate the expression of PAK5 in osteosarcoma tissue and their relationships with the prognosis of osteosarcoma. Methods: The expression of PAK5 was detected by using immunohistochemical method in 92 specimens of human osteosarcoma tissues and 33 cases of osteoclastoma tissue, respectively. Results: The positive rate of PAK5 was 71.7% (66/92) in all the 92 cases of osteosarcoma. PAK5 expressions were not related to clinical variables such as gender, age, tumor location, tumor size, histological type and local recurrence, but signiifcantly related to Enneking grade, tumor cell necrosis rate and lung metastasis, and the high expression of PAK5 may reduce the efifciency of chemotherapy. Survival analysis indicated that high expression of PAK5 correlated with poor prognosis of patients with osteosarcoma. Univariate survival analysis showed that the signiifcant prognostic factors were tumor size, Enneking grade, local recurrence, lung metastasis and expression levels of PAK5. COX multivariate regression identified that the PAK5 expression levels (P=0.001) and lung metastasis (P=0.015) were independent prognostic factors of patients with osteosarcoma. Conclusion:The positive expressions of PAK5 closely correlate with Enneking grade, tumor cell necrosis rate and lung metastasis. Detection of PAK5 may be used as a molecular marker for prognosis of osteosarcoma. The high expression of PAK5 may reduce the efifciency of chemotherapy.

Objective To investigate the clinicopathological features of primary hepatic lymphoma (PHL).Methods Data of 5 PHL cases treated at our hospital between 1998 and 2002 were retrospectively analyzed. Results The patients were all male with a mean age of 43 6 years. Abdominal pain and fever were the most frequent presenting symptoms. Four (80%) were positive for the hepatitis B virus antigen. Tumors were all removed surgically in the 5 patients. Pathologic examination revealed B cell lymphoma, T cell lymphoma and Hodgkin′s disease in 2, 2 and 1 patients, respectively. Moreover, coexistent tumors were incidentally discovered by histology in 2 cases. ConclusionThere seems to be a close relationship between hepatitis B virus infection and the development of PHL; PHL should always be considered in the differential diagnosis for patients presenting with mass lesions in the liver; Surgical resection whenever feasible should be attempted as a part of combination modalities.

OBJECTIVETo investigate the effects of losartan on mRNA expression of myocardial sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium handling proteins (SERCA2, RyR2 and PLB) and the role of which in prevention of chronic heart failure in rabbit.

METHODSAfter chronic heart failure was induced by ligation of the left anterior descending artery in rabbits, the animals were treated with losartan. At 8 weeks after ligation, left ventricular function, hemodynamic parameters, and SERCA2, RyR2, PLB mRNA expressions were observed.

RESULTSCompared with the control group (group C), LVEDP in the infarcted group (group I) increased (P < 0.01), while +dp/dt(max) and -dp/dt(max) decreased significantly (P < 0.01). LVEDP was lower but +dp/dt(max) and -dp/dt(max) significantly higher in the losartan treated group (group L) than those in group I (P < 0.05). SERCA2, RyR2, and PLB mRNA expressions in group I were remarkably lower than those in group L (P < 0.01) and group C (P < 0.01), respectively.

CONCLUSIONLosartan can improve cardiac function, probably owing to its upregulating mRNA expressions of myocardial sarcoplasmic reticulum Ca(2+) handling proteins (RyR2, SERCA2 and PLB) in the prevention of heart failure.

Angiotensin II Type 1 Receptor Blockers ; pharmacology ; Animals ; Calcium ; metabolism ; Calcium Channels ; drug effects ; Calmodulin ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Female ; Heart Failure ; drug therapy ; metabolism ; Losartan ; pharmacology ; Male ; Rabbits ; Ryanodine Receptor Calcium Release Channel ; biosynthesis ; Sarcoplasmic Reticulum ; drug effects ; metabolism

OBJECTIVETo elucidate the regulatory mechanism underlying proliferation and anti-apoptosis in NSCLC by overexpression of miR-21.

METHODSReal-time PCR was used to measure miR-21 abundance in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) tumor samples and adjacent normal tissues, as well as NSCLC cell lines. Tumor suppressor genes as potential targets of miR-21 were predicted by sequence analysis. Luciferase assay and Western blot were used to assess the regulatory effect. The effect on A549 cell viability and apoptosis by miR-21-induced gene repression was tested by trypan-blue exclusion and flow cytometry.

RESULTSmiR-21 expression was 2.24-fold higher in the NSCLC tumor samples and 3.06-fold higher in the A549 cells than that in the adjacent normal tissues. Sequence prediction and gene expression regulation assays showed that miR-21 could reversely regulate the expression of PDCD4 (P < 0.01). Suppression of miR-21 expression is associated with an elevation of Pdcd4, resulting in a significant reduction of proliferation and the apoptosis rate (2.6%) was increased to 10.9%. Moreover, the anti-proliferation and pro-apoptotic effect by miR-21 suppression could be reversed by PDCD4 knock down.

CONCLUSIONSuppression of the tumor suppressor PDCD4 expression may be one of the important regulatory pathways of the miR-21-mediated cell proliferation and decrease of apoptosis in non-small cell lung cancer.

Aged ; Apoptosis ; Apoptosis Regulatory Proteins ; genetics ; metabolism ; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung ; metabolism ; pathology ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Cell Proliferation ; Gene Expression Regulation, Neoplastic ; Humans ; Lung Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; Male ; MicroRNAs ; genetics ; metabolism ; Middle Aged ; Oligonucleotides, Antisense ; genetics ; RNA Interference ; RNA-Binding Proteins ; genetics ; metabolism ; Transfection

Objective: To observe the efficacy of long-retaining scalp acupuncture plus interactive training in improving upper- extremity dysfunction in cerebral stroke patients. Methods: Ninety-five patients with upper-extremity dysfunction after cerebral stroke were randomized into two groups, with 48 cases in the treatment group and 47 cases in the control group. Conventional internal medicine treatment was offered to both groups. In both groups, Anterior Oblique Line of Vertex-temporal (MS 6, the middle 2/5) and Posterior Oblique Line of Vertex-temporal (MS 7, the middle 2/5) were selected from the same side of the brain lesion (the side apposing to the hemiplegic limb) for scalp acupuncture treatment. In the treatment group, the scalp acupuncture needles were retained for 7 h, in combination with interactive training, while the needles were also retained for 7 h in the control group but without interactive training. Prior to treatment and at 2-week and 4-week treatment, the two groups were scored using the functional test for the hemiplegic upper extremity-Hong Kong (FTHUE-HK) and simplified Fugl-Meyer assessment-upper extremity (FMA-UE). Results: The total effective rate was 97.9％ in the treatment group, higher than 74.5％ in the control group (P<0.01). The FTHUE-HK score was higher at 2-week and 4-week treatment than before treatment in both groups, presenting statistically significant intra-group differences (all P<0.001); the FTHUE-HK score was higher at 4-week treatment than at 2-week treatment in both groups, presenting statistically significant intra-group differences (both P<0.001). At 2-week and 4-week treatment, the FTHUE-HK score was higher in the treatment group than in the control group, showing significant between-group differences (both P<0.05). During the whole treatment process, the treatment group had higher FTHUE-HK scores compared with the control group, but there was no statistical significance comparing the change of the score between the two groups at 2-week treatment (P>0.05), while the between-group difference in the change of the score was statistically significant at 4-week treatment (P<0.05). The FMA-UE score was higher at 2-week and 4-weeks treatment than before treatment in both groups, presenting statistically significant intra-group differences (all P<0.001); the FMA-UE score was higher at 4-week treatment than at 2-week treatment in both groups, presenting statistically significant intra-group differences (both P<0.001). At 2-week and 4-week treatment, the FMA-UE was higher in the treatment group than in the control group, and the between-group differences were statistically significant (both P<0.01). The FMA-UE score rose gradually with the increase of treatment session, and there was statistical significance comparing the change of the score between the two groups at 2-week and 4-week treatment, respectively (both P<0.05). Conclusion: Long-retaining scalp acupuncture plus interactive training results in more significant efficacy than long-retaining scalp acupuncture alone in improving the upper-limb dysfunction after cerebral stroke and the advantage becomes more notable after 2-week consecutive treatment.

The breeding of domestic rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) for human consumption has a long tradition in China. Infections that can affect the production of meat or even be transmitted from animals to humans are important to monitor, especially for public health reasons as well as for their impact on animal health. Thus, a total of 1,132 domestic rabbit sera from 4 regions in China were collected for serological screening for Encephalitozoon cuniculi and for Toxoplasma gondii by ELISA and modified agglutination test (MAT), respectively. Antibodies to E. cuniculi were detected in 248/1,132 (21.9%) sera tested while antibodies against T. gondii revealed a seroprevalence of 51/1,132 (4.5%). We believe that the present results are of epidemiological implications and public health importance due to the acknowledged susceptibility of humans to E. cuniculi and T. gondii infections. Therefore, routine screening tests of domestic rabbits are proposed considering the zoonotic potential of these parasites.
Animals ; Animals, Domestic/blood/microbiology/parasitology ; Antibodies, Fungal/*blood ; Antibodies, Protozoan/*blood ; China/epidemiology ; Encephalitozoon cuniculi/*immunology/isolation & purification ; Encephalitozoonosis/blood/microbiology/*veterinary ; Female ; Male ; Rabbits/blood/microbiology/parasitology ; Seroepidemiologic Studies ; Toxoplasma/*immunology/isolation & purification ; Toxoplasmosis, Animal/*blood/parasitology