Expansion of services offered by the department of anaesthesiology in a hospital not only satisfies social needs but also conforms to the hospitals need for survival and development. Hence some hospitals have adopted the following methods to expand the services offered by their department of anaesthesiology: ①improvement of the anaesthesiologists skills; and ②delivery of such additional services as painless childbirth, deep vein tube placement, dressing change and pain easing for patients with extensive burn, fast extrication from drugs, painless endoscopy and treatment of pain. With the improvement of the expertise and the service quality of the department of anaesthesiology, sound social and economic benefits have been obtained.

AIM: To investigate the effects of advanced glycation end products on activation of Smad signaling pathway and collagenⅠ synthesis in proximal tubular epithelial cells.METHODS: Advanced glycation end products(AGE-BSA) were prepared by incubation of bovine serum albumin(BSA) with D-glucose.Normal rat proximal tubular epithelial(NRK52E) cells were cultured in RPMI-1640 medium with AGE-BSA.Phosphorylation and nuclear translocation of Smad2/3 were examined by immunocytochemistry.Levels of TGF-?_1 in supernatant of cell culture were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA).Expression of TGF-?_1,Smad2,Smad3 and Smad7 mRNA were detected by RT-PCR.Expression of ?-SMA,E-cadherin and collagenⅠproteins were detected by Western blotting.RESULTS: AGE-BSA induced Smad2/3 phosphorylation and nuclear translocation,two peaks occured at 30 min(68% vs 16%,P

PURPOSE: Low-dose theophylline has anti-inflammatory effects. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of adding theophylline compared with increasing the dose of inhaled corticosteroid (ICS) on symptomatic asthma. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The associated literature was acquired through deliberate searching and selected based on the established inclusion criteria for publications. The extracted data were further analyzed by a meta-analysis RESULTS: Four randomized, controlled, parallel studies were selected. Addition of theophylline produced a greater increase of forced expiratory volume in one second as %predicted (FEV1pred) by 2.49% [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.99-3.00; z = 9.70; p < 0.001], compared with increasing the dose of ICS. There was no difference between the two treatments in terms of peak expiratory flow (PEF). CONCLUSION: Addition of theophylline to ICS has similar therapeutic effects on improving lung function as increasing the dose of ICS in the treatment of symptomatic asthma.
Adrenal Cortex Hormones/administration & dosage/*therapeutic use ; Anti-Asthmatic Agents/administration & dosage/*therapeutic use ; Asthma/*drug therapy ; Forced Expiratory Volume/drug effects ; Humans ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic ; Theophylline/*therapeutic use ; Treatment Outcome