OBJECTIVE: To investigate feasibility and effectiveness of pedicle screw bi-cortical fixation in lumbar spondylolisthesis or destabilization of aged people. METHODS: The statistical significance of the distance between the anterior edge of vertebral body and the anterior major blood vessels at the level of pediculus arcus vertebrae by CT scan at random were measured and analyzed. 82 cases of lumbar spondylolisthesis or destabilization, aged 65 years (range 51 to 75 years), including 35 males and 47 females, were treated pedicle screw bi-cortical fixation, with the anterior edge of the vertebral body penetrated by one screw thread. The function was evaluated by Macnab backleg pain scale standards. RESULTS: There was significant difference in the distance of the anterior edge and the major vessels between the old and the young (P< 0.05). All the 82 cases were operated successfully, and the mean time was 145 minutes and the mean amount of bleeding was 530 mL. The 43 cases including 15 males and 28 females were followed up for 18 months (range 3 to 53 months). There was one case of rupture of the spinal dura mater with no sequela after the suture. There were 3 cases of transient paralysis and pain of lower limbs, which were alleviated after 2 months' treatment. No complications of nerve root or vessel injuries were found. All incisions healed well at the primary stage. The lumbocrural pain of all 43 cases was alleviated to a certain content. There were 31 cases of excellent, 10 of good, and 2 of fair; the excellent and good rate was 97%. CONCLUSION: It is feasible and safe to treat the lumbar spondylolisthesis or destabilization in the old with the pedicle screw bi-cortical fixation.

Cell Membrane ; metabolism ; Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors ; diagnosis ; metabolism ; Humans ; Immunohistochemistry ; Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-kit ; analysis

Objective To analyze the etiologies,clinical characteristics and prognostic factors of patients with acute renal failure(ARF)admitted to the hospital at high altitude.Method This retrospective study included clinical data of patients with acute renal failure in the General Hospital of Tibet Military Command from May 2001 to April,2006.Results There were 85 male patients and 63 female patients with mean age(42.4?18.1)years old.Among 148 patients with acquired ARF,52.7% was iatrogenic or nosoeomal origin, demonstrating a trend of increasing.The ARF included pre-renal(n=48,32.4%),renal parenchymal(n= 90,60.8%)and post-renal(n=10,6.8%)in origin.Acute high altitude sickness(n=20)was the major causes of pre-renal ARF.Renal parenchymal ARF could be classified into glomerular vascular lesions(n=24), acute tubular necrosis(n=53),acute interstitial nephritides(n=12),and contusion of unitesticle(n=1).of 90 cases of renal parenchymal ARF,39 patients(43.3%)were induced by medicines.Lithiasis was the major causes of post-renal ARF.The mortality of ARF in our study was 42.6%.The mortality of patients contracted ARF in hospital was much higher than that of patients community ARF in community(55.1 vs 23.6%;P=0.01). There was no significant differences of the mortality between the patients with and without dialysis treatment. Univariate analysis showed that prognosis was correlated with age,the presence of hematuria and oliguria or anuria Hb,and the number of organ system failures.The logistic regression showed that age,Hb and the number of organ system dysfunction were the predictors of mortality.Conlusions The major causes of ARF at high altitude were acute high altitude sickness and the use of medicines with nephrotoxicity.The morbility and mortality of nosocomisl ARF increased significantly.Prevention of MODS is a key management to decrease mortality in severe ARF.

The cluster sampling method was used and a retrospective survey on mortality trends of cerebrovascular diseases from 1989 to 2008 was conducted among residents from Erqi District in Zhengzhou city and Xigong District in Luoyang city. The average mortality rate of cerebrovascular diseases in these two districts was 69. 5/100 000 in 1989 to 2008. The standardized mortality rate for men was 118. 67/100 000 in 1989 to 1993, and dropped to 44. 23/100 000 in 2004 to 2008. The standardized mortality rate for women was 68.21/100 000 in 1989 to 1993, and dropped to 30. 2/100 000 in 2004 to 2008. The declining trends of cerebrovascular disease mortality rates might be related to early diagnosis and early treatment of the disease, and the extensive health education and prevention programs.

OBJECTIVETo analyze the genetic relations of Shigella isolated from Shenzhen in 2001-2006 and develop primary molecular subtyping surveillance network of Shigella.

METHODSChromosomal DNAs from 55 isolated in agarose were digested with the restriction enzyme Xba I, and then were analyzed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis. Pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns were clustered using BioNumerics software.

RESULTSAll 41 distinctive PFGE patterns were identified among 55 strains. 32 strains belonged to one cluster. Differences were observed in other strains.

CONCLUSIONBoth genetic-related clones and non-related clones of Shigella existed in Shenzhen. The development of PFGE molecular subtyping surveillance network would contribute to the active surveillance, outbreak investigation and source tracking for Shigellosis.

Bacterial Typing Techniques ; China ; Electrophoresis, Gel, Pulsed-Field ; methods ; Feces ; microbiology ; Humans ; Shigella ; classification ; isolation & purification

OBJECTIVETo study the association between the functional polymorphism of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and the development of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

METHODS147 COPD patients and 120 healthy smoking controls were selected. Spirometry and chest X-rays had been taken. Questionnaires including sex, age, smoking history, occupational exposure were completed. MMP-9 (-1562 C/T), MMP-1(-1607 1G/2G), MMP-12 (-82 A/G), MMP-12(-357 Asn/ Ser) alleles were determined using PCR-RFLP method. Independent samples T test analysis was carried out to compare patients' age, smoking index, FEV1 /FVC, FEV1 % pred with that of healthy controlled group. The frequencies of genotypes and alleles between groups were analyzed by chi-square tests and multilogistic regression.

RESULTSMMP12 Asn/Asn, CT/AsnAsn were risk factors for smoking-induced COPD. The ORs were 2.361 (95% CI: 1.369-4.017) and 2.433(95% CI: 1.159-5.342) respectively while CC/1G1G/ SerSer seemed to be a protective factor for smoking-induced COPD, with OR as 0.457 and 95% CI as 0.231-0.911.

CONCLUSIONAsn/Asn, CT/AsnAsn might be susceptible genotypes while CC/GG/SerSer might serve as protective genotype.

Aged ; Case-Control Studies ; China ; ethnology ; Ethnic Groups ; genetics ; Female ; Gene Frequency ; Genetic Predisposition to Disease ; Genotype ; Humans ; Logistic Models ; Male ; Matrix Metalloproteinase 1 ; genetics ; Matrix Metalloproteinase 12 ; genetics ; Matrix Metalloproteinase 9 ; genetics ; Polymorphism, Genetic ; Pulmonary Disease, Chronic Obstructive ; genetics

ObjectiveNotch signaling is highly conservative in evolution and plays an important role in cell's proliferation and differentiation.Construction of tentiviral vector containing Notch intracellular domain (NICD) would lay the foundation for the study of Notch signaling.MethodsTotal RNA was extracted from the myeloid tissue of C57BL/6 mice.cDNA was composed via reverse transcription.NICD sequence was obtained by PCR and recombined into lentiviral vector.Lentiviral vector with NICD was infected into target HEK293T cell.Real-time PCR and Western blot were used to examine NICD expression in HEK293T cell.ResultsNICD expression increased in HEK293T cells.ConclusionThe successful construction of lentiviral vector involving mice NICD expression provides the foundation for the future study.

Objective To evaluate enteral nutrition treatment on nutritional status of patients with esophageal cancer during radiotherapy in Chinese population. Methods We searched domestic and foreign relevant databases (PubMed, Medline, Cochrane Library, Wanfang Data, Chinese Journal Database, VMIS) by key words (esophageal cancer, chemoradiotherapy, enteral nutrition) , meeting the conditions of the clinical randomized controlled trials, and evaluated the quality of each document. We used meta-analysis method to analysis the published literatures about clinical randomized controlled trials, which were enteral nutrition treatment on nutritional status of patients with esophageal cancer during radiotherapy in Chinese population.RevMan5.1 statistical analysis software were used. Results Seven separate clinical randomized controlled trials including 503 cases were included into the meta-analysis. The following five indexes of nutritional status in enteral nutrition treatment (ENT) group were superior to routine treatment (RT) group (P<0.05): body weight, Body Mass Index (BMI), hemoglobin, serum albumin, serum prealbumin. The MD Values and 95％CI (confidence interval) were 5.54 (3.61-7.46), 2.20 (2.02-2.39), 12.46 (5.86-19.05), 4.04 (2.48-5.61), 49.53 (20.93-78.13) .The funnel plot showed no significant publication bias in each indexes. Conclusion Enteral nutrition treatment can improve the nutritional status of patients with esophageal cancer during radiotherapy compare only with routine treatment.

AIMTo investigate the expression and role of inducible NOS (iNOS) and endothelial NOS (eNOS) in acute lung injury following limb ischemia/reperfusion (4h/4h).

METHODSWistar rats were randomized into four groups: control group, ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) group, L-Arginine (L-Arg) pretreatment group, Aminoguanidine (AG) pretreatment group. The lung tissue of each group was subjected to assay of content of MDA, MPO, W/D and NO2-/NO3-. The expression of iNOS and eNOS was examined with immunohistological staining. The pulmonary morphologic changes were observed under microscope respectively.

RESULTSThe acute lung injury existed after limb ischemia/reperfusion. The eNOS downregulation and iNOS upregulation among I/R, L-Arg and AG groups were observed contrasted to the control group. There was no expressional and statistical difference of iNOS between I/R group and L-Arg group. The expression of eNOS was similar between IR and AG but iNOS expression was downregulated in AG. The parameters of MDA, MPO, W/D and NO2-/NO3- in pulmonary tissue were significantly increased in I/R groups compared with those of the control group. The parameters of L-Arg and AG pretreatment groups in comparison with those of the I/R group showed significantly difference. Based on the results of pulmonary pathology, the congestion and infiltration of inflammatory cells existed obviously in IR group. L-Arg played definite role in militating lung injury and AG might make lung injury aggravated.

CONCLUSIONThe NO definite production from iNOS is possible to play a competitivly protective role in acute lung injury following limb ischemia/reperfusion and antagonist of iNOS may aggravate the lung injury.

Acute Lung Injury ; etiology ; metabolism ; Animals ; Extremities ; blood supply ; Male ; Nitric Oxide Synthase Type II ; metabolism ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar ; Reperfusion Injury ; metabolism

BCMA is one of the transmembrane receptors belonging to BAFF and APRIL. In order to identify the feasibility of sBCMA as decoy receptor and obtain active sBCMA for its structural and functional research, full length of hBCMA was amplified with total RNA from Raji cell line by RT-PCR, and the cDNA encoding the extracelluar soluble domain of hBCMA was inserted into pET43.1a(+) vector. The recombinant vector pET43.1a(+)-sBCMA was transformed into E. coli Origami B(DE3) pLyS which is helpful for disulfide bond construction of expression proteins. After IPTG induction, the recombinant protein was expressed as soluble fusion protein, sBCMA-NusA-His6, and identified by western blotting. Then the target protein was purified by Ni(+)-chelating Sepharose Fast Flow. The binding activity between recombinant sBCMA and BAFF was detected by ELISA. Also, Recombinant sBCMA inhibited proliferation of mouse B cell stimulating by rhsBAFF. It was proved that recombinant sBCMA has good bioactivity and the method to express those proteins rich in disulfide bond is feasible and effectual.
B-Cell Activating Factor ; chemistry ; B-Cell Maturation Antigen ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Cloning, Molecular ; DNA, Complementary ; genetics ; Disulfides ; chemistry ; Escherichia coli ; genetics ; metabolism ; Humans ; Recombinant Fusion Proteins ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Solubility ; Tumor Necrosis Factor Ligand Superfamily Member 13 ; chemistry