Objective To investigate the expression and clinical significance of Survivin in esophageal car-cinoma.Methods Survivin expression was detected by immunohistochemistry in 61 cases of esophageal squamous carcinoma tissues and 26 tumor-adjacent normal tissues.Results The positive Survivin expression rate was 60.7% (37/61)in tumor tissues.The expression of Survivin was significantly correlated with the tumor grading,infiltration, lymph node metastasis and the survival(P<0.01).Conclusion Survivin may be an important marker for tumor di-agnosis and it is of great important to the active treatment of high-risk patients and to increasing of prognosis values.

OBJECTIVE:To establish the quality standard of Smilacina japonica. METHODS: S. japonica was identified qualitatively in respects of original plant morphology,character,microscopic identification,TLC,etc. The moisture,ash and extract of medicinal materials were determined. The content of(25S)-17α-hydroxy-5α-spirostane-9-ene-3β-O-β-D-glucopyranoyl-(1→2)-[ β-D-xylanosyl(1→3)]-β-D-glucopyranoyl(1→4)-β-D-galactopyranoside(SJ-13) was determined by HPLC. The determination was performed on Waters SunFire C18column with mobile phase consisted of acetonitrile-water(35∶65,V/V)at the flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. The detection wavelength was set at 203 nm and the column temperature was 20 ℃. The sample size was 10 μ L. RESULTS:The original plant was perennial herbal,with height of 30-60 cm. The surface of the medicinal material was brown to brownish brown,with wrinkle and 1 row cells in epidermis. The powder of medicinal material was grayish yellow and contained large amount of acicular crystal. TLC spots were clear and well-separated. The content of moisture was 5.26%-8.88%;the content of total ash was 4.60%-28.86%;the acid-insoluble ash was 1.56%-23.39%,water extract was 23.84%-51.26% and alcohol extract was 22.65%-57.36%. The linear range of SJ-13 were 8.92-31.22 μg(r＝0.999 9). RSDs of precision,stability and reproducibility tests were all lower than 1%. The average recoveries were 97.0%-99.2%(RSD＝0.8%,n＝6). RSD of durability test was lower than 1%. The content of SJ-13 was 4.40-29.80 mg/g in 10 batches of medicinal samples. CONCLUSIONS:The content of water, total ash,acid insoluble components should not exceed 11%,35%,28%;the content of water extract,alcohol extract and SJ-13 should not be less than 19%,18% and 4.40 mg/g,respectively. Established standard can be used for the quality control of S. japonica.

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Anti-reflux barrier dysfunction is one of the primary mechanisms in gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) pathogenesis. The esophagogastric junction contractile integral (EGJ-CI) is a new metric adopted to evaluate the EGJ contractility, which implies the anti-reflux barrier function. The aim of the current study was to validate this new metric in patients with GERD and its correlation with the esophageal acid exposure, as well as the efficacy of proton pump inhibitor treatment. METHODS: Ninety-eight patients with GERD and 21 healthy controls were included in the study. Upper endoscopy, high-resolution manometry (HRM) and 24-hour multichannel intraluminal impedance-pH monitoring were performed in all patients. Three respiration cycles were chosen at the initial HRM resting frame and the value computed with distal contractile integral tool was then divided by the duration of the cycles to yield EGJ-CI. All the patients were treated with esomeprazole 20 mg twice-daily for 8 weeks. RESULTS: EGJ-CI was lower in the patients with GERD than that of the controls (P < 0.05). For patients with GERD, EGJ-CI was lower in those with hiatal hernia (P < 0.05). The new metric correlated with esophageal acid exposure in the supine position (P < 0.05), and it also negatively correlated to the total reflux episodes (P < 0.05). There was no significant difference on EGJ-CI between patients with and without response to the esomeprazole treatment (P = 0.627). CONCLUSIONS: EGJ-CI reflected the dysfunction of the anti-reflux barrier in patients with GERD, but it had little impact on the esomeprazole response.
Endoscopy ; Esomeprazole ; Esophagogastric Junction* ; Gastroesophageal Reflux* ; Hernia ; Hernia, Hiatal ; Humans ; Manometry ; Proton Pump Inhibitors ; Proton Pumps ; Respiration ; Supine Position

The root bark extract of Aralia taibaiensis is used traditionally for the treatment of diabetes mellitus in China. The total saponin extracted from Aralia Taibaiensis (sAT) has effective combined antihyperglycemic and hypolipidemic activities in experimental type 2 diabetic rats. However, the active compounds have not yet been fully investigated. In the present study, we examined effects of twelve triterpenoid saponins on AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) activation, and found that compound 28-O-β-D-glucopyranosyl ester (AT12) significantly increased phosphorylation of AMPK and Acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACC). AT12 effectively decreased blood glucose, triglyceride (TG), free fatty acid (FFA) and low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) levels in the rat model of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). The mechanism by which AT12 activated AMPK was subsequently investigated. Intracellular ATP level and oxygen consumption were significantly reduced by AT12 treatment. The findings suggested AT12 was a novel AMPK activator, and could be useful for the treatment of metabolic diseases.
Acetyl-CoA Carboxylase ; Adenosine Triphosphate ; AMP-Activated Protein Kinases* ; Animals ; Aralia* ; Blood Glucose ; China ; Diabetes Mellitus ; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 ; Metabolic Diseases ; Models, Animal ; Oxygen Consumption ; Phosphorylation ; Rats ; Saponins ; Triglycerides

Objective To investigate the feasibility of the CT texture analysis (CTTA)in differentiating autoimmune pancreatitis (AIP)from pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC).Methods 25 patients with AIP and 31 patients with PDAC who confirmed by pathological or clinical underwent pretreatment three-phase contrast-enhanced CT were enrolled.Histogram parameters (mean CT values,median CT values,25 th,75 th percentile CT values,skewness,kurtosis,entropy and uniformity)were derived from CT images through texture analysis.The differences of histogram parameters between AIP and PDAC groups were compared.ROC and AUC were used to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of histogram parameters in differentiating AIP from PDAC.Results The values for mean CT values,median CT values,25 th,75 th percentile CT values and uniformity of AIP were significantly higher than those of PDAC group,while the values for entropy of AIP were significantly lower than those of PDAC group in arterial phase,portal phase,and delay phases (all P＜0.05). There were no significant differences in kurtosis and skewness between AIP and PDAC groups (all P＞0.05).The uniformity in portal phase achieved the optimal diagnostic accuracy in differentiating AIP from PDAC (AUC＝0.973 ),the cutoff value was 0.797,the corresponding sensitivity and specificity were 92% and 9 6.8%,respectively.Conclusion CTTA can be used as a quantitative analysis method for differential diagnosis between AIP and PDAC,providing a reference for clinicians to select therapeutic schedules.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease and is mainly characterized by abnormal proliferation of fibroblast-like synoviocytes (FLS). The up-regulated cellular membrane expression of G protein coupled receptor kinase 2 (GRK2) of FLS plays a critical role in RA progression, the increase of GRK2 translocation activity promotes dysfunctional prostaglandin E4 receptor (EP4) signaling and FLS abnormal proliferation. Recently, although our group found that paeoniflorin-6'-