Fractional radiofrequency(FRF)is an aesthetic technique that utilizes electric current emanating from electrode or microneedle arrays to heat the dermis in a fractional pattern, with only little damage to the epidermis. The recovery process following the heat damage involves multiple heat shock proteins, matrix metalloproteinases, cytokines, etc, which can stimulate the proliferation of collagen and elastic fibers in the dermis. It has been applied to treat wrinkles, skin laxity, acne scars and other aesthetic skin problems, and has proved to be a safe and effective cosmetic method for the improvement of atrophic acne scars, inflammatory acnes and postinflammatory erythema. It has few adverse effects, including tolerable pain, transient erythema, edema and mild crusting, so the downtime is short. FRF is more suitable for populations with dark complexions because of low risks of postinflammatory hyper?pigmentation. Recently, it has been used in combination with other devices such as lasers, or been used to assist transdermal drug delivery, and has shown remarkable therapeutic effects and favorable application prospects.

Objective To compare the short-term efficacy of high-intensity ultraviolet B (UVB) versus 308-nm excimer laser for the treatment of vitiligo.Methods Eighty patients with vitiligo were equally divided into two groups to be treated with high-intensity UVB twice a week or 308-nm excimer laser once a week for eight weeks.Repigmentation was evaluated at the end of the treatment.Results After eight weeks of treatment,repigmentation of different degrees was observed in 83.6％ and 86.1％,and marked repigmentation in 42.1％ and 50％,of the UVB-and excimer laser-treated lesions,respectively.The response rate was significantly lower in facial lesions receiving high-intensity UVB radiation than in those receiving excimer laser radiation (49.1％ vs.68.4％,x2 =4.32,P ＜ 0.05),but similar at the other body sites between the two treatment (all P ＞ 0.05).The cumulative dosage required for initial repigmentation was similar between high-intensity UVB and 308-nm excimer laser (t =0.89,P ＞ 0.05),while the treatment sessions and cumulative dosage required for marked or better repigmentation were significantly increased in UVB-compared with excimer laser-treated lesions (both P ＜ 0.01).In addition,both high-intensity UVB and 308-nm excimer laser were suitable for childhood and active vitiligo.Conclusions Both high-intensity UVB and 308-nm excimer laser are safe and effective in the treatment of vitiligo with rapid onset of action,and the latter appears to be superior to the former in efficacy.

Network pharmacology has been one of the academic frontiers of traditional Chinese medicine research. In this paper, we generally showed the work flow of network pharmacology research, and introduced concepts of network visualization and network analysis, as well the commonly-used tools, such as Cytoscape.
Drug Interactions ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; analysis ; pharmacology ; Internet ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; instrumentation ; Pharmacology ; instrumentation ; Software

Objective To evaluate the in vitro antibacterial activity of fusidic acid against P.acnes.Methods Fifty strains of P.acnes were clinically isolated from Huashan Hospital,Fudan University from March to September 2013.The minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) of several antibacterial agents including fusidic acid against these P.aches isolates were determined by using the agar dilution method according to the recommendations of Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI).Data were analyzed using the WHONET 5.4 software.Results Among the 50 P.acnes isolates,90％ were sensitive to fusidic acid,90％ to moxifloxacin,54％ to clindamycin,46％ to erythromycin,but 100％ were resistant to metronidazole.The minimum concentration required to inhibit the growth of 50％ organisms (MIC50) and 90％ organisms (MIC90) were 0.5 and 1.0 mg/L respectively for fusidic acid,whereas clindamycin and erythromycin both showed higher MIC90 values (＞ 128 mg/L).At the concentration of 128 mg/L,clindamycin inhibited the growth of 70％ of the P.acnes isolates,and erythromycin inhibited the growth of 48％ of them,while the growth of all the isolates was inhibited by fusidic acid at 2 mg/L.Conclusion Fusidic acid exhibits excellent antibacterial activity against clinical isolates of P.acnes in vitro.

OBJECTIVETo discover and interpret the correlations between traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) slices and their properties such as function, symptom and channel tropism by constructing the relationship network using network pharmacology approaches.

METHODTCM slices related information was extracted from Chinese Pharmacopeia (2010 edition, volume I) by text mining, and was used to construct the TCM slices-symptom relationship network. The corresponding network analysis was also performed.

RESULTThree thousands and sixteen pair of TCM slice-symptom correlation associated with 646 TCM slices was discovered, and the constructed network unfolded the complex relationships between TCM slices. Further network analysis results indicated that the un-annotated function and channel tropism of TCM slice can be revealed by proposed symptom-based network.

CONCLUSIONNetwork pharmacology approaches can be applied in TCM research to discover and interpret the relationships between TCM slices and their properties.

Animals ; Drug Interactions ; Drug Therapy ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; analysis ; pharmacology ; Humans ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional

OBJECTIVETo investigate the correlations between multi-compounds of Fufang Danshen formula and their multi targets and multi diseases.

METHODLiterature knowledge of nine major active compounds from Fufang Danshen formula, including tanshinone II(A), salvianolic acid B, protocatechuic aldehyde, danshensu, cryptotanshinone, notoginsenoside R1, ginsenoside Rg1, ginsenoside Rb1 and borneol were collected from PubMed. Combined with cardiovascular related diseases and genes from OMIM database, the corresponding multi-compound-multi- target-multi-disease network was constructed and visualized by Cytoscape software.

RESULTAND CONCLUSION: Network analysis showed that the 9 compounds could modulate 42 cardiovascular associated genes (e. g. PPARG, ACE, KCNJ11, KCNQ1, ABCC8, et al), which related to 30 cardiovascular associated diseases including non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, hyperinsulinemic hypoglycemia, hypertension, and coronary heart disease. These results suggested new potential indications of Fufang Danshen formula.

Animals ; Disease ; genetics ; Drug Therapy ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; analysis ; pharmacology ; Gene Regulatory Networks ; Humans ; Salvia miltiorrhiza ; chemistry

OBJECTIVETo predict multi-targets by multi-compounds found in Aconiti Lateralis Radix Praeparata and construct the corresponding multi-compound-multi-target network.

METHODBased on drug-target relationships of FDA approved drugs, a model for predicting targets was established by random forest algorithm. This model was then applied to predict the targets of Aconiti Lateralis Radix Praeparata and construct the multi-compound-multi-target network.

RESULTThe predicted targets of 22 compounds of Aconiti Lateralis Radix Praeparata are validated by literature. Each compound in the established network was correlated with 16. 3 targets on average, while each target was correlated with 4. 77 compounds on average, which reflects the "multi-compound and multi-target" characteristic of Chinese medicine.

CONCLUSIONThe proposed approach can be used to find potential targets of Chinese medicine.

Aconitum ; chemistry ; Animals ; Drug Interactions ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; analysis ; pharmacology ; Humans