The successful suppression of clutter arising from stationary or slowly moving tissue is one of the key issues in medical ultrasound color blood imaging. Remaining clutter may cause bias in the mean blood frequency estimation and results in a potentially misleading description of blood-flow. In this paper, based on the principle of general wall-filter, the design process of three classes of filters, infinitely impulse response with projection initialization (Prj-IIR), polynomials regression (Pol-Reg), and eigen-based filters are previewed and analyzed. The performance of the filters was assessed by calculating the bias and variance of a mean blood velocity using a standard autocorrelation estimator. Simulation results show that the performance of Pol-Reg filter is similar to Prj-IIR filters. Both of them can offer accurate estimation of mean blood flow speed under steady clutter conditions, and the clutter rejection ability can be enhanced by increasing the ensemble size of Doppler vector. Eigen-based filters can effectively remove the non-stationary clutter component, and further improve the estimation accuracy for low speed blood flow signals. There is also no significant increase in computation complexity for eigen-based filters when the ensemble size is less than 10.
Blood Flow Velocity ; Color ; Humans ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Ultrasonography

Objective To explore the changes and relationship of serum insulin-like growth factor-1(IGF-1) and leptin in children with growth hormone deficiency(GHD).Method Serum IGF-1 and leptin levels were measured by immunoradiometric assay in 20 prepuberal normal children and 23 children with GHD.Results Serum IGF-1 level in GHD group(51.158?29.988)?g/L was significantly lower than that in controls(112.680?41.540)?g/L.Serum leptin levels in GHD group(6.002?2.204)?g/L was significantly higher than that in controls(4.523?2.204)?g/L.There was no significant correlation between serum IGF-1 and leptin.Conclusion IGF-1 and leptin regulate growth in children with GHD in their individual way.

Geriatrics develops relatively late in medical education, but geriatric medical education is rapidly rising for aggravation of the aging of population.And geriatric medical education is desired of the properties medical sciences, and is also the need of the development itself. Therefore, geriatric medical education should be internationalized, to eventually form distinctive education.

Triptolide (TPT), an active compound extracted from Chinese herb Tripterygium wilfordii , has been used in therapy of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In this study, after synovial fibroblasts from rheumatoid arthritis (RASFs) were treated with TPT, we investigated its effect on the differentiation of Th17 cells. Firstly, the mRNA level of cyclooxygenase (COX) wad detected by qRT-PCR and the protein level of prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) was tested by ELISA in RASFs treated with different concentrations (0, 10, 50, 100 nmol L-1 ) of TPT. Then after TPT pre-treated RASFs and RA CD4 + T cells wer e co-cultured for 3 days in the presence or absence of PGE2, IL-17 and IFN-gamma production in CD4 T cell subsets were detected by flow cytometry. The results showed TPT decreased the mRNA experssion of COX2 and the secretion of PGE2 in RASFs in a dose-dependent manner(P <0. 05). We further found that differentiation of Thl7 cells was downregulated in a dose-dependent manner, and exogenous PGE2 could reverse the inhibition of Th17 cell differentiation(P <0. 05). Taken together, our results demonstrated that TPT inhibited the mRNA level of COX2 and the secretion of PGE2 in RASFs, which partly led to impaired Th17 cell differentiation in vitro.
Arthritis, Rheumatoid ; drug therapy ; enzymology ; immunology ; Cell Differentiation ; drug effects ; Cell Line ; Cyclooxygenase 2 ; genetics ; metabolism ; Dinoprostone ; metabolism ; Diterpenes ; pharmacology ; Epoxy Compounds ; pharmacology ; Fibroblasts ; drug effects ; immunology ; Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic ; drug effects ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; Phenanthrenes ; pharmacology ; Synovial Fluid ; drug effects ; Th17 Cells ; drug effects ; pathology

Animals ; Cells, Cultured ; Female ; Granulosa Cells ; drug effects ; secretion ; Ivermectin ; analogs & derivatives ; pharmacology ; Rats

Adolescent ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; Clinical Trials as Topic ; Flow Cytometry ; Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation ; Humans ; Immunophenotyping ; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute ; diagnosis ; pathology ; therapy ; Neoplasm, Residual ; diagnosis ; pathology ; therapy ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Prognosis ; Recurrence ; Sensitivity and Specificity

Child ; Humans ; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute ; complications ; Male ; Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma ; complications

Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry ; Solvents ; analysis ; chemistry ; Volatile Organic Compounds ; analysis ; chemistry

Objective To investigate the CT features of pulmonary sarcoidosis.Methods Ninety patients with histologically proved pulmonary sarcoidosis were retrospectively studied by using CT scans and clinical recording.Results The main CT findings of pulmonary sarcoidosis were nodules which were seen in 69 cases(76.7%),and the nodules mostly distributed around the bronchovascular bundle(n=37, 41.1%).Other abnormalities included consolidation(n=31,34.4%),ground-grass(n=39,43.3 %), thickening of bronchovascular bundle(n=30,33.3%),interlobular septal lines(n=58,64.4%), fibrosis(n=17,18.9%)including bronchial distortion(n=8,8.9%),linear shadow(n=5,5.6%), and honeycombing shadow(n=4,4.4%),air-trapping(n=3,5.3%),bronchial straitness(n=8, 8.9%),pleural thickening(n=42,46.7%),and hilar and mediastinal adenopathy(n=76,84.4%). Two or more abnormal findings co-existed in 83 cases.The pulmonary lesions co-existed with hilar and mediastinal adenopathy in 76 cases.The nodules(n=25),consolidation(n=9),ground-grass(n=11), thickening of bronehovascular bundle(n=10)were improved after therapy.Ten cases of the interlobular septal(10/22),0 of bronchial distortion(0/4),1 case of diffuse linear(1/3),and 0 case of honeycombing(0/2)were improved.Conclusion CT manifestations of pulmonary sarcoidosis are varied, but has some specific radiographic features.A correct diagnosis can be made.combined with hilar and mediastinal adenopathy.

ObjectiveTo investigate the rule of changes of the soleus mass and expression of myosin heavy chain (MHC) isoforms mRNA.Methods40 female Wistar rats were divided randomly into the control group and three spinal cord transection (ST) groups, ST7, ST15, and ST30 with 10 animals in each group. Rats in ST groups were subjected to a complete ST between T8 and T10 levels. The right soleus was dissected and weighed at 7, 15, 30 days after ST, and the expression of MHC mRNA isoforms was measured by semi-quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).ResultsThe Absolute and relative soleus masses in three ST groups were lower significantly than those of control group (P<0.05). The soleus mass in ST15 and ST30 groups were lower than that of ST7 group (P<0.05). The soleus of control group predominantly expressed MHC-I and some MHC-IIa, whereas the soleus began to express MHC-IIx and MHC-IIb after ST, except for MHC-I and MHC-IIa. ST induced consistently down-regulation of MHC-I mRNA and up-regulation of MHC-IIx and MHC-IIa at three time points after ST. The level of MHC-IIb mRNA expression was very low at three time points after ST.ConclusionST can influence the soleus mass at early stage after ST. ST induces a shift toward a faster muscle phenotype from slow to fast MHC isoform. MHC demonstrates plasticity in response to decrease neuromuscular activation.