ObjectiveTo investigate the effect of a cervical back muscle trainer. MethodsA cervical back muscle trainer designed by ourself was used in 128 patients with different kinds of cervical spondylosis. The situation of pain and activity of daily life of the patients before and 1 month after treatment were recorded and compared. ResultsThe neck pain of all of the patients nearly completely disappeared in a month and their activity of daily life improved significantly(P<0.01). ConclusionThe cervical back muscle trainer can improve the stability of cervical vertebrae through increasing the strength of the cervical back muscle, which can be used as an assistant rehabilitation approach of all kinds of cervical spondylosis.

Objective To probe into the quantizing rule of the thoracic vertebra rotation.Methods6 healthy corpses specimen were fixed on a wooden apparatus and rotated from 0° to 90° for X-ray examination.A X-ray examination was taken at each 5° rotational point.The characteristic of the image at each examinational point was observed.ResultsThere was radiology characteristic at each rotational point.ConclusionThe thoracic vertebra rotational degree could be quantized by X-ray examinations.

ObjectiveTo evaluate the effect of Yuxingchangzhi Decoction on level of norepinephrine (NE) and 5-hydroxyptamin (5-HT) in serum of patients with post-stroke depression. Methods76 patients with post-stroke depression were treated with Yuxingchangzhi Decoction or placebo for 4 weeks. Before and after treatment, all the patients were evaluated with the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD),while the level of NE and 5-HT in serum of patients were measured.ResultsThe total score of HAMD of the patients of Yuxingchangzhi Decoction group was significantly different before and after treatment (P<0.01),while that of the placebo group was not significantly different (P>0.05). The NE and 5-HT level in serum of patients of the Yuxingchangzhi Decoction group were significantly different before and after treatment (P<0.01),but that of the placebo group was not significantly different (P>0.05). ConclusionYuxingchangzhi decoction can raise NE,5-HT level in patients with post-stroke depression and alleviate symptoms of depression significantly.

Humans ; Medicine ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; methods

Objective To investigate the effect of running exercise on cartilage in rats with an unstable knee joint.Methods Twenty 8-week-old Sprague-Dawley rats had their left anterior cruciate ligament cut to model an unstable knee.They were randomly divided into a control group and an experimental group,10 rats in each group.The control group was given no intervention,while the experimental group accepted running exercise training on na animal treadmill at a velocity of 15 m/min for an hour every day.After 3 and 6 weeks of training,5 rats were sacrificed and cartilage from the medial condyle of the femur was sampled,decalcificated,embedded and sliced on the sagittal plane.After hematoxylin-eosin staining,toluidine blue staining and immunohistochemical staining,the cartilage thickness,Mankin' score,the content of matrix collagen and the proteoglycan content of the cartilage matrix were assessed,and the shape and structure of the unstable knee joints were observed under a transmission electron microscope.Results The cartilage thicknesses and Mankin's scores at 6 weeks were significantly different from those at 3 weeks in both groups.In the experimental group the average thickness of cartilage was 154 ± 13 μm at 3 weeks and 131 ± 15 μm at 6 weeks.The corresponding Mankin's scores were 9.93 ± 1.36 and 11.23 ± 1.57,respectively.Both were significantly different from the control group averages at the same time points.There was also a significant difference in the positive rate of toluidine blue and collagen type Ⅱ staining between the experimental group and the control group at both time points,and in the experimental group between 3 and 6 weeks of training.After 3 weeks of training,fewer chondrocytes were observed under the transmission electron microscope in the experimental group,and fissures were seen on the surface of the cartilages.However,3 weeks later,quite a few ruptures and a lot of necrotic cells could be seen.Conclusions Running exercise can damage the cartilage of unstable knee joints and speed up the development of osteoarthritis.Even moderate exercise could aggravate damage to unstable joints and the cartilage matrix,and accelerate chondrocyte degeneration.

BACKGROUND: There is still no satisfactory therapy for thetreatment of cerebral infarction at present. Although sub-hypothermia is effective in the treatment of cerebral infarction, its side effect is relatively more. Local sub-hypothermia might have favorable effects in the treatment of cerebral infarction.OBJECTIVE: To observe the protective effects of local sub-hypothermia on the ischemic brain tissues in rats to further explore its mechanism.DESIGN: A randomized controlled basic study based on the experimental animals.SETTING: Institute of neurology of a university hospital.MATERIALS: The study was conducted in the Animal Laboratory of Neurology, the First College for Clinical Medicine, Harbin Medical University between April 2000 and January 2002. Fifty male Wistar rats(cleanness grade) with a bodyweight of(250 ± 25) g were selected.INTERVENTIONS: Ten rats were randomly selected from the 50 rats and divided into normal group and sham-operation group with 5 rats each. The rest 40 rats were randomly divided into normal temperature cerebral ischemia group and local hypothermia cerebral ischemia group with 20 rats each. Rat cerebral middle-sized arterial ischemia model was established for local sub-hypothermia disposal.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Impacts on cerebral infarction volume,nerve function, and neuron-specific enolase(NSE) of rats in each group.RESULTS: The cerebral infarction volume at 48 hours after embolism in rats was ( 128.95 ± 13.42) or (84.90 ± 11.36) mm3 respectively, nerve function evaluation was( 1.60 ± 0. 24) or (0. 95 ± 0. 17), and serous NSE concentration was(13.55±4.07) or(9.19±3.42) μg/L in either sub-hypothermia group or normal temperature group, which were significantly different from each other.CONCLUSION: Local sub-hypothermia therapy has protective effects on ischemic cerebral neurons.

Objective To investigate the value of DNA-image cyt-ometry (DNA-ICM) in the diagnosis of urothelial cell carcinomas (UCC). Methods Totally 162 voided urine specimens (92 cases from urothel-ial car-cinomas patients and 70 cases from benign urinary system diseases patients ) were detected with DNA-ICM and liquid-based cytology (LBC), respectively. Results The sensitivity and specificity of DNA-ICM were 65.2%and 100% respectively in the diagnosis of UCC but those of LBC were 27.2% and 98.6%, respectively. The sensitivity of DNA-ICM was significantly higher than that of LBC in the diagnosis of UCC (P < 0.01). The sen-sitivity of DNA-ICM in upper urinary tract urothelial cell carcinomas (UTUC) were 77.1%, which was much higher than that in bladder urothelial cell carcinomas (57.9%) but no statistical significance was found (P >0.01). Conclusion DNA-ICM, which improves the positive rate of urinary cytology, has great application value in the diagnosis of urothelial cell carcinomas and it is an effective screening method for urothelial cancer in diag-nosis and follow-up.

Objective To observe the effect of resveratrol on arterial remodeling in spontaneous hypertensive rats.Methods Spontaneous hypertensive rats (SHRs, n=20) and Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKYs, n =10) were randomly assigned to three groups: control group, model group and resveratrol group.Systolic blood pressure (SBP) and pulse wave velocity (PWV) of the three groups was observed.Morphological observations were obtained by hematoxylin and eosin or victoria blue and picrosirius red.The content of nitric oxide (NO) and endothelin-1 (ET-1) were determined to assess the endothelial function.Oxidative stress was assessed by malondialdehyde (MDA), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) , and activities of antioxidant enzymes superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT).Results Compared with control group, SBP, PWV, wall thickness, wall-lumen ratio,vascular cross-sectional area (VCSA), luminal cross-sectional area (LCSA) and collagen-elastic ratio were increased, and the levels of NO, SOD, CAT in rat aortic tissues were decreased, while ET-1,MDA, H2O2 levels in rat aortic tissues were enhanced in model group at the end of 22 weeks.After the treatment of resveratrol, SBP had no significantly difference between model and resveratrol groups, while PWV, aortic wall thickness, wall-lumen ratio, VCSA, LCSA and collagen-elastic ratio were decreased in resveratrol group as compared with model group [(6681.1 ± 2154.9) cm/s vs.(4283.1±946.1) cm/s, (234.7±51.8) μm vs.(123.4±21.5)μm, (10.3±2.3) ％ vs.(5.8±1.4) ％, (6.4±0.4) mm2 vs.(4.8±0.6) mm2, (4.1±0.1) mm2 vs.(3.2±0.4) mm2, (1.1±0.3) vs.(0.4±0.2), P＜0.05 or 0.01].Compared with model group, the expressions of NO, SOD, CAT in rat aortic tissues were increased and levels of ET-1, MDA, H2 O2 in rat aortic tissues were decreased in resveratrol group after treatment of resveratrol (P＜0.01 or P＜0.05).Conclusions Resveratrol has an antioxidant effect, and it could attenuate arterial remodeling by improving oxidative stress.

Objective To evaluate the feasibility of histogram analysis of susceptible signal intensity in differentiating papillary (pRCC) from chromophobe renal cell carcinoma(ChRCC). Methods Thirteen cases with pRCC and 9 cases with ChRCC, who underwent susceptible-weighted imaging(SWI), MR common scanning and enhancement, were assessed retrospectively. The histogram parameters of susceptible signal intensity were measured, including maximum, minimum, mean, median, skewness and kurtosis. The independent samples t test(normal distribution) and Mann-Whitney rank sum test(skewed distribution) were used to compare the differences in SWI parameters between pRCCs and ChRCCs. Receiver operating characteristic curve was used to evaluate the efficiency of the whole-tumor SWI parameters in differentiating pRCCs from ChRCCs. Results The significant differences of the minimum, mean, median and skewness between pRCCs and ChRCCs were present(P<0.05), and there was no significant differences in maximum and kurtosis between between pRCCs and ChRCCs(P>0.05). In all the histogram parameters, the area of ROC curve of mean value was largest(0.80). The sensitivity of minimum value (84.62％) was the highest and and the specificity of skewness(100.00％) was the highest. Conclusion Histogram analysis of susceptible signal intensity can help differentiate pRCCs from ChRCCs.

0.05).There was a positive correlation between the tempo of the engraftment and the progressive increase of the doses of MNC in the range of (3～5.99)?108/kg,but which was not found in the range of 6?108/kg.Conclusion These results indicate that MNC taken as an index for the measurement of the hematopoietic stem cell/progenitor content can reliably predict hematopoietic reconstitution after both HLA-matched and-mismatched sibling donor peripheral blood stem cell transplantation,with the rate and tempo of engraftment comparable with that in CD34+ cell group,and however,the target dose was reached with one apheresis in all 83 donors in MNC group(100%),as compared with 14 donors in CD34+ cell group(37.84%),suggesting that MNC may replace CD34+ cell as an independent index for the assessment of the stem cell/progenitor content in clinical practice.