Alzheimer's disease( AD) , a neurodegenerative disease, can result in memory loss, cognitive and behavioral deficits. The pathological hallmarkes are β amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles which lead loss of neurons in brain. As the extension of the central nervous system, retina has a similar tissue anatomy with central nervous system. The β amyloid plaques have also been detected in retina of AD. Furthermore, according to eye examinations of AD patients, we have found the loss of retinal ganglion cells, the attenuation of retinal nerve fiber layer thickness, the smaller changes of macula lutea, the decline of vascular density and so on. And then, there occurs the visual field loss and the decline of contrast sensitivity and so on in AD patients. Thus, the retina has occurred nerve degenerative changes in AD. Meanwhile, there has been proved that the retina nerve degeneration is even earlier than senile plaques formation in brain. In addition, curcumin, a natural and safe fluorescent dye, can be used to label β amyloid plaques in retina. The above suggests that retina can be a window for the early diagnosis of AD.

Antineoplastic Agents/therapeutic use* ; Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumors/drug therapy* ; Humans ; Liver ; Liver Neoplasms/drug therapy* ; Lung ; Naphthyridines/therapeutic use* ; Urea/analogs & derivatives*

Objective To evaluate the value of PET/CT in preoperative assessment and postoperative monitoring of ovarian cancer. Methods A retrospective analysis was conducted in 45 patients of ovarian neoplasm with clinical records underwent 18F-FDG PET/CT, including 10 patients underwent PET/CT before surgery and 35 patients after surgery. The clinical follow-up time was 6 months at least. The diagnosis based on pathology and clinical follow-up data. Results (1) The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy of PET/CT in detecting ovarian cancer were 94.6%,75.0%and 91.1%, respectively. (2) Ten patients before surgery were all detected tumor by PET/CT, but 2 of them were false positive based on pathologic results. (3) Two patients with non-standard surgery were detected tumor by PET/CT. In 33 patients after standard surgery, 6 patients were no tumor detected by PET/CT. In addition,4 patients with normal CA125 and no signs of recurrence and metastasis were detected tumor by PET/CT. The pathology and clinical follow-up data supported the results. 23 patients with higher CA125 were diagnosed recurrence and metastasis based on pathology and clinical follow-up data, 21 of them were detected tumor by PET/CT. Conclusion 18F-FDG PET/CT plays an important role in preoperative assessment, early diagnosis and accurate positioning of recurrent and metastasis of ovarian cancer. It can be used to guide the clinical treatment.

With the continuous development of bone tissue engineering, a variety of emerging bone graft materials provided various methods for repairing bone defects. Early and rapid accomplishment of revascularization of materials interior after implantation of bone transplantation materials is a difficulty faced to bone tissue engineering. Blood vessels ingrowth provides the requisite netritional support for the regeneration reconstruction of bone tissue, for this reason, vascularization plays a significant role in bone tissue engineering. However,there is not a golden standard strategy of vascularization at present. Scaffold materials, cells and growth factors still are three indispensable elements in tissue engineering, and are cardinal points of the promoting vascularization strategies. Multiple growth factors or multiple cells combined with scaffolds, which are hot spots, have obtained excellent vascularization. This review focused on the comprehensive strategies for promoting the successful vascularization of tissue engineered scaffolds.
Bone and Bones ; blood supply ; Humans ; Neovascularization, Physiologic ; Tissue Engineering ; methods ; Tissue Scaffolds

Objective To investigate the diagnostic and prognostic value of presepsin for sepsis.Methods Diagnostic accuracy test.The plasma presepsin levels of 57 sepsis patients,64 systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS) patients and 120 healthy individuals admitted to the 263 Clinical Branch,General Hospital of Beijing Military Region between January 2012 and December 2013were detected by PATHFAST system.Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to assess and compare the diagnostic value of presepsin and procalitonin (PCT).Logistic regression model was used to estimate the association between presepsin and sepsis.In addition,the correlations between presepsin and the clinical characteristics were analyzed in sepsis patients.Results Sepsis patients [1 266 (754-2 181) pg/ml] had higher presepsin level than SIRS[517 (349-939)pg/ml] and healthy individual controls [(182 ± 56)pg/ml] (Z value was 5.94 and 10.71,respectively,P value was ＜ 0.01 for all).The areas under curve (AUCs) of presepsin and PCT were 0.81 (95％ CI:0.74-0.89) and 0.78 (95％ CI:0.71-0.86),respectively,with no statistical significance (x2 =0.60,P =0.47).After adjusted for PCT,presepsin ＞ 1 060 pg/ml was independently associated with sepsis,with odds ratio (OR) of 7.80 (95 ％ CI:3.07-20.32).Severe sepsis patients [2 723 (2 002-4 234) pg/ml] had higher presepsin than sepsis patients[1 145 (656-1 436) pg/ml] (Z =4.00,P ＜0.01).The patients with inhosptal mortality [2 365 (1 256-3 567)pg/ml] had higher presepsin than survival ones[1 146 (660-1 452) pg/ml] (Z =2.99,P =0.003).Presepsin was positively correlated with PCT (r =0.75,P ＜ 0.01).The reference for presepsin was 72 to 292 pg/ml.Conclusions Presepsin was an useful biomarker for sepsisdiagnosis.The diagnostic value of presepsin and PCT was not completely overlap,and combinational using of these two biomarkers may improve the diagnostic accuracy of sepsis.In addition,presepsin had potential value for prognosis estimation.

Objective To investigate the dynamic distribution changes of fungi responsible for the deep infection and antifungal susceptibility to provide a basis for the empirical antifungal treatment.Methods Medical records were reviewed from cases suspectedof deep fungal infection at our hospital from January 1998 to December 2004.3122 isolates of 13 species were analyzed with SPSSll.0.Etest was used for the antifungal susceptibility test.Results Candida albicans was the most commonly isolated organism,while the prevalence of Candida albicans decreased(76.3% vs 66.8%,x~2=34.33,P

The present work is to investigate the chemical constitutions of Hyptis rhomboidea and their antifungal activities. The compounds were isolated by Toyopearl HW-40, Sephadex LH-20, MCI-Gel CHP-20, RP-18, PTLC and silica column chromatographic methods and subjected to evaluate some monomers antifungal activity of eight kinds of plant pathogenic bacteria. Eleven compounds were isolated and identified as ethyl caffeate (1), ursolic acid (2), oleanolic acid (3), vanillactic acid (4), methyl rosmarinate (5), kaempferol 3-O-alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 --> 6) -beta-D-glucopyranoside (6), kaempferol 3-O-alpha-L-rhamnopyranosyl-(1 --> 6)-beta-D-glucopyranoside (7), ilexgenin A (8), beta-amyrin (9), kaempferol 3-O-beta-D-glucopyranoside (astrgalin, 10) and cholest-5-ene-3beta, 4beta-diol (11). Compound 1 showed the strongest inhibitory effect on Sclerotinia sclerotiorum with the MIC 16.2 mg x L(-1), and compound 5 showed the strongest inhibitory effect on S. minor and Exserohilum turcicum with MIC 16.2, 8.1 mg x L(-1), respectively. All compounds were isolated from the H. rhomboidea for the first time, and compounds 1 and 5 showed antifungal activity.
Antifungal Agents ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; isolation & purification ; pharmacology ; Fungi ; drug effects ; Hyptis ; chemistry ; Molecular Structure ; Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has definitely clinical effect in treating hyperlipidemia, but the action mechanism still need to be explored. Based on consulting Chinese Pharmacopoeia (2010), all the lipid-lowering Chinese patent medicines were analyzed by associated rules data mining method to explore high frequency herb pairs. The top three couplet medicines with high support degree were Puerariae Lobatae Radix-Crataegi Fructus, Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix et Rhizoma-Crataegi Fructus, and Polygoni Multiflori Radix-Crataegi Fructus. The 20 main ingredients were selected from the herb pairs and docked with 3 key hyperlipidemia targets, namely 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase (HMG-CoA reductase), peroxisome proliferator activated receptor-α (PPAR-α ) and niemann-pick C1 like 1 (NPC1L1) to further discuss the molecular mechanism of the high frequency herb pairs, by using the docking program, LibDock. To construct evaluation rules for the ingredients of herb pairs, the root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) value between computed and initial complexes was first calculated to validate the fitness of LibDock models. Then, the key residues were also confirmed by analyzing the interactions of those 3 proteins and corresponding marketed drugs. The docking results showed that hyperin, puerarin, salvianolic acid A and polydatin can interact with two targets, and the other five compounds may be potent for at least one of the three targets. In this study, the multi-target effect of high frequency herb pairs for lipid-lowering was discussed on the molecular level, which can help further researching new multi-target anti-hyperlipidemia drug.
Asteraceae ; chemistry ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; chemistry ; metabolism ; Humans ; Hydroxymethylglutaryl CoA Reductases ; chemistry ; genetics ; metabolism ; Hyperlipidemias ; drug therapy ; enzymology ; genetics ; metabolism ; Hypolipidemic Agents ; chemistry ; metabolism ; Membrane Proteins ; chemistry ; genetics ; metabolism ; Molecular Docking Simulation ; PPAR alpha ; chemistry ; genetics ; metabolism ; Protein Binding ; Pueraria ; chemistry

Objective: To study clinical characteristics and anatomical distributions of pulmonary embolism (PE) in suspicious PE patients and to explore if CT coronary angiography (CTCA) may simultaneously exclude PE. Methods: A total of 403 consecutive patients with suspicious PE admitted to cardiology department of our hospital from 2013-01 to 2014-10 were retrospectively studied. According to embolus distribution by CT pulmonary angiography (CTPA) and CTCA, the patients were divided into 2 groups: PE group,n=261 and Non-PE group,n=142. The clinical symptoms and imaging characteristics were analyzed and compared between 2 groups. Results: The overall prevalence of PE was 64.8% (261/403), suspicious PE patients were all with chest distress, palpitation, chest pain and syncope. Compared with Non-PE group, the patients in PE group were with more female gender and palpitation, while less chest pain,P<0.05; the symptoms of syncope and chest distress were similar between 2 group,P>0.05. In PE group, the sign of emboli were found in 245/261 patients (93.9%) at CTCA scanning area, the rest 16 patients (6.1%) had the small area of PE, and the emboli were only located at both upper pulmonary arteries. Conclusion: In patients with dififculty of breath, palpitation, chest pain and syncope, coronary artery disease (CAD) and PE should be simultaneously considered for accurate diagnosis. CTCA may meanwhile ifnd PE during CAD diagnosis.

Objective To report the clinical effect of primary percutaneous coronary intervention(PCI)in patients with acute myocardial infarction(AMI).Methods A retrospective study was accomplished on the clinical data of 13 AMI patients who underwent PCI from March 2004 to April 2006.Results The infarct-related artery (IRA)was successfully recanalized by primary PCI for 12 AMI patients,without major complications occurred in these cases during hospitalization.Conclusion Primary PCI should be firstly chosen for treatment of AMI in the hospitals which could carry out PCI.