Objective·To compare the efficacy of video-assisted thoracic surgery (VATS) and conventional lung volume reduction surgery for the treatment of patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease with a meta-analysis.Methods·Randomized controlled trials (RCT) and non-randomized control studies of VATS (the VATS group) and conventional lung volume reduction surgery (the thoracotomy group) for treating patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were collected from databases,including Web of Science,EMbase,PubMed,the Cochrane Library,CNKI,CBM disc,WanFang Data,and VIP.The latest literature was published in November 2016.The assessment included the quality of literature and RevMan5.3 software was used to perform the meta-analysis.Results·Of 779 retrieved articles,12 studies involving 966 patients were included according to the inclusion criteria.The results of meta-analysis showed that the operation time of bilateral LVRS was longer in the VATS group than in the thoracotomy group,but the difference in the operation time of single LVRS between the two groups was not statistically significant.The difference in the duration of chest tube drainage for bilateral LVRS between the two groups was not statistically significant,while the duration of chest tube drainage for single LVRS was significantly shorter in the VATS group than in the thoracotomy group.The amount of intraoperative blood loss postoperative drainage was significantly smaller in the VATS group than in the thoraeotomy group.Postoperative pulmonary function and blood gas analysis showed that the 6 min walking distance was longer in the VATS group than in the thoracotomy group.The differences in FEV1 and PaO2 between the two groups were not statistically significant,as well as the difference in postoperative complications between the two groups.Conclusion·Comparing to conventional lung volume reduction surgery,Video-Assisted thoracic lung volume reduction surgery is a better choice.However,randomized control trials with higher quality and larger scale are required for verification this conclusion due to limitations of the quality and samples of these studies.

BACKGROUND:Icariin,with antiinflammatory,antioxygenatory and immunoregulatory effects,can be a potential drug for preventing and treating acute liver injury. OBJECTIVE:To investigate the protective effect and possible mechanism of icariin in mice with acute liver injury induced by carbon tetrachloride. METHODS:Thirty-two Kunming mice were equally and randomly divided into the following groups:normal,model,low-dose icariin and high-dose icariin groups.The low-and high-dose icariin groups were continuously gavaged with icariin(100 and 200 mg/kg,respectively)once a day for 7 continuous days.The normal group and model group were injected with physiological saline(10 mL/kg)at the same time point.After the last administration,all the groups except for the normal group were injected with carbon tetrachloride to induce acute liver injury.The mice were killed 24 hours later,and the liver index was detected.Serum levels of alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase were detected by automated biochemical analysis.Tumor necrosis factor α and interleukin 6 levels in serum were detected using ELISA.The levels of superoxide dismutase,glutathione peroxidase and malondialdehyde in liver tissue were detected through a reagent kit.The histopathology changes of the liver were observed by hematoxylin-eosin staining.TUNEL method was used to detect the apoptosis in hepatocytes.Western blot was performed to detect the expression levels of glucose-regulated protein 78 kDa,endoplasmic reticulum stress-related protein(C/-EBP homologous protein),mixed lineage kinase domain-like protein and Caspase-3 in liver tissue. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:Compared with the normal group,the liver index and serum levels of alanine aminotransferase,aspartate aminotransferase,tumor necrosis factor α and interleukin 6 were increased in the model group(P＜0.05).Compared with the model group,the above indexes were decreased in the low-dose and high-dose icariin groups(P＜0.05).Compared with the normal group,the activities of superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase in the liver tissue of mice were decreased in the model group(P＜0.05)and the level of malondialdehyde was increased(P＜0.05).Compared with the model group,the activities of superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase were increased in the low-and high-dose icariin groups(P＜0.05)and the level of malondialdehyde was decreased(P＜0.05).Hematoxylin-eosin and TUNEL staining showed that mice in the model group had severe structural destruction of liver tissue,extensive necrosis of hepatocytes and high apoptotic rate of hepatocytes,while the structural destruction of liver tissue and the area of necrosis of hepatocytes in the low-and high-dose icariin groups were significantly milder than those in the model group,and the apoptotic rate of hepatocytes was lower than that in the model group(P＜0.05).Western blot assay showed that the protein expression of glucose-regulated protein 78 kDa,C/-EBP homologous protein,mixed lineage kinase domain-like protein and Caspase-3 in liver tissue of mice in the model group was increased compared with that in the normal group(P＜0.05),while the expression levels of these proteins in liver tissue of mice were significantly reduced after low-and high-dose icariin intervention(P＜0.05).To conclude,icariin can produce a protective effect against carbon tetrachloride-induced acute liver injury,and its mechanism may be related to the regulation of endoplasmic reticulum stress and reduction of programmed necrosis.

A case of a 69-year-old female patient, with cough, expectoration, chest tightness and shortness of breath for 10 days accompanied by left pleural effusion, was reported. Initially, a large number of suspected malignant lymphoma cells were found in the patient′s pleural effusion through routine cell morphological examination after admission, which was the direction of clinical diagnosis and treatment in the next step. Then the patient was diagnosed as primary pulmonary diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) through imaging, bone marrow and lung biopsy pathology. Finally, the patient was treated effectively with R-CHOP regimen, but she died of respiratory failure 9 weeks later, because she did not receive regular follow-up and treatment after the sixth chemotherapy cycle. Primary pulmonary DLBCL, an extremely rare extranodal lymphoma' lacks specificity clinical manifestations and is easy to be missed and misdiagnosed. DLBCL with a large number of malignant pleural effusion progresses rapidly and has a poor prognosis. The routine cell morphology examination of pleural effusion is simple and intuitive, which can capture key information in the shortest time, preliminarily provide clinical diagnosis and treatment ideas, and provide accurate basis for disease diagnosis.

Ergothioneine is a multifunctional physiological cytoprotector, with broad application in foods, beverage, medicine, cosmetics and so on. Biosynthesis is an increasingly favored method in the production of ergothioneine. This paper summarizes the new progress in the identification of key pathways, the mining of key enzymes, and the development of natural edible mushroom species and high-yield engineering strains for ergothioneine biosynthesis in recent years. Through this review, we aim to reveal the molecular mechanism of ergothioneine biosynthesis and then employ the methods of fermentation engineering, metabolic engineering, and synthetic biology to greatly increase the yield of ergothioneine.
Antioxidants ; Ergothioneine/metabolism* ; Fermentation ; Metabolic Engineering