Herbal property theory of traditional Chinese medicines is the theoretical guidance on authentication of medicinal plants, herborization, preparation of herbal medicines for decoction and clinical application, with important theoretical value and prac- tical significance. Our research team proposed the "three-element" theory for herbal properties for the first time, conducted a study by using combined methods of philology, chemistry, pharmacology and mathematics, and then drew the research conclusion that herbal properties are defined as the chemical compositions-based comprehensive expression with complex and multi-level (positive/negative) biological effects in specific organism state. In this paper, researchers made a systematic mathematical analysis in four aspects--the correlation between herbal properties and chemical component factors, the correlation between herbal properties and organism state fac- tor, the correlation between herbal properties and biological effect factor and the integration study of the three elements, proposed future outlook, and provided reference to mathematical studies and mathematical analysis of herbal properties.
Drug Compounding ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; pharmacology ; Humans ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Models, Theoretical ; Phytotherapy ; Plants, Medicinal ; chemistry

Embryonic Stem Cells ; Humans ; Myocardial Infarction ; therapy ; Stem Cell Transplantation

Objective To discuss the safety and efficacy of retroperitoneal laparoscopic partial nephrectomy in the treatment of unilateral multifocal renal tumors.Methods The data of 12 patients with unilateral multifocal renal tumors managed with retroperitoneal laparoscopic partial nephrectomy between 2009 and 2012 were reviewed retrospectively.The 12 patients had a mean age of 42 years (28 to 62) and body mass index of 23.5 kg/m2 (18.6 to 29.3),including 4 males and 8 females.Four cases were in the left side,7 cases were in the right side,and 1 case had bilateral renal tumors.The diameter of renal tumors ranged from 0.5 cm to 4.7 cm,and all tumors were projected on the surface of kidney.Nine cases were diagnosed as renal cell carcinoma,and 3 cases were diagnosed as angiomyolipoma before operation.All patients underwent retroperitoneal laparoscopic partial nephrectomy under general anesthesia,while 1 patient with bilateral renal tumors experienced radical nephrectomy of the contralateral renal tumor 3 months after the first operation.Results All the oprations were successful without conversion to open surgery.The mean renal artery cut off time,operative time,estimated blood loss and hospital stay were 36 min (26-60),126 min (75-184),142 ml (50-300) and 5 d (3-9),respectively.No complication occurred and 1-week postoperative serum creatinine was (78.1 ±8.1)μmol/L.Histopathological study revealed 9 cases of renal cell carcinomaand 3 cases of angiomyolipoma.During the follow-up for 33 months (13-51),1 patient with yon Hippel-Lindau syndrome was operated with ipsilateral radical nephrectomy for a local recurrence while the remains had no local recurrence or metastasis.Conclusions For localized and exogenous unilateral multifocal renal tumors,retroperitoneal laparoscopic partial nephrectomy is feasible and safe.Those who have hereditary and/or malignant renal tumors should be monitored closely.

Objective To compare the safety and efficiency of retroperitoneal laparoscopic and transperitoneal laparoscopic radical nephrectomy by meta-analysis.Methods A systematic review of the literature about laparoscopic radical nephrectomy was performed,searching Medline,Embase,Cochrane library,CBM,CNKI,VIP and Wan Fang database from January 2000 to October 2012.The key words were transperitoneal,retroperitoneal,laparoscopy,radical nephrectomy.Two researchers evaluated the quality of included studies.A meta-analysis was conducted using Review Manager 5.0 software.Results Nine controlled clinical studies were concluded,including 1 306 patients (520 in retroperitoneal group and 786 in transperitoneal group).The extracted data were comparable.Meta-analysis results showed that significant difference existed in operative time and complication rate (OR =16.23,95％ CI 1.62,30.84; OR =2.44,95％CI 1.35,4.41) (P＜0.05).It seemed that the retroperitioneal laparoscopic radical nephrectomy was prior to the transperitoneal laparoscopic radical nephrectomy in those items.There was no significant difference between transperitoneal and retroperitioneal laparoscopic radical nephrectomy in incision length,estimated blood loss,stay-in hospital,conversion rate,5-year disease-free survival and 5-year overall survival (P＞ 0.05).Conclusions Retroperitoneal laparoscopic radical nephrectomy demonstrated significant lower operative time and complication rate than those in transperitoneal laparoscopic radical nephrectomy.However,there is no significant difference in efficacy.Each center can choose a modality according to their convention.

Adult ; Cadmium ; Female ; Glomerulonephritis, IGA ; etiology ; Humans ; Occupational Exposure

Objective To explore the health effect of traffic exhausts on children's behavioral problems by using the Achenbach's Child Behavior Checklist.Methods Three primary schools were chosen based on the counts of passed by automobiles and the monitoring data of ambient air pollutants.Air pollutants including NO_x,SO_2,PM 2.5 and CO were analzed around the schools.There were 1 821 students in total from Grade 2 to Grade 5 were chosen as the target population and were investigated with the self-designed questionnaire as well as Achenbach's Child List.Finally,1 363 cases were analyzed,of whom have been local resident for more than 2 years and were in condition during investigation.Results A total of 141 children,with the rate of 10.34%,were reported to be with behavioral problem.The reported rates of behavioral problem were 9.04% in School A1, 9.77% in School A2,and 11.99% in School A3 respectively,however,there was no significant difference was seen(x~2=2.556,P= 0.279).The reported rate of behavioral problem of boys' was higher than that of girls' in all schools.Analysis of 11 behavioral problem factors showed that,highest rates of factor depression,social withdrawn,hyperactivity,sexual problem,cruelty,forcing were found in School A3.Single-factor analysis showed that fever experience,eye sight condition,drinking experience of children, experience of being beaten and scold,second hand smoking,drinking habit of father,occupation of parents,education level of parents,born of full-term,medical history in neonatal period,history of unhealthy pregnancy of mother,history of touching adverse factors and drinking experience of mother during pregnancy had significant influence on the reported rate of behavioral problem. Conclusion Traditional factors are still the main influencing factors of children's behavioral problems,long term-low level exposure to traffic exhausts has weak effect on children's behavioral problems.

Objective To evaluate the effect of subfascial endoscopic perforator surgery(SEPS) for the(treatment) of recurrent venous ulcer.Methods SEPS Was preformed on 56 limbs with recurrent venous(ulcer),and ulcer healing was assessed at follow up.Results Fifty-five limb ulcers healed in 10～49 days,one limb ulcer was not healed after 90 days,but healed after ligation of lesser saphenous vein.The patients were followed up for 1 to 3 years,1 case recurred after 6 months and it healed with antibiotic treatment;2 cases recurred after 18 months,and both healed after high ligation of lesser saphenous vein.Conclusions SEPS is effective and safe in the treatment of recurrent venous ulcer.SEPS is minitraumatic with few(complications).

Objective: The primary aim of this research is to systematically sort out and analyze available documents for yang deficiency syndrome in traditional Chinese medicine, providing innovative ideas and methods for statistical study of yang deficiency syndrome. Methods: Based on the China National Knowledge Internet (CNKI) and Chongqing VIP databases, using "yang deficiency", "deficiency cold", and "patient" as keywords, we searched literature of clinical researches and used "ratio-comparison" and "integration-comparison" to analyze objective data after data preprocessing. Relative importance value of physiological and biochemical parameters were reflected by P value calculated by ratio-comparison or Q value by integration-comparison. Results: With calculation of relative importance values of clinical indicators among various systems, we got the ranking of relative importance of different indexes. Triiodothyronine and urine 17-hydorxycorticosteroid of endocrine system, immunoglobulin A of immune system, and the ratio of cyclic adenosine monophosphate to cyclic guanosine monophosphate, which had great |P| (or |Q|) values and negative P (or Q) values, had a clearly lower level in yang deficiency patients than in the control; hemorheological indicators such as plasma viscosity, whole blood reduced viscosity and erythrocyte electrophoresis time had small |P| (or |Q|) values. These indicators, however, showed less importance for reflecting yang deficiency. Conclusion: Ratio-comparison method and integration-comparison method employed in this study have merits of efficiency and robustness. After detailed compiling and mining of all available data, we have made reasonable advice on the most relevant index of yang deficiency for further study of the essence of this syndrome.

Objective To investigate the effect and molecular mechanism of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) on the benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) in rat model. Methods Thirty-six SD rats were randomly divided into 3 groups:normal control (group A,n=12),BPH model (group B,n=12) and BPH+selective COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib (group C,n=12). At the 5th week after treatment, the weight of the prostates was measured, and the morphological changes were examined under light microscope.Detection of ki-67 and TUNEL in prostatic epithelial and stromal cells was undertaken to assess the proliferation and apoptosis status.The protein and mRNA expression of COX-2,epidermal growth factor (EGF),basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) and transforming growth factor-?1 (TGF-?1) were analyzed by means of immunohistochemisty and RT-PCR. Results The prostate index [prostate wet weight (mg)/rat body weight (g)] of group B was significantly higher compared with those in groups A and C (1.88?0.17 vs 1.70?0.09 and 1.74?0.16,P0.05). Conclusions The increased expression of COX-2 may play an important role in the pathogenesis of BPH by modulating the expression of growth factors and affecting the proliferation and apoptosis of prostate cells.

The concepts of cold and hot herbal properties in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), reflecting the efficacy trends of medicinal herbs, have the Fuzzy characteristics. It is suited for the application of Fuzzy mathematics in research of herbal properties. For a comprehensive evaluation of herbal properties, this work constructed and made a practice of the Fuzzy discrimination model regarding the biological performance of Chinese materia medica.