Objective To investigate the long-term efficacy of transendocardial injection of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) into ischemic porcine myocardium.Methods Thirty pigs were divided into two groups:control group and treatment group (15 each).A angioplasty balloon was used to occlude the left anterior descending coronary arteries of the animals to reproduce a porcine myocardial ischemic model.Blank plasmid (control group) or constructed pIRES2-EGFP-hVEGF165 eukaryotic expression plasmid (treatment group) was directly injected into the ischemic myocardium through an transendocardial injection catheter of NOGA system,respectively.Before and one year after injection,left ventricular electromechanical mapping (LVEMM) was used to detect local linear shortening (LLS) and unipolar potential (UpV);M-mode local wall motion,cycle variation of integrated backscatter (CVIB) and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) were detected by ultrasonagraphy.One year later,the animals were sacrificed for the observation of the capillary formation in myocardial tissue with immunohistochemical staining.Results One year after injection,as compared with that of control group,local linear shortening (LLS) showed a significant increase (P0.05),and ultrasonagraphy showed better heart function in the treatment group (P

This study was aimed to detect the heavy metal residues of medicinal leeches, in order to understand the current market circulation situation of medicinal leeches, and to analyze possible factors which may cause heavy metal pollution, and to provide references for the standardized safe cultivation of medicinal leeches. Inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) technique was applied to detect heavy metal residues in medicinal leeches. The results showed that medicinal leech samples tested for heavy metal content severely exceeded the standard, which caused a great threat to the safety of medication. It was conclude that more attentions should be paid on factors for causing heavy metal accumulation within medicinal leeches during the breeding process. The related department should also list safety limits explicitly and separately for animal drugs such as medicinal leech during the development of quality standards of Chinese materia medica.

Purpose: Whether craniospinal irradiation (CSI) could be replaced by limited-field radiation in non-metastatic bifocal germinoma remains controversial. We addressed the issue based on the data from our series and the literature. Methods: Data from 49 patients diagnosed with non-metastatic bifocal germinoma at our hospital during the last 10 years were collected. The Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 was used to evaluate health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Additionally, 81 patients identified from the literature were also analyzed independently. Results: In our cohort, 34 patients had tumors in the sellar/suprasellar (S/SS) plus pineal gland (PG) regions and 15 in the S/SS plus basal ganglia/thalamus (BG/T) regions. The median follow-up period was 52 months (range, 10 to 134 months). Our survival analysis showed that patients treated with CSI (n=12) or whole-brain radiotherapy (WBRT; n=34) had comparable disease-free survival (DFS; p=0.540), but better DFS than those treated with focal radiotherapy (FR; n=3, p=0.016). All 81 patients from the literature had tumors in the S/SS+PG regions. Relapses were documented in 4/45 patients treated with FR, 2/17 treated with whole-ventricle irradiation, 0/4 treated with WBRT, and 1/15 treated with CSI. Survival analysis did not reveal DFS differences between the types of radiation field (p=0.785). HRQOL analysis (n=44) in our cohort found that, compared with S/SS+PG germinoma, patients with BG/T involvement had significantly lower scores in social and school domains. However, HRQOL difference between patients treated with CSI and those not treated with CSI was not significant. Conclusion In patients with non-metastatic bifocal germinoma, it is rational that CSI could be replaced by limited-field radiation. HRQOL in patients with BG/T involvement was poorer.

Antrodia cinnamomea is extensively used as a traditional medicine to prevention and treatment of liver cancer. However, its comprehensive chemical fingerprint is uncertain, and the mechanisms, especially the potential therapeutic target for anti-hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) are still unclear. Using UPLC‒Q-TOF/MS, 139 chemical components were identified in A. cinnamomea dropping pills (ACDPs). Based on these chemical components, network pharmacology demonstrated that the targets of active components were significantly enriched in the pathways in cancer, which were closely related with cell proliferation regulation. Next, HCC data was downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus database (GEO). The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) and DisGeNET were analyzed by bioinformatics, and 79 biomarkers were obtained. Furtherly, nine targets of ACDP active components were revealed, and they were significantly enriched in PI3K/AKT and cell cycle signaling pathways. The affinity between these targets and their corresponding active ingredients was predicted by molecular docking. Finally, in vivo and in vitro experiments showed that ACDPs could reduce the activity of PI3K/AKT signaling pathway and downregulate the expression of cell cycle-related proteins, contributing to the decreased growth of liver cancer. Altogether, PI3K/AKT-cell cycle appears as the significant central node in anti-liver cancer of A. Cinnamomea.