Objective To investigate the effect oflevecamitine on nutrition,microinflammation status in ma-intenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients. Methods Forty two MHD patients were selected, who had undergone he-modialysis for at least two months before the study. One gram of levoeamitine was injecfed to the patients at the end of each dialysis treatment for six months. The parameters of inflammation stress were studied. Results After treatment with levocarnitine for six months, the average levels of dry body weight decreased markedly. ( P<0.05 ), The aver-age serum levels of C2reaetive protein (CRP),interleuldn26 (IL26) ,tumor necrosis factor2α(TNF2α), (P<0.01 ). Difference was not significant between serum lipid parameters before and after the treatment. Conclusion Intravenous supplement with levocamitine in MHD patients, appears to be associated with an improvement of nutrition and mieroinflammation status.

Objective To analyze the prognosis of 225 patients according with clinical staging of esophageal carcinoma treated with non-surgical methods, and investigate the practicality and predictive value of the clinical staging. Methods From March 2001 to July 2007, 225 patients with esophageal carcinoma received 3DCRT treatment. The prescribed doses were ranged from 5000 -7000 cGy with the median dose of 6400 cGy, 25 patients received accelerative radiation of 300 cGy per fraction after conventional radiotherapy of 3000 -4000 cGy, 57 patients received concurrent chemotherapy with or without consolidation chemotherapy. All the patients were divided into subgroups of different T stages, different N stages and different TNM stages. Local control rates, survival rates were observed and Cox regression analysis were performed to search valuable prognostic factors. Results The following-up rate was 99. 6%. The 3-and 5-years following-up number were 116 and 33 patients, respectively. The 1 -,3-,and 5-year local control rates were 77. 2% ,48.2% and 34. 5%, respectively. The 1-,3-,and 5-year overall survival rates were 68.4% ,33.7% and 20. 8%, respectively. The median survival time was 20 months. There were significant difference between survival curves for T1-4 stages, N0-2 stages and Ⅰ - Ⅲ stages with x2 value of 13.07,20. 49 and 17.16, with P value of 0. 004,0. 000 and 0. 000, respectively. For the group of stage Ⅰ, Ⅱ and Ⅲ, the 1-,3-,and 5-year survival rates were 89.4% ,56. 1% ,and 37.8% ;69.6% ,32. 4% ,and 18.0%and 47. 2%, 19. 5%, and 13. 0%, respectively. According to the result of Cox regression analysis, the tumor length of CT scan, clinical N stage, short term restlt were most valuable predictive factors.Conclusions The clinical staging of esophageal carcinoma treated with non-surgical methods could predict the prognosis accurately, clinical N stage may have more closely association with prognosis, however, some details of the staging program need more consummate.

Objective: To explore the pattem of lymphatic metastasis and influencing factors of thoracic esophageal carcinoma. Methods: We reviewed the pathological specimens from 229 esophageal carcinoma patients who underwent radical esophagectomy with two-field lymphadenectomy. A total of 2,458 lymph nodes were dissected. We analyzed the lymph node metastasis pattern of the primary tumor in different loca-tions and the corresponding influencing factors such as pathological T stage, tumor length, pathological mor-phology and tumor differentiation. Results: Lymph node metastasis rates were 44.5% (102/229) and 10.5% (258/2458), respectively. For patients with upper thoracic esophageal carcinomas, lymphatic metastasis rates in the superior mediastinum, the middle mediastinum, the inferior mediastinum and the abdominal cavity were 19.0%, 6.7%, 9.8% and 12.2%, respectively. For patients with middle thoracic esophageal carcinomas, the rates were 26.1%, 7.4%, 11.8% and 11.9%, respectively. For patietns with lower thoracic esophageal carcino-mas, the rates were 0, 1.6%, 5.3%, and 10.0%, respectively. Lymphatic metastasis rate in T_1, T_2, T_3, T_4, stage cancer were 28.6%, 43.8%, 47.6%, and 31.3%, respectively; the rate of positive lymph nodes were 7.9%, 10.8%, 10.7%, and 10.8%, respectively, with no significant differences among the four stages (x~2=2.733, P=0.435 and x~2=0.686, P=0.876). Lymphatic metastasis rate and rate of positive lymph nodes in patients with tu-mor ≤3cm, 3 to 5cm, and >5cm were 45.2% and 43.4%, 46.2% and 9.1%, and 11.6% and 11.7%, respective-ly, with no significant differences (x~2=0.094, P=0.954 and x~2=3.933, P=0.140). Lymphatic metastasis ratios of the pathological morphology in medullary, ulcerative, mushroom and stenotic types were 14.0%, 9.6%, 4.3% and 18.3%, respectively (x~2=19.292, P=0.000). Lymphatic metastasis rate and rate of positive lymph nodes of squamous cell carcinoma of moderately and poorly differentiation were 42.5%, 75.0% and 9.5%, 18.6%, re-spectively (x~2=4.852, P=0.028 and x~2=11.323, P=0.001). Patients with squamous cell carcinoma of poorly dif-ferentiation had a higher rate of lymph node metastasis. Conclusion: Lymphatic metastasis of esophageal car-cinoma metastasize widely even if in early T stage. Pathological morphology and tumor differentiation are re-lating facors of lymph node metastasis of thoracic esophageal carcinoma.

0.05). Significant difference in diffused carbon monoxide percentage and change of heart rates before and after stair climbing test was found in LPF group (P0.05).Conclusions Patients of lung cancer intolerable for lobectomy by static pulmonary function test can be screened by stair climbing test before surgical operation,which can make some of them regain opportunity of surgical operation.

Purpose To evaluate the effectiveness of exfoliative cytology in chronic oral ulcers diagnosis.Methods To examined 107 cases of chronic oral ulcers which were difficult to determine the nature of the ulcer in exfoliaticve cytology,and compared postoperative histopathological results or clinical results,and made the final diagnosis with cytology.Results The qualitative diagnostic accuracy of cytology was 95.3％.The sensitivity and specificity for benign and malignant lesions was 94.6％ and 100％,respectively.False positive rate was 0,and false negative rate was 5.4％,and the coincidence rate of cytological examination with the final pathology was 67.0％.Conclusion Exfoliative cytology has important reference value in chronic oral ulcer diagnosis.It is characterized by simple,rapid procedure and less trauma.Doctors can develop next treatment plan based on the results of exfoliative cytology.

Microarray has become a popular biotechnology in biological and medical research.However, systematic and stochastic variabilities in microarray data are expected and unavoidable, resulting in the problem that the raw measurements have inherent "noise" within microarray experiments. Currently, logarithmic ratios are usually analyzed by various clustering methods directly, which may introduce bias interpretation in identifying groups of genes or samples. In this paper, a statistical method based on mixed model approaches was proposed for microarray data cluster analysis. The underlying rationale of this method is to partition the observed total gene expression level into various variations caused by different factors using an ANOVA model, and to predict the differential effects of G V (gene by variety)interaction using the adjusted unbiased prediction (AUP) method. The predicted G V interaction effects can then be used as the inputs of cluster analysis. We illustrated the application of our method with a gene expression dataset and elucidated the utility of our approach using an external validation.

Objective To compare the prevalence of patent foramen ovale (PFO) in young and middle-aged patients with cryptogenic ischemic stroke (CS) and in normal population.Methods The casecontrol study included consecutive 318 young and middle-aged patients with CS and 336 normal control subjects with matched age and sex for group comparisons.Stroke risk factors including hypertension,diabetes mellitus,hyperlipidemia,ischemic heart disease,atrial fibrillation,carotid atherosclerosis plagues and smoking,etc.were studied.Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) were performed to detect the presence of PFO.The prevalence of PFO and difference of risk factor levels between the groups was compared.Then the odds ratios (OR) of a PFO was estimated in CS patients versus control subjects.Results The prevalence of PFO was significant higher in patients with CS than in control subjects (145/318,45.6 ％ versus 46/336,13.7％,P ＜0.001).The odds ratio(OR) for PFO in CS for patients versus control subjects was 5.3 (confidence interval,3.6 to 7.8).The mean size of PFO was larger in stroke group than that in control group (P ＜ 0.001).There were no significant differences in levels of other stroke risk factors between two groups.Conclusions PFO may play an important role in etiology of CS in young and middleaged adults.Larger and longer PFOs may be more concomitant with ischemic attacks.More efforts should be employed in patients with CS to detect PFO for further treatment.

[Abstract ] Objective Stenosis is a common complication of Crohn′s disease (CD), different treatments for different cau-ses.The article aimed to investigate bowel stenosis by the application of MRI diffusion-weighted imaging(DWI) and explore its value of identifying CD. Methods From Jan 2014 to Jun 2014, 31 patients with histologically proven CD (18 males and 13 females;mean age:38.90 ±13.65 years) were recruited in this approved retrospective study .All patients underwent conventional 3.0T MRI and DWI sequences .According to the most serious stenosis part identified by MRI , DWI sequence examination was added and the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of the lesion was measured.All patients would undergo colonoscopy in 24 hours.According to the endo-scopic manifestations and pathological results , the patients were divided into inflammatory group (n=21) and fibrotic group (n=10). We observed the difference of ADC between two groups and worked out the cutoff points . Results In the inflammatory group , the ADC value andthe mean ADC value of stenosis bowel wall were (1.01 ±1.83) ×103 mm2/s and (1.40 ±0.23) ×103 mm2/s, whereas (0.53 ±1.03) ×103 mm2/s and (0.80 ±0.16) ×103 mm2/s in the fibrotic group(P<0.05).The area under receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.981 (95%confidence interval 0.943-1.000), taking 1.11 ×103mm2/s as the cutoff point.The sensitivity of low ADC values in detecting inflammatory bowels was 90.5%, and the specificity of high ADC values in excluding inflammatory bowels was 100%. Conclusion Different pathological components limit the movement of water molecular at different degrees , therefore quantitative parameters can be acquired by measuring ADCs , which contributes to the identification and diagnosis of CD secondary bowel stenosis.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the antitumor activities of kushen (Sophora flavescens) flavonoids (KS-Fs) in vivo and in vitro. METHODS: Cell proliferation was assayed by using methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) method. H22 hepatocellular carcinoma and S180 sarcoma were induced in ICR mice. Lewis lung carcinoma was induced in C57BL/6 mice. H460 and Eca-109 tumor were induced in Balb/c nude mice by injecting 5x10(5) or 5x10(6) tumor cells in the right flank, respectively. RESULTS: KS-Fs could inhibit the growth of a variety of human tumor cell lines (A549, SPC-A-1, NCI-H460, etc.) in vitro. The antitumor efficacies were confirmed in the mice models of H22, S180 and Lewis lung tumors and the nude mice models of human H460 and Eca-109 xenografted tumors. The oral or intravenous maximum tolerated dose of KS-Fs was more than 2.8 g/kg or 750 mg/kg respectively, far more than the oral medial lethal dose of kushen alkaloids (< or = 1.18 g/kg). No adverse reactions were observed. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that KS-Fs or kurarinone may be developed as a novel antitumor agent.

Objective To explore the independent risk factors for the 1 year stroke event in Chinese patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) and hypertension (HT).Methods Data of AF and HT patients in the Chinese Emergency Atrial Fibrillation Registry Study were retrospectively analyzed.The eligible patients were divided into the stroke group and the non-stroke group according to the result of 1 year follow-up.The predictors for the 1 year stroke event were identified by uni-and multi-variate Cox regression analysis with the baseline and therapeutic variables.Results A total of 1 118 AF and HT patients were enrolled in the study with the incidence of 1 year stroke event of 8.7％.All patients were divided into the stroke group (n =97) and the non-stroke group (n =1 021).Compared with the non-stroke group,more female patients were in the stroke group (68.0％ vs 54.5％,P ＜ 0.05) and the patients in the stroke group were older [(76.0 ± 9.4) years vs (71.9 ± 10.6) years,P ＜ 0.01] with higher proportion of previous history of stroke (38.1％ vs 23.8％,P ＜0.01).More patients were observed on the antihypertensive treatment in the non-stroke group (91.6％ vs 85.6％,P ＜ 0.05),while more patients on statins in the stroke group(45.4％vs 34.5％,P ＜ 0.05).Multi-variate Cox regression analysis showed that age (HR =1.036,95％ CI 1.010-1.062),female (HR =1.908,95％ CI 1.170-3.110),previous stroke history (HR =1.680,95％ CI 1.084-2.603),and no antihypertensive treatment (HR =1.955,95％ CI 1.008-3.791) were independent risk factors for the 1 year stroke event in patients with AF and HT.Conclusion Age,female,previous stroke history and no antihypertensive treatment are the independent risk factors for the 1 year stroke event in patients with AF and HT.