BACKGROUNDAcupuncture has been shown to be effective in pain relief and anesthesia, and has been suggested for treating various kinds of functional disabilities in traditional Chinese medicine, including knee osteoarthritis (OA). The study aimed to investigate the immediate effects of acupuncture on gait patterns in patients with knee OA.

METHODSTwenty patients with bilateral medial knee OA were assigned evenly and randomly to a sham group and an experimental group. During the experiment, the experimental group underwent a 30-minute formula electro-acupuncture treatment while the sham group received a sham treatment. Before and after treatment, each subject was evaluated for their knee pain using visual analog scales (VAS) and then their performance of level walking using gait analysis. For all the obtained variables, the independent t-test was used for between-group comparisons, while paired t-test was used to investigate the before and after changes.

RESULTSAll the measured data before acupuncture treatment between the groups were not significantly different. The VAS scores were decreased significantly after acupuncture in both groups, and the mean change of the VAS values of the experiment group was 2 times greater than that of the sham group. After formula acupuncture stimulation, while no significant changes were found in all the gait variables in the sham group, the experimental group had significant increases in the gait speed, step length, as well as in several components of the joint angles and moments.

CONCLUSIONSThe results of the study suggest that significantly improved gait performance in the experimental group may be associated with pain relief after treatment, but the relatively small decrease of pain in the sham group was not enough to induce significant improvements in gait patterns. Gait analysis combined with the VAS can be useful for the evaluation of the effect of acupuncture treatment for patients with neuromusculoskeletal diseases and movement disorder.

Acupuncture Therapy ; Aged ; Biomechanical Phenomena ; Female ; Gait ; physiology ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Models, Biological ; Osteoarthritis, Knee ; therapy ; Treatment Outcome

In the human genome, there is a group of RNAs, called long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) with do not have the function of encoding proteins and whose transcript length is greater than 200 nucleotides. The disorders of lncRNAs are often involved in the occurrence and progression of malignant tumors. A large number of studies have indicated the aberrant expression of lncRNAs in prostate cancer (PCa) can regulate gene expressions at epigenetic, transcriptional and post-transcriptional levels and cause changes in the biological behaviors of PCa cells. Some lncRNAs have been shown to be closely related to the castration resistance of PCa. In recent years, a variety of lncRNAs have been detected in the PCa tissue, prostatic fluid, serum, and urine, and somehow influenced radiotherapy and chemotherapy of tumors. The expressions of some lncRNAs are also associated with disease prognosis. Thus, lncRNAs are expected to become new diagnostic markers and a therapeutic target for PCa. This review focuses on the roles and action modes and mechanisms of some lncRNAs as well as their potential value of clinical application in the diagnosis, treatment and prognosis of PCa.

BACKGROUNDThe onsets of needling sensation introduced by acupuncture stimulus can vary widely from subject to subject. This should be explicitly accounted for by the model blood oxygenation-level dependent (BOLD) time course used in general linear model (GLM) analysis to obtain more consistent across-subject group results. However, in standard GLM analysis, the model BOLD time course obtained by convolving a canonical hemodynamic response function with an experimental paradigm time course is assumed identical across subjects. Although some added-on properties to the model BOLD time course, such as temporal and dispersion derivatives, may be used to account for different BOLD response onsets, they can only account for the BOLD onset deviations to the extent of less than one repetition time (TR).

METHODSIn this study, we explicitly manipulated the onsets of model BOLD time course by shifting it with -2, -1, or 1 TR and used these temporally shifted BOLD model to analyze the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data obtained from three acupuncture fMRI experiments with GLM analysis. One involved acupuncture stimulus on left ST42 acupoint and the other two on left GB40 and left BL64 acupoints.

RESULTSThe model BOLD time course with temporal shifts, in addition to temporal and dispersion derivatives, could result in better statistical power of the data analysis in terms of the average correlation coefficients between the used BOLD models and extracted BOLD responses from individual subject data and the T-values of the activation clusters in the grouped random effects.

CONCLUSIONSThe GLM analysis with ordinary BOLD model failed to catch the large variability of the onsets of the BOLD responses associated with the acupuncture needling sensation. Shifts in time with more than a TR on model BOLD time course might be required to better extract the acupuncture stimulus-induced BOLD activities from individual fMRI data.

Acupuncture ; Adult ; Female ; Hemodynamics ; physiology ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging ; Male ; Oxygen ; blood ; Young Adult

Objective: To investigate the effects of long non-coding RNA RP1-90L14.1 on the proliferation, migration and invasion of prostate cancer LNCaP cells and the expressions of GRIN2A and BACE2. METHODS: Using RT-PCR, we detected the expression of RP1-90L14.1 in LNCaP and LNCaP-AI cells, transiently transfected the RP1-90L14.1 overexpression plasmid (the RP1-90L14.1 group) and vector plasmid (the LNCaP-NC group) into the LNCaP cells, and cultured the two groups of cells with ordinary medium and phenol red-free activated carbon adsorption medium (PRF-ACA). Then we examined the proliferation, migration and invasiveness of the cells by CCK-8 and Transwell, and determined the mRNA and protein expressions of GRIN2A and BACE2 by RT-PCR and Western blot. RESULTS: The expression of RP1-90L14.1 was significantly higher in the LNCaP-AI than in the LNCaP cells (8.49 ± 0.43 vs 2.53 ± 0.95, P < 0.05), and so was that of LNCaP-RP1-90L14.1 in the RP1-90L14.1 than in the LNCaP-NC group after transfection (0.71 ± 0.22 vs 0.02 ± 0.01, P < 0.05). The optical densities (OD) of the cells were 51.95% and 50.69% higher in the RP1-90L14.1 than in the LNCaP-NC group after 72 hours of culture with ordinary medium and phenol red-free ACA (1.22 ± 0.08 vs 0.08 ± 0.05, P < 0.05; 0.79 ± 0.02 vs 0.53 ± 0.05, P < 0.05), and 51.72% and 60.23% higher in the former than in the latter after 96 hours (1.72 ± 0.07 vs 1.13 ± 0.05, P < 0.05; 1.18 ± 0.05 vs 0.73 ± 0.08, P < 0.05). The numbers of the migrating cells cultured with common medium and PRF-ACA were markedly higher in the RP1-90L14.1 than in the LNCaP-NC group after transfection (682.0 ± 42.7 vs 422.0 ± 37.1, P < 0.05; 419.0 ± 42.9 vs 251.0 ± 25.9, P < 0.05), and so were those of the invading cells (507.0 ± 22.2 vs 274.0 ± 19.6, P < 0.05; 352.0 ± 14.1 vs 216.0 ± 14.3, P < 0.05). Statistically significant differences were observed between the RP1-90L14.1 and LNCaP-NC groups in the mRNA and protein expressions of GRIN2A (5.13 ± 0.89 vs 2.09 ± 0.54, P < 0.05; 5.88 ± 0.29 vs 2.03 ± 0.22, P < 0.05) and BACE2 (5.82 ± 0.50 vs 2.53 ± 0.30, P < 0.05; 4.89 ± 0.19 vs 3.37 ± 0.13, P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS 　lncRNA RP1-90L14.1 may play important roles in the proliferation, migration and invasiveness of prostate cancer cells. RP1-90L14.1 can promote the expressions of GRIN2A and BACE2 and may have an endogenous competitive relation with GRIN2A and BACE2.

OBJECTIVETo evaluate the efficacy and safety of capecitabine as first-line therapy in patients with advanced and recurrent colorectal cancer.

METHODSFrom December 2000 to November 2001, sixty patients with advanced and recurrent colorectal cancer received first-line capecitabine treatment given at a dose of 1250 mg/m(2) twice daily, on days 1 - 14 every 21 days. At least 2 cycles were administered.

RESULTSThe overall response rate was 23.3% with 14 PR, 24 SD (40.0%) and 15 PD. The median survival time was 14.7 months. The survival rate was 63.9% at 12-months and 33.4% at 24-months. Grade III-IV adverse effects were diarrhea in 4 patients (6.6%), anemia in 2 (3.3%) and hand-foot syndrome (HFS) in 1 (1.7%); Grade I-II adverse effects were hyperpigmentation in 20 (33.3%), HFS in 18 (30.0%) and diarrhea in 10 (16.7%).

CONCLUSIONCapecitabine is an efficacious and better-tolerated alternative treatment for the patients with advanced and recurrent colorectal cancer.

Adult ; Aged ; Antimetabolites, Antineoplastic ; therapeutic use ; Capecitabine ; Colorectal Neoplasms ; drug therapy ; mortality ; Deoxycytidine ; adverse effects ; analogs & derivatives ; therapeutic use ; Female ; Fluorouracil ; analogs & derivatives ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Survival Rate

Objective: To investigate the distribution of HIV-1 genetic subtypes and pretreatment drug resistance (PDR) among men who have sex with men (MSM) from 19 cities of 6 provinces in China. Methods: From April to November 2019, 574 plasma samples of ART-naive HIV-1 infected MSM were collected from 19 cities in Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong provinces, total ribonucleic acid (RNA) was extracted and amplified the HIV-1 pol gene region by nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) after reverse transcription. Then sequences were used to construct a phylogenetic tree to determine genetic subtypes and submitted to the Stanford drug resistance database for drug resistance analysis. Results: A total of 479 samples were successfully amplified by PCR. The HIV-1 genetic subtypes included CRF01_AE, CRF07_BC, B, CRF55_01B, CRF59_01B, CRF65_cpx, CRF103_01B, CRF67_01B, CRF68_01B and unrecognized subtype, which accounted for 43.4%, 36.3%, 6.3%, 5.9%, 0.8%, 0.8%, 0.4%, 0.4%, 0.2% and 5.5%, respectively. The distribution of genetic subtypes among provinces is statistically different (χ²=44.141, P<0.001). The overall PDR rate was 4.6% (22/479), the drug resistance rate of non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, and protease inhibitors were 3.5% (17/479), 0.8% (4/479) and 0.2% (1/479), respectively. The PDR rate of recent infections was significantly higher than that of long-term infections (χ²=4.634, P=0.031). Conclusions: The HIV-1 genetic subtypes among MSM infected with HIV-1 from 19 cities of 6 provinces in China are diverse, and the distribution of subtypes is different among provinces. The overall PDR rate is low, while the PDR rate of recent infections was significantly higher than that of long-term infections, suggesting the surveillance of PDR in recent infections should be strengthened.
China/epidemiology* ; Cities ; Drug Resistance ; Drug Resistance, Viral/genetics* ; Female ; Genotype ; HIV Infections/epidemiology* ; HIV Seropositivity/drug therapy* ; HIV-1/genetics* ; Homosexuality, Male ; Humans ; Male ; Phylogeny ; Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitors/therapeutic use* ; Sexual and Gender Minorities