Objective: To observe the clinical efficacy of long-snake moxibustion plus Western medicine for chronic heart failure due to heart-kidney yang deficiency.Methods: A total of 80 patients were randomized into a control group and an observation group, with 40 cases in each group. The control group was treated with routine Western medicine, and the observation group was treated with long-snake moxibustion therapy on the basis of routine Western medicine. Left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), stroke volume (SV) and left ventricular end-diastolic diameter (LVEDd) were measured before and after treatment, and the heart function was assessed. The serum brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) level was measured, the 6 min walking distance was recorded, and the Minnesota living with heart failure questionnaire (MLHFQ) was assessed and scored. The serum galectin-3 (Gal-3) and soluble growth stimulation expressed gene 2 (sST2) protein levels were measured. Clinical efficacy was evaluated after treatment. Results: The total effective rate of the observation group was higher than that of the control group, and the difference between the two groups was statistically significant (P<0.05). After treatment, LVEF and LVEDd in both groups were significantly improved (all P<0.05), and LVEF, SV and LVEDd in the observation group were superior to those in the control group (all P<0.05). The heart function classification in both groups were improved after treatment (both P<0.05), and the heart function classification in the observation group was superior to that in the control group (P<0.05). The serum BNP level in both groups decreased (both P<0.05), and the serum BNP level in the observation group was lower than that in the control group (P<0.05). The 6 min walking distance and MLHFQ scores in both groups were improved (all P<0.05), and the 6 min walking distance and MLHFQ score in the observation group were superior to those in the control group (both P<0.05). The serum Gal-3 and sST2 levels in the observation group decreased significantly (both P<0.05), and all lower than those in the control group (both P<0.05). Conclusion: Long-snake moxibustion plus Western medicine has significant efficacy in treating chronic heart failure due to heart-kidney yang deficiency; it can improve heart function, reduce the serum BNP level, and improve the exercise endurance and quality of life in the patients. This may be related to the down-regulation of serum Gal-3 and sST2 levels.

Objective To evaluate the effects of tadalafil on chronic allograft vasculopathy. Method The abdominal aorta transplantation was performed on Male Lewis or Brown-Norwai rats as donors and male Male Lewis rats as recipients. The recipients were divided into 3 groups: Group A (Lewis-Lewis)with no treatment ;Group B (BN-Lewis) with no treatment; Group C (BN-Lewis) received tadalafil treatment (0.5 mg/kg per day). The rats were sacrificed at 8 weeks post treatment. The grafted aortas were used for histology and Western blot assay. Plasma cGMP level was detected by ELISA assay. Results The aortas intimal in group C was significantly thinner than that in group B. PKG-Ⅰprotein expression in group C was significantly higher than that in group B. Expression of RhoA in group C was lower than that in group B. Conclusion Tadalafil has positive effect on chronic allograft vasculopathy.

cuses tumors. Survivin seems to be a promising marker for analyzing clinical stages and predicting the prognosis of TCC.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Child ; Child, Preschool ; DNA, Neoplasm ; genetics ; Female ; Gene Rearrangement, B-Lymphocyte, Heavy Chain ; Humans ; Immunoglobulin Heavy Chains ; genetics ; Infant ; Lymphoma, B-Cell ; diagnosis ; genetics ; Lymphoma, Large B-Cell, Diffuse ; diagnosis ; genetics ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Paraffin Embedding ; Polymerase Chain Reaction ; Young Adult

This paper introduced the model of clinical pharmacists involving in pharmacy administration in Southwest Hospital.It features the following :1 .Establishment of the chief resident pharmacists mechanism , with clinical pharmacists involving in clinical drug treatment , therapy consultations and hospital‐wide consultations ;2 .Rational drug use quality control ,to supervise normative drug use of clinicians using the driver′s license management system for drug use;3 .Establishment of effective communication channels between physicians and pharmacists ,for mutual learning and supervision .Such model has helped clinical pharmacists to accumulate experiences in drug therapy ,and encouraged rational drug use .

Objective To explore the association of Crohn's disease (CD) with T cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain 3 (Tim-3) gene polymorphisms in patients of Zhejiang Han population in China.Methods A total of 308 CD patients and 573 age-and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled in our study.Two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of Tim-3 (rs1036199 and rs10515746) were examined by the improved multiple ligase detection reaction technique (iMLDR).Analyses of linkage disequilibrium and haplotype were also performed by Haploview 4.2 software in all study subjects.Results In general,the allele and genotype frequencies of Tim-3 (rs1036199 and rs10515746) were not statistically different between CD patients and the controls (all P ＞0.05).According to the Montreal Classification,CD patients were divided into different subgroups.The variant allele (C) and genotype (AC + CC) of rs1036199 were more frequent in CD patients with penetrating diseases than in the controls (10.4％ vs 1.7％,P =0.002;20.8％ vs 3.5％,P =0.023).Similar conclusions were also drawn for the variant allele (A) and genotype (CA + AA) of rs10515746 in patients with penetrating diseases when compared with the controls (10.4％ vs 2.2％,P =0.000;20.8％ vs 4.2％,P =0.033,respectively).The two SNPs of Tim-3 were in strong linkage disequilibrium (D'=1.0,r2 =0.928).The haplotype (AC) formed by their wild-type alleles (A) and (C) was decreased in patients with penetrating CD compared with the controls (89.6％ vs 98.3％,P =0.000).However,the haplotype (CA) formed by their variant alleles was more frequent in patients with penetrating CD than in the controls (10.4％ vs 1.6％,P =0.000).Conclusions Tim-3 (rs1036199 and rs10515746) variations might be correlated with the enhanced risk of penetrating diseases in CD patients.Furthermore,the haplotype (AC) and (CA) formed by the two SNPs might be a protective and a risky factor for penetrating CD respectively.

Objective To investigate the characteristics of healthcare-associated infection(HAI) in elderly hospitalized patients,and analyze the risk factors for HAL Methods Incidences of HAI in elderly(elderly group) and non-elderly hospitalized patients (control) in a tertiary first-class hospital were investigated,the underlying diseases,infection sites,department distribution and so on between two groups of patients were compared.Results The incidence of HAI in elderly group was higher than that in control group(3.38 ％ vs 1.45 ％,P＜0.05);the proportions of hypertension and diabetes mellitus in elderly group was higher than control group,while cerebrovascular disease was lower than control group.The proportion of lower respiratory tract infection,urinary system infection and antimicrobial-associated diarrheal in the elderly were higher than control group(41.62％ vs 28.00％,15.44％ vs 12.02％,6.03％ vs 3.15％,respectively).The incidence of catheter-associated urinary tract infection in the elderly group was higher than that in control group(6.85‰ vs 3.95‰,RR95％CI =1.209-2.485,P＜0.05).The proportion of HAI in the elderly group in internal medicine departments was higher than that in control group (52.71％ vs 40.03％),while in intensive care unit was lower than control group (33.52％ vs 41.19％).Conclusion The characteristics of HAI in elderly patients are closely related to their demographic characteristics,early prevention of HAI in key sites should be carried out according to its characteristics.

The digital music editor software "Cool Edit Pro 2.0" is used to design a virtual hearing testing system. This system has following advantages. First, its signal frequency can be set at will. Second, its dynamic range of signal intensity can reach up to 80dB. Third, the measuring accuracy of decibel value may reach 0.1dB. Forth, the system can be used in single and dual channel measurements. Last but not least, it can carry on data processing and drawing along with the same computer.
Audiometry ; instrumentation ; Computers ; Hearing Tests ; instrumentation ; Music ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Software ; User-Computer Interface

OBJECTIVETo explore the interaction of folate deficiency and aberration of DNA methyltransferase 1 (DNMT1) in the progression of cervix carcinogenesis.

METHODSAll clinical samples were collected from 80 patients with cervix squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), 105 patients with cervical intraepithelial neoplasm (CINI, n = 52; CINII/III, n = 53) and 53 patients with cervix inflammation (CI). The participants were diagnosed by histology at Shanxi Province Tumor Hospital and Second Hospital of Shanxi Medical University during the period of September 2009 to May 2010. Meanwhile, cervical cancer cell lines Caski and C33A were treated with different concentration of folate. Radioimmunoassay (RIA), Western blotting and real-time PCR were used to detect the levels of serum folate, the expression of DNMT1 protein and mRNA, respectively. The data were analyzed by Student t test, ANOVA, chi-square test and Spearman correlation using SPSS statistical package. The correlation strength between factors and cervical canceration was calculated by OR and 95%CI value. Interaction effect was evaluated by the application of additive effect model.

RESULTSThe levels of serum folate (median inter-quartile range) were (2.66 ± 1.82), (2.83 ± 2.23), (3.17 ± 1.91) and (3.21 ± 1.74) ng/ml, the levels of DNMT1 protein (x(-) ± s) were 2.28 ± 0.55, 1.84 ± 0.37, 1.33 ± 0.38 and 0.92 ± 0.29, the Ct-ratio (Ct value of DNMT1/Ct value of β-actin) of DNMT1 mRNA (x(-) ± s) were 1.26 ± 0.13, 1.27 ± 0.12, 1.27 ± 0.12 and 1.33 ± 0.11 in the group of SCC, CINII/III, CINIand CI, respectively. The results showed that the serum folate levels were descended, and the expression levels of DNMT1 protein (χ(2)(tend) = 50.80, P < 0.05) and mRNA (χ(2)(tend) = 17.63, P < 0.05) were increased steadily with the severity of the cervix lesions. Moreover, our results revealed that there was an additive interaction between folate deficiency and high-expression of DNMT1 protein related to the risk of CIN and SCC. And it showed that the relative excess risk of interaction (RERI), attributable proportion of interaction (API) and synergy index(S) was 0.27, 0.14 and 1.40 in CINI group, 0.47, 0.19, 1.46 in CINII/III group, 1.60, 0.31, 1.61 in SCC group, respectively. It was found that folate was able to reduce the proliferation of Caski and C33A cells (r values were 0.954 and 0.969, all P values < 0.05), with 11.4% and 13.6% of growth inhibition at the concentration of 10 µg/ml, 64.8% and 49.4% at 1000 µg/ml in Caski and C33A cells, respectively. The result showed there was an inverse correlation between the levels of folate and DNMT1 protein (r values were -0.859 and -0.914, all P values < 0.05), with 1.96 and 1.92 of expression levels at the concentration of 10 µg/ml, and 1.60 and 1.38 at 1000 µg/ml in Caski and C33A cells, respectively. At folate concentration of 1000 µg/ml, the expression of DNMT1 protein or mRNA was higher in Caski cell than in C33A cell (t values were -4.22 and 3.50, all P values < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONOur finding indicated that the low levels of serum folate and high-expression of DNMT1 protein or mRNA seemed to be associated with high risk of cervical cancer and cervix precancerous lesion. Sufficient folate is able to effectively inhibit the growth of cervical cancer cells in vitro, and would counteract transcriptional and posttranscriptional aberration of DNMT1. It suggested that there might be a synergistic action between folate deficiency and aberration of DNMT1 in the progression of cervix carcinogenesis.

Adult ; Carcinoma, Squamous Cell ; metabolism ; pathology ; Cell Line, Tumor ; Cell Transformation, Neoplastic ; metabolism ; pathology ; Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia ; metabolism ; pathology ; DNA (Cytosine-5-)-Methyltransferase 1 ; DNA (Cytosine-5-)-Methyltransferases ; metabolism ; Female ; Folic Acid ; blood ; Folic Acid Deficiency ; metabolism ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; RNA, Messenger ; genetics ; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology

Estrogen receptors (ERs) are members of nuclear receptors and related to several diseases such as cancer, inflammation and osteoporosis. ERs have two forms, ERα and ERβ, which have different functions and organism distributions. Compounds selectively targeting ERβ can regulate important physiological functions and avoid the side effects caused by targeting ERα. Therefore, selective ERβ ligands have received considerable research interest in recent years. In this article, different kinds of selective ERβ ligands were summarized and their structure-activity relationships were also analyzed.
Estrogen Receptor beta ; chemistry ; Humans ; Ligands ; Structure-Activity Relationship