The cause of sarcoidosis is still unknown. However,the histological similarity between the disorder and tuberculosis suggests that M. tuberculosis might contribute to the pathogenesis of sarcoidosis. In attempting to confirm the relation between M. tuberculosis and sarcoidosis,we used the polymerase chain reaction to detect M. tuberculosis DNA from formalin--fixed,paraffin--embeded skin biopsy specimens of 12 patients with sarcoidosis, M. tuberculosis DNA was found in 4 patients. This finding suggests an aetiological role for M. tuberculosis in sarcoidosis.

Objective To evaluate the efficacy and safety of intense pulsed light and diode laser for axillary hair removal. Methods Clinical trials on 61 persons using intense pulsed light and diode laser to depilate axillary hairs were conducted. 36 persons were treated by IPL and 25 persons by diode laser.Treatments were carried out in three times at 8-week intervals, and a final assessment was made 3 months following the third theatment. Results Both IPL and diode laser reduced the hair count substantially! the IPL group effective rates were 80. 6 % and the diode laser group, 76. 0 %. They had no statistical significance was (P>0. 05)). Conclusions Intense pulsed light and diode laser are effiective and safe for hair removal.

Gene mutation is known to play an important role in carcinogenesis.There are two types of p53 gene,wild-type and mutant-type.In order to observe the relationship between p53 gene mutation and cutaneous squarnous epithelial ceil tumours,immunohistochemical study was carried out for p53 ex- pression in the epidermis from 29 patients with cutaneous squamous epithelial cell tumouts using a new immunohistochemical technique labelled streptavidin biotin system.The results showed that p53 positive staining was only confined to areas of atypical proliferation of epithelia in 3/6 cases of actinic keratosis. 6/10 cases of Bowen's disease and 8/13 cases of squamous cell carcinoma showed that p53 positive staining was seen throughout the tumour.It is suggested that p53 gene mutation might play an impor- tant role in cutaneous squamous epithlial cell tumour formation.

Objective To investigate the dermoscopic features of palmoplantar melanocytic lesions.Methods The dermoscopic images of palmoplantar melanocytic lesions that underwent examination in the Department of Dermatology in Peking University First Hospital from September 2009 to October 2011,were retrospectively analyzed.Results Totally,155 benign acral melanocytic lesions in 121 patients and 23 acral melanomas in 22 patients were analysed in this study.Among the benign acral melanocytic lesions,the parallel furrow pattern and its variations (34.2％) were the most common,followed by the fibrillar pattern (22.6％).Two benign lesions (1.3％) showed a parallel ridge pattern.Of 23 melanoma lesions,12 (52.2％) exhibited parallel ridge pattern,and 14 (60.9％) showed irregular diffuse pigmentation that was present in all of the invasive melanoma lesions.The fibrillar pattern,as a common benign acral dermoscopic pattern,was also present in 39.1％ of melanoma specimens.Conclusions Dermoscopy is valuable to some extent in the differential diagnosis of benign melanocytic nevi and malignant melanoma in palmoplantar region,and may facilitate the secreening for early melanoma.

Objective To estimate the application value of dermoscopy in the differential diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma (BCC).Methods Patients who underwent dermoscopic examination and had been definitely diagnosed by pathological examination in the Peking University First Hospital were enrolled in this study.In a blind study,dermoscopic images of 86 BCC lesions from 81 patients (case group) and 68 non-BCC hyperpigmented lesions with similar degree of hyperpigmentation and location from 61 patients (control group) were evaluated for features suggestive of BCC and melanocytic lesions.The diagnostic capability of dermoscopy in patients with BCC was evaluated by diagnostic test.Pathology served as the gold standard method for diagnosis.The frequency of features suggestive of melanocytic lesions was calculated in BCC lesions,and dermatoscopic findings were compared between heavily and lightly pigmented BCC lesions.Results The sensitivity,specificity,positive predictive value,negative predictive value of the classic dermoscopic pattern for the diagnosis of BCC were 98.84％,89.71％,92.39％,98.39％ respectively,with a Youden index of 0.88.The coincidence rate was 94.81％ between pathologic and microscopic diagnosis.Pigment network,multiple brown to black globules/dots,pigmentation around hair follicle openings were observed more frequently in melanocytic lesions compared with BCC lesions (all P ＜0.05).Blue-whitish veil-like structures were observed in 61.63％ of the BCC lesions.The presence of blue-black blotch and blue-whitish veil-like structures was significantly more frequent in heavily pigmented BCC lesions than in lightly pigmented BCC lesions (both P ＜0.01).Conclusions The classic dermoscopic pattern of BCC shows a favorable diagnostic capacity in Chinese population.Large-scale studies are needed to estimate the value of some features proposed in this study,such as peripheral pigment in palisade arrangement,peripheral hyperpigmentation and hypo-or hyperpigrnentation around hair follicle openings,in the differential diagnosis of pigmented diseases.

Compounds were isolated through various chromatographic techniques and their structures were identified by spectroscopic data analysis and comparison with those reported in the literatures. Thirteen compounds were obtained from the petroleum ether and ethyl acetate extracts. Their structures were identified as 4,4'-dimethoxy-9,9', 10,10'-tetrahydro-(1, 1'-biphenanthrene) -2, 2', 7, 7'-tetrol (1), 4, 4', 7, 7'-tetrahydroxy -2,2'-dimethoxy-1, 1'-biphenanthrene (2), 3, 5-dihydroxy-2, 4-dimethoxyphenanthrene (3), physcion (4), chrysophanol (5), emodin (6), genkwanin (7), quercetin (8), quercetin 3'-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (9), 3-methoxy-4-hydroxy phenylethanol (10), syringic acid (11), vanillin (12), and p-hydroxybenzaldehyde (13), respectively. Compounds 1-3 and 5-12 are reported from this genus for the first time.
Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; Orchidaceae ; chemistry ; Plant Tubers ; chemistry

Objective To investigate the pathogenicity of Alternaria alternata in ICR mice. Methods The cell suspension of Alternaria alternata was inoculated into testes and footpads of normal and immunocompromised ICR mice. H istopathologic examination and fungal culture were performed on 5th d, 7th d, 10 th d, 14th d, 21st d, 28th d, 35th d and 42nd d respectively after inoculation. Results The abscesses were developed at the inoculated sites in all normal and immunocompromised mice. The lesions in immunocompromised mice were more severe and persisted longer than those in normal mice. The abscesses in footpads mostl y disappeared within 14 days in normal mice but in 28 to 35 days in immunocompro mised mice. Alternaria alternata was isolated from the inoculated tissues in bot h groups. The histopathologic examination showed abscess and granulomas in which thick hyphae were observed. The necropsy revealed no disseminated infection of Alternaria alternate in all the test mice. Conclusion Alternaria alternata is a kind of opportunistic fungus with low virulence.

A 19-year-old Chinese woman presented with progressive ulcers and recurrent fever for 1 year.The lesions originally began with purplish red maculopapules,then rapidly developed into ulcer with severe pain and spread to the trunk and extremities accompanied by intermittent fever.Histopathology revealed lymphoid infiltration of middle and large atypical T cells throughout the dermis and subcutaneous fat laver along with focal epidermotropism.The lymphoid infiltrates were positive for CD3,CD8,T-cell intercellular antigen(TLA)and T-cell receptor β(TCR-β).Gene analysis showed the rearrangement of T-cell receptor gene.According to the above findings,the patient was diagnosed as primary cutaneous aggressive epidermotropic CD8-positive cytotoxic T-cell lymphoma. Combined thempy with cyclophosphamide,vincristine,prednisone and bleomycin resulted in partial remission of skin lesions,but she eventually died 22 months after the onset of disease.

Objective To investigate clinical significance of Homer expression in peripheral blood leukocytes of patients with ischemic stroke (IS).Methods It was a retrospecive study.The gene expression levels of Homer were measured by RT-qPCR.266 patientscollected in Zhongnan Hospital from September 2015 to June 2016were divided into 5 groups:large-artery atherosclerosis (LAA,100 cases),cardioembolism (CE,42 cases),small vessel occlusion (SVO,68 cases),stroke of other demonstrated etiology (SOE,23 cases) and stroke of undemonstrated etiology (SUE,33 cases).Meanwhile,age and sex matched 126 healthy controls were also collected.IS diagnostic criteria for cerebral infarctionwas in accordance with the guideline for acute ischemic stroke in China in 2010.The levels of Homers in subgroups were compared by Oneway ANOVA.The area under curve (AUC) and 95％ confidence interval (CI) were calculated using ROC analyses.The odds ratio (OR) and 95％ CI were calculated using the multivariate logistic regression analyses.Results The levels of Homer1 [2.01 ± 0.15] and Homer2 [1.81 ± 0.31] in LAA patients were significantly higher than othergroups [Homer1 CE:2.40 ± 0.34;SVO:2.38 ± 0.35;SOE:2.36 + 0.33;SUE:2.40 ± 0.30;control group:2.35 ± 0.28;Homer2 CE:2.09 ± 0.38;SVO:2.08 ± 0.30;SOE:2.09 ± 0.41;SUE:2.10 ± 0.34;control group:2.12 ± 0.31] (Homer1 CE:t =9.353,P＜0.001;SVO:t =9.258,P＜0.001;SOE:t =5.396,P＜0.001;SUE:t=9.644,P＜0.001;control group:t =11.882,P＜0.001;Homer2 CE:t =4.725,P＜0.001;SVO:t =5.545,P＜0.001;SOE:t=3.640,P ＜ 0.001;SUE:t =4.669,P ＜ 0.001);There was no significant difference in the expression of Homer1 (F =0.940,P =0.441) and Homer2 (F =0.336,P =0.854) between non-LAA groupsand healthy controls.There was no significant difference in the expression of Homer3among the groups (F =0.641,P =0.669).Multinomial logistic regression analyses revealed that,higher Homerl (adjusted OR =8.62,95％ CI:4.13-18.00,P＜0.001) and Homer2 (adjusted OR=2.42,95％ CI:1.75-3.36,P ＜ 0.001) levels showed significant associations with increased odds of having LAA stroke,compared with the controls.ROC curves showed that the AUC of the combination of Homer1 and Homer2 for differentiating LAA and controls was 0.896 (95％ CI:0.862-0.929,P ＜0.001) and the AUCfor differentiating LAAand non-LAA was 0.847 (95％ CI:0.800-0.894,P ＜ 0.001).Conclusion The expression of Homer1 and Homer2 in peripheral blood leukocytes could be used as novel biomarkers for LAA stroke.

Quantitative NMR (qNMR) is a technology based on the principle of NMR. This technology does not need the references of the determined components, which supplies a solution for the problem of reference scarcity in the quantitative analysis of traditional Chinese medicines. Moreover, this technology has the advantages of easy operation, non-destructiveness for the determined sample, high accuracy and repeatability, in comparison with HPLC, LC-MS and GC-MS. NMR technology has achieved quantum leap in sensitivity and accuracy with the development of NMR hardware. In addition, the choice of appropriate experimental parameters of the pre-treatment and measurement procedure as well as the post-acquisition processing is also important for obtaining high-quality and reproducible NMR spectra. This review summarizes the principle of qHNMR, the various experimental parameters affecting the accuracy and the precision of qHNMR, such as signal to noise ratio, relaxation delay, pulse width, acquisition time, window function, phase correction and baseline correction, and their corresponding optimized methods. Moreover, the application of qHNMR in the fields of quantitation of single or multi-components of traditional Chinese medicines, the purity detection of references, and the quality analysis of foods has been discussed. In addition, the existing questions and the future application prospects of qNMR in natural product areas are also presented.
Biological Products ; chemistry ; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy ; methods ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Reproducibility of Results