Aim To explore the improvement effect of Bazi Bushen capsule on thymic degeneration in SAMP6 mice and the possible mechanism.Methods Twenty 12 week old male SAMP6 mice were randomly divided into the model group(SAMP6)and the Bazi Busheng capsule treatment group(SAMP6+BZBS).Ten SAMR1 mice were assigned to a homologous control group(SAMR1).The SAMP6+BZBS group was oral-ly administered Bazi Bushen capsule suspension(2.8 g·kg-1)daily,while the other two groups were orally administered an equal amount of distilled water.After nine weeks of administration,the morphology of the thymus in each group was observed and the thymus in-dex was calculated;HE staining was used to observe the structural changes of thymus tissue;SA-β-gal stai-ning was used to detect thymic aging;flow cytometry was used to detect the proportion of thymic CD3+T cells in each group;Western blot was used to detect the levels of p16,Bax,Bcl-2,and cleaved caspase-3 proteins in thymus;immunofluorescence was applied to detect the proportion of cortical thymic epithelial cells in each group;ELISA was employed to detect IL-7 lev-els in thymus.Results Compared with the SAMP6 group,the thymic index of the SAMP6+BZBS group significantly increased(P＜0.05);the disordered thy-mic structure was significantly improved;the positive proportion of SA-β-gal staining significantly decreased(P＜0.01);the proportion of CD3+T cells apparently increased(P＜0.05);the level of p16 protein signifi-cantly decreased(P＜0.05);the level of Bcl-2 pro-tein significantly increased(P＜0.05),while the lev-el of cleaved caspase-3 protein markedly decreased(P＜0.05);the proportion of cortical thymic epithelial cells evidently increased;the level of IL-7 significantly increased(P＜0.01).Conclusions Bazi Bushen capsule can delay thymic degeneration,inhibit cell ap-optosis in thymus and promote thymic cell development in SAMP6 mice,which may be related to increasing the proportion of cortical thymic epithelial cells and promoting IL-7 secretion.

The risks related to the essential performance were analyzed with considerations on the concept of the essential performance in GB 9706.1-2020 Medical electrical equipment-Part 1:General requirements for basic safety and essential performance,and the determination process for the essential performance of medical electrical equipment was summarized.The essential performance of the example equipment was clarified with the semi-quantitative risk analysis,and the influences of the arrangement of the electromagnetic compatibility test on the determination of the essential performance were explored with the conducted immunity test and conventional test.References were provided for standard users to understand and determine the essential performance effectively.[Chinese Medical Equipment Journal,2024,45(11):72-76]

Humans ; Adult ; Serum Albumin, Human ; Consensus ; Cardiac Surgical Procedures ; Thoracic Surgery

Acute Disease ; Fatty Liver/diagnosis* ; Female ; Humans ; Liver ; Pregnancy ; Pregnancy Complications/diagnosis*

This study aimed to establish nomograms to preoperatively predict the possibility of testicular salvage (TS) in patients with testicular torsion. The clinical data of 204 patients with testicular torsion diagnosed at Xijing Hospital and Tangdu Hospital (Xi'an, China) between August 2008 and November 2019 were retrospectively analyzed. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were used to determine the independent predictors of TS. Based on multivariate regression coefficients, nomograms to predict possibility of TS were established. The predictive ability of the nomograms was internally validated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and calibration plots. The duration of symptoms ranged from 2 h to 1 month, with a median of 3.5 days. Thirty (14.7%) patients underwent surgical reduction and contralateral orchiopexy, while the remaining 174 (85.3%) underwent orchiectomy and contralateral orchiopexy. Finally, long symptom duration was an independent risk predictor for TS, while visible intratesticular blood flow and homogeneous testicular echotexture under color Doppler ultrasound were independent protective predictors. Internal validation showed that the nomograms, which were established by integrating these three predictive factors, had good discrimination ability in predicting the possibility of TS (areas under the ROC curves were 0.851 and 0.828, respectively). The calibration plots showed good agreement between the nomogram-predicted possibility of TS and the actual situation. In conclusion, this brief preoperative prediction tool will help clinicians to quickly determine the urgency of surgical exploration.

Objective:To analyze the clinical characteristics of gastrointestinal symptoms and liver function injury in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).Methods:From January 23, 2020 to February 29, 2020, the medical records of 251 patients with COVID-19 admitted to the West Campus of the Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, were collected. The proportion of the patients with gastrointestinal symptoms including anorexia, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain were analyzed respectively. The patients were divided into common type (76 cases), severe type (65 cases) and critical type (110 cases). The incidence of liver function injury and the changes of liver function parameters such as total bilirubin (TBil), direct bilirubin (DBil), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), γ-glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), albumin and globulin of the patients with different clinical types and with or without gastrointestinal symptoms were analyzed. Mann-Whitney U test, Chi square test and Fisher′s exact test were used for statistical analysis. Results:The main gastrointestinal symptoms of patients with COVID-19 were anorexia (33.9%, 85/251), diarrhea (12.0%, 30/251), nausea and vomiting (7.6%, 19/251) and abdominal pain (1.2%, 3/251). 143 patients (57.0%) had liver function injury, the rate of liver function injury in critical type patients was 75.5% (83/110), which was higher than that of common type patients (40.8%, 31/76) and severe type patients (44.6%, 29/65), and the differences were statistically significant ( χ2=22.765 and 16.865, both P<0.01). There was no significant difference in the proportion of patients with liver function injury between common type and severe type patients ( P>0.05). There was no statistically significant difference in the proportion of liver function injury between patients with gastrointestinal symptoms and those without gastrointestinal symptoms (57.8%(67/116) vs. 56.3%(76/135), P>0.05). The median values of TBil, DBil, ALT, AST, ALP, GGT, LDH and globulin level of critical type patients were 13.5 μmol/L, 4.9 μmol/L, 44.5 U/L, 50.0 U/L, 64.0 U/L, 41.0 U/L, 527.0 U/L and 33.6 g/L respectively. The proportions of critical type patients with TBil level >34.2 μmol/L, DBil level>13.6 μmol/L, ALT level>80 U/L and AST level>80 U/L were 7.3% (8/110), 7.3% (8/110), 17.3% (19/110) and 17.3% (19/110), respectively. These results were all higher than those of common type patients (9.5 μmol/L, 2.9 μmol/L, 28.5 U/L, 28.5 U/L, 54.0 U/L, 25.5 U/L, 225.5 U/L, 30.1 g/L, 0, 0, 6.6% (5/76) and 2.6% (2/76) ) and severe type patients (10.4 μmol/L, 3.4 μmol/L, 30.0 U/L, 31.0 U/L, 49.0 U/L, 25.0 U/L, 284.0 U/L, 30.7 g/L, 0, 0, 6.2% (4/65) and 1.5% (1/65)), and the differences were statistically significant ( Z=-4.264, -5.507, -4.000, -6.558, -3.112, -4.333, -4.858, -3.873, Fisher′s exact test, Fisher′s exact test, χ2=4.574, 9.620; Z=-3.060, -3.850, -3.923, -5.005, -9.495, -7.651, -3.853, -2.725, Fisher′s exact test, Fisher′s exact test, χ2=4.425, 10.169; all P<0.01). The median values of pre-albumin level, albumin level and the albumin to globulin ratio of critical type patients were 85.3 g/L, 28.2 g/L and 0.8, which were all lower than those of common type patients (157.3 g/L, 32.3 g/L and 1.1, respectively) and severe type patients (133.6 g/L, 31.6 g/L and 1.1, respectively), and the differences were statistically significant ( Z=-6.631, -3.647, -4.924, -4.503, -5.283 and -3.903, all P<0.01). The median albumin level of patients with diarrhea was lower than that of patients without diarrhea (28.2 g/L vs. 30.5 g/L), the proportion of diarrhea patients whose TBil level >20.0 to 34.2 μmol/L was higher than that of patients without diarrhea (70.0%, 21/30 vs. 10.9%, 24/221), and the differences were statistically significant ( Z=-2.182, χ2 =62.788; both P<0.05). Conclusions:Anorexia is the most common digestive symptom in COVID-19 patients, and the incidences of abdominal pain is low. The incidence of liver function injury of critical type patients is high. There is no significant correlation between gastrointestinal symptoms and liver function injury, and patients with diarrhea have lower albumin levels.

Nifedipine, a calcium channel antagonist, is metabolized mainly by CYP3A4 to dehydronifedipine. A rapid and sensitive liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was developed to simultaneously determine nifedipine and dehydronifedipine in human plasma using d₆-nifedipine/d₆-dehydronifedipine as internal standards. After extraction from the plasma by protein precipitation, the analytes and internal standard were separated on a Hypersil Gold C₁₈ (50 mm×2.1 mm, 1.9 μm). The mobile phase consisted of methanol and 5 mmol·L^-1ammonium acetate aqueous solution (0.1% formic acid). Positive electrospray ionization was performed using multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) with transitions of m/z 347.3→254.1 for nifedipine, m/z 345.2→283.9 for dehydronifedipine, m/z 353.3→257.1 for d₆-nifedipine, m/z 351.2→286.9 for d₆-dehydronifedipine. The method had a linear calibration curves over the concentrations of 0.10-80.0 ng·mL^-1 for nifedipine and 0.050-40.0 ng·mL^-1 for dehydronifedipine. The validated LC-MS/MS method has been successfully used study pharmacokinetic interactions of apatinib (CYP3A4 inhibitor) and nifedipine (CYP3A4 substrate) in human. This clinical trial was approved by the society of ethics and conducted in the first hospital of China medical university.

Background:Clinical outcomes of undifferentiated arthritis (UA) are diverse,and only 40 ％ of patients with UA develop rheumatoid arthritis (RA) after 3 years.Discovering predictive markers at disease onset for further intervention is critical.Therefore,our objective was to analyze the clinical outcomes of UA and ascertain the predictors for RA development.Methods:We performed a prospective,multi-center study from January 2013 to October 2016 among Chinese patients diagnosed with UA in 22 tertiary-care hospitals.Clinical and serological parameters were obtained at recruitment.Follow-up was undertaken in all patients every 12 weeks for 2 years.Predictive factors of disease progression were identified using multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression.Results:A total of 234 patients were recruited in this study,and 17 (7.3％) patients failed to follow up during the study.Among the 217 patients who completed the study,83 (38.2％) patients went into remission.UA patients who developed RA had a higher rheumatoid factor (RF)-positivity (42.9％ vs.16.8％,x2=8.228,P=0.008),anti-cyclic citrullinated peptide (CCP) antibodypositivity (66.7％ vs.10.7％,x2 =43.897,P ＜ 0.001),and double-positivity rate of RF and anti-CCP antibody (38.1％ vs.4.1％,x2 =32.131,P ＜ 0.001) than those who did not.Anti-CCP antibody but not RF was an independent predictor for RA development (hazard ratio 18.017,95％ confidence interval:5.803-55.938;P ＜ 0.001).Conclusion:As an independent predictor of RA,anti-CCP antibody should be tested at disease onset in all patients with UA.

Objective To study the optimal waist circumference (WC) cut-off values for identifying metabolic risk factors in middle-aged and elderly subjects in Shandong Province of China.
Methods A total of 2 873 men and 5 559 women were included in this cross-sectional study. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) was diagnosed according to the definition of Chinese Diabetes Society in 2004. The relation between WC and MetS was analyzed by multivariate logistic regression analysis. The optimal WC cut-off values were identified using the area under the ROC curve and the different diagnostic criteria for central obesity were compared.
Results The WC was the risk factor for MetS independent of BMI, blood glucose, blood lipid, and blood pressure. The optimal WC cut-off value was 83.8 cm and 91.1 cm for identifying MetS in women and men, respectively. Compared with 80 cm and 85 cm for women and men, 85 cm and 90 cm had a higher Youden index for identifying all metabolic risk factors and MetS in women and men.
Conclusion The appropriate WC cut-off value is 85 cm and 90 cm for identifying central obesity and MetS in women and men in Shandong Province of China.

To explore the differences between the qualitative similarity and the quantitative similarity of chromatographic fingerprints of traditional Chinese medicines, the quantitative similarity calculated by vector shadow C%, apparent quantitative similarity R%, quantitative similarity P%, etc. were firstly proposed to disclose the quantitative information characteristics of traditional Chinese medicines fingerprints. The HPLC fingerprints of both the standard Fructus gardeniae and the ten batches of Fructus gardeniae produced in different places were evaluated by the new parameters to obtain good results. The contrasted fingerprint contained 35 peaks while geniposide was selected as the reference peak. The HPLC fingerprint had good precision and reproducibility with the RSD of the relative retention time less than 1.5% and the RSD of the relative peak area within 5%. The qualitative similarity and quantitative similarity between each crude drug and the contrasted fingerprint were quantitatively calculated, the values of C%, P%, etc., were applied in the quality control practice, which had less errors. What is more, this method could be used for the overall quality control of Fructus gardeniae and especially suits for qualitative and quantitative evaluations of the chromatographic fingerprints both in chemical constituent distribution and in contents. The quantitative parameters such as C% and P% can be used to objectively, authentically and thoroughly display the content information characteristics. When they combined with the qualitative similarity, it will be the good method to evaluate the chromatographic fingerprints of traditional Chinese medicines.
Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid ; methods ; Fruit ; chemistry ; Gardenia ; chemistry ; Medicine, Chinese Traditional ; methods ; standards ; Plants, Medicinal ; chemistry ; Quality Control ; Reproducibility of Results