Schwannomas of the vagus nerve (SVN) and schwannomas of the cervical sympathetic nerve (SSN) are the two most common schwannomas in the carotid space. Because schwannomas are asymptomatic, moreover, the vagus nerve and the cervical sympathetic nerve have adjacent anatomical location, it is diffcult to differentiate SVN or SSN. In addition, the current surgical treatment of schwannomas still remains controversial. This article summarized the studies on SVN and SSN, and meanwhile discussed the advances in the diagnosis and management of the disease.

By reviewing name, type, function and indication of Chinese herbTing-Li-Zi (Lepidii seu Descurainiae) in literatures, there were northernTing-Li-Zi and southernTing-Li-Zi from Song dynasty. It was also known that northernTing-Li-Zi has strong effect and southernTing-Li-Zi had moderate effect. However, there was no strict classification between two types in current clinical practice. The disease prevention and treatment effect of Chinese herbs were depended on their internal features. Disease treatment must be based on syndrome differentiation with corresponding selection of herbs to achieve desired results. Therefore, it is necessary to combine properties with actions in the study of Chinese herbs to provide guidance in clinical practice.

Objective To develop a bar code management system for two-way communication between XE-2100 hematology analyzer and LIS.Methods The relevant databases/tables were set based on PowerBuilder 7.0.The bar code ActiveX MSBCODE9.OCX was used for creating bar codes from patient information and test item information.Codes of all objects were translated to an executive file and DLL files.Results The results showed that the bar code was clear with high discernable rate,stable two-way communication and safe data storage.As the only identifier for specimen,the bar code improved work efficiency and management level,and avoided errors in sampling procedure.Conclusion The application of bar code technique to clinical hematology examination normalizes the workflow and provides a new mode for automatization and standardization management.

Objective To develop a self-help report printing system for management of inspection data and improvement of inspection workflow. Methods The self-help report printing system was compiled based on LIS with ORACLE database management system and was coded with PowerBuilder9.0 development kit. Results The information exchange in self-help report printing system and LIS are implemented successfully, and can print out inspection report with electronic signatures. Conclusion The self -help report printing system simplifies the reporting process and improves work efficiency through application in hospital.

Objective To study the effect of cold and heat treatment on metastasis and the peripheral blood immune response in patients with breast cancer. Methods A total of 124 breast cancer patients were randomly di-vided into a hot and cold therapy group and a control group, each of 62. Both groups were given conventional surgical resections, and the hot and cold therapy group was given cooling and heating physical therapy for one month before the operation. The efficacy of the treatment and the patients′ spiritual state were compared after the treatment. The effect on lung metastases was evaluated using tomographic images of the chest, and the changes in immune cell levels in the peripheral blood were detected using flow cytometry. Results After the treatment, the remission rate (54.8%), spiritual life ratings on the Karnofsky scale and the area of lung cancer nodule transfer were significantly better in the hot and cold therapy group than in the control group. Twelve weeks after the treatment, the percentage of MDSCs in the control group patients was 72.5%, significantly higher than the 5.3% of the therapy group. The CD4+and CD8+ T cells were 2.2% and 1.8%, significantly lower than the 26.7% and 13.9% of the control group. Con-clusion Cold and hot therapy before a mastectomy can effectively inhibit the metastasis of breast cancer and promote patients′physical rehabilitation and spiritual life. It may regulate the microenvironment of their immunosuppression and stimulate antitumor immunity.

To investigate the effect of stepwise paced breathing (PB) on pulse transit time (PTT), we collected physiological signals of electrocardiogram (ECG), respiration and arterial pulse wave during a procedure of stepwise PB, which consists of 6 different breathing rates changing in a protocol of 14.0-12.5-11.0-9.5-8.0-7.0 breath per minute (BPM), with each breathing rate lasting 3 minutes. Twenty two healthy adults involved in this experiment and the change of PTT was analyzed during the stepwise PB procedure. In our study, the PTT was measured by calculating the time interval from the R-spike of the ECG to the peaks of the second derivative of the arterial pulse wave. Ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) was applied to PTT to decompose the signal into different intrinsic mode function, and respiratory oscillation and trend component (baseline) in PTT were further extracted. It was found that the respiratory oscillations in the PTT increased with decreasing of the PB rate, and many of the subjects (14 out of 22) showed the phenomena of PTT baseline increasing during the stepwise PB procedure. The results indicated that the stepwise PB procedure induced a high level of cardiovascular oscillation and produced an accumulative effect of PTT baseline increase. As PTT is capable of predicting changes in BP over a short period of time, increase of PTT baseline indicates the decrease of blood pressure. The experiments showed that the stepwise PB procedure could reduce blood pressure for most subjects. For future work, it is necessary to develop certain indices differentiating the effectiveness of the stepwise PB procedure on the PTT baseline change, and to test the effectiveness of this stepwise PB procedure on blood pressure reduction for patients with essential hypertension.
Adult ; Blood Pressure ; Blood Pressure Determination ; Electrocardiography ; Essential Hypertension ; Humans ; Hypertension ; Pulse Wave Analysis ; Respiration ; Respiratory Rate

In comparison with the measurement of heart rate variability from ECG and from photoplethysmographic signal from 46 healthy adults in their spontaneous breathing state. The beat-to-beat intervals in ECG and pulse-to-pulse intervals in photoplethysmographic signal are extracted, and then the parameters of heart rate variability are calculated. Three kinds of algorithms are chosen to get the pulse-to-pulse intervals, which are the intervals of maximum of second derivative, the maximum of PPG signal and the tangent intersection. The results show that the correlation coefficients of the HRV parameters in the two calculation methods are highly correlated. The Bland-Altman scattered plots show the relative bias results from the algorithm of the maximum of PPG signal are smallest and singular points that deviate from the consistent limits are the least compared with the other two algorithms.
Adult ; Algorithms ; Electrocardiography ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Photoplethysmography ; Reproducibility of Results

This paper introduces a free and publicly open ICU database: multi-parameter intelligent monitoring in intensive care II: MIMIC-II, which has been built up and maintained by the laboratory of computational physiology at the Massachusetts Institute Technology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Philips Healthcare over the past decade. This paper briefly introduces its infrastructure, implementation and applications in clinical studies. Clinical study pertaining to circadian variation in heart rate and blood pressure during sepsis is shown as a typical example of research performed with MIMIC-II. In this study, it was found there was significant difference in circadian variation in both heart rate and blood pressure between survival and non-survival groups in septic patients. This study tackled several important techniques necessary for the investigation of the circadian rhythm.
Blood Pressure ; Circadian Rhythm ; Critical Care ; Data Mining ; Databases, Factual ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Medical Informatics

Objective To develop a software for communication interface of laboratory analyzer for single-way or two-way communication of laboratory analyzer so as to ensure the data accuracy.Methods Based on PowerBuilder 9.0,MSCOMM.OCX was programmed to connect PC and the laboratory analyzer by right settings of communication parameters.Results All data were received stably and accurately without errors in running.This software replaced manual recording absolutely.Conclusion The communication interface software for laboratory analyzers not only realizes automatic data acquisition to the greatest extend and ensures the accuracy,but also makes the laboratory working procedure more reasonable and data management more standardized.

Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis technology based on an autoregressive (AR) model is widely used in the assessment of autonomic nervous system function. The order of AR models has important influence on the accuracy of HRV analysis. This article presents a method to determine the optimum order of AR models. After acquiring the ECG signal of 46 healthy adults in their natural breathing state and extracting the beat-to-beat intervals (RRI) in the ECG, we used two criteria, i. e. final prediction error (FPE) criterion to estimate the optimum model order for AR models, and prediction error whiteness test to decide the reliability of the model. We compared the frequency domain parameters including total power, power in high frequency (HF), power in low frequency (LF), LF power in normalized units and ratio of LF/HF of our HRV analysis to the results of Kubios-HRV. The results showed that the correlation coefficients of the five parameters between our methods and Kubios-HRV were greater than 0.95, and the Bland-Altman plot of the parameters was in the consistent band. The results indicate that the optimization algorithm of HRV analysis based on AR models proposed in this paper can obtain accurate results, and the results of this algorithm has good coherence with those of the Kubios-HRV software in HRV analysis.
Adult ; Autonomic Nervous System ; Electrocardiography ; Heart Rate ; Humans ; Models, Cardiovascular ; Reproducibility of Results ; Software