Adjuvant treatment, which includes chemotherapy and endocrine therapy, for early breast cancer may impair bone den-sity, resulting in bone loss. The third generation bisphosphonate-zoledronic is an anti-resorptive agent that inhibits osteoclast-mediated bone resorption. This drug can be mainly used in the treatment of hypercalcemia caused by bone metastases of the cancer. The Zome-ta-Femara Adjuvant Synergy Trial revealed that immediate zoledronic acid and endocrine therapy not only prevents bone loss, but also reduces recurrence. The Austrian Breast and Colorectal Cancer Study Group-12 (ABCSG-12) also confirmed that zoledronic acid, when combined with endocrine therapy, could reduce the risk of cancer disease progression and death. Moreover, preclinical studies and clini-cal trials have demonstrated the synergistic antitumor effects of chemotherapy and zoledronic acid. Neo-adjuvant zoledronic acid to re-duce recurrence trials showed that the addition of zoledronic acid to adjuvant chemotherapy significantly reduced the risk of disease pro-gression and death in postmenopausal women more than five years postmenopause at the beginning of the study or over 60 years of age at the baseline. The ABCSG-12 subgroup analysis based on age (≤40 years or>40 years) also showed that zoledronic acid can signifi-cantly improve the prognosis in women who were over 40 years at the study entry. These results suggest that zoledronic acid administra-tion in patients with lowered estrogen levels (naturally or as a consequence of adjuvant treatment) easily exerts anti-tumor effects. How-ever, the optimal dose and duration of zoledronic acid requires further studies. More clinical trials should be performed to provide suffi-cient evidence to support the effectiveness of zoledronic acid in the treatment of early breast cancer.

Trastuzumab is a specific inhibitor against human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER-2). Trastuzumab is widely used in the neo-adjuvant treatment of HER-2 breast cancer. Large-scale randomized and controlled clinical trials have demonstrated that pathologic complete response rates (pCRs) were significantly increased with neo-adjuvant trastuzumab therapy plus chemotherapy than with regular chemotherapy. The use of trastuzumab plus chemotherapy with lapatinib supplements could further improve pCR rates. An-thracycline and non-anthracycline drugs could both be used concurrently with trastuzumab. Endocrine therapy could be used as an alter-native for estrogen receptor-positive patients. pCR is a powerful predictor of long-term outcomes in HER-2 positive patients under neo-adjuvant therapy with trastuzumab. However, patient loss of HER-2 expression with residual disease after neo-adjuvant therapy with trastuzumab is a poor prognostic factor. This study paper will provide a review of related research.

OBJECTIVE:To evaluate the cost-effectiveness of3kinds of traditional Chinese medicinal injectable prepa?rations in the treatment of children's fever caused by exogenous pathogens METHODS:44cases were assigned to receive Qin_ gkailing injection(Group A),Shuanghuanglian for injection(Group B)and heartleaf houttuynia herb injection(Group C),re?spectively.The curative effects of the3groups were observed and the cost-effectiveness analysis were conducted as well.RESULTS:The costs for the3groups were28.68yuan,45.00yuan and59.40yuan,respectively;the total effective rates were80.00%,86.67%and85.71%,respectively;the cost-effectiveness ratios of the3were35.85,51.92and69.30,re?spectively;the incremental cost-effectiveness ratios of Group B and C were244.68and538.00,respectively as compared with Group A.CONCLUSION:Qingkailing injection(Group A)is the preferred option in the treatment of children's fever caused by exogenous pathogens.

Humans ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; methods ; Phytotherapy ; methods ; Spinal Cord Injuries ; therapy

Adult ; Aged ; Breast Neoplasms ; pathology ; surgery ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Lymph Node Excision ; methods ; Mastectomy, Modified Radical ; Middle Aged ; Ultrasonic Therapy ; methods ; Young Adult

Objective To identify the clinical characteristics and prognostic factors in young women of breast cancer treated with breast conservation therapy.Methods Clinical data of 605 cases of breast cancer patients undergoing breast conserving therapy were reviewed in our hospital from Jan 1998 to July 2008.According to their age,these patients were divided into young group (age≤ 35 years,n =110 cases) and the elderly group (age ＞ 35 years,n =495 cases).Survival factors were analyzed by Cox proportional hazards regression model.Results During the median follow-up of 61 months,the 5-year local-regional relapse-free survival was 92.6％ and 96.8％,respectively (P =0.074) ; the 5-year distant metastasis-free survival and overall survival between the two groups were (89.7％ vs.95.2％,P =0.001)and (96.4％ vs.98.9％,P =0.046).Multivariate analysis revealed that lymph node metastasis and adjuvant radiotherapy were independent risk factors for local-regional relapse.Distant metastasis and overall survival were determined by lymph node metastasis,adjuvant radiotherapy and age.Conclusions Age is not an independent factors affecting tumor local recurrence in Chinese young female patients of early breast cancer receiving breast conserving surgical therapy.

Objective:To evaluate the effects of resin infiltration in the treatment of post-orthodontic white spot lesions (WSLs)and compare it with microabrasion.Methods:1 0 subjects with 66 teeth with noncavitated and unrestored WSLs after multibracket treatment were recruited.A simple randomized,split-mouth and controlled design was used to allocate WSLs to the resin infiltration and micro-abrasion groups(n =33).The area of the WSLs were measured photographically by using image analysis software before treatment (T0),1 week(T2)and 3 months(T3)after treatment.Data were analyzed with multifactorial analysis of the variances with repeated measures at an a level of 5% and a power of 80%.Results:The area of the white spot lesions(R)decreased significantly in both groups(P <0.05).At T3 the success rate of resin infiltration group(88.68%)was significantly higher than that of microabrasion group (64.67%)(P <0.05).Conclusion:Resin infiltration is more effective than microabrasion in the treatment of post-orthodontic WSLs.

A thiosulfate-oxidizing bacterium TX was isolated from polysulfide wastewater treatment system.It was preliminarily identified as Halothiobacillus sp.according to its morphological,physiological proper-ties and similarity analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequence(GenBank accession No.EU871645).This bacte-rium was an obligate chemolithoautotrophic sulfur-oxidizing bacterium since it could utilize thiosulfate,elemental sulfur,tetrathionate,sulfide or sulfite as sole energy source but did not show growth on the me-dium with glucose,sucrose,fructose,lactose,mannose or yeast extract as sole carbon source.The optimal growth condition for thiosulfate oxidation was 30?C~35?C and pH 3.0~5.0 respectively.Significant reduc-tion in medium pH from 4.0 to 1.2 was observed due to oxidation of thiosulfate to sulfate during the batch culture incubation period.During the course of thiosulfate oxidation accumulation of tetrathionate was ob-served either in synthetic medium or in the mixed liquor from aeration tank of the polysulfide wastewater treatment system.This indicates that the "S4 intermediate(S4I)" pathway was responsible for thiosulfate oxidation in this bacterium.

Objective To explore the clinical features and prognostic factors of breast cancer during pregnancy and lactation.Methods A retrospective analysis was performed on 77 patients admitted to the Tianjin Cancer Hospital from January 2002 to December 2012.According to when the cancer was found,these patients were divided into the pregnancy group (n =23) and the lactation group (n =54).Survival rate was calculated by life table,Multivariate factors for survival were analyzed by COX proportional hazards regression model.Results The mean maximum diameter of the tumor was 5.9 cm,49 cases had axillary lymph node metastasis.Compared with the lactation group,the patients in pregnancy group had larger tumor diameter,the mean diameter was 6.8 cm (P =0.031).The median follow-up time was 39 months and 5-year disease-free survival (DFS) rate and 5-year overall survival (OS) rate were 52.6％ and 61.8％,respectively.Multivariate analysis showed that the independent factors of DFS and OS were breastfeeding and tumor size.Conclusions Diagnosis of breast cancer daring pregnancy and lactation were usually delayed and often in late TNM stage.Breastfeeding and tumor size are independent prognostic factors.

Objective To propose an automatic framework for segmentation of brain image in this paper. Methods The brain MRI image segmentation framework consists of three-step segmentation procedures. First, Non-brain structures removal by level set method. Then, the non-uniformity correction method is based on computing estimates of tissue intensity variation. Finally, it uses a statistical model based on Markov random filed for MRI brain image segmentation. The brain tissue can be classified into cerebrospinal fluid, white matter and gray matter. Results To evaluate the proposed our method, we performed two sets of experiments, one on simulated MR and another on real MR brain data. Conclusion The efficacy of the brain MRI image segmentation framework has been demonstrated by the extensive experiments. In the future, we are also planning on a large-scale clinical evaluation of this segmentation framework.