AIM: To better reveal the changing process of macula area after photodynamic therapy (PDT), the changes of tomographic imaging on macular fovea optical coherence tomography ( OCT ) scan at different follow- up time points after treating age-related macular degeneration ( AMD) by PDT were investigated.
METHODS: This cohort study included 30 eyes of 26 patients diagnosed as AMD. The dosage of verteporfin was calculated according to manufacturer's instruction. All participants got FFA, ICG, OCT scan and best corrected visual acuity before and followed up for 2wk, 1, 2, 3mo after PDT. The standard five lines combined with 6 lines OCT scan covered key parts of lesion and the scan locations before and after were kept the same. The bilaminar foveal thickness (BFT), outer high reflectivity band thickness ( OHRBT ) , and the total area of intraretinal fluid ( IRF ) and subretinal fluid ( SRF ) were measured at different time points. The relationship between the changes and follow up time was analyzed. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using SPSS for windows version 13. 0.
RESULTS: There months after treatment, an improvement of 2 lines or better on the Snellen chart was achieved on 22 eyes, visual acuity of 3 eyes without significant change, 3 eyes got decreased, 2 cases lost follow up. The average macular thickness of improved 22 eyes before treatment was 722. 5±55. 6μm, 2wk after treatment, 708. 3±45. 3μm, 1mo, 584. 4±49. 3μm, 2mo, 430. 7±50. 2μm and 180. 6 ±36. 3μm at 3mo. The OHRBT before and after treatment respectively were 302. 3 ±50-2μm, 277. 5±42. 3μm, 202. 7±40. 1μm, 180. 6±35. 7μm, 100. 8±22. 9μm. The total area of both IRF and SRF was estimated as 0. 34±0. 12mm2 , 0. 25±0. 07mm2 , 0. 10±0-05mm2 , 0. 08±0. 04mm2 , 0. 05±0. 01mm2 .
CONCLUSION:SRF and retinal edema of patients with AMD were absorbed 1mo after PDT, and the BFT, OHRBT were significantly tend to be thin.

OBJECTIVETo observe the effect of Changji' an (CJA) oral liquid on the activated signal alterative intensity (ASAI) in intracranial algesthesia domain in patients with diarrhea type irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) due to Gan-Pi disharmony.

METHODSTwenty-four patients were randomly divided into 2 groups, 14 in the treated group and 10 in the control group, they were administrated with CJA and placebo respectively. The sensory threshold and score in the two groups recorded by rectal inflation test were compared and analyzed. The change of ASAI in intracranial algesthesia domain was analyzed by functional magnetic resonance imagine (fM-RI) during rectum being inflated with 30 ml, 60 ml, 90 ml and 120 ml of gas respectively.

RESULTSThe initial sensory thresholds in the two groups were insignificantly different, but significant difference did show between the two groups in urgent defecation threshold and pain threshold after treatment (P < 0.05). Comparison in visual simulative scores between the two groups after treatment at rectal inflated for 30 ml showed no significant difference, but it showed significant difference when the inflation was over 30 ml (P < 0.05). In the treated group, the ASAI in insula cortex when rectal inflation being 90 ml or 120 ml and that in thalamus when rectal inflation being 120 ml were significantly decreased (P < 0.05). But in the control group, it changed insignificantly after treatment.

CONCLUSIONThe treatment of CJA on Gan-Pi disharmony caused diarrhea type IBS might be effected by regulating the ASAI in intracranial insula cortex and thalamus.

Adult ; Aged ; Brain ; physiopathology ; Diagnosis, Differential ; Diarrhea ; etiology ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; therapeutic use ; Female ; Humans ; Irritable Bowel Syndrome ; complications ; drug therapy ; physiopathology ; Male ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; Middle Aged ; Pain Threshold ; drug effects ; Phytotherapy ; Sensory Thresholds ; drug effects ; Signal Transduction

Objective To investigate the clinical feactures of patients with numerous dilated Virchow-Robin space in basal gangalia.Methods Eight patients with cribriform state in striatum in brain MRI at Peking Union Medical College Hospital from March 2013 to October 2013 were enrolled.The clinical data including age,gender,common vascular risk factors and clinical manifestations were analyzed.Cognitive functions,balance and gait disturbance,as well as activity of daily living were assessed.Results All of the eight patients are male,aged from 69 to 80.All the patients had a history of hyperlipidemia,while 7 of them had hypertension.The primary complaint was either gradual motor function decline or memory impairments (3/8),or dizziness (1/8).The other 4 of them were diagnosed as stroke or transient ischemic attack.Among the 8 patients,four had mild deterioration in activity of daily living function (Barthel index 65-85).Cognitive impairment was common (8/8,the Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores 19-27),while word recall was the mostly affected cognitive domain (8/8).Gait and balance dysfunction were found in three patients (3/8,Tinetti scores ≤ 24).Conclusions Man is more likely to have predisposition to cribriform state in striatum.Mild cognitive impairments and gait abnormality are common clinical manifestations of the disease.

Purpose To investigate the expression of tumor buds and its relationship with clinicopathological characteristics in endome-trial carcinoma. Methods 47 cases of endometrial carcinoma were observed and analyzed by means of clinicopathologic data and im-munohistochemical staining. The connections between tumor buds and clinicopathologic parameters were studied by statistics. Results Of the 47 endometrial carcinoma cases, tumor buds were seen in 18 cases. Tumor buds were correlated with histological grade, lymph node metastases, vascular invasion, Ki-67 index and survival. There were no associations between tumor buds with age, tumor size, pTNM stage or myometrial invasion depth. Immunohistochemistry demonstrated that the level of N-cadherin, vimentin in bud cells was higher than normal carcinoma cells while the level of CK(AE1/AE3),β-catenin and E-cadherin got the opposite results. Conclu-sion Tumor buds may play an important role in the progression of endometrial carcinoma. The immunohistochemical features of bud cells indicated that tumor buds may be a key step in epithelial-mesenchymal transition.

OBJECTIVEYoga is becoming more and more popular in the female society while the concomitant sports injury is seldom mentioned. Many clinicians have noted that yoga may result in knee problems, which though requires more researches to corroborate. This investigation was conducted to ascertain the relationship between yoga and meniscus injury as well as the extent of impairment according to variant yoga practice periods.

METHODSTotally 819 women aged 20-49 years who practiced yoga or other popular sports including badminton, jogging, climbing hills, etc for at least one hour per day were selected to participate in this research. These subjects were required to complete a questionnaire and receive relevant physical examination. Magnetic resonance (MR) scan of the knee was recommended for the suspicious subjects for ultimate diagnosis. The subject with abnormal meniscus MR signals was defined as a case and matched with two controls in terms of age and body mass index (BMI). Altogether there were 273 cases and 546 controls. The nested case-control model was adopted to assess the risk of meniscus injury between variant exposures in practicing yoga and several other popular sports. Moreover, the 181 yoga subjects were subdivided into three groups according to different exercise durations, followed by further analysis with the variables of age, BMI and Lysholm score.

RESULTSYoga was found associated with a higher risk (P equal to 0.008, OR equal to 1.621) of meniscus injury compared with badminton, jogging and climbing hills. The three yoga subgroups showed statistical difference between each other in terms of Lysholm score (P equal to 0.027) and BMI (P equal to 0.003). The subjects with longer-term yoga practice had lighter weight but lower Lysholm scores.

CONCLUSIONSYoga perhaps exerts destructive impact on the meniscus for Chinese women, yet it needs further verifications. Furthermore, the female yoga players with longer exercise duration are more susceptible to meniscus injury though they can become leaner.

Body Mass Index ; Female ; Humans ; Knee Joint ; Motor Activity ; Tibial Meniscus Injuries ; Yoga

This study was purposed to investigate the role of cytokines in pathogenesis of lymphoma-associated anemia. The levels of IFN-γ, IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α and EPO in serum from 45 lymphoma patients and 12 normal controls were detected by using ELISA, the EPOR level on bone marrow cells were detected by flow cytometry, the CFU-E of bone marrow cultured in vitro was counted under inverted microscope. The results showed that 25 (55.6%) out of 45 newly diagnosed lymphoma patients had anemia before diagnosis, 13 (28.9%) had anemia during therapy, 7 (15.5%)never had anemia. The IFN-γ and TNF-α levels in serum of patients with moderate and severe anemia were significantly higher than those in patients with mild anemia and without anemia as well as normal controls. The EPO, IL-6 and IFN-γ levels correlated negatively with Hb concentration in patients, the EPOR level in patients without anemia significantly higher than that in patients with anemia and normal controls. The bone marrow CFU-E amount in patients showed positive correlation with Hb and EPOR levels. It is concluded that the increased IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-6 may contribute to the anemia in lymphoma, and yet the EPO and EPOR levels are elevated to balance negative regulatory effects on hematopoiesis and maintain normal hematopoiesis.
Adult ; Aged ; Anemia ; blood ; etiology ; pathology ; Case-Control Studies ; Cytokines ; blood ; Erythropoietin ; blood ; Female ; Humans ; Interferon-gamma ; blood ; Interleukin-1 ; blood ; Interleukin-6 ; blood ; Lymphoma ; blood ; complications ; pathology ; Male ; Middle Aged ; Receptors, Erythropoietin ; blood ; Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha ; blood

Objective To investigate the association of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) gene promoter region - 1031T/C and its combination with interleukin-6 (IL-6 ) gene promoter region -634C/G single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) with the genetic susceptibility to endometriosis.Methods Total of 432 endometriosis patients and 499 non-endometriosis women who had received an operation due to tubal ligation,tubal recanalization,laparoscopic hydrotubation,ovarian simple cyst and teratoma were collected and separated into endometriosis group and control group,that all cases were confirmed by operation and pathology.A case-control study was performed in endometriosis and control group to evaluate the association of these SNP with the susceptibility to endometriosis by using a fluorescent quantitative PCR-based high resolution melting ( HRM ) method.Results ( 1 ) TNF-α - 1031T/C genotype:the T and C of TNF-α - 1031T/C allele frequencies in the endometriosis group and control group were 79.2％ (684/864),20.8％ (180/864) and 81.8％ (816/998),18.2％ (182/998),respectively.The TT,TC and CC of TNF-α - 1031T/C genotype frequencies in the two groups were 63.7％ (275/432),31.0％ ( 134/432 ),5.3％ (23/432) and 66.5％ (332/499),30.5％ (152/499),3.0％ ( 15/499),respectively.There were no statistical significances in the TNF-α - 1031T/C alleles and genotypes distributions between the two groups ( P =0.158,P =0.186 ).( 2 ) TNF-α - 1031T/C and IL-6 - 634C/G conjoint genotypes:to research on the TNF-α - 1031T/C and IL-6 -634C/G genotypes for conjoint analysis,the TT + CC,TC + CC,CC +CC,TT + CG,TC + CG,CC + CG,TT + GG,TC + GG and CC + GG combination genotype frequencies in the two groups were 39.4％ ( 170/432 ),19.4％ ( 84/432 ),4.6％ ( 20/432 ),20.6％ ( 89/432 ),8.8％ (38/432),0.9％ (4/432),3.5％ (15/432),2.3％ (10/432),0.5％ (2/432) and 36.7％ ( 183/499),17.4％(87/499),1.4％ (7/499),26.1％ (130/499),10.4％ (52/499),1.2％ (6/499),3.8％ (19/499),2.6％ ( 13/499),0.4％ (2/499),respectively.There were no statistical significances in the combination genotypes distributions between the two groups ( P =0.107 ).As compared with carriers of TT + CC combination genotype,the endometriosis risk of carriers of CC + CC combination genotype enhanced 3.076 times ( 95％ CI:1.268 - 7.457,P =0.009 ),and the endometriosis risk of carriers of other combination genotypes were no statistical significances (all P ＞ 0.05 ).ConclusionsThe study demonstrates that there are no significant association between the SNP of TNF-α - 1031T/C and genetic susceptibility to endometriosis.However the results indicate that there are significant association betweengenetic susceptibility to endometriosis and the combination polymorphisms of TNF-α -1031T/C and IL-6- 634C/G.

Objective: To evaluate the clinical efficacy of the Governor Vessel-unblocking and mind-regulating acupuncture method plus repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) in the treatment of post-stroke insomnia. Methods: A total of 72 patients with post-stroke insomnia were randomly divided into 2 groups, with 36 cases in each group. The control group received rTMS treatment with a frequency of 1 Hz and a motion threshold value of 90％. The observation group received acupuncture with Governor Vessel-unblocking and mind-regulating method based on the rTMS treatment of the control group. The points were Baihui (GV 20), Shenting (GV 24), Yintang (GV 29), Fengfu (GV 16), Sishencong (EX-HN 1), Shenmen (HT 7), Sanyinjiao (SP 6), Shenmai (BL 62) and Zhaohai (KI 6). The treatment was performed once a day for 5 d a week followed by 2 d of rest for 4 weeks. The improvements of Pittsburgh sleep quality index (PSQI), self-rating anxiety scale (SAS) and self-rating depression scale (SDS) scores were observed after treatment, and the clinical efficacy was compared between the two groups. Results: After 4 weeks of treatment, the PSQI, SAS, and SDS scores of the two groups were all reduced, and the intra-group differences were statistically significant (all P<0.001). After treatment, the three scores in the observation group were all lower than those in the control group, and the differences between the two groups were statistically significant (P<0.05, P<0.05, P<0.001). There was a statistically significant difference between the observation group and the control group comparing the clinical efficacy (P<0.05). Conclusion: The therapeutic effect of the Governor Vessel-unblocking and mind-regulating acupuncture method plus rTMS in treating post-stroke insomnia is better than rTMS alone, and it can better improve the anxiety and depression of patients.

Estrogen receptor alpha (ERalpha) has been a primary target of treatment as well as a prognostic indicator for breast cancer. The level of human X-box binding protein 1 (XBP-1) mRNA was related with that of ERalpha in breast tumors and was over-expressed in some breast tumors. These previous studies suggested that XBP-1 may interact with ERalpha. XBP-1 has two isoforms, XBP-1S and XBP-1U, as the result of unique splicing. GST pull-down assay showed that both XBP-1S and XBP-1U bound to ERalpha in vitro. The binding of XBP-1S to ERalpha was stronger than that of XBP-1U to ERalpha. Co-immunoprecipitation revealed that the binding was in a ligand-independent manner. XBP-1S and XBP-1U interacted with the region of ERalpha that contains a DNA-binding domain. The ERalpha-interacting regions on XBP-1S and XBP-1U have been mapped to two regions, the N-terminal basic region leucine zipper domain (bzip) and the C-terminal activation domain. These findings suggest that XBP-1S and XBP-1U may participate in ERalpha signaling pathway through the mediation of ERalpha.
Breast Neoplasms ; genetics ; metabolism ; Cell Line, Tumor ; DNA-Binding Proteins ; genetics ; metabolism ; Estrogen Receptor alpha ; genetics ; metabolism ; Female ; Humans ; Protein Interaction Domains and Motifs ; physiology ; RNA, Messenger ; biosynthesis ; genetics ; Regulatory Factor X Transcription Factors ; Signal Transduction ; Transcription Factors ; genetics ; metabolism ; X-Box Binding Protein 1

OBJECTIVETo investigate the changes of protein kinase C (PKC) activity and its role in the development of presyrinx state in rabbits.

METHODSPresyrinx state was established in 56 rabbits by intra-cisternal injection of kaolin. At 1, 3, 7, 14, and 21 days after the injection, the water content in the upper cervical spinal cord was measured, its pathological changes observed microscopically and the PKC activity determined with substrate phosphorolysis kinase assay.

RESULTSSpinal cord edema occurred in rabbits one day after kaolin injection, with water content of (68.35-/+0.70)%, which increased to (72.70-/+0.88)% on day 3, reaching the peak level of (72.92-/+0.86)% on day 7, followed by gradual decline after 3 weeks [(70.03-/+0.77)%]. The membrane PKC activity increased from 5.67-/+0.26 pmol.mg(-1).min(-1) on day 1 after the injection to reach the peak level on day 7 (13.27-/+3.15 pmol.mg(-1).min(-1)), which was maintained till day 14 with subsequent decrease to 8.85-/+1.56 pmol.mg(-1).min(-1) on day 21. The cytoplasmic PKC activity showed changes of a reverse pattern.

CONCLUSIONIn rabbits with experimental presyrinx state, PKC translocation and activation is involved in ischemic spinal edema.

Animals ; Female ; Kaolin ; Male ; Protein Kinase C ; metabolism ; Rabbits ; Random Allocation ; Spinal Cord ; enzymology ; Syringomyelia ; chemically induced ; enzymology