OBJECTIVETo investigate the effects of amygdala kindled seizures on memory retention of passive-avoidance test in rats.

METHODSChronic kindled seizures were achieved by daily application of electric stimulations on amygdala until the occurrence of 3 consecutive convulsive seizures. Then a passive-avoidance test was performed to measure memory retention ability in rats; another group of rats received an electric stimulation on amygdala 5 min before the training trail to observe the effects of acute seizure attack on memory retention ability.

RESULTIn the training trail and the 1st day of the test trail, there was no difference in the latency to enter dark compartment between chronic kindled seizure group and its corresponding control group. However, the latency significantly increased at the 5 th day of test trail. In addition, the latency of acute seizure attack group rats significantly decreased at the 1 st day and 5 th day of test trail.

CONCLUSIONChronic amygdala kindled seizures increase memory retention of passive-avoidance test in rats, and acute seizure attack impairs this action.

Amygdala ; physiology ; Animals ; Avoidance Learning ; Electric Stimulation ; Kindling, Neurologic ; physiology ; Male ; Memory ; physiology ; Random Allocation ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Seizures ; physiopathology

To determine the pharmacokinetics of gemcitabine (2',2'-difluorodeoxycytidine) in Chinese non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Six study subjects were administered gemcitabine at a fixed dose rate of 10 mg/m(2) per min (1200 mg/m(2), two hours infusion), and carboplatin and plasma gemcitabine concentrations were measured by ion-pair reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). 3P97 Pharmaceutical Kinetics Software was used for the calculation of pharmacokinetic parameters. The obtained mean parameters, elimination half life (t(1/2)) (10.67+/-3.38 min), area under the curve (AUC) (7.55+/-1.53 (microg x h)/ml), and clearance (CL) (3940.05+/-672.08 ml/min), were consistent with those reported in literature. The hematologic toxicology result showed that the regimen was effective on and tolerated by the patients.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung ; blood ; China ; Deoxycytidine ; administration & dosage ; analogs & derivatives ; blood ; pharmacokinetics ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Time Factors

OBJECTIVE: To investigate ultrastructural pathological changes of Heroin-Addicts. METHODS: Heroin-Addicts' central nervous system, endocrine system, immune system and reproductive system in 4 cases are observed by using transmission electron microscope(TEM). RESULTS: The changes of central nervous system are mitochondrion swelling, crista fragmentation and disappear. Endoplasmic reticulum dilation, nervous fibres and cell organelles reduction; mitochondrion swelling, Partial crista fragmentation and endoplasmic reticulum dilation are also found in endocrine system; Lymphocytes reduction, cytoplasm ingredient reduction and dead lymphocytes increase in immune system; in reproductive system, spermatogenic cells and cell organelles are reduced in the male and follicle disappeared in the female. CONCLUSION Ultra-structural pathological changes of heroin-addicts are presented acute, chronic oxygen deficiency degeneration and necrosis.
Central Nervous System/ultrastructure* ; Endocrine System/ultrastructure* ; Female ; Genitalia/ultrastructure* ; Heroin Dependence/pathology* ; Humans ; Immune System/ultrastructure* ; Male ; Microscopy, Electron

OBJECTIVETo discuss the clinical safety about repairing the peripheral nerve defects with the acellular allogeneic nerve.

METHODSThe 41 patients (male 38, female 3, age 10 - 55 years old, average 28.9 years old) who were performed chemically extracted acellular nerve allograft transplanting to repair nerve defects from 2002 to 2011. The average interval from injury to nerve repairing was 4.1 months (range, 10 hours to 9 months). There were 41 cases nerve defects including 10 brachial plexus nerves, 3 radial nerves of upper arm, 4 ulnar nerves of forearm, 12 digital and toe nerves, 2 sciatic nerves, 2 femoral nerves, 3 tibial nerves and 5 common peroneal nerves. There were 12 cases combined fractures and 20 soft tissue injury or defects. The average length of the nerve allograft to bridge the nerve defects was 6.1 cm (range, 2 - 10 cm). No immunosuppressive drugs were used in all cases. The clinical safety was evaluated through physical examination, blood biochemistry and immunity detection.

RESULTSAll cases were followed up post-operation. They got primary wound healing except 2 superficial infection who got delay healing through dressings changing. No any adverse effects happened including immunological rejection, hypersensitivity reaction, deep infection, hepatotoxicity and nephrotoxicity.

CONCLUSIONSIt is safe and feasible to repairing human peripheral nerve defects with chemically extracted acellular nerve allograft.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Child ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Peripheral Nerve Injuries ; surgery ; Peripheral Nerves ; transplantation ; Transplantation, Homologous ; Treatment Outcome ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo explore the most effective herbal combinations commonly used by highly experienced Chinese medicine (CM) physicians for the treatment of insomnia.

METHODSWe collected and analyzed data related to insomnia treatment from the clinics of 7 highly experienced CM physicians in Beijing. The sample included 162 patients and 460 consultations in total. Patient outcomes, such as sleep quality and sleep time per day, were manually collected from the medical records by trained CM clinicians. Three data mining methods, support vector machine (SVM), logistic regression and decision tree, and multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR), were used to determine and confirm the herbal combinations that resulted in positive outcomes in patients suffering from insomnia.

RESULTSResults show that MDR is the most efficient method to predict the effective herbal combinations. Using the MDR model, we identified several combinations of herbs with 100% positive outcomes, such as stir-fried spine date seed, Szechwan lovage rhizome, and prepared thinleaf milkwort root; white peony root, golden thread, and stir-fried spine date seed; and Asiatic cornelian cherry fruit with fresh rehmannia.

CONCLUSIONSResults indicate that herbal combinations are effective treatments for patients with insomnia compared with individual herbs. It is also shown that MDR is a potent data mining method to identify the herbal combination with high rates of positive outcome.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Clinical Competence ; Data Mining ; Drug Therapy, Combination ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; therapeutic use ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Middle Aged ; Outpatients ; Physicians ; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders ; drug therapy ; Treatment Outcome ; Young Adult

OBJECTIVETo investigate the efficacy, safety and the life quality improvement of uroacitides injection in the treatment for patients with advanced malignant tumors.

METHODSA total of 160 patients with advanced stage cancers were enrolled into this multicenter, open and non-randomized phase II clinical trial, including cancers of the lung (33 cases), liver (45 cases), breast (17 cases), esophagus (11 cases), stomach (18 cases), colon (19 cases), pancreas (3 cases) and kidney (4 cases), and glioma (10 cases). Uroacitides was administrated in a dose of 300 ml daily via the superior vena cava catheter for consecutive 4-8 weeks.

RESULTSOf the 160 patients, 21 dropped out and one patient died during the trial. Efficacy could be evaluated in 138 patients and safety in 160. The total objective response rate (ORR, CR + PR)) and tumor control rate (CR + PR + MR + SD) of the 138 evaluable patients were 5.8% and 65.2%, respectively. Clinical benefit response (CBR) rate was 57.2%. Major adverse effects were grade I - II and reversible nausea/vomiting (21.9%) and pain (6.3%).

CONCLUSIONUroacitides injection is effective in the control for various kinds of advanced cancers with mild, reversible and tolerable adverse effects, and can also improve the patient's quality of life. It is worth being studied further.

Breast Neoplasms ; blood ; drug therapy ; pathology ; CA-19-9 Antigen ; blood ; Carcinoembryonic Antigen ; blood ; Carcinoma, Non-Small-Cell Lung ; blood ; drug therapy ; pathology ; Catheterization, Central Venous ; Colorectal Neoplasms ; blood ; drug therapy ; pathology ; Humans ; Liver Neoplasms ; blood ; drug therapy ; pathology ; Lung Neoplasms ; blood ; drug therapy ; pathology ; Methyltransferases ; administration & dosage ; adverse effects ; antagonists & inhibitors ; therapeutic use ; Nausea ; chemically induced ; Neoplasm Staging ; Peptides ; administration & dosage ; adverse effects ; therapeutic use ; Phenylacetates ; administration & dosage ; adverse effects ; therapeutic use ; Quality of Life ; Remission Induction ; Salvage Therapy ; Treatment Outcome ; Vomiting ; chemically induced ; alpha-Fetoproteins ; metabolism

OBJECTIVETo investigate the risk factors for the development of congenital anal atresia in neonates.

METHODSA total of 70 neonates who were admitted to 17 hospitals in Foshan, China from January 2011 to December 2014 were enrolled as case group, and another 70 neonates who were hospitalized during the same period and had no anal atresia or other severe deformities were enrolled as control group. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to investigate the risk factors for the development of congenital anal atresia.

RESULTSThe univariate analysis revealed that the age of mothers, presence of oral administration of folic acid, infection during early pregnancy, and polyhydramnios, and sex of neonates showed significant differences between the case and control groups (P<0.05). The multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that infection during early pregnancy (OR=18.776) and male neonates (OR=9.304) were risk factors for congenital anal atresia, and oral administration of folic acid during early pregnancy was the protective factor (OR=0.086).

CONCLUSIONSInfection during early pregnancy is the risk factor for congenital anal atresia, and male neonates are more likely to develop congenital anal atresia than female neonates. Supplementation of folic acid during early pregnancy can reduce the risk of congenital anal atresia.

Anus, Imperforate ; etiology ; Female ; Humans ; Infant, Newborn ; Logistic Models ; Male ; Pregnancy ; Risk Factors

OBJECTIVETo evaluate cyto- and molecular genetic characteristics of adult patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and its prognostic significance.

METHODSTwo hundred and seventeen adult patients with ALL were analyzed for cyto- and molecular genetic characteristics with combined conventional cytogenetics, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) and nested PCR. Significance of genetic findings for prognosis was evaluated.

RESULTSt(9;22)(q34;q11)/BCR-ABL has been the most frequent abnormality found in the cohort (56.3%). And 22.4% of cases with BCR-ABL detected by FISH was negative by cytogenetic analysis. Ratio of patients in high-risk group increased with age; Patients with B-ALL had a higher risk group than the average-risk group (98.40% vs. 65.70%, P=0.000). The overall survival (OS) rates at 3-month (67.30% vs. 85.10%, P=0.042), 6-month (55.1% vs. 80.4%, P=0.008), 12-month (34.0% vs. 59.1%, P=0.017) and 24-month (13.0% vs. 36.6%, P=0.010) were lower in high-risk group than in average-risk group, with medium OS time (11 months, 95% CI 8.0-13.9) being significantly shorter compared with the average-risk group (19 months, 95%CI 10.8-27.1).

CONCLUSIONAdult patients with ALL have unique cyto- and molecular genetic characteristics, which has important value for prognosis and guiding treatment. Moreover, combined cytogenetic and molecular genetic techniques can precisely define sub-groups of ALL patients.

Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Child ; Female ; Humans ; In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma ; genetics ; mortality ; Prognosis

This study was purposed to investigate the incidence of mixed lineage leukemia (MLL) gene rearrangement and partner gene types as well as the clinical features and prognosis of acute leukemia (AL) with this rearrangement through detection in adult AL using combination of 3 techniques, and to evaluate the clinical value of this combination detection. The MLL gene rearrangement in 183 cases of adult AL was detected by combination of conventional cytogenetics, split signal FISH and multiplex nested PCR. The results showed that the incidence of MLL rearrangements in adult patients with AL was low (8.2%), and MLL-AF4 fusion gene was most common and predominant in acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), while the MLL-AF6 and MLL-AF9 were most frequent in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Extramedullary involvements were found in 40% of MLL-rearranged AL patients, and 33.3% of patients with MLL-rearranged AL reached to complete remission within 30 days during induction chemotherapy. In addition, in this cohort of MLL-rearranged adult AL patients, the 3-month relapse rate and 6-month overall survival rate were 50.0% and 50.0% respectively. It is concluded that the rate of missed diagnosis of CC technique for patients with MLL-rearranged AL reached to 60% in this study, while the combination of CC, FISH and multiplex nested PCR has been confirmed to have important significance for evaluating prognosis and conducting clinical therapy of patients with MLL-rearranged AL.
Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Female ; Gene Rearrangement ; Humans ; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute ; genetics ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Myeloid-Lymphoid Leukemia Protein ; genetics ; Oncogene Proteins, Fusion ; genetics ; Young Adult