Objective To explore carotid atherosclerosis and its relative factors of maintenance peritoneal dialysis patients. Methods The general clinical conditions,hematobiochemical parameters and color ultrasound parameters of 27 maintenance peritoneal dialysis patients and 24 controll patients were collecled. General clinical conditions included body weight, height and BMI. Hematobiochemical paremeters included Hb, Alb, LP (a), TC, TG, HDL-C,LDL-C, CRP, plasma fibrinogen, C3, Apo-A 1, Apo-B, LP (a). Color ultrasound parameters included plaque incidence rate,thickness of vascularendothelium(IMT). Results Compared with the controll group,maintenance peritoneal dialysis patients: plaque incidence rate, thickness of vascularendothelium (IMT) increased significantly, Age, TC, TG,LDL-C,LP (a), dialysis time increased significantly in plaque-positive group(all p ＜ 0. 05), while Hb, Alb andPAB decreased significantly (all P ＜ 0.0 5) , CRP increased significantly (P ＜ 0.0 1) . Conclusions In maintenance peritoneal dialysis group,CRP,LP(a) had positive relationship with C-IMT. CRP had negative relationship with ALb. CRP had not relationship with age and dialysis time. There were relationships among malnutrition,inflammation and atherosclerosis in maintenance peritoneal dialysis patients. Interdiction of the relationship may played a very important role in ameliorating the prognosis of the maintenance peritoneal patients.

Epithelial-mesenchymal transition ( EMT) , a process by which differentiated epithelial cells under-go a phenotypic conversion that gives rise to the matrix-producing fibroblasts and myofibroblasts, is increasingly recognized as an integral part of tissue fibrogenesis after injury.However, the degree to which renal tubular epithelial EMT contributes to kidney fibrosis remains a matter of intense debate and is likely to be context-dependent.Renal tubular EMT is an adap-tive response of epithelial cells to a hostile or changing microenvironment and is regulated by many factors.Several intrace-llular signal transduction pathways such as transforming growth factor-β( TGF-β)/Smad and Wnt/β-catenin signaling are essential in controlling the process of renal tubular epithelial EMT which are potential targets of antifibrotic therapy present-ly.This review highlights the current understanding of renal tubular epithelial EMT and its underlying mechanisms to stimu-late further discussion on its role in the pathogenesis of renal interstitial fibrosis.

Objective To evaluate the association between serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 [25 (OH)D3] and arterial stiffness in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD).Methods Three hundred patients with CKD were included,and were divided into two groups based on serum 25(OH)D3 levels:vitamin D deficient [25(OH)D3 ＜ 20 μg/L] and vitamin D non-deficient [25(OH)D3≥20 μg/L].Brachial ankle pulse wave velocity (baPWV),which reflected arterial stiffness,was calculated using the single-point method.Clinical data were collected in details.Correlation between serum 25(OH)D3 level and baPWV was assessed by the single factor correlation test and multiple linear regression analysis.Results The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency was 62.7％(188/300).The concentration of 25(OH)D3 was (17.62±8.54) μg/L in total patients,but was (12.38±4.55) μg/L and (26.44±6.05) μg/L in the subgroups of vitamin D deficient and non-deficient,respectively(P ＜ 0.01).There was a higher value of baPWV in the group of vitamin D deficient than that of vitamin D non-deficient (1 827.34±429.11 vs 1 555.31 ±353.14,P ＜ 0.01).Serum 25(OH)D3 level and baPWV was negatively correlated in total patients(r=-0.38,P ＜ 0.01) and each stage of CKD(stage 2-5)[r=-0.30,P ＜ 0.05; r=-0.26,P ＜ 0.05; r=-0.46,P ＜ 0.01; r=-0.57,P ＜ 0.01].Multiple linear regression analysis showed that vitamin D level was independently associated with baPWV(Model 1:β=-0.18,P ＜ 0.01; Model 2:β=-0.17,P=0.01).Both models accounted for 50％ (R2=0.50) of total variance of baPWV.Conclusions Vitamin D deficiency is common in CKD,and a low 25(OH)D3 level is significantly associated with increased arterial stiffness in these patients.Clinical intervention studies are needed to clarify whether treatment with vitamin D decreases the risk of cardiovascular disease in patients with CKD.

This study was aimed to investigate the curative effect on external application and rectal instillation with Chinese medicine in the treatment of chronic renal failure (CRF) with acute gouty arthritis (GA). A total of 82 CRF patients with acute GA from the First People's Hospital of Hengyang City were randomly divided into the study group (n = 42), which was treated with external application and rectal instillation with Chinese medicine, and the control group (n = 40), which was treated with prednisone. The comparison was made on symptoms and body signs of GA, blood uric acid, creatinine, creatinine clearance, adverse reaction, and recurrence rate between two groups. The re-sults showed that there was no significant difference on alleviating of joint swelling and pain between the study group and the control group. Compared with pretreatment, the blood uric acid and creatinine were significantly decreased after treatment in the study group (P< 0.01). The creatinine clearance was obviously increased (P < 0.05). There were no significant differences on blood uric acid, creatinine and creatinine clearance in the control group before and after treatment. There was no adverse reaction in the study group. In the one-month follow-up, there were only three recurrent cases in the study group, which were obviously better than the control group (P< 0.01). It was concluded that external application and rectal instillation with Chinese medicine had a good curative effect on CRF with acute GA in the near future with low recurrence rate and no adverse reaction, which was worthy of popularizing in the clinical practice.

Influence of extraction process on the quality of Maxingshigan pills was studied. Guided by the amount of ephedrine in the extraction as determined by dual wavelength TL- C-scanning. Four different processes were compared. Result showed that Process C was the best among all.

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a frequent syndrome in hospitalized patients .Recently, a number of studies have been reported that the close relationship exists between genetic polymorphism and AKI .The current research on genetic polymorphism related with AKI is reviewed in this article .

Objective ISSR Identification of genetic diversity in Aconitum carmichaeli by ISSR marker technique. Methods Genetic diversity between Jiangyou Radix Aconiti Lateralis Preparata and nine wild A. carmichaeli populations was determined by ISSR technique. Results Eight primers were selected to produce highly reproducible ISSR bands. Among 98 amplified bands, 68 showed polymorphism, the percentage of polymorphic bands (PPB) reached to 69.39%. Observed number of alleles (Na), effective number of alleles (Ne), Nei′s gene diversity index (H), and Shannon information index (I) were 1.693 9, 1.371 5, 0.230 8, and 0.353 0, respectively. A DNA profile was discovered with a single primer, ISSR 855, in which each of ten tested populations had its unique patterns and was distinguished from each other. Conclusion ISSR Method is suitable for DNA fingerprinting, identification , and genetic diversity analysis of A. carmichaeli.

0.05).There was statistically significant difference between the groups with integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine and the group with Western medicine alone(P

Objective To establish a simple and feasible method of preparing young erythrocytes and test some indexes of evaluating the mean cell age.Methods We collected 34 bags of whole blood from healthy blood donors,400ml/each bag,then eliminated WBCs by leukoreduction filter.After twice centrifuging and manual speration,we finally obtained young erythrocytes from the upper section of the red cell layer,the remains were old erythrocytes.These different age erythrocytes were separated by blood bags.Some indexes as pyruvate kinase,reticulocyte count,mean corpuscular volume(MCV),mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentraion(MCHC),erythrocytes deformation index EI were tested on the non-separation erythrocytes,young erythrocytes and old erythrocytes,simultaneouosly,the detecting hemoglobin recovery rate.Results There was significant difference of all indexes among the three kinds of erythrocyte products.The PK activity ratio of young erythrocytes' to non-preparating erythrocytes was 1 175?0 13,showed the mean cell age was about 40 days.The hemoglobin recovery rate was(48 37?3 82)%.Conclusions The method is effective for preparing young erythrocytes,PK,REI,MCV,MCHC and EI can be used to evaluate the young erythrocytes' mean cell age.