BACKGROUND: Critical closing pressure (CCP) is recently thought to play a key role in cerebral blood flow autoregulation as an effective downstream pressure of cerebral circulation and can objectively reflect the cerebrovascular tone, namely the vascular smooth muscle contraction and diastole, which is subjected to dynamic modulation.OBJECTIVE: To dynamically assess the hypertension-induced damage of the contraction function of cerebral microvascular smooth muscles and its correlation with morphological changes based on CCP evaluation.DESIGN: Randomized controlled experiment.SETTING: Institute of Neural Science of Second Hospital Affiliated to Guangzhou Medical College and Department of Neurology, First Hospital Affiliated to Sun Yet-san University.MATERIALS: The experiment was carried out at the Laboratory of Physiological Science of Sun Yet-san University between July 2002 and August 2003. Totally 160 health male SD rats were randomized into control group and hypertension group with 80 rats in each group. METHODS: Stroke-prone renovas cular hyp ortonsive rats were established in rats of the hypertension group by bilateral renal artery occlusion with two clips. The rats in the control group were not subjected to the occlusion with other treatments identical to those of the hypertension group. At the time points of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16 weeks after operation, respectively, 10 rats were randomly selected from each of the two groups for determination of arterial pressure and CCP. After the measurements the frontal-parietal lobe was obtained from the anaesthetized rats and cut into slices for quantitative analysis of the morphological changes in cerebral microvessels.different postoperative time points.mean arterial pressure in hypertension group obviously increased from the 6th postoperative week with significant difference from that of the control after operation to a level significantly higher than that of the control group at postoperative 14 and 16 weeks [(63.75±7.43) vs (37.28±3.68) mm Hg and (67.37±15.57) vs (38.39t7.41) mm Hg, respectively, P ＜ 0.05].significance from that of the control group at the 8th postoperative week (Paverage arterial pressure and cerebral arteriole tunica media (r=0.906 93,0.811 36, respectively, P ＜ 0.05). The changes in CCP was more obvious in the early and advanced stages of blood pressure elevation, but not so manifest during obvious blood pressure increment, displaying an inverted S-shaped curve of changes (R2=0.996 2, P ＜ 0.05).CONCLUSION: Contraction of the cerebrovascular smooth muscles is enhanced with the dynamic increment of arterial pressure after the development of hypertension. Vascular tone increase is more manifest during the early and advanced stages of hypertension.

Humans ; Hydroxycholecalciferols ; blood ; Pneumoconiosis ; blood

Objective To observe the effects of electroacupuncture on the expressions of autophagy related protein Beclin-1 and apoptosis related protein p53 of hippocampus in rats;To explore the mechanism of electroacupuncture on Alzheimer's disease (AD).Methods The rats were randomly divided into the normal group, the sham-operation group, the model group, and the electroacupuncture treatment group. “Baihui” and “Yongquan” points were taken for electroacupuncture treatment and the treatment course was 7 days. The rats were treated once a day for 4 courses. Changes in morphology and number of Nissl positive cells were examined by Nissl staining in hippocampal CA1 regions. Expressions of Beclin-1 and p53 protein were determined by Western blot analysis.Results Number of Nissl positive cells in CA1 region of the model group was significantly less than that of normal group (P<0.01). After electroacupuncture treatment, number of pyramidal cells and expression of Nissl body significantly increased (P<0.05). Expression of Beclin-1 decreased, while expression of p53 increased in the hippocampus of the model group, compared with that in the normal group (P<0.05). However, electroacupuncture treatment could significantly upregulate the expression of Beclin-1 protein (P<0.01), but downregulate the level of p53 (P<0.05).Conclusion Electro-acupuncture treatment could fight against Aβ-induced neuronal apoptosis, and improve the morphological changes of AD’s hippocampus.

Objective:To identify the significance of interstitial implantation of radioactive seeds for stage IV pancreatic cancer.Methods:Clinical and follow-up data of 37 patients of stage Ⅳ pancreatic cancer with ultrasound-guided percutaneous radioactive seeds implantation as the primary treatment were retrospectively analyzed.Results:The postoperative survival time of 37 cases in the whole group was (7.49±4.08) months, ranging from 3 to17 months. Of the 30 patients who had upper abdominal and/or back pain before operation, 27 patients got different degrees of pain relief after operation; 20 cases were found with ascites before operation, but ascites in 18 cases decreased or disappeared after operation.Conclusion:The treatment of interstitial implantation of 125I radioactive seeds can effectively upgrade the life quality of stage IV pancreatic cancer patients.

Radioactive 125I seed implantation has definite curative effect in the treatment of local liver cancer. Currently, percutaneous implantation guided by CT, nuclear magnetism or ultrasound can be adopted, which is safe and minimally invasive. However, the images of some patients with metastatic liver cancer show isodensity or iso-echo imaging under CT or ultrasound, which is easy to miss diagnosis and treatment, seriously affecting the quality of life of patients. A case of terminal cholangiocarcinoma of the biliary tract with metastasis to the liver was admitted to China-Japan Union Hospital of Jilin University. Ultrasound image showed iso-echo, and radio 125I seed implantation was performed under the guidance of contrast-enhanced ultrasound. The operation was completed according to the preoperative treatment plan.