OBJECTIVETo systematically evaluate the effects of finasteride on hematuria associated with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH).

METHODSWe electronically searched MEDLINE (December 1966-April 2009), EMBASE (December 1974-April 2009), The Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2009), CNKI (December 1994-April 2009), VIP (December 1989-April 2009) and CBM (December 1978-April 2009) , and handsearched several relevant journals as well. Randomized controlled trials were assessed with the methods recommended by the Cochrane Collaboration. The data were screened and systematically analyzed by at least two reviewers independently using the RevMan 5.0 software.

RESULTSCompared with the placebo control group, the finasteride group showed a significantly decreased incidence of hematuria during the 12 months follow-up period (OR 0.11, 95% CI: 0.06-0.21, P < 0.05).

CONCLUSIONFinasteride has desirable therapeutic and preventive effects on BPH-associated hematuria. More well-designed multicentered randomized controlled trials of large sample size are invited to provide further evidence for this conclusion.

Finasteride ; therapeutic use ; Hematuria ; drug therapy ; etiology ; prevention & control ; Humans ; Male ; Prostatic Hyperplasia ; complications ; drug therapy ; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic

Objective To develop a network system for radiotherapy.Methods Delphi 6.0 lan- guage was used to program the system based on PACS through the model of client-server machine and local network.Data of different facilities were transferred among each other through Dicom 3.0 and Dicom RT pro- tocol.Results The main function of this system was a management software for radiotherapy,a PACS sys- tem,a TPS system and a therapeutic machine system.Conclusion The network system operates steadily with data safe and reliable,and is an important part of the information construction in the department of radio- therapy

OBJECTIVETo compare the efficacy difference between acupuncture and western medication in the treatment of knee osteoarthritis.

METHODSOne hundred and twenty cases were randomly divided into an acupunc ture group and a western medication group, 60 cases in each group. In acupuncture group, acupuncture was applied mainly to Neixiyan (EX-LE 4), Dubi (ST 35), Yinlingquan (SP 9) and Yanglingquan (GB 34) and to the other acupoints selected according to syndrome differentiation. In western medication group, Glucosamine Hydrochloride capsules were applied for oral administration, 2 capsules each time, 3 times per day. Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC)and Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36, Chinese version) were used to assess the therapeutic effect before treatment, after 4 weeks treatment and in follow-up visit of 9 weeks after treatment separately.

RESULTSAfter 4 weeks treatment, the total effective rate was 86.7% (52/60) in acupuncture group and was 88.3% (53/60) in western medication group, indicating no statistical significant difference in the comparison between two groups (P > 0.05). In 9 weeks after treatment, the total effective rate was 83.3% (50/60) in acupuncture group, which was better than 61.7% (37/60, P < 0.05) in western medication group. The scores of WOMAC and SF-36 were all improved after treatment as compared with those before treatment in two groups (P < 0.05, P < 0.01). There were no significant differences in comparison between two groups after 4 weeks treatment (all P > 0.05). But, in follow-up visit of 9 weeks after treatment, the scores of WOMAC and SF-36 in acupuncture group were superior to those in western medication group (P < 0.05, P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONThe short-term efficacies on osteoarthritis of knee in acupuncture group according to syndrome differentiation are similar to that of oral adiministration of Glucosamine Hydrochloride, but the long-term efficacy in acupuncture group is better than that in western medication group.

Activities of Daily Living ; Acupuncture Points ; Acupuncture Therapy ; Adult ; Aged ; Aged, 80 and over ; Female ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Osteoarthritis, Knee ; diagnosis ; therapy ; Treatment Outcome ; Walking

Objective To investigate the clinical and molecular genetic changes in a Chinese family with oculopha?ryngeal muscular dystrophy(OPMD). Methods We collected the clinical data of the familial members and blood sam?ples from all available 16 familial members, including the proband. The samples were analyzed using modified poly?merase chain reaction amplification and direct sequence analysis. Results Male OPMD patients initially presented with ptosis, followed by pronunciation difficulty, dysphagia and limb weakness whereas female OPMD patients initially pre?sented with swallowing difficulty. Genetic test revealed the abnormal expansions of the GCG trinucleotide repeat from GCG6 to GCG10 in PABPN1 gene in 10 familial members. Conclusions The genetic test and prenatal diagnosis is the key for the prevention treatment of oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy. The ptosis of eyelid may be the initial symptom for the male patients of oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy with (GCG)10 mutation.

Bone turnover is regulated by local concentrations of cytokines such as osteoprotegerin (OPG) and receptor activator of nuclear factor kappaB ligand (RANKL). To explore the in vivo biological function of Opg and the mechanism of osteoporosis due to deficiency of Opg, Opg knockout mice have been generated through homologous recombination. Opg-/- mice exhibit a sharply decrease in bone density and strength as expected. The number of osteoclasts in Opg-/- mice significantly increases. Morphologically, osteoclasts appear more cuboidal in shape in Opg-/- mice than those of wt mice, suggesting that active osteoclastogenesis occurs in the absence of Opg. In consistent with this finding, an increase of osteoblast activity was also observed with accelerated mineral accumulation rate by histomorphometric measurement and elevated serum alkaline phosphatase activity (ALP) in Opg-/- mice. Interestingly, more than 50% of 2-month-old Opg-/- mice manifest medial calcification of aorta with comparable serum concentrations of calcium and phosphorus to wt mice. In conclusion, Opg-/- mice have a high-bone-rurnover type osteoporosis. The aortic calcification in Opg-/- mice is not due to abnormality of calcium and phosphorus metabolism. The mechanism underlying aortic calcification in Opg-/- mice needs to be further investigated.

Child ; Child, Preschool ; Female ; Flow Cytometry ; methods ; Humans ; Infant ; Male ; Thrombasthenia ; classification ; diagnosis

Objective To-identify the factors associated with radiation-induced liver disease (RILD) and to describe the probability of RILD using the Lyman normal tissue complication(NTCP) model for primary liver carcinoma(PLC) treated with hypofractionated conformal therapy (CRT).Methods A total of 109 PLC patients treated with hypofractionated CRT were prospectively followed according to the Child-Pugh classification for liver cirrhosis,93 patients in class A and 16 in class B.The mean dose of radi- ation to the isocenter was (53.5?5.5) Gy,fractions of (4.8?0.5) Gy,with interfraction interval of 48 hours and irradiation 3 times per week.Maximal likelihood analysis yielded the best estimates of parameters of the Lyman NTCP model for all patients;Child-Pugh A and Child-Pugh B patients,respectively.Results Of all the patients,17 developed RILD (17/109),8 in Child-Pugh A(8/93 ) and 9 in Child-Pugh B(9/ 16).By multivariate analysis,only the Child-Pugh Grade of liver cirrhosis was the independent factor (P= 0.000) associated with the developing of RILD.The best estimates of the NTCP parameters for all 109 pa- tients were n=1.1,m=0.35 and TD_(50) (1)=38.5 Gy.The n,m,TD_(50) (1) estimated from patients with Child-Pugh A was 1.1,0.28,40.5 Gy,respectively,compared with 0.7,0.43,23 Gy respectively,for patients with Child-Pugh B.Conclusions Primary liver cancer patients who possess Child-Pugh B cirrho- sis would present a significantly greater susceptibility to RILD after hypofractionated CRT than patients with Child-Pugh A cirrhosis.The predominant risk factor for developing RILD is the severity of hepatic cirrhosis in the liver of PLC patients.

Rabies virus ; physiology

OBJECTIVETo identify a novel human leukocyte antigen (HLA) allele in Chinese and investigate its inheritance in the family.

METHODSExceptional reaction pattern was detected in HLA-B locus in HLA typing using Luminex DNA polymerase chain reaction with sequence specific oligonucleotide probe hybridization (PCR-SSOP) assay. A confirmatory test for the novel HLA allele was performed by DNA sequencing based typing of the proband's family.

RESULTSThe DNA sequence was confirmed to be a novel HLA B allele. There were 7 nucleotides which differed from the closest matching HLA B*40:06:01 at positions 302(G to A), 309(G to C), 311(A to C), 313(C to G), 314(T to C), 317(G to T), and 319(G to C) in exon 2, which resulted in 5 amino acid changes at codon 101 (Ser to Asn), 104 (Asn to Thr), 105 (Leu to Ala), 106 (Arg to Leu), and 107 (Gly to Arg), respectively. Family investigation indicated that the novel allele was transmitted from the proband's father.

CONCLUSIONA novel HLA B allele was identified and officially named as HLA-B*40:96 (GenBank accession No. FJ374890) by the WHO Nomenclature Committee for Factors of the HLA System.

Alleles ; Base Sequence ; Female ; HLA-B Antigens ; genetics ; Haplotypes ; Histocompatibility Testing ; Humans ; Molecular Sequence Data ; Pedigree ; Sequence Alignment

This study was aimed to analyze the polymorphism of HLA-A, B, DRB1 alleles at high-resolution level in Han population from southern area of Shandong province in China. 688 randomly selected, unrelated and healthy individual from southern area of Shandong province were genotyped for HLA-A, -B and HLA-DRB1 loci by PCR-SBT. Then, allelic and haplotypic distributions of HLA-A, B and DRB1 were estimated by maximum likelihood estimation method using Arlequin 3.0. The results indicated that a total of 31 HLA-A, 63 HLA-B and 39 HLA-DRB1 alleles were identified in Han Population from southern area of Shandong province. Six HLA-A alleles were found with a frequency greater than 0.05 (A*24:02, *30:01, *11:01, *02:01, *33:03 and *02:06), with a cumulative frequency of 0.7223. For HLA-B locus, there were also six alleles which had a frequency higher than 5% (B*1302, *4403, *5101, B*4601, *1501 and *5801), representing 0.4432 of the all alleles in the population. And four HLA-DRB1 alleles were defined as predominant (DRB1*0701, *1501, *0901and *0803), accounting for 0.5453 of the defined alleles. The most common three-loci haplotype was A*30:01-B*13:02-DRB1*07:01 (0.1151) and the most frequent two-loci haplotype were A*30:01-B*13:02 (0.1303), A*30:01-DRB1*07:01 (0.1157) and B*13:02-DRB1*07:01 (0.1307). It is concluded that the allelic and haplotypic diversities of HLA-A, -B and HLA-DRB1 at high-resolution in Han population from southern area of Shandong province in China provide useful information for HLA matching in transplantation and diseases-associated study in this population.
Alleles ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; genetics ; China ; Female ; Gene Frequency ; Genetics, Population ; HLA-A Antigens ; genetics ; HLA-B Antigens ; genetics ; HLA-DRB1 Chains ; genetics ; Haplotypes ; Humans ; Male ; Polymorphism, Genetic