OBJECTIVETo explore the role of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome scores in effectiveness evaluation of clinical studies.

METHODSRandomized controlled trials (RCTs) of TCM published in five journals in 2013 were retrieved, including Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine (JTCM), Chinese Journal of Integrated Traditional and Western Medicine (CJITWM), Chinese Journal of Integrative Medicine (CJIM), Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine (ECAM), and American Journal of Chinese Medicine (AJCM). The details of TCM syndrome scores and other relevant factors reported in articles were extracted and analyzed. Descriptive statistics and Chi-square test were used to describe general features of inclusive studies, ratios of reports on CM syndrome scores in each journal, formulated evidence, adopted evaluation rules, important degrees. The difference in the application rate of CM syndrome scores were compared in various diseases, diseases with or without CM syndrome typing, places where clinical studies were implemented, and different journals.

RESULTSA total of 240 RCTs were included, involving 178 published in Chinese version and 62 in English version. CM syndrome scores were used for effectiveness evaluation in 27.1% (65/240) of RCTs, of which, the highest application percentage was 35.3% (18/51) in RCTs published in CJITWM, and the lowest was 0 (0/7) in RCTs published in AJCM. There were 17 methods for grading TCM syndrome scores, of which Guideline for Clinical Research of New Chinese Herbal Medicine was most commonly used. Detailed grading standards for CM syndrome scores were reported in 46 RCTs, and CM syndrome scores were taken as primary or secondary outcomes in 6 RCTs. When describing the percentages of RCTs adopting TCM syndrome score by diseases classification, the lowest was 9.5% (2/21) in mental and behavioral disorders, and the highest was 39.1% (9/23) in endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic diseases. RCTs with TCM syndrome differentiation had a higher percentage of adopting TCM syndrome score than those without TCM syndrome differentiation (P < 0.01). Statistical differences were also found among RCTs published in Chinese core journals (32.0%), domestic science citation index (SCI) journals (28.6%), and overseas SCI journals (4.9%) (χ2 = 12.4593, P < 0.01). For RCTs conducted by Chinese scholars, the percentage of using TCM syndrome score was 32.0% in three journals from China, while 7.1% in two foreign language journals, showing significant difference (χ2 =7.3615, P < 0.01); none of RCTs conducted by foreign scholars used TCM syndrome scores for effectiveness assessment.

CONCLUSIONSThere was a lack of agreeable and universal standards for TCM syndrome scores using in effectiveness evaluation. Therefore, it was not commonly used in domestic CM clinical studies. It was not so favorably agreed in overseas academic circles.

China ; Complementary Therapies ; Humans ; Integrative Medicine ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic ; Reference Standards

Adult ; Aged ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Molar ; Root Canal Therapy ; methods

Objective To established a bacteriemia model of BALB/c mice after infection with a ST-239 methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus(MRSA) strain, which was isolated and identified from Shanghai Huashan Hospital. Methods We monitored the clinical signs and gross observations of MRSA-infected mice, and examined the histopathology among different groups. Results This isolated MRSA strain ST-239 can induced a typical bacteriemia in BALB/c mice, including the severe mortality and extensive histopathologic injury. However, higher survival rate and slight inflammatory injury were observed in vancomycin-treated mices. Conclusion The solid results obatined in this model will benefit us to study the pathogenic characteristics and patholgenesis in MRSA-induced bacteriemia, and propeled us to seek a safety cure approaches in the future.

Good clinical practice should be based on evidence. Evidence quality should be based on critical appraisal in evidence based medicine (EBM). Evaluation of evidence quality plays an important role in evidence level clarifying, which is the core of EBM. Different recommendations for clinical practice often derive from evidence levels. Thus evidence quality evaluation is the first and most important step in EBM. There are lots of standards to evaluate evidence quality in the world. However there are two aspects of the evaluation, one is methodological evaluation and the other is reporting evaluation. This article collected a series of standards for clinical trials quality evaluation according to different research designs. It is hoped that the resource and introduction about the quality evaluation of clinical trials be helpful for medical researchers in China. Only being familiar with all kinds of standards of methodology and reporting, researchers could publish high quality scientific papers.
Biomedical Research ; Evidence-Based Medicine ; Guidelines as Topic ; Humans ; Meta-Analysis as Topic ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic

In 2013 Shanghai took the lead to carry out the specialist standardized training which is common in the international medical education. This paper first gives a picture of the general condition of the standardized training on specialists of obstetrics and gynecology in Shanghai. Then from the perspectives of strategic deployment, department management, clinical skill training and the training of examiners, the paper explores the assessment model in which both the assessment of train-ing process and the scores of the final examination are considered whereas the process assessment is given more weight. This paper is aimed to provide experience and suggestions for the further advance of the specialists standardized training in the field of obstetrics and gynecology.

This paper was aim to optimize the purification technology of Rehmanniae Radix Praeparata extract with macroporous adsorption resin. With the content of manninotriose as index, the absorptive flow and time were investigated, as well as kinds, amount, flow of eluent. D-101 type macroporous adsorption resin was the best choice for the purification of manninotriose. The optimized parameters were as follows: the content of manninotriose at 161.16-53.72 mg x g(-1), absorption time 240 min, eluting solvent of purified water, volume flow at 1.5 BV x h(-1), and eluant volume at 6 BV. D-101 type macroporous adsorption resin could significantly increase the purity of Rehmanniae Radix Praeparata extract with the advantage of high absorption, remove most part of impurity, and the effect of semi-works production was better.
Adsorption ; Chemical Fractionation ; Chromatography, Liquid ; instrumentation ; methods ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; Rehmannia ; chemistry ; Resins, Synthetic ; chemistry

OBJECTIVE To investigate the countermeasures of preventing endophthalmitis in the process of large number of successive cataract phacoemulsification surgeries at the Lifeline-Express train.METHODS All measures of preventing postoperative endophthalmitis during and after cataract surgery procedures from Mar 2007 to Aug 2007 at the Second Lifeline-Express train were retrospectively analyzed and summarized.RESULTS There was not any postoperative endophthalmitis occurred from 2539 procedures of cataract phacoemulsification surgeries.CONCLUSIONS A series of the effective approaches as muticulous as possible are keys to prevent the postoperative endophthalmitis in the process of large number of successive cataract phacoemulsification surgeries.

In order to meet the requirements of the multi-physiological signal measurement of the 3D-TV health assessment, try to find the suitable biological acquisition chips and design the hardware system which can detect different physiological signals in real time. The systems mainly uses ARM11/S3C6410 microcontroller to control the EEG/EOG acquisition chip RHA2116 and the ECG acquisition chip ADS1298, and then the microcontroller transfer the data collected by the chips to the PC software by the USB port which can display and save the experimental data in real time, then use the Matlab software for further processing of the data, finally make a final health assessment. In the meantime, for the different varieties in the different brain regions of watching 3D-TV, developed the special brain electrode placement and the experimental data processing methods, then effectively disposed the multi-signal data in the multilevel.
Computer Simulation ; Equipment Design ; Microcomputers ; Physiological Phenomena ; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted ; instrumentation ; Software

Aged ; CDX2 Transcription Factor ; Cysts ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Female ; Homeodomain Proteins ; metabolism ; Humans ; Keratin-20 ; metabolism ; Mucous Membrane ; pathology ; Peritoneal Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; Pseudomyxoma Peritonei ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery ; Rupture ; Splenic Neoplasms ; metabolism ; pathology ; surgery

OBJECTIVETo evaluate the effects of prenatal stress on neurological functions after middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) in adult offspring rats.

METHODSPregnant rats were randomly assigned to prenatal stress treatment, which was exposed to restraint three times daily in the last week of pregnancy, and no prenatal stress treatment. Adult male offspring rats were subjected to transient focal cerebral ischemia by MCAO. They were randomly divided into four groups: sham group, prenatal stress + sham group, MCAO group and prenatal stress + MCAO group (n = 10). After 24 hours of reperfusion, the neurological deficits were evaluated. The infarct size, cell apoptosis and expression of Caspase 3, cleaved Caspase 3 and Bcl-2 were detected.

RESULTSCompared with MCAO group, the neurological deficits, infarct size and apoptotic cells in prenatal stress + MCAO group were increased significantly (all P < 0.05). The expressions of Caspase 3 and cleaved Caspase 3 were much greater in prenatal stress + MCAO group than those of MCAO group, while the expression of Bcl-2 was significantly decreased in prenatal stress + MCAO group compared with MCAO group (all P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONPrenatal stress might exacerbate neuroloeical deficits in the offspring rats after MCAO by increasing cell apoptosis.

Animals ; Apoptosis ; Caspase 3 ; metabolism ; Female ; Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery ; physiopathology ; Ischemic Attack, Transient ; physiopathology ; Male ; Pregnancy ; Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects ; physiopathology ; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-bcl-2 ; metabolism ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Stress, Physiological