Incidence of dilated cardiomyopathy of children is increasing in recent years. But, the pathogenesis remains obscure. Genetic factor. viral infection, autoimmunity and apoptosis may play some important roles in the pathogenesis of dilated cardiomyopathy. We will summarize the progress in pathogenesis of dilated cardiomyopathy of children.

Objective To study the effect of chitosan-pCrmA nanoparticles on the apoptosis of chondrocytes induced by interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β).Methods Chitosan-pDNA nanoparticles were prepared and characterized.The transfection efficiency of chitosan-mediated pIRES2-EGFP was evaluated using fluorescence microscope.The cytotoxicity of chitosan-pIRES2-EGFP nanoparticles in primary rabbit chondrocytes was analyzed by MTT assay.The expression of chitosan-mediated pCrmA in primary rabbit chondrocytes was verified by Western blotting.The effect of chitosan-mediated CrmA on chondrocytes apoptosis induced by IL-1β were analyzed by TUNEL assay.One-way ANOVA was used to analysis.Results The size of chitosan-pDNA nanoparticles was 50 nm.The pDNA release of chitosan-pDNA nanoparticles appeared as biphasic release at pH 2.0 and pH 7.4 buffer.The expression of CrmA in rabbit primary chondrocytes mediated by chitosan could be detected.The chitosan-pIRES2-EGFP nanoparticles had no cytotoxicity.The apoptosis rate of chondrocytes in the chitosan-pCrmA nanoparticles treated group was significantly lower than that of the chitosan treated group (P＜0.05) and PBS group (P＜0.01).Conclsion Chitosan is an effective non-viral gene transfer vector.The CrmA mediated by chitosan can significantly inhibit chondrocytes apoptosis induced by IL-1β,suggesting that chitosan-pCrmA nanoparticles may be the treatment of osteoarthrifis.

OBJECTIVETo assess the diagnostic efficacy of contrast-enhanced CT in diagnosing mandibular invasion of oral cancers.

METHODSPubMed, Excerpta Medica Database (EMBASE), the European Grey Literature Database, Chinese Biomedical Literature Database (CBM), and CQVIP were searched electronically on January 03, 2014. Hand-searching was also performed on 19 relevant Chinese journals. The methodological quality assessment, as suggested in Cochrane Handbook, and the data extraction of the studies included were performed by two reviewers in duplicate. Meta-analysis was conducted using the Meta Disc 1.4 software.

RESULTSFourteen studies that involved 642 participants were included. Among the seven prospective studies, one had a low bias risk and the rest had unclear bias risks. When mandibular invasion was diagnosed the Meta-analysis results showed that the pooled sensitivity (SEN) was 0.718 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.665-0.767], the pooled specificity (SPE) was 0.909 (95% CI, 0.872-0.938), the area under curve (AUC) was 0.906 1, and the Q* was 0.837 8. When mandibular medullary invasion was diagnosed, the SEN was 0.787 (0.643-0.893), the SPE was 0.904 (0.790-0.968), the AUC was 0.949 6, and the Q* was 0.890 0. The Meta-regression results showed that the smaller slide thickness had a higher diagnosis efficacy.

CONCLUSIONCT showed a high efficacy in diagnosing mandibular or medullary invasion caused by oral cancers. With a high SPE, contrast-enhanced CT can confirm the clinical diagnosis of bone invasion effectively. In addition, selecting a smaller slide thickness CT can increase diagnosis efficacy.

Humans ; Mandible ; Mouth Neoplasms ; Neoplasm Invasiveness ; Prospective Studies ; Sensitivity and Specificity ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed

To realize the accurate positioning and quantitative volume measurement of tumor in head and neck tumor CT images, we proposed a level set method based on augmented gradient. With the introduction of gradient information in the edge indicator function, our proposed level set model is adaptive to different intensity variation, and achieves accurate tumor segmentation. The segmentation result has been used to calculate tumor volume. In large volume tumor segmentation, the proposed level set method can reduce manual intervention and enhance the segmentation accuracy. Tumor volume calculation results are close to the gold standard. From the experiment results, the augmented gradient based level set method has achieved accurate head and neck tumor segmentation. It can provide useful information to computer aided diagnosis.
Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted ; Head and Neck Neoplasms ; pathology ; Humans ; Tomography, X-Ray Computed ; Tumor Burden

Anterolateral thigh flap is perfect for reconstructing maxillofacial soft tissue defects. This tissue has been widely used by clinicians, but often causes operation difficulties because of vascular variation. In this paper, we report a case where anteromedial thigh was used as new donor site when the vascular anatomic variation of anterolateral thigh perforator flap induced a failure in the flap harvest. Moreover, this paper discusses the anatomy and application of anteromedial thigh flap.
Humans ; Maxillofacial Abnormalities ; surgery ; Perforator Flap ; Reconstructive Surgical Procedures ; methods ; Thigh ; surgery

With the development of the hospital information technology management, to improve the clinic service quality and reduce medical errors, automatic identification technology has been widely used in health care areas. This technology has been used in our hospital for patient identification, sample identification, drug identification and equipment identification. Combined with wireless networks, mobile terminals and middleware etc., making the whole process of clinic service closed-loop system. This application improves efficiency, reduces mistakes and puts whole clinical service management process under control.
Health Services Administration ; Hospital Administration ; Medical Records Systems, Computerized

Lateral thoracic flap is a free flap for the reconstruction of soft tissue defects and has been previously used in oral and maxillofacial surgeries. We reported a case involving a huge soft tissue defect on the parotid region caused by the resection of parotid epithelial myoepithelial carcinoma. We discussed the anatomy and application of the lateral thoracic flap.
Carcinoma ; Free Tissue Flaps ; Humans ; Middle Aged ; Parotid Region ; Reconstructive Surgical Procedures ; Surgical Flaps

Objective To analyze the distribution, survival conditions, and medical support of newly diagnosed occupational pneumoconiosis (hereinafter referred to as pneumoconiosis) patients in Zhangdian District, Zibo City. Methods A total of 1 189 newly diagnosed pneumoconiosis patients in Zhangdian District from 1956 to 2019 were selected as the study subjects using retrospective method. Data of their age of onset, years of occupational exposure, category of working industry, type of pneumoconiosis, and status of medical support was collected and analyzed. Results The median and the 25th-75th percentiles ［M (P₂₅, P₇₅)］ of the age of onset were 51.8 (45.5, 56.1) years, and the mortality was 37.0%. The majority of pneumoconiosis cases were silicosis (45.2%) and coal workers' pneumoconiosis (39.8%). The highest prevalence of pneumoconiosis was in the coal mining and washing industry (42.4%), followed by manufacturing (33.4%). Pneumoconiosis patients in stage Ⅰ,Ⅱ, and Ⅲ accounted for 89.1%, 8.7%, and 2.2%, respectively. The M (P₂₅, P₇₅) of the length of work exposed to dust were 24.1 (16.5, 29.9) years.The higher stage of pneumoconiosis the shorter of the length of work exposed to dust among these pneumoconiosis patients(all P<0.05). The overall survival rate, the 5-year survival rate and the 10-year survival rate of these pneumoconiosis patients were 63.0%, 92.3% and 85.9%, respectively. Among the 749 surviving cases, 60.8% were aged 60.0 to <80.0 years. In terms of social security, 100.0% surviving cases enjoyed basic medical insurance, meanwhile, 96.1% and 81.8% patients were covered by major medical insurances and occupational injury insurances, respectively. The M (P₂₅, P₇₅) of age at death were 73.1 (64.0, 77.1) years. The main causes of death were respiratory diseases (59.3%) and malignant tumors (20.4%). Conclusion The prevalent types of pneumoconiosis in Zhangdian District, Zibo City, are coal workers' pneumoconiosis and silicosis. Medical support and assistance are relatively limited. The pneumoconiosis prevention and control focus should be on silicosis and coal workers' pneumoconiosis, particularly in the manufacturing industry.

AIMOn the model of limb ischemia/reperfusion (LIR), the effects of taurine on pulmonary morphological changes in rats were observed.

METHODSWistar rats were divided into three groups (n=8): control group, ischemia/reperfusion group (IR) and taurine + IR (Tau + IR). Then macroscopic inspection and optical and transmission electron microscopies (TEM) were performed to assess the morphological changes of the lung tissues and their lung index (LI) and lung permeability index (LPI) and reactive oxygen species (ROS), malondialdehyde (MDA) were measured as well.

RESULTSThe morphological changes of lung tissue after LIR were characterized by an increase of permeability of the alveoli-capillary membrane and infiltration of inflammatory cells. Under optical microscopy, there were congestion and swelling in pulmonary microvessels with broadened the spaces around the blood vessels. Under TEM, a number of tight-junctional regions between adjacent alveolar epithelial cells and between pulmonary microvessels endothelium were "open". The LI, LPI, MDA and ROS increased. The specimens of Taurine + IR group revealed slight to moderate degrees of damages in the lung tissues.

CONCLUSIONTaurine protects lung from LIR in rats and the protective action on tight-junctional regions between cells and anti-oxygen is one of the protective mechanisms of taurine.

Animals ; Hindlimb ; blood supply ; Lung ; drug effects ; pathology ; Lung Injury ; prevention & control ; Male ; Malondialdehyde ; analysis ; Rats ; Rats, Wistar ; Reactive Oxygen Species ; analysis ; Reperfusion Injury ; prevention & control ; Taurine ; pharmacology ; Tight Junctions ; metabolism

To investigate the changes of platelet activated state and platelet activated function by trace whole blood flow cytometry (FCM), and to explore the mechanism of hemorrhage and infiltration in adults with acute leukemia, the expression percentage and changes of these expressions of CD62p and PAC-1 on platelet surface were determined by FCM of trace whole blood after platelet activated by ADP in patients with new diagnosed AL (group I), complete remission (CR, group II) and continuously complete remission (CCR, group III). Healthy adults were used as control group. The result showed that the expression of CD62p in group I and II was higher than that in control group, before and after platelet activated by ADP (P < 0.01). The expression of PAC-1 in group I was higher than that in control group (P < 0.01), the expression of PAC-1 in group II was lower than that in control group (P > 0.01), There was no significant difference in expression of CD62p and PAC-1 between group III and control group (P > 0.01), and no significant difference was found between AL group with megakaryocyte malignant pathological changes and AL group without megakaryocyte malignant pathological changes before platelet activated by ADP (P > 0.01). After platelet activated by ADP, the expression of PAC-1 in the former was lower than that in the latter (P < 0.01). It is concluded that (1) high level activated platelet in peripheral blood of AL patients show that interaction between activated platelet and leukemia cells can be one of reason resulting in widespread hemorrhage and infiltration AL patiens; (2) the decrease of number and activted function of platelet at the first stage of AL patients may be caused by malignant hyperplasia of leukemia cells and damage of megakaryopoiesis in bone marrow.
Acute Disease ; Adenosine Diphosphate ; pharmacology ; Adolescent ; Adult ; Aged ; Blood Platelets ; cytology ; metabolism ; Cell Membrane ; drug effects ; metabolism ; Female ; Flow Cytometry ; Humans ; Leukemia ; blood ; pathology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; P-Selectin ; biosynthesis ; Platelet Activation ; drug effects ; physiology ; Platelet Glycoprotein GPIIb-IIIa Complex ; biosynthesis