Objective: Pharmacotherapy including mood stabilizers and antipsychotics are frequently used in bipolar disorder (BD); however, the lack of consensus regarding the definition of polypharmacy hinders conducting comparative studies across different settings and countries. Research on Asian Prescription Pattern (REAP) is the largest and the longest lasting international collaborative research in psychiatry in Asia. The objective of REAP BD was to investigate the prescription patterns of psychotropic medications across Asian countries. The rates of polypharmacy and psychotropic drug load were also analyzed. Methods: The data collection was web-based. Prescription patterns were categorized as (1) mood stabilizer monotherapy: one mood stabilizer; (2) antipsychotic monotherapy: one antipsychotic; (3) simple polypharmacy: one mood stabilizer and one antipsychotic; and (4) complex polypharmacy: ≥ 2 mood stabilizers or/and antipsychotics. The psychotropic drug load in each patient was calculated using the defined daily dose method. Results: Among 2003 patients with BD (52.1% female, 42.4 years) from 12 countries, 1,619 (80.8%) patients received mood stabilizers, 1,644 (82.14%) received antipsychotics, and 424 (21.2%) received antidepressants, with 14.7% mood stabilizer monotherapy, 13.4% antipsychotic monotherapy, 48.9% simple polypharmacy, 20.3% complex polypharmacy, and 2.6% other therapy. The average psychotropic drug load was 2.05 ± 1.40. Results varied widely between countries. Conclusion Over 70% of psychotropic regimens involved polypharmacy, which accords with the high prevalence of polypharmacy in BD under a permissive criterion (2 or more core psychotropic drugs) worldwide. Notably, ≥ 80% of our sample received antipsychotics, which may indicate an increasing trend in antipsychotic use for BD treatment.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the synergistic immunomodulatory mechanism of interferon alpha-1b, interleukin-2 and thalidomide (ITI) regimen on patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). METHODS: Sixty eight untreated de novo or relapsed or refractory or maintenance therapy patients with AML admitted in the Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University and the other 11 medical units from March 2016 to May 2019 were treated with ITI regimen. Peripheral blood specimen per patient was collected into EDTA-K3 anticoagulation vacuum tube before the administration of ITI and 3 months after the treatment; peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets and perforin and Granzyme B expression were analyzed by using flow cytometry; the levels of VEGF, IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-6 in the plasma were detected by using a cytometric bead array. Thirty-five healthy subjects from the hospital physical examination centre were selected as normal controls. RESULTS: The ratio of CD4 CONCLUSION The ITI regimen can raise the ratio of CD4
CD8-Positive T-Lymphocytes ; Humans ; Interferon-alpha ; Interleukin-2 ; Leukemia, Myeloid, Acute/drug therapy* ; Perforin ; Thalidomide

Objective:To explore the change of serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] and prediction for outcome of acute ischemic stroke in emergency. Methods:From October, 2017 to September, 2019, 224 patients with acute ischemic stroke in emergency and 240 healthy controls were detected serum 25(OH)D within 24 hours after enrollment. The patients were assessed with National Institute of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) and Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS2002), and measured biochemics within 24 hours after admission. They were assessed with modified Rankin Scale (mRS) 180 days after stroke, and divided into favourable group (mRS ≤ 2, n = 106) and unfavourable group (mRS > 2, n = 118). The factors related with the outcome were analyzed with Logistic regression, and the prediction of 25(OH)D for the outcome were analyzed with receiver operator characteristic (ROC) curve. Results:Serum 25(OH)D was less in the patients than in the controls (Z = 4.296, P < 0.001), and less in the unfavourable group than in the favourable group (Z = 5.876, P < 0.001). Serum 25(OH)D (OR = 0.925, P < 0.05) was related with the outcome even controlling the impacts of age, sex, nutritional risk, infarct volume, scores of NIHSS, etc. The area under curve for serum 25(OH)D predicting outcome was 0.795 (P < 0.001). The cut-off point of prediction was 13.17 ng/ml, with the Yoden index of 0.548, which yielded a sensitivity of 0.746 and a specificity of 0.802. Conclusion:Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D may predict the outcome 180 days after acute ischemic stroke, which may help for risk stratification in emergency.

Humans ; Leukemia, Promyelocytic, Acute ; Oncogene Proteins, Fusion ; Retinoic Acid Receptor alpha ; Translocation, Genetic ; Tretinoin

β-Carotene is one of the most abundant natural pigments in foods; however, usage of β-carotene is limited because of its instability. Microencapsulation techniques are usually applied to protect microencapsulated β-carotene from oxidization. In this study, β-carotene was microencapsulated using different drying processes: spray-drying, spray freeze-drying, coating, and spray granulation. The properties of morphology, particle size, water content, thermal characteristic, and chemical stability have been explored and compared. Scanning electron microscopy measurements showed that the coated powder had a dense surface surrounded by starch and suggested that the coating process gave a microencapsulated powder with the smallest bulk density and the best compressibility among the prepared powders. The chemical stabilities of microcapsules were evaluated during six months of storage at different temperatures. The coated powder had the highest mass fraction of β-carotene, which indicated that the coating process was superior to the three other drying processes.
Drug Compounding/methods* ; Drug Stability ; Freeze Drying ; Microscopy, Electron, Scanning ; Technology, Pharmaceutical ; beta Carotene/chemistry*

The REAP-AP study recruited 3,746 patients with schizophrenia, in March and April 2016, from 71 centers in 15 Asian countries/territories namely Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. Our findings reveal a trend according to which high dose antipsychotic prescription is more prevalent in Eastern Asia (especially, Japan and Korea) than in other regions of Asia. This historical factor may be associated with our finding of an Eastern Asian preponderance of high dose antipsychotic prescription.
Asia ; Asian Continental Ancestry Group* ; Bangladesh ; China ; Far East ; Hong Kong ; Humans ; India ; Indonesia ; Japan ; Korea ; Malaysia ; Myanmar ; Pakistan ; Prescriptions* ; Schizophrenia* ; Singapore ; Sri Lanka ; Taiwan ; Thailand ; Vietnam

The striatum and globus pallidus are principal nuclei of the basal ganglia. Nissl- and acetylcholinesterase-stained sections of the tree shrew brain showed the neuroanatomical features of the caudate nucleus (Cd), internal capsule (ic), putamen (Pu), accumbens, internal globus pallidus, and external globus pallidus. The ic separated the dorsal striatum into the Cd and Pu in the tree shrew, but not in rats and mice. In addition, computer-based 3D images allowed a better understanding of the position and orientation of these structures. These data provided a large-scale atlas of the striatum and globus pallidus in the coronal, sagittal, and horizontal planes, the first detailed distribution of parvalbumin-immunoreactive cells in the tree shrew, and the differences in morphological characteristics and density of parvalbumin-immunoreactive neurons between tree shrew and rat. Our findings support the tree shrew as a potential model for human striatal disorders.
Acetylcholinesterase ; metabolism ; Animals ; Brain Mapping ; Corpus Striatum ; anatomy & histology ; cytology ; metabolism ; Globus Pallidus ; anatomy & histology ; cytology ; metabolism ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; Male ; Mice ; Mice, Inbred C57BL ; Models, Neurological ; Neurons ; metabolism ; Parvalbumins ; metabolism ; Rats ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley ; Statistics, Nonparametric ; Tupaiidae ; anatomy & histology

OBJECTIVEThis study was aimed to evaluate the significance of bone marrow(BM) morphological examination and many tumor marker(TM) detection, especially carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), cancer antigen 125(CA125), cancer antigen 15-3 (CA15-3) and serum ferritin (SF) for lymphoma diagnosis and prognosis.

METHODSA total of 47 confirmed patients with lymphoma in our hospital from January 2012 to October 2013 and 20 health peoplels as normal controls were performed with bone marrow morphological examination, at the same time, the electrochemistry luminescent technique was applied for detecting levels of TM (especially CEA, CA125, CA15-3 and SF) in serum samples of lymphoma patient and normal controls, then the BM immature lymphocyte counts of these people and clinical parameters were analyzed for diagnosis and prognosis.

RESULTSThere was significant differences in all the four TM levels between serum samples of lymphoma patients and normal control (P=0.029, P=0.000, P=0.005, P=0.000). These TM levels had no correlation with age, sex white blood cell, lymphocyte, platelet counts and anemia of lymphoma patients (P>0.05). It was also found that the patients with elevated TM levels had high BM immature lymphocytes (lymphoma cells) counts, B symptoms, advanced clinical stage and high IPI index (P<0.05). The CA15-3 and SF levels in serum samples of lymphoma patients with BM infiltration were higher than that in lymphoma patients without BM infiltration (P=0.002, P=0.000).

CONCLUSIONCombination of BM morphological examination with serum TM level detection plays an important role in diagnosis, clinical stage and prognosis evaluation of lymphoma patients. It is also very important for assessing BM infiltration status of lymphoma patients.

The present study was designed to investigate the effects of Laminaria japonica (Laminaria) on pharmacokinetics of glycyrrhetinic acid (GA) following oral administration of Liquorice extract in rats. Following oral administrations of single-dose and multi-dose Liquorice extract and Liquorice-Laminaria extract, respectively, plasma samples were obtained at various times and the concentrations of GA, liquiritigenin, and isoliquiritigenin were measured by LC-MS. The effects of Laminaria extract on pharmacokinetics of GA were also investigated, following single-dose and multidose of glycyrrhizic acid (GL). The effects of Laminaria extract on intestinal absorption of GA and GL were studied using the in situ single-pass intestinal perfusion model. The metabolism of GL to GA in the contents of small and large intestines was also studied. The results showed Liquorice-Laminaria extract markedly increased the plasma concentration of GA, accompanied by a shorter Tmax. Similar alteration was observed following multidose administration. However, pharmacokinetics of neither liquiritigenin nor isoliquiritigenin was affected by Laminaria. Similarly, Laminaria markedly increased concentration and decreased Tmax of GA following oral GL were observed. The data from the intestinal perfusion model showed that Laminaria markedly increased GL absorption in duodenum and jejunum, but did not affect the intestinal absorption of GA. It was found that Laminaria enhanced the metabolism of GL to GA in large intestine. In conclusion, Laminaria increased plasma exposures of GA following oral administration of liquorice or GL, which partly resulted from increased intestinal absorption of GL and metabolism of GL to GA in large intestine.
Administration, Oral ; Animals ; Drug Interactions ; Glycyrrhetinic Acid ; blood ; Glycyrrhiza ; chemistry ; Glycyrrhizic Acid ; blood ; pharmacokinetics ; Intestinal Absorption ; Intestinal Mucosa ; metabolism ; Laminaria ; Male ; Plant Extracts ; blood ; pharmacokinetics ; pharmacology ; Rats, Sprague-Dawley

Cell biology experiments in space are indispensable for investigating the effects of microgravity environment on living organisms. As an important technological means of supporting life science researche, space cell bioreactor may directly influence the data quality of space cell biology experiments and research level. To date, space cell bioreactor techniques are still under development, and lack of standard rationale. In this article, the technical progresses of space cell bioreactor were reviewed, by introducing the operational principle of several typical space cell bioreactors, analyzing the mode of culture medium supplying and character of fluid mechanics environment in space, as well as the relevant supporting techniques about the parametric controlling on temperature, dissolved oxygen and pH value and on-line microscopic imaging, so as to discuss the future perspective about space cell bioreactor techniques.