OBJECTIVE: To investigate the information acquired through the four diagnostic methods of traditional Chinese medicine in patients with bronchial asthma, and to classify the syndrome types. METHODS: Four hundred and thirty patients with bronchial asthma were randomly investigated. The information acquired through the four diagnostic methods was recorded and the database was established by Amos software, and then the data were analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). RESULTS: After analyzing the data with 4 factors, 5 factors and 6 factors, we found that the results of CFA with 6 factors were in accordance with clinical practical experience. CONCLUSION: According to the results of CFA with 6 factors and with the standard regression coefficient 0.4 as primary and secondary critical points, the syndromes in patients with bronchial asthma can be classified into 5 types, which are syndromes of cold fluid retained in lung, phlegm-heat obstructing lung, wind-phlegm blocking lung, qi deficiency of lung and kidney and qi deficiency of spleen.

Objective The aim of the present study is to measure multi-directional strain in patients with hyperuricemia through 3-dimensional speckle-tracking echocardiography (3D-STE) in order to investigate the left ventricular function early changes and clinical application value of 3D-STE. Methods 3-dimension dynamic images of left ventricular full volume in Apical 4-chamber heart view was collected and stored. 3-dimensional specke-tracking technology was applied to measure and compare the left ventricular multi-directional strain of patients with hyperuricemia and healthy controls in order to evaluate the left ventricular systolic function. Results A total of 24 healthy controls and 38 patients with hyperuricemia were included into the study. Among them,patients with hyperuricemia were divided into simple hyperuricemia group(n=12), hyperuricemia complicated with hyperlipidemia group (n=16)and hyperuricemia complicated with both hyper-tension and hyperlipidemia group (n=10). The circumferential strain [(-18.8±4.4)% vs (-25.9±6.4)%, t=-3.48, P=0.001] and area strain [(-31.2±3.9)% vs (-36.8±7.1)%, t=-2.55, P=0.018] of patients with simple hyper-uricemia significantly decreased compared with healthy controls. Besides, the circumferential strain [(-19.9 ± 5.8)% vs (-25.9 ±6.4)%, t=-3.02, P=0.002], longitudinal strain [(-12.6 ±3.3)% vs (-14.4 ±2.5)%, t=-1.95, P=0.038] and area strain [(-29.9±6.6)% vs (-25.9±6.4)%, t=-3.15, P=0.001] of patients with hyperuricemia complicated with hyperlipidemia significantly decreased compared with healthy controls. Conclusion Myo-cardial strain of patients with hyperuricemia complicated with hyperlipidemia or not is both decreased, indicating a decline in left ventricular systolic function.

Objective To observe the morphological changes of carotid artery wall by ultrasonography in patients with Takayasu arteritis,and to evaluate the diagnostic value of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography for active Takayasu arteritis.Methods High-frequency ultrasound technique was used to analyze the morphological changes of the carotid artery in 40 patients.NIH score was used as the gold standard and the complete clinical data and acute phase reactors were recorded.T test,Chi-square test,sensitivity and specificity were calculated for statistical analysis.Results The thickness of carotid artery wall in active group was much more thickened than the non-active group [(2.2±0.6) mm vs (1.8±0.5) mm,t=-2.142,P＜0.05].The CDD [(0.89±0.06) in active group vs (0.95±0.03) in non-active group,t=3.683,P＜0.01] and RDD [(0.17±0.06 in active group vs (0.09±0.05) in non-active group,t=-4.020,P＜0.01] were significantly different between the two groups.The distribution of neovascularization in the carotid artery wall of the active group was more diffuse in the central part of the wall.The sensitivity and specificity of contrast-enhanced ultrasonography to diagnose the active of Takayasu arteritis were 72.7％ and 87.5％ respectively,and the positive predictive value and the negative predictive value were 80.0％ and 82.4％ respectively.Conclusion Contrast-enhanced ultrasonography can be used as an effective way to assess the disease activity of TA patients.

Objective:To propose a new robust optimization method, known as modified worst case method, was proposed, which can enable users to control the trade-off between nominal plan quality and plan robustness.Methods:In each iteration of the plan optimization process, the dose value of each voxel in nine scenarios, which corresponded to a nominal scenario and eight perturbed scenarios with range or set-up uncertainties, were calculated and the maximum of deviations of each scenario voxel dose from that of the nominal scenario was included as an additive robust optimization term in the objective function. A weighting factor p robust was used to this robust optimization term to balance the nominal plan quality and plan robustness. Results:The robust optimization methods were implemented and compared in an in-house developed robust optimization module. When p robust=0.8, compared with conventional optimization, the ΔD 95% of CTV was reduced from 9.8 Gy to 7.6 Gy. When p robust was reduced from 1 to 0, ΔD 95% was increased from 7.0 Gy to 9.8 Gy, whereas the D 95% and D max of CTV, and the D 5% and D max of organs at risk (OAR) in the nominal scenario were reduced. Conclusions:The proposed modified worst case method can effectively improve the robustness of the plan to the range and set-up uncertainties. Besides, the weighting factor p robust in this method can be adopted to control the trade-off between nominal plan quality and plan robustness.

OBJECTIVE：To study the effects a nd mechanism of X iaozheng decoction on the proliferation and migration of uterine leiomyoma cells in rat. METHODS ：Female SD rats were randomly divided into normal control group ，model group ， chemical medicine positive control group （Mifepristone tablets ，2.25 mg/kg），TCM positive control group （Guizhi fuling capsules ， 200 mg/kg），Xiaozheng decoction low-dose ，medium-dose and high-dose groups （1.4，2.8，5.6 g/kg），with 15 rats in each group. Except for normal control group ，other groups were given intramuscular injection of estrogen and progesterone to induce uterine leiomyomas model. On the second day after modeling ，rats in administration groups were given relevant medicine intragastrically ； normal control group and model group were given constant volume of normal saline intragastrically ，once a day ，for consecutive 4 months. After last administration ，the uterus was removed and its morphology was observed ；the uterine coefficient was calculated. Uterine leiomyoma cells or uterine smooth muscle cells were isolated and cultured. The proliferation rate and migration rate of cells were detected by MTT method and cell scratch test ；flow cytometry was used to detect the cell apoptosis rate ；mRNA expression of HMGB 1 were detected by RT-qPCR. The expression of phosphorylated protein kinase B （p-Akt），nuclear factor κB inhibitor α （IκBα）and phosphorylated transforming growth factor β-activated kinase 1（p-TAK1）were detected by ELISA ；the protein expression of HMGB 1，phospholipid 3 kinase（PI3K），p-Akt in cytoplasm and nuclear factor κB p65（NF-κB p65）in nucleus were detected by Western blot assay. RESULTS ：Compared with normal control g roup，the myometrium of the model group was significantly thickened ，the number of uterine smooth muscle cells were significantly increased and the sizes were 83777930。E-mail：jianghua_ouyang@126.com different，the arrangement of muscle fibers in so me areas was disordered，the uterine coefficient ，and the relative expression of HMGB 1 mRNA and protein were increased significantly （P＜ 0.01）. Compared with model group ，the thickening of uterine myometrium and other symptoms were improved to different extents in Xiaozheng decoction groups and positive control groups ；the uterine coefficient ，cell proliferation rate ，migration rate ，mRNA and protein expression of HMGB 1，the expression of p-Akt and IκBα，protein expression of PI 3K and p-Akt （except for Xiaozheng decoction low-dose group ）in cytoplasm were all decreased significantly （P＜0.05 or P＜0.01）；the cell apoptosis rate ，the expression of p-TAK 1，protein expression of NF-κB p65 in nucleus were all increased significantly （P＜0.05 or P＜0.01）. The effects of Xiaozheng decoction showed a dose-dependent trend. CONCLUSIONS ：Xiaozheng decoction can inhibit the proliferation and migration of uterine leiomyoma cells by down-regulating the expression of HMGB 1，PI3K and p-Akt ，up-regulating the expression of NF-κB p65，so as to promote cell apoptosis.

Objective To evaluate the performance of Positron emision tomography (PET) in the assessment of disease activity of Takayasu arteritis (TA). Methods Information retrieval was based on database such as PubMed/Medline and CNKI, etc. The research before Dec 2016 involving Takayasu arteritis and PET were included.The quality of the research was evaluated by diagnostic accuracy studies-2Q(UADAS-2) and the data was analyzed by Meta-disc. Results Among the 70 research, nine studies were included in this study with a total of 126 patients and 254 controls. All patients were diagnosed according to the classification criteria of American College of Rheumatology. The disease activity was mostly assessed by the scoring system of National Institutes of Health and by clinical assessment in one study. The result of PET was evaluated by visual grade and semi-quantitative analysis. The pooled DOR of the 9 studies was 17.54, the pooled sensitivity and specificity was 84% and 73%,respectively.However,the heterogeneity of specificity was 81.4%. Two studies had included one patients repeatedly and suspected active patients were included in the in-active group in one study,which might impact the statistical result of the meta-analysis.After excluded these studies, the pooled DOR was 30.32. The pooled sensitivity and specificity was 86% and 85%, respectively, with better consistency. Conclusion PET shows stable sensitivity and variant specificity in the diagnosis and assess of disease activity of TA, which is a useful method in the clinically evaluation of disease activity of TA.