Objective To explore the effect and significance of AQP4 mRNA expression in bronchial epithelium of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) on airway inflammation. Methods Bronchial epithelium was obtained by bronchoscopy in patients with COPD (n=30) and healthy controls (n=30) whose bronchial epithelium was confirmed to be normal by the pathologist. AQP4 mRNA were studied by RT-PCR method. Inflammatory cells infiltration was observed by HE staining; pulmonary function test was performed too before bronchoscopy. Results Compared with that in the healthy controls, AQP4 mRNA expression in COPD was reduced (P

OBJECTIVETo explore the association of fish intake with the risk of renal cancer.

METHODSPubMed, Embase, CNKI and CA databases were searched for case-control studies or cohort studies examining the relationship between fish or fish products intake and renal cancer. Heterogeneity among the selected studies was assessed using I2 score, and the publication bias was assessed using funnel plots.

RESULTSSeventeen articles were included in the analysis with a heterogeneity across the studies (P=0.003, I(2)=52.3%). A random-effects model was used to generate the pooled risk ratio (RR) and 95% confidence interval (CI), and no statistically significant association was found between the risk of renal cancer and fish intake (RR=0.90; 95% CI, 0.78-1.02). In subgroup analysis, no evidence was found that the study design, study region or publication date influenced the results; but in the gender subgroup analysis, fish intake we found to decrease the risk of renal cancer in men but not in women.

CONCLUSIONThe results of meta-analysis do not support an association between fish intake and a lowered risk of renal cancer.

Carcinoma, Renal Cell ; etiology ; Diet ; Female ; Fish Products ; Humans ; Kidney Neoplasms ; etiology ; Male ; Odds Ratio ; Risk Factors

Decompression is an effective and widely used treatment for jawbone cystic lesions that can, to a great extent, preserve the function and appearance of the jawbone. However, some problems exist with its clinical application, such as the inappropriate determination of indication and the lack of standardized operational guidelines, resulting in treatment ineffectiveness or even failure. This paper aimed to summarize the clinical value of decompression for jawbone cystic lesions in terms of mechanism, scientific evidence, advancement, indications and effective evaluation by reviewing relevant literature and our clinical experience.

OBJECTIVE: To establish a fast adaptive active contour model based on local gray difference for parotid duct image segmentation. METHODS: On the basis of the LBF model, we added the mean difference of the local gray scale inside and outside the contour as the energy term of the driving evolution curve, and the local gray-scale variance difference was used to replace and as the control term of the energy parameter value. Two local similarity factors of different neighborhood sizes were introduced to correct the effects of image gray unevenness and boundary blur to improve the segmentation efficiency. RESULTS: During image segmentation, this algorithm allowed for adaptive adjustment of the evolution direction, velocity and the energy weight of the internal and external regions according to the difference of gray mean and variance between the internal and external regions. This algorithm was also capable of detecting the actual boundary in a complex gradient boundary region, thus enabling the evolution curve to approach the target boundary quickly and accurately. CONCLUSIONS The proposed algorithm is superior to the existing segmentation algorithms and allows fast and accurate segmentation of the parotid duct with well-preserved image details.
Algorithms ; Color ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; Parotid Gland ; diagnostic imaging ; Salivary Ducts ; diagnostic imaging

Evoked Potentials ; Social Isolation ; Attention ; Humans