BACKGROUND: Multiple sclerosis(MS) is a chronic autoimmune disease induced by the interaction between genetic and environmental factors. Its pathogen and the mechanism of the relapse and remission m the course of the disease are still unknown. Most of the MS research centers are looking for the pathogenic polypeptide epitope in proteolipid protein(PLP), myelin sheath basic protein (MBP) and oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG) OBJECTIVE: To compare the proliferation of T cell lines(TCL) in MS induced by myelin sheath and delipidated myelin sheath towards 11 components of myelin sheath to mainly search the possible pathogenic polypeptide epitope in PLP, and investigate the possible effects of abnormal dcgrease in myelin sheath.DESIGN: A case-controlled trial.SETTING: Department of neurology in a hospital of a university.PARTICIPANTS: Mononuclear cells(MNC) of 16 MS cases(clinical relapsing-remitting type, patients did not receive any immunosuppresant for at least 3 months when their peripheral blood samples were taken) and 12 HLA-DR15 healthy volunteers were furnished by Dr. Trotter JL of MS Research Center of Washington University from the cell database.INTERVENTIONS: MS-TCL and normal TCL were induced twice by stimulation with myelin sheath and delipidated myelin sheath in vitro by cell culture in vitro. TCL proliferation was tested by 11 antigens including PLP,MBP, M87-106, P30-49, P40-60, P89-106, P95-117, P117-137,P139-151, P178-191, and P185-206.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Difference of scintillation counting in every minute of every well, and the stimulative index of each well were calculated, and the mean wells with positive proliferation of TCL towards each antigen were confirmed as well.RESULTS: The general specific proliferation towards myelin sheath antigens was bigger in MS group than control group 5.49 ±5.31 to 3.10 ± 3. 17, and delipidated myelin sheath-induced TCL was bigger than myelin sheath-induced one 5. 49 ± 5.31 to 3.41 ± 4. 83 . Delipidated myelin sheath significantly changed the immune responses of MS group,especially the changes of responses towards P30-49, P40-60, P89-106,P117-137, P139-161, and P185-206 were significant compared with that the control group only responded to two polypeptides, which indicated that the antigen epitope of MBP, PLP, M87-106, P95-117, P40-60, and P185-206 might have significance in the triggering of MS autoimmune responses.CONCLUSION: TCL induced by MS myelin sheath has different proliferation towards antigen components of myelin sheath from control group. Delipidated myelin sheath significantly increases TCL proliferation in MS group, which suggests that if MS patients developed abnormal degrease in myelin sheath, TCL would produce autoimmune response towards self-myelin sheath, MBP, PLP and its polypeptide segments all can trigger MS or aggravate the state of the illness. Our finding supports the hypothesis of MS autoimmune pathogenic mechanism.

OBJECTIVE To investigate the pathogenic causes of lower respiratory tract infections(LRTIs) in the elderly in Guangzhou area.METHODS Pathogens obtained from 107 patients with LRTIs were performed by multiple diagnostic tools that including bacterial culture,PCR and specific immunological assays.RESULTS A bacterial cause was established in 42(68.5%) and an atypical pathogen cause in 25(31.6%) of the 107 patients.Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Haemophilus influenzae remained the most important pathogens for LRTIs.CONCLUSIONS In the prescription of antibiotics in the elderly with LRTIs,not only bacteria but also atypical pathogens should be taken into account.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the physical and mental health status of post-linguistic cochlear implantees, and then to explore the effectiveness on of different rehabilitation programs. METHOD: Mandarin hearing in noise test (MHINT), personal report of communication apprehension (PRCA-24) and Nijmegen cochlear implant questionnaire (NCIQ) were used to measure the hearing ability, mental health degree and the health related life quality in 36 post-linguistic cochlear implant users, respectively. The improvement of subjects' physical and mental health levels was compared with among different rehabilitation programs, including family training program, auditory habilitation program and psychological intervention program. RESULT: (1) Family training program only can improve the subject's hearing ability (P < 0.05), but failed to ease the communication apprehension; ((2) Auditory habilitation program can both significantly improve the subjects' hearing ability (P < 0.01) and ease the fear of talking face to face (P < 0.01); (3) Psychological intervention program can significantly increase the auditory abilities (P < 0.01), reduce the communication apprehension (P < 0.01) and improve the quality of life. CONCLUSION Post-linguistic cochlear implantees had obvious mental symptoms. It was very important to design an effective rehabilitation program to improvement the living quality of hearing loss people.
Anxiety ; Cochlear Implantation ; rehabilitation ; Cochlear Implants ; Deafness ; Hearing Loss ; Hearing Tests ; Humans ; Language ; Linguistics ; Mental Health ; Noise ; Quality of Life ; Speech ; Surveys and Questionnaires

Objective:To study the efficacy of stereotactic radiotherapy (SRT) combined with gemcitabine plus cisplatin (GP)-based chemotherapy on local recurrent non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after radiotherapy. Methods:Thirty-eight patients with local recurrent NSCLC were treated with SRT(3.00-4.85 Gy per fraction, five times every week, totally 8-12 fractions, total course of 2-3 weeks). Before SRT the patients were given two cycles of GP-based chemotherapy (gemcitabine 1 000 mg/m~2 d 1 and d 8;cisplatin 30 mg/m~2 d 1-3) and at the end of SRT they were given 4 cycles of GP-based chemotherapy. Results:Of the 38 patients,7 patients had complete response, and 23 patients achieved partial response. The overall immediate response rate was 78.95% (30/38). The 6-month and 12-month total survival rates were 71.05% and 10.53%,respectively. The median survival time was 7.8 months. Conclusion:SRT combined with GP-based chemotherapy had better short-term efficacy and the patients were tolerable. No severe short-term radiation-induced injury was observed. The long-term radiation-induced injury and long-term efficacy need further investigation.

0.05).But the difference of the length between the interior side and the basal side was obvious under different visual angles(P

Objective To investigate surgical opportunity and suitable treatment approach in nodular Hashimoto's disease.Methods An analysis was performed in 388 pathologically confirmed cases with nodular Hashimoto's disease and other thyroid-related diseases.All the cases were involved with surgical treatment due to thyroid nodules from June,1995 to Dec,2005.Results Among the above-mentioned cases,64 cases (16.5%) were Hashimoto's disease with the presence of thyroid cancer,190 (48.9%) nodular thyroid tumor,94 (24.2%) thyroid adenoma,7 (1.8%) hyperthyroidism,the rest (8.5%) simple Hashimoto's disease.Prior to 2000, among 106 cases of Hashimoto's disease there were 15 cases accompanied by thyroid cancer.Since 2001,282 cases of Hashimoto's disease were dealt surgically,49 of which had thyroid cancer.Compared to the period from 1995 to 2000,the complication of Hashimoto's disease and thyroid cancer has been sharply increasing during the recent five years (P

We applied Lempel-Ziv complexity (LZC) combined with brain electrical activity mapping (BEAM) to study the change of alertness under sleep deprivation in our research. Ten subjects were involved in 36 hours sleep deprivation (SD), during which spontaneous electroencephalogram (EEG) experiments and auditory evoked EEG experiments-Oddball were recorded once every 6 hours. Spontaneous and evoked EEG data were calculated and BEAMs were structured. Results showed that during the 36 hours of SD, alertness could be divided into three stages, i. e. the first 12 hours as the high stage, the middle 12 hours as the rapid decline stage and the last 12 hours as the low stage. During the period SD, LZC of Spontaneous EEG decreased over the whole brain to some extent, but remained consistent with the subjective scales. By BEAMs of event related potential, LZC on frontal cortex decreased, but kept consistent with the behavioral responses. Therefore, LZC can be effective to reflect the change of brain alertness. At the same time LZC could be used as a practical index to monitor real-time alertness because of its simple computation and fast calculation.
Attention ; physiology ; Brain Mapping ; Electroencephalography ; Evoked Potentials ; Humans ; Nonlinear Dynamics ; Sleep Deprivation

This article was aimed to explore the method of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) health maintenance knowledge base building. TCM health maintenance knowledge classification method was studied under the guidance of TCM health maintenance classification system to construct a special literature database to store TCM health maintenance knowledge. Based on TCM literature resources, TCM health maintenance knowledge service platform was designed and developed for the static display and dynamic query support of TCM health maintenance knowledge. The content of knowledge base will be accessed to the whole society. The results showed that the construction method can be a system arrangement and modern interpretation of TCM health maintenance knowledge, in order to support TCM health maintenance knowledge base and its update and service system. It was concluded that under the guidance of TCM theories, the construction of TCM health maintenance knowledge base will realize the health maintenance knowledge-sharing and service requirement of TCM.

Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Basilar Artery ; abnormalities ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Trigeminal Neuralgia ; etiology

Objective To compare the efficacy of different target concentrations of sufentanil target-controlled infusion used to supplement topical anesthesia for fiber-optic bronchoscopy (FOB)-assisted awake nasotracheal intubation in patients with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS).Methods Forty-five ASA physical status Ⅱ or Ⅲ patients with OSAS,aged 28-60 yr,with body mass index of 30-40 kg/m2,scheduled for elective surgery,were randomly assigned into 3 groups (n =15 each):control group (group C) and sufentanil with the target plasma concentration of 0.4 ng/ml (group S1) and 0.6 ng/ml groups (group S2).Naso-pharyngeal and laryngeal mucous membrane was sprayed with 2％ lidocaine mixed with 1％ ephedrine for topical anesthesia in both groups.In addition 1％ tetracaine 3 ml was injected into trachea through cricothyroid membrane.FOB-assisted awake nasotracheal intubation was performed after the target concentration was achieved.The degree of airway obstruction was scored during intubation.The highest values of MAP and HR,rate-pressure product ＞ 12 000,decreased respiratory rate and hyoxemia were recorded during the period between induction of anesthesia and 3 min after intubation was completed.The changes in MAP and HR as percent of baseline values were calculated.Before topical anesthesia (T0),when target concentrations were reached (T1),and at 1 and 3 min after intubation (T2,3),blood samples were taken to determine the plasma concentrations of epinephrine (E),norepinephrine (NE) and cortisol.Results Compared with group C,the airway obstruction score was significantly decreased in group S1,the incidence of changes in MAP and HR ＞ 30％ of baseline values and rate-pressure product ＞ 12 000 was decreased,the plasma concentrations of E,NE and cortisol were decreased in S1 and S2 groups,and the incidence of the respiratory rate was decreased and hypoxemia was increased in group S2 (P ＜ 0.05).Compared with group S1,the airway obstruction score were significantly decreased,and the incidence of respiratory rate was decreased and hypoxemia was increased in group S2 (P ＜ 0.05).Compared with the baseline value at T0,the plasma concentrations of E,NE and cortisol were significantly increased at T2,3 in group C,while decreased at T1 in S1 and S2 groups (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusion Compared with pure topical anesthesia,sufentanil with the target plasma concentration of 0.4 ng/ml does not induce respiratory depression,maintains hemodynamics stable,attenuates the stress responses and provides better intubation conditions when used to supplement topical anesthesia for FOB-assisted awake nasotracheal intubation in patients with OSAS.