The auther .measured the concentration ofchromium in serum of the normal for 30 and 30 pa-tients with diabetes. The results indicate that thechromium level in serum of diabetes is significantlylower than that of the normal (P

Objective To observe the effect of Vitamin E on advanced glycosylation end-products(AGEs) and their receptors in renal tissue of diabetic rats.Methods Rat diabetic nephropathy was induced by intraperitoneal injection of STZ.Rats were allocated to normal control group(NC group),diabetes mellitus group(DM group),and Vitamin E group(VE group).All rats were treated with corresponding drugs for 8 weeks.During and after the treatment,the general state,blood glucose level(BGL),blood urea nitrogen(BUN),serum creatinine(Scr),urinary albumin excretion rate(UAER),glycosylated hemoglobin(HbA1C),clearance rate of creatinine(Ccr) and kidney weight/body weight ratio were determined in different groups.The fluorescence microscope was used to observe advanced glycosylation end-products fluorescence intensity in iced slices.The expression of RAGE in rats' renal tissue slices was measured by immunohistochemistry.Results ① Compared with those in NC group,GLU,HbA1C,BUN,UAER,kidney weight/body weight ratio,contents of AGEs,and RAGE increased significantly(P

OBJECTIVEFrictions of Lock-loose brackets with ligated main wings or all six wings were measured as they slid along archwires in dry and artificial saliva environments. The Lock-loose brackets were then compared with traditional brackets and self-ligating brackets.

METHODSThe surface states of the stainless steel archwires were observed with atomic force microscopy before and after mechanical traction. The Lock-loose brackets, traditional brackets, and self-ligating brackets used in this study were composed of 0.406 4 and 0.457 2 mm stainless steel round archwires and 0.457 2 mm x 0.634 9 mm and 0.482 6 mm x 0.634 9 mm stainless steel rectangular archwires. Two different ligating methods were applied to the Lock-loose brackets, i.e., main wings ligated and all six wings ligated. Frictions were measured by using an electronic universal testing machine.

RESULTSNo significant differences were found between the roughness of different archwires before and after mechanical traction in different brackets (P > 0.05). When the main wings of the Lock-loose brackets were ligated, the frictions of the four different stainless steel archwires were close to zero, and the difference with frictions of traditional brackets was significant (P < 0.05). When using 0.457 2 mm x 0.634 9 mm rectangular archwires, maximum friction (P < 0.05; significantly different from those of other brackets) was reached when all six wings of the Lock-loose brackets were ligated. Frictions in the dry state were higher than those in the wet state (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONThe Lock-loose brackets can adjust the friction efficiently with different ligating methods, thus solving the problem of low friction and strengthening anchorage.

A 54-year-old female farmer presented with a pea-sized red nodule on the left upper limb near the wrist for 15 days,which occurred after trauma,gradually became swollen and ruptured,and developed into multiple nodules arranged in a chain in 30 days.Skin examination revealed multiple hard purple-red nodules arranged in a line on her left upper limb,some of which were ruptured with a small amount of purulent exndate.Histopathological examination further revealed that the focus of infection manifested as pyogenic granuloma-like inflammation mainly infiltrated with mixed inflammatory cells.Periodic acid Schiff (PAS) staining showed no fungal structures,including fungal spores,hyphae and asteroid body.The biopsy tissue culture yielded the fungus.According to the morphological analysis of the cultures and results of molecular identification based on internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and calmodulin (CAL) coding regions,this case was finally diagnosed as lymphocutaneous sporotrichosis caused by Sporothrix schenckii sensu stricto.The patient was treated with oral potassium iodide 10％ solution in a dose of 10 ml thrice a day.After 2-month treatment,the patient felt that the lesions were obviously improved,but afterwards she was lost to follow-up.This research report suggests that phenotypic analysis combined with ITS/CAL-based molecular identification can accurately identify Sporothrix schenckii complex at the species level.

might be related to the growth and metastasis of HCC.

Objective To observe the cognitive function and its related factors in patients with essential epilepsy.Methods The cognitive function of 70 essential epilepsy patients (epilepsy group) and 40 healthy controls(control group) were evaluated by means of Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Adult-Chinese (WAIS-RC).The relation between the cognitive dysfunction and its related factors were analyzed.Results The scores of performance intelligence quotient,verbal intelligence quotient,full intelligence quotient in epilepsy group were significantly lower than those in control group [(98.06 ± 15.24) scores vs.(113.80 ± 12.14) scores,(98.09 ± 16.06) scores vs.(120.65 ± 11.28) scores,(98.06 ± 15.80) scores vs.(119.42 ± 11.85) scores] (P ＜ 0.01).The scores of 11 numbers of rating scales were significantly lower than those in control group (P ＜ 0.01).The factors related to the cognitive function were education level,age numbers,duration of the disease,frequency of seizures attack before medication,the duration of seizures and the quantity of antiepileptics.Conclusions Many of the essential epilepsy patients have cognitive function deficit.The cognitive condition of essential epilepsy patients should be pay more attention and reduce the dangerous factors in order to improve the life quality.

BACKGROUND: Imatinib has a significant pro-apoptosis effect on chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), but there are still some patients being resistant to it. Human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells (hUC-MSCs) affect the apoptosis of a variety of hematologic malignancies. However, the impacts of hUC-MSCs on the apoptosis of CML cells induced by imatinib remain unclear.OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether hUC-MSCs have an influence on the apoptosis of K562 cells induced by imatinib and to reveal the possible underlying mechanism.METHODS: K562 cells were cultured with hUC-MSCs or/and imatinib. Cellular apoptosis was measured with Annexin-V and PI staining by flow cytometry analysis. The protein expressions of Bax, Bcl-2, caspase-3, caspase-9 and cleaved-PARP in K562 cells were detected by western blot assay. Pan-caspase inhibitor Z-VAD-FMK was used to block apoptosis in each group, and during this process the effect of caspase apoptosis signaling pathway was detected.RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The apoptosis of K562 cells was enhanced, when imatinib was combined with hUC-MSCs. Western blot analysis showed that the expression of pro-apoptotic protein Bax was enhenced and the expression of anti-apoptotic protein Bcl-2 was suppressed. Furthermore, the cleaved forms of caspase-9, caspase-3 and PARP in K562 cell were higher in the hUC-MSCs+imatinib group than in the imatinib group. The apoptosis of K562 cells induced by the hUC-MSCs combined with imatinib was significantly inhibited by Z-VAD-FMK. In conclusion, these findings indicate that hUC-MSCs can enhance imatinib-induced apoptosis of K562 cells by activating caspase apoptosis signaling pathway.

OBJECTIVE: To observe the relationship between the tinnitus masking curve and the effect of masking therapy, so as to select an effective treatment method. METHOD: Detect 108 (137 ear) tinnitus patients, and all the patients accept masking therapy. RESULT: The type I and III of the tinnitus masking curve were the highest percentage. In residual inhibition test type I and III had the highest positive rate, and masking therapy was the best treatment for type I and III. The residual inhibition test was positive correlation to the effect of masking therapy. CONCLUSION The effectiveness of different types of masking curve are different in patients with the treatment of masking, patients should be provided with personalized treatment on masking curve and residual inhibition test.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Female ; Hearing Aids ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Perceptual Masking ; Tinnitus ; therapy ; Treatment Outcome ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVE: To analyse the impact of tinnitus loudness, tinnitus frequency, hearing loss, tinnitus subjective loudness on the life of tinnitus patient. METHOD: To inspect the 154 tinnitus patients with pure tone audiometry, tinnitus matching, tinnitus classification questionnaire and THI scale. This study applies THI scale to evaluate the impact of tinnitus on the life of tinnitus patient. Using statistical methods to analyse the relationship between tinnitus loudness, tinnitus frequency, hearing loss, tinnitus subjective loudness and the impact of tinnitus on the life of tinnitus patient. RESULT: (1) Tinnitus frequency is closed with the frequency of hearing loss. (2) There is no significant correlation between tinnitus loudness and the impact of tinnitus on the life of tinnitus patient. (3) There is no distinction between hearing loss and the THI scores. (4) The patient gets more scores in subgroup of THI with the increase of tinnitus subjective loudness classification. CONCLUSION The impact of tinnitus loudness, hearing loss on the life of tinnitus patient is not very clearly, while the impact of tinnitus subjective loudness classification on the life of tinnitus patient is significant. In clinical, we can not evaluate the effect of the tinnitus treatment relying on tinnitus loudness and hearing loss simply.The finding provides us individual treatment to tinnitus patients.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Audiometry, Pure-Tone ; Hearing Loss ; physiopathology ; Humans ; Loudness Perception ; Middle Aged ; Quality of Life ; Tinnitus ; physiopathology ; Young Adult

Objective To investigate the lesionsin theleft thalamus and to explore their correlation with executive functionin patients with subcortical ischemic vascular disease(SIVD)by using 1H magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). Methods Fourteen patients with vascular dementia (VaD), 14 patients with vas-cular cognitive impairment without dementia(VCIND)and 14 normal controls (NC) were recruited. The quantitative analy-sis of N-acetylaspartate (NAA), Choline (Cho), myoinositol (MI) and Creatine (Cr) resonance signals in region of interests (ROI) in the left thalamus were measured. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) values in the same region were examined by using DTI. The relationship were analyzedamong the MRS, DTI ratios and cognitive impairment reflect-ed in MMSE and trail making test(TMT). Results The NAA/Cr ratio showed a gradual decrease in the left thalamus of VaD andVCIND patients compared with controls(F=3.656, P=0.038). There was no significant difference in NAA/Cr ra- tiobetween VaD and VCIND patients.Compared with controls, patients with VaD and VCIND demonstrated increased MD value in the left thalamus(F=3.882, P=0.030).There was no significant difference in MD value between VaD and VCIND patients (P>0.05). There were no correlations between NAA/Cr, MI/Cr, Cho/Cr value and DTI parameters in the ROI (P>0.05). TMTb time was positively associated with Cho/Cr(r=0.520,P=0.001 ) and with MD value in the left thalamus (r=0.305, P=0.044). Conclusions Combination of 1H-MRS with DTI can provide the valuable informationon the potential lesions in the thalamus in patients with SIVD. The Cho/Cr and MD values in the leftthalamus may be correlated with ex-ecutive function.