Objective To uncover the possible factors of rapid increasing incidence of syphilis. Methods The clinical data of 100 patients firstly diagnosed as syphilis and their spouses were analyzed. Results There were 65 couples (130 cases) both were infected with syphilis, accounting for 65%. Among these cases, 25 males firstly diagnosed, 15 of them were primary syphilis; and 40 females firstly diagnosed as syphilis, 32 of them were secondary syphilis. Among 65 syphilis couples, 48 spouses were quickly diagnosed as syphilis through contact tracing, but the other 17 spouses were not diagnosed as syphilis until 1~3 months later, and most of them were latent syphilis, accounting for 83.2%(54/65). Chancre, which may be noticed by the patients themselves, was not so common in this group of patients, accounted for only 28.5%(37/130), and mainly in males. Conclusions The infections rate of syphilis between spoused is high, especially latent syphilis, and chancre is low, which might be one of the factors for the rapid spreading of the disease.

Objective To explore the accuracy and security of introcavitary-ECG guiding peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) tip positioning.Methods The observation group was defined as the 50 preterm infants who was cathetered PICC between June 2014 to May 2015 while the control group as the other 50 cases was cathetered between August 2012 to May 2014 to review.The latter group was cathetered traditionally and positioned by X-ray while the former was cathered by ECG-monitoring and positioned by the change of P wave on ECG-Ⅱ.X-ray was also used to confirm the PICC tip positioning when the cathere was fixed in the control group.Results The success rate of first puncture in control group was 74％(37/50),significatly lower than the observation group,which was 94％(47/50) (x2=7.440,P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions The technology of ECG makes benefits in increasing the success rate of first puncture,reducing cathetering time,improving work efficiency,reducing the risk of nursing operation and garanteeing security of nurses and patients.

In this paper, we propose a new active contour algorithm, i. e. hierarchical contextual active contour (HCAC), and apply it to automatic liver segmentation from three-dimensional CT (3D-CT) images. HCAC is a learning-based method and can be divided into two stages. At the first stage, i.e. the training stage, given a set of abdominal 3D-CT training images and the corresponding manual liver labels, we tried to establish a mapping between automatic segmentations (in each round) and manual reference segmentations via context features, and obtained a series of self-correcting classifiers. At the second stage, i.e. the segmentation stage, we firstly used the basic active contour to segment the image and subsequently used the contextual active contour (CAC) iteratively, which combines the image information and the current shape model, to improve the segmentation result. The current shape model is produced by the corresponding self-correcting classifier (the input is the previous automatic segmentation result). The proposed method was evaluated on the datasets of MICCAI 2007 liver segmentation challenge. The experimental results showed that we would get more and more accurate segmentation results by the iterative steps and the satisfied results would be obtained after about six rounds of iterations.
Algorithms ; Humans ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; Liver ; diagnostic imaging ; Models, Theoretical ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

Backgroud Numerous studies have confirmed the effectiveness of slowing the progression of atherosclerosis by blood pressure (Bp)control in patients with hypertension and several studies also showed the efficacy of intensive glycemic control in decreasing progression of carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) in patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. However, few studies have compared the relative importance of glycemic vs. Bp control in patients with diabetes and hypertension. We aimed to investigate the association between Bp and glycemic control and subclinical carotid atherosclerosis in older patients with hypertension and type 2 diabetes. Methods In a cross-sectional study, B-mode high-resolution ultrasonography of the carotid artery was performed in 670 subjects (508 males and 162 females) aged 60 years or over who had self-reported hypertension and diabetes but no history of coronary heart disease or stroke. Subjects were categorized by their systolic blood pressure: tight control, < 130 mmHg; usual control, 130-139 mmHg; or uncontrolled, > 140 mmHg, and by their hemoglobin Alc (HbAlc) level: tight control, < 6.5%; usual control, 6.5%-7.5%; or uncontrolled, > 7.5%, respectively. Results The mean CIMT was 8.20±0.11 mm, and carotid plaque was found in 52.5% (352/670) subjects. Overall, 62.1% of the subjects had subclinical carotid atherosclerosis, defined as having either carotid plaque or elevated CIMT (≥ 1.1 mm). The mean CIMT was significantly different between Bp control categories (7.60 ± 0.09 mm, 7.90 ± 0.08 mm, and 8.60±0.12 nun, respectively, P = 0.03) but not between glycemic control categories (8.20 ± 0.10 ram, 8.1 ± 0.08 mm, and 8.40 ± 0.14 mm, respectively, P = 0.13) using ANCOVA analysis. Multivariable logistic regression adjusting for potential confounding factors showed that usual or uncontrolled Bp control were associated with having carotid plaque (OR = 1.08 and OR = 1.42, respectively), or elevated CIMT [Odd ratio (OR) = 1.17, 95% confidence interval (CI)1.04-2.24, and OR = 1.54, 95% CI 1.36-2.96, respectively compared to tight Bp control; but did not show glycemic control as independent predictor of either having carotid plaque or elevated CIMT. Conclusions In older patients with hypertension and diabetes, blood pressure control, but not glycemic control is associated with subclinical carotid atherosclerosis.

Sphingolipids as an important regulator play a critical role in the cell biological functions. Among them, ceramide (Cer) and sphingosine (Sph) induce apoptosis and inhibit cell proliferation; on the contrary sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) promotes cell survival and proliferation. The balance between ceramide/sphingosine and S1P forms a so-called "sphingolipid-rheostat", which decides the cell fate. Sphingosine kinases, which catalyze the phosphorylation of sphingosine to S1P, are critical regulators of this balance. Here, we review the role of sphingosine kinase 1 (SphK1) in regulating fundamental biological processes and tumorigenesis and the potential of SphK1 as a new target for cancer therapeutics.

Liver fibrosis is a pathological process of the excessive accumulation of extracellular matrix, especially collagen al (I) in liver. Ultimately, hepatic fibrosis leads to cirrhosis or hepatic failure. Liver fibrosis and early cirrhosis can be reversed, thus control of the development of liver fibrosis is very important for preventive treatment of cirrhosis and hepatic failure. This is a review of potential targets for anti-hepatic fibrosis based on plenty of publications, including TGF-β1 and integrin α(v) and so on, aimed at providing novel therapeutic targets in liver fibrosis.

Stable isotope coded derivatization (ICD) is an isotope labeling technique for specific functional groups of the target analytes through chemical derivatization.ICD combined with liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) enables systematically analyzing the biomolecules with the same labeling reaction characteristic.ICD technique can effectively solve the limited sensitivity in complex bio-matrices analysis and unavailability of isotope internal standards in quantitative analysis.In recent years, ICD technique has been widely used in metabolomics research field.Based on this background, the ICD technique and the design of ICD reagents are briefly described in this review.The recent advances in ICD reagents for carboxyl, amino, carbonyl, thiol and hydroxyl groups and their applications in the analysis of small molecule metabolites in bio-matrices with LC-MS/MS are reviewed.

Objective To evaluate the curative effect of fallopian tube perfusion with ozone water in treating obstructed fallopian tube in pluripara.Methods A total of 116 patients with distal fallopian tube obstruction were included in this study.The diagnosis was confirmed by clinical and laboratory materials.The patients were randomly divided into the study group and the control group with 58 patients in each group.During hospitalization period all patients received interventional recanalization therapy for obstructed fallopian tube.For the patients of the study group,ozone water perfusion of fallopian tube was employed,while for the patients of the control group,fallopian tube perfusion with conventional anti-inflammatory drug and antiadhesion solution was adopted.All the patients were followed up for 6 months,the pregnancy rate and the fallopian tube re-occlusion rate of both groups were calculated,and 2 weeks after the treatment the patients'discomfort symptoms were evaluated.Results The success rate of fallopian tube recanalization,the pregnancy rate and the re-obstruction rate in the study group were 93.1％ (54/58),79.3％ (46/58) and 5.2％(3/58) respectively,which in the control group were 91.4％ (53/58),60.3％ (35/58) and 172％ (10/58) respectively.Statistical analysis indicated that no significant difference in the success rate of fallopian tube recanalization existed between the two groups (P＞0.05).The pregnancy rate of the study group was higher than that of the control group,while the re-obstruction rate in the study group was lower than that in the control group;the differences between the two groups were statistically significant (P＜0.05).No significant differences in discomfort symptom scores existed between the two groups (P＞0.05).Conclusion Fallopian tube perfusion with ozone water can be adopted for tubal recanalization,this technique can effectively improve the postoperative pregnancy rate and reduce the tubal re-obstruction rate.

Objective To establish a real-time quantitative reverse-transcription PCR ( qRT-PCR) method for detection of hepatitis E virus ( HEV) of different genotypes based on standard HEV DNA plasmid in order to promote its application in clinical laboratory. Methods Specific primers and probe of HEV were designed based on the conserved open reading frame 3 (ORF3) regions. HEV DNA plasmids were construc-ted and 10-fold serial dilutions of the plasmids were prepared and used as standards to establish one-step qRT-PCR. The established method was compared with HEV antigen, antibody and RT-nPCR assays. Some positive samples were sequenced and analyzed by evolutionary tree. Results The one-step qRT-PCR meth-od for HEV detection in serum or feces samples was successfully establish. It could reach a sensitivity of 25 copies/test and 77. 8% of its results were consistent with those by HEV antigen assay. Nine patients were infected with HEV of genotypes 4a, 4d or 4n as indicated by evolutionary tree. Conclusion The HEV qRT-PCR method based on its standard plasmid is successfully established, which paves the way for commercial-ization of clinical applications.