OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of single-balloon and double-balloon enteroscopy in diagnosing pediatric small bowel diseases and assess the diagnostic efficacy of computed tomography enterography (CTE) for small bowel diseases using enteroscopy as the reference standard. METHODS: Clinical data from 576 children who underwent enteroscopy at Hunan Children's Hospital between January 2017 and December 2023 were retrospectively collected. The children were categorized based on enteroscopy type into the single-balloon enteroscopy (SBE) group (n=457) and double-balloon enteroscopy (DBE) group (n=119), and the clinical data were compared between the two groups. The sensitivity and specificity of CTE for diagnosing small bowel diseases were evaluated using enteroscopy results as the standard. RESULTS: Among the 576 children, small bowel lesions were detected by enteroscopy in 274 children (47.6%).There was no significant difference in lesion detection rates or complication rates between the SBE and DBE groups (P>0.05), but the DBE group had deeper insertion, longer procedure time, and higher complete small bowel examination rate (P<0.05). The complication rate during enteroscopy was 4.3% (25/576), with 18 cases (3.1%) of mild complications and 7 cases (1.2%) of severe complications, which improved with symptomatic treatment, surgical, or endoscopic intervention. Among the 412 children who underwent CTE, the sensitivity and specificity for diagnosing small bowel diseases were 44.4% and 71.3%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS SBE and DBE have similar diagnostic efficacy for pediatric small bowel diseases, but DBE is preferred for suspected deep small bowel lesions and comprehensive small bowel examination. Enteroscopy in children demonstrates relatively good overall safety. CTE demonstrates relatively low sensitivity but comparatively high specificity for diagnosing small bowel diseases.
Retrospective Studies ; Treatment Outcome ; Double-Balloon Enteroscopy/statistics & numerical data* ; Single-Balloon Enteroscopy/statistics & numerical data* ; Humans ; Male ; Female ; Child ; Operative Time ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed/statistics & numerical data* ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Intestine, Small/surgery* ; Intestinal Diseases/surgery*

OBJECTIVE: To explore the effect of acupuncture therapy on dysphagia in patients with Parkinson's disease. METHODS: This randomized controlled study lasted 42 days and included 112 patients with Parkinson's disease and dysphagia. Participants were randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups (56 cases each group) using the completely randomized design, all under routine treatment. The experimental group was given acupuncture therapy. The primary outcome was Penetration-Aspiration Scale (PAS). The secondary outcomes were (1) Standardized Swallowing Assessment (SSA), and (2) nutritional status including body mass index (BMI), serum albumin, prealbumin, and hemoglobin. Adverse events were recorded as safety indicators. RESULTS: One participant quitted the study midway. There were no significant differences in baseline assessment (P>0.05). After treatment, both groups showed significant improvement in PAS, SSA and nutritional status except for BMI of the control group. There were significant differences between the two groups in the PAS for both paste and liquid, SSA (25.18±8.25 vs. 20.84±6.92), BMI (19.97±3.34 kg/m²vs. 21.26 ±2.38 kg/m²), serum albumin (35.16 ±5.29 g/L vs. 37.24 ±3.98 g/L), prealbumin (248.33 ±27.72 mg/L vs. 261.39 ±22.10 mg/L), hemoglobin (119.09±12.53 g/L vs. 126.67±13.97 g/L) (P<0.05). There were no severe adverse events during the study. CONCLUSION: The combination of routine treatment and acupuncture therapy can better improve dysphagia and nutritional status in patients with Parkinson's disease, than routine treatment solely. (registration No. CLINICALTRIAL gov NCT06199323).
Humans ; Parkinson Disease/therapy* ; Deglutition Disorders/physiopathology* ; Acupuncture Therapy/adverse effects* ; Male ; Female ; Aged ; Middle Aged ; Treatment Outcome ; Nutritional Status ; Body Mass Index

BACKGROUND: The use of inserted sham acupuncture as a placebo in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) is controversial, because it may produce specific effects that cause an underestimation of the effect of acupuncture treatment. OBJECTIVE: This systematic survey investigates the magnitude of insert-specific effects of sham acupuncture and whether they affect the estimation of acupuncture treatment effects. SEARCH STRATEGY: PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials were searched to identify acupuncture RCTs from their inception until December 2022. INCLUSION CRITERIA: RCTs that evaluated the effects of acupuncture compared to sham acupuncture and no treatment. DATA EXTRACTION AND ANALYSIS: The total effect measured for an acupuncture treatment group in RCTs were divided into three components, including the natural history and/or regression to the mean effect (controlled for no-treatment group), the placebo effect, and the specific effect of acupuncture. The first two constituted the contextual effect of acupuncture, which is mimicked by a sham acupuncture treatment group. The proportion of acupuncture total effect size was considered to be 1. The proportion of natural history and/or regression to the mean effect (PNE) and proportional contextual effect (PCE) of included RCTs were pooled using meta-analyses with a random-effect model. The proportion of acupuncture placebo effect was the difference between PCE and PNE in RCTs with non-inserted sham acupuncture. The proportion of insert-specific effect of sham acupuncture (PIES) was obtained by subtracting the proportion of acupuncture placebo effect and PNE from PCE in RCTs with inserted sham acupuncture. The impact of PIES on the estimation of acupuncture's treatment effect was evaluated by quantifying the percentage of RCTs that the effect of outcome changed from no statistical difference to statistical difference after removing PIES in the included studies, and the impact of PIES was externally validated in other acupuncture RCTs with an inserted sham acupuncture group that were not used to calculate PIES. RESULTS: This analysis included 32 studies with 5492 patients. The overall PNE was 0.335 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.255-0.415) and the PCE of acupuncture was 0.639 (95% CI, 0.567-0.710) of acupuncture's total effect. The proportional contribution of the placebo effect to acupuncture's total effect was 0.191, and the PIES was 0.189. When we modeled the exclusion of the insert-specific effect of sham acupuncture, the acupuncture treatment effect changed from no difference to a significant difference in 45.45% of the included RCTs, and in 40.91% of the external validated RCTs. CONCLUSION The insert-specific effect of sham acupuncture in RCTs represents 18.90% of acupuncture's total effect and significantly affects the evaluation of the acupuncture treatment effect. More than 40% of RCTs that used inserted sham acupuncture would draw different conclusions if the PIES had been controlled for. Considering the impact of the insert-specific effect of sham acupuncture, caution should be taken when using inserted sham acupuncture placebos in RCTs. Please cite this article as: Luo XC, Liu JL, Yao MH, Chen YM, Fan AY, Liang FR, Zhao JP, Zhao L, Zhou X, Zhong XY, Yang JH, Li B, Zhang Y, Sun X, Li L. Specific effect of inserted sham acupuncture and its impact on the estimation of acupuncture treatment effect in randomized controlled trials: A systematic survey. J Integr Med. 2025; 23(6):630-640.
Acupuncture Therapy/methods* ; Humans ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic ; Placebo Effect ; Placebos ; Treatment Outcome

Objective To observe the therapeutic effect and mechanism of acupuncture at Zusanli-Zhongwan combined matching points on rats with exercise-induced stress gastric ulcer.Methods Forty male SD rats were randomly divided into blank group,model group,acupuncture group and Omeprazole group,with 10 rats in each group.Except for the blank group,the rats in the other groups were used to construct the model of exercise stress gastric ulcer by daily exhaustive swimming.After successful modeling,the acupuncture group was intervened by acupuncture at Zusanli(ST36)and Zhongwan(RN12),once a day,10 minutes each time.Rats in the Omeprazole group were given Omeprazole Enteric-Coated Tablets distilled water suspension by gavage two hours before daily swimming.After continuous 7-day intervention,the overall state and behavior of rats were observed,the gastric mucosal injury index was calculated by Guth method,the pathological morphology of gastric mucosa was observed by hematoxylin-eosin(HE)staining,the contents of superoxide dismutase(SOD),glutathione peroxidase(GSH-PX)and malondialdehyde(MDA)in serum were correspondingly determined by WST-1 method,colorimetry and TBA method,respectively,enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA)was used to detect the contents of gastrin(GAS),somatostatin(SS),tumor necrosis factor-α(TNF-α),interleukin-1 β(IL-1β),interleukin-6(IL-6)and interleukin-10(IL-10)in serum,the expression levels of epidermal growth factor receptor(EGFR),matrix metalloproteinase 3(MMP3),nuclear factor erythroid-related factor 2(NRF2),heme oxygenase 1(HO-1)and mitochondrial SOD2,TNF-α,IL-1β,IL-6 and IL-10 mRNA in gastric mucosa were detected by real-time fluorescence quantitative polymerase chain reaction(qPCR).Results Compared with the blank group,the body mass of rats in the model group was increased slowly,the activity distance and activity in the open field test were decreased,the gastric mucosal ulcer index was increased significantly,the gastric mucosal function indexes involving GAS level was increased and SS level was decreased in serum,the mRNA expression level of EGFR in gastric mucosa was decreased and the mRNA expression level of MMP3 in gastric mucosa was increased.The serum levels of antioxidant substances SOD and GSH-PX were decreased significantly,and the serum level of oxidation product MDA was increased significantly.The mRNA expression levels of antioxidant genes NRF2,HO-1 and SOD2 in gastric mucosa were significantly decreased.The serum contents and the gastric mucosa mRNA levels of inflammatory factors TNF-α,IL-1α,IL-6 were significantly increased,while the serum content and the gastric mucosa mRNA level of IL-10 were significantly decreased.The differences were statistically significant(P＜0.05 or P＜0.01 or P＜0.001).HE staining showed obvious gastric mucosal injury.Compared with the model group,the above indexes in the acupuncture group and the Omeprazole group were significantly improved(P＜0.05 or P＜0.01 or P＜0.001).HE staining showed that the gastric mucosal injury was significantly reduced.Conclusion Acupuncture at Zusanli-Zhongwan combined matching points can reduce the local oxidative stress and inflammatory response in rats with exercise-induced stress gastric ulcer,reduce gastric mucosal injury,improve the emotional state of rats,and maintain the overall vitality of rats.

Formaldehyde is a prevalent organic solvent in industrial and indoor environment,which can seriously harm human health,so it is of great significance to develop highly sensitive formaldehyde sensors with fast response,low detection limit and long life.In this study,the NiO-In2O3 composite structure was prepared using indium-based metal organic framework(In-MOF)as the precursor,and the formaldehyde gas sensor was constructed with In2O3 and NiO-In2O3 composite structure as the sensitive material.The results demonstrated that the In2O3 material had a microflower-like structure,while the NiO-In2O3 composite structure was composed of NiO nanoparticles attached to the surface of In2O3.The sensor exhibited excellent detection performance for formaldehyde in the environment of relative humidity of 33%and 75%,especially the response characteristic of the NiO-In2O3 composite structure sensor to formaldehyde was considerably better than that of the In2O3 sensor under the same test conditions,which was closely related to the catalytic effect of NiO and the heterogeneous structure formed between NiO and In2O3.The NiO-In2O3 composite structure sensor had a response value of 21.3 and 12.6 to 10 μL/L formaldehyde when the relative humidity was 33%and 75%at 200℃.The response/recovery time was 4/6 s and 7/10 s,and the limit of detection(LOD)was 1.2×10-7 μL/L and 4.1×10-5 μL/L respectively.Meanwhile,the sensor had excellent selectivity and long-term stability.This sensor showed a wide application prospect in the field of high-performance detection of low concentration of formaldehyde gas.

Objective To explore the mechanism of apoptosis induced by diacetyl hexamethylene diamine(CAHB)in adult acute lymphoblastic leukemia Jurkat cells,and to provide theoretical basis for the clinical application of CAHB.Methods Annexin V+/PI-cell rate of Jurkat cells after CAHB induction was analyzed by flow cytometry.The Annexin V+/PI-cell rate was observed after treatment with caspase-9 inhibitor Z-LEHD-FMK.The expressions of apoptosis-related proteins caspase-8,caspase-9 and caspase-3 were observed by Western blotting.Results After CAHB induction,Jurkat cells were reduced in size,cell membrane crinkling,chromatin thickening,nuclear pyknosis or fragmentation,etc.Typical apoptotic bodies could be seen.CAHB induced Jurkat cell apoptosis by activating caspase-9 and caspase-3 in a dose-effect and time-dependent manner.Caspase-9 inhibitors could inhibit apoptosis induction of CAHB to a certain extent.Conclusion CAHB induced Jurkat cell apoptosis was related to caspase-9 and caspase-3 activation.

Trichinosis is a global food-borne zoonotic parasitic disease caused by Trichinella spiralis(T.spiralis),which causes serious harm to animal production,and the public health safety of humans and animals.T.spiralis has a complex devel-opment history,and its entire life cycle is completed in the same host.To coexist with the host,it has evolved various immune escape mechanisms for avoiding immune clearance by the host,thus establishing long-term chronic infection.In this study,to aid in understanding the pathogenic mechanism of T.spiralis,the immune escape mechanism of Trichinella is discussed from three aspects:the molecular role of antigens in various stages,the immune regulatory effect on the host,and the formation of cysts to generate immune isolation.

Objective:To investigate the stability and feasibility of using absorbable screws during Bernese periacetabular osteotomy.Methods:A retrospective analysis was conducted on a 36 year-old woman diagnosed with developmental dysplasia of the hip, who had undergone Bernese periacetabular osteotomy. Finite element analysis was used to simulate the stability of the acetabulum under loads of 10%, 20%, 50%, and 100% of the patient's weight. The structural stiffness of the pelvis and the maximum equivalent stress on the absorbable screws were observed under different conditions, including whether the acetabular bone block and the ilium were in contact, whether 3 or 4 screws were used, and whether a graft (including fibular cortical bone and PEEK grafts) was used.Results:The structural stiffness of the pelvis fixed with four screws increased by 67%-94% compared to that with three screws. After using a graft, the structural stiffness of the pelvis increased by 50%-83%. As the load increased, the maximum equivalent stress on the screws also increased. When the acetabular bone block and the ilium had no contact, no graft was used, and only three screws were used for fixation, the maximum equivalent stress could reach 518.9 MPa, while this value dropped to 61% when four screws were used (318.7 MPa). When the acetabular bone block and the ilium were in contact, the maximum equivalent stress was about 12% of that when there was no contact, regardless of the number of screws used. When a cortical bone graft or a PEEK graft was used, the maximum equivalent stress could drop to 21%-26% of that without a graft. When the screw strength was 130 MPa, a load of 20% of body weight was applied, and only three screws were used without a graft, the equivalent stress could exceed the strength of the screw; if four screws were used, the equivalent stress was slightly higher than the strength of the screw when a load of 50% of body weight was applied. However, when a graft was used (either cortical bone or PEEK), even when a load of 100% of body weight was applied, the equivalent stress was slightly lower than the strength of the screw.Conclusion:Absorbable screws can provide sufficient stability for Bernese periacetabular osteotomy. The contact between the acetabular bone block and the ilium, an increase in the number of screws, and the use of grafts (cortical bone and PEEK grafts) can further improve stability. Therefore, absorbable screws have broad application prospects in Bernese periacetabular osteotomy.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is characterized by chronic relapsing intestinal inflammation and encompasses ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn's disease (CD). IBD has emerged as a global healthcare problem. Clinically efficacious therapeutic agents are deficient. This study concentrates on models of ulcerative colitis with the objective of discovering novel therapeutic strategies. Previous investigations have established that schisandrin A demonstrates anti-inflammatory effects in vitro, concurrently enhancing the transcriptional activity of farnesoid X receptor (FXR). FXR inversely modulates the transcriptional activity of NF-κB, which has an important role in regulating inflammatory responses. Consequently, the current study was to explore the safeguarding influence of schisandrin A on ulcerative colitis and delineate the mechanism by which it regulates this effect through the FXR signaling pathway. The effect of schisandrin A on the mRNA levels of inflammatory factors was evaluated in RAW264.7 cells. The dual luciferase reporter gene assay was used to verify the relationship between schisandrin A and FXR targeting. The animal experiments were performed in accordance with the regulations of the Animal Ethics Committee of Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (approval No. PZSHUTCM2304250005). Acute ulcerative colitis was induced in wild-type or FXR knockout C57BL/6 mice by drinking 3% dextran sodium sulfate (DSS) for 7 days, and schisandrin A was administered via gavage for a continuous treatment period of 7 days. The body weight and faecal were monitored daily. The mRNA levels of inflammatory factors in colon tissue and FXR target genes were measured by RT-qPCR. The findings revealed that schisandrin A, in vitro, impeded the lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced elevation in mRNA levels of inflammatory factors and schisandrin A could augment transcriptional activity of FXR. In wild-type mice, schisandrin A significantly improved weight loss, colon shortening, loose stools and blood in stools in mice with acute ulcerative colitis, and schisandrin A significantly reduced the expression of pro-inflammatory factors genes and significantly increased the expression of FXR target genes in colon tissues. In FXR knockout mice, the administration of schisandrin A failed to yield ameliorative effect on acute ulcerative colitis in mice. In conclusion, schisandrin A can reduce intestinal inflammation through the FXR signaling pathway to alleviate acute ulcerative colitis in mice. Implications arise that Schisandra lignans could serve as lead compounds for drug development aimed at inflammatory bowel disease.