Objective To determine whether neuron?specific enolase(NSE)affects the prognosis of extensive small cell lung cancer by analyz?ing the association between NSE before treatment and disease progression and overall survival of patients. Methods This study retrospectively an?alyzed 83 inpatients in the medical oncology department of the First Affiliated Hospital of China Medical University from March 2008 to September 2014. The Kaplan?Meier method and Cox proportional hazards models were used to analyze relevant factors affecting the prognosis of extensive small cell lung cancer;statistical significance was determined for a P value less than 0.05. Results The lactate dehydrogenase(LDH)level be?fore treatment was significantly associated with the progression?free survival(PFS)(P=0.001)and overall survival(OS)(P=0.036). The NSE level before treatment was also significantly associated with the PFS(P=0.007)and OS(P=0.013). Conclusion LDH and NSE affect progno?sis and survival of patients with extensive small cell lung cancer.

Objective To explore the factors that affect the prognosis of extensive small cell lung cancer by analyzing the association between lab-oratory indicators before treatment of extensive small cell lung cancer patients and the initial evaluation results with disease progression and overall survival. Methods This study retrospectively analyzed 96 cases of hospitalized patients in the medical oncology department of The First Hospital of China Medical University from March 2008 to September 2014. Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards models were adopted to ana-lyze the relevant factors affecting the prognosis of extensive small cell lung cancer. P<0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results There was no obvious correlation between HB level before treatment with PFS of patients(P=0.179),but there was obvious significant correlation be-tween HB level and OS of patients(P=0.041). Our results showed that the TBIL level of patients before chemotherapy was significantly associated with the PFS(P=0.039)and OS(P=0.026)of patients. Conclusion HB and TBIL levels are the influencing factors that affect the prognosis and survival of patients with extensive small cell lung cancer.

Aim To explore the effect of genetic poly-morphisms of POR on the stable warfarin maintenance doses in Han Chinese patients receiving mechanical heart valve replacement. Methods The association between POR gene polymorphisms and warfarin doses of 185 Han Chinese patients were investigated through ANOVA or t test. SNPs of POR and VKORC1 were de-tected by Sequenom? DNA MassArray genotyping method. CYP2C9*3 was genotyped by polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method ( PCR-RFLP ) . Patients ’ clinical characteris-tics, INR value and daily dose were obtained from their medical records. Statistical analysis was performed by SPSS 21. 0 software. Results No mutant carriers of POR rs17148944 , POR rs56256515 and rs72553971 were found in this study. The genotype frequencies of other SNPs were in accordance with Hardy-Weinberg e-quilibrium. In the group of patients with CYP2C9*1*1 , the mutant type carriers ( T carriers ) of POR rs17685 had a significantly higher dose than CC carri-ers(3. 50 ± 1. 07) mg·d-1 vs (3. 14 ± 0. 94) mg· d-1,P =0. 03. Also, in the group of patients with CYP2 C9*1*1 and VKORC1 rs9934438 G allele carri-ers, the mutant type carriers ( T carriers ) of POR rs17685 had a significantly higher dose than CC carri-ers(4. 76 ± 0. 90) mg·d-1 vs (4. 08 ± 1. 03) mg· d-1 ,P=0. 04. No significant difference was found in different genotypes of POR rs2868177 . Conclusion These results illustrate that POR rs17685 T carrier is closely associated with a higher warfarin maintenance dose, suggesting that this SNP is useful for clinical guidance of warfarin.

OBJECTIVETo investigate the protective effect of soyasaponins on acute liver injury induced by D-galactosamine (GalN) and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in mice.

METHODThe mice were randomly divided into five groups: the normal control, the model group, the silymarin (positive control) group, and soyasaponins high and low-dose groups. They were administered with drugs once every day for 7 days. At the end of the experiment, GalN and LPS were injected intraperitoneally to all of the groups except for the normal group to establish the acute liver injury model. The pathological changes were detected with hematoxylin & eosin (HE) staining, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) was detected by ELISA method, and the alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), glutathione S-transferase (GST), reduced glutathione (GSH), malondialdehyde (MDA), nitric oxide (NO), and the activation of Caspase-3 and Caspase-8 were detected by the colorimetric method.

RESULTSoyasaponins could reduce the activities of serum ALT and AST, the acute hepatic injury induced by GalN/LPS, serum TNF-alpha level, hepatic NO and MDA contents, and the Caspase-3 and Caspase-8 activations of liver tissues, and increase the hepatic CAT, GPx, GST and GSH levels.

CONCLUSIONSoyasaponins shows the protective effect on acute liver injury induced by GalN and LPS in mice, which may be related to its antioxidative ability and anti-liver apoptosis.

Alanine Transaminase ; blood ; Animals ; Antioxidants ; metabolism ; Apoptosis ; drug effects ; Aspartate Aminotransferases ; blood ; Caspases ; metabolism ; Chemical and Drug Induced Liver Injury ; metabolism ; pathology ; prevention & control ; Galactosamine ; toxicity ; Lipopolysaccharides ; toxicity ; Liver ; pathology ; Male ; Mice ; Saponins ; pharmacology ; Soybeans ; chemistry

OBJECTIVEHematopoietic stem cell transplantation is currently a unique curative therapy for beta-thalassemia major. However, only 30% of patients have HLA-identical siblings to serve as donors. This study investigated the feasibility of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation from HLA mismatched related donors for beta-thalassemia major in children.

METHODSBetween November 2001 and November 2007, 10 patients with beta-thalassemia major at median ages of 4.4 years (range:1.6-9.4 years) received 11 transplantations from their haploidentical donors, either HLA mismatched sibling umbilical cord bloods (n=6) or parents marrows (n=4) or sibling marrow (n=1). The conditioning regiment included fludarabine (100 mg/m2), busulfan (16 mg/kg), cyclophosphamide (200 mg/kg) and antithymocyte globulin.

RESULTSOf the 10 patients, 6 (60%) had sustained engraftment and red blood cell transfusion independence; 2 patients showed transient engraftment but rejected the graft quickly; 1 patients had no evidence of engraftment and developed aplastic anemia; 1 patient who received two transplantations had no evidence of engraftment and developed persistent aplastic anemia. All eight engrafted patients showed grade I to III acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), and only one developed limited skin chronic GVHD. The probability of overall and disease-free survival was 90% and 60%, respectively, with a median follow-up duration of 57.1 months (range: 2.5 to 85.1 months).

CONCLUSIONSHaploidentical stem cell transplantation is an alternative option for children with beta-thalassemia major, particularly when a matched sibling donor is not available.

Child ; Child, Preschool ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Graft vs Host Disease ; etiology ; Haplotypes ; Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation ; adverse effects ; Histocompatibility Testing ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; beta-Thalassemia ; therapy

Objective To investigate the effects of triamcinolone acetonide combined with tanshinone ⅡA (Monomer of tanshinone)injection on oral submucous fibrosis(OSF)and the effect of serum TGF-β1 and IL-6 on patients.Methods 92 patients with OSF,w ho came to the hospital for treatment from April 2013 to April 2016,were selected and randomly divided into control group(46 cases)and experimental group(46 ca-ses).They were respectively treated with triamcinolone acetonide and triamcinolone acetonide combined with tanshinone injection.The two groups were treated for 3 courses and were followed up for 12 months.The VAS scores and mouth opening were compared between the two groups before the treatment and 2,4,6,and 12 months after the treatment,The serum TGF-β1,IL-6,lesion area and the changes of quality of life oral health impact scale(OHIP-14)scores of two groups were compared before and after treatment.Results 6 months after follow-up,the maximum mouth opening of the two groups was significantly increased than that before treatment,and improvement speed and improvement degree of the experimental group were better than those of the control group(P<0.05).After 2,4,6 and 12 months follow-up,the VAS scores of the two groups were significantly lower than those before treatment,and the experimental group were significantly lower than those of the control group(P<0.05),but the VAS score of two groups after 12 months increased than that after 6 months,and the control group was more obvious(P<0.05).After treatment,the levels of TGF-β1 and IL-6 of the experimental group were significantly lower than those of the control group and before the treat-ment(P<0.05);After treatment,the lesion area of the experimental group was significantly lower than that of the control group,and the OHIP-14 score was significantly higher than that of the control group,and the difference was significant compared with this group before treatment(P<0.05).Conclusion The local injec-tion treatment of triamcinolone and tanshinone injection has godd efficacy of OSF patients,and significantly re-duces the levels of TGF-β1 and IL-6 in serum.

Complex systems exist widely,including medicines from natural products,functional foods,and bio-logical samples.The biological activity of complex systems is often the result of the synergistic effect of multiple components.In the quality evaluation of complex samples,multicomponent quantitative analysis(MCQA)is usually needed.To overcome the difficulty in obtaining standard products,scholars have proposed achieving MCQA through the"single standard to determine multiple components(SSDMC)"approach.This method has been used in the determination of multicomponent content in natural source drugs and the analysis of impurities in chemical drugs and has been included in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia.Depending on a convenient(ultra)high-performance liquid chromatography method,how can the repeatability and robustness of the MCQA method be improved?How can the chromatography conditions be optimized to improve the number of quantitative components?How can computer software technology be introduced to improve the efficiency of multicomponent analysis(MCA)?These are the key problems that remain to be solved in practical MCQA.First,this review article summarizes the calculation methods of relative correction factors in the SSDMC approach in the past five years,as well as the method robustness and accuracy evaluation.Second,it also summarizes methods to improve peak capacity and quantitative accuracy in MCA,including column selection and two-dimensional chromatographic analysis technology.Finally,computer software technologies for predict-ing chromatographic conditions and analytical parameters are introduced,which provides an idea for intelligent method development in MCA.This paper aims to provide methodological ideas for the improvement of complex system analysis,especially MCQA.

The essential effect of vitamin A on immune function occurs through various mechanisms including direct effect on Th1-Th2 balance modulation. However, it is unclear whether or not vitamin A can regulate Th1-Th2 balance under a strong Th1-polarizing condition. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to examine the effect of vitamin A metabolite all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) on Th1-Th2 differentiation in CD4+ T cells under GATA-3 deficiency, which can induce Th1-polarizing condition. In the present study, GATA-3 deficiency T cells were induced by siRNA and checked by real-time quantitative PCR and western blot. GATA-3 deficiency CD4+ T cells and normal CD4+ T were treated for 48 h with or without ATRA. The expression of Th1 and Th2 cytokines were detected by qPCR and ELISA. The results would contribute to clarify the knowledge of the role of vitamin A in regulating Th1-Th2 balance under some special conditions, and help to explain the mechanism of immune regulatory function of vitamin A.
CD4-Positive T-Lymphocytes ; drug effects ; Cell Differentiation ; drug effects ; Cells, Cultured ; GATA3 Transcription Factor ; deficiency ; Humans ; Th1-Th2 Balance ; drug effects ; Tretinoin ; pharmacology

OBJECTIVETo observe the diagnostic value of non-invasive 128-slice computed tomography coronary angiography (CTA) in comparison with invasive coronary angiography.

METHODS128-slice CTA and invasive coronary angiography were performed in 78 unselected consecutive patients (63 patients with suspected coronary artery disease and 15 patients with previous coronary stenting, 56 males, mean age 61 +/- 10 years) and > 50% reduction of minimal lumen diameter was defined as significant coronary stenosis.

RESULTSFifty-eight out of 879 segments (7%) from CTA were not assessable because of irregular rhythm, vessel calcification or tachycardia. Compared with invasive coronary angiography, segment-based analysis from the 821 segments showed the sensitivity by CTA was 87%, specificity 97%, PPV 83% and NPV 97%. Four out of 22 stents implanted in 15 patients were not assessable by CTA because of poor image quality. Compared with invasive coronary angiography, the sensitivity of diagnosing in-stent restenosis by CTA was 100%, specificity 77%, PPV 63% and NPV 100% for the remaining 18 stents.

CONCLUSIONSOne hundred and twenty-eight-slice CTA has a high accuracy for detecting coronary artery disease and in-stent restenosis after coronary stenting and could be considered as a valuable noninvasive technique for screening coronary artery disease in suspected patients.

Adult ; Aged ; Coronary Angiography ; methods ; Coronary Artery Disease ; diagnosis ; diagnostic imaging ; Coronary Stenosis ; diagnosis ; diagnostic imaging ; Female ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Tomography, Spiral Computed ; methods