Efficacy and safety of switching from brand-name to domestic generic levetiracetam in children with epilepsy / 中国当代儿科杂志

OBJECTIVES@#To study the efficacy and safety of domestic generic levetiracetam in replacement of brand-name levetiracetam in the treatment of children with epilepsy.@*METHODS@#A retrospective analysis was performed on the medical data of 154 children with epilepsy who received domestic generic levetiracetam in the inpatient or outpatient service of Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital from May 2019 to December 2020. Domestic generic levetiracetam and brand-name levetiracetam were compared in terms of efficacy and safety.@*RESULTS@#For these 154 children, the epilepsy control rate was 77.3% (119/154) at baseline. At 6 months after switching to domestic generic levetiracetam, the epilepsy control rate reached 83.8% (129/154), which showed a significant increase (P<0.05). There was no significant change in the frequency of seizures from baseline to 6 months after switching (P>0.05). The incidence of refractory epilepsy in children with no response after switching treatment was significantly higher than that in children with response (P<0.05). Before switching, only 1 child (0.6%) experienced somnolence, while after switching, 3 children (1.9%) experienced mild adverse drug reactions, including dizziness, somnolence, irritability, and bad temper.@*CONCLUSIONS@#Switching from brand-name to generic levetiracetam is safe and effective and holds promise for clinical application, but more prospective randomized controlled trials are required in future.

Cytokine Storm Induced by SARS-CoV-2 and the Drug Therapy / 中国药学杂志

Novel coronavirus 2019 (SARS-CoV-2) infection outbreak has occurred in Wuhan since December 2019.Cytokine storm (inflammatory factor storm)was suggested to be involved in the sudden deterioration of some SARS-CoV-2 infectors in the recent reports.However, no medicine was specific to the treatment of cytokine storm so far. This paper summarized the mechanism and potential therapeutic drugs of cytokine storm based on literature review and analysis, so as to provide references for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2.

On-campus bullying of 9th grade students and its impacts on health:An empirical analysis based on China education panel survey / 中国卫生政策研究

Objectives: To analyze the prevalence of bullying behavior among students of 9th grade across China in 2016 and to determine the impact of different types of bullying on students’physical and mental health. Methods:This paper adopted the China Education Panel Survey ( CEPS) conducted in 2016 using the sample design of PPS and cluster sampling. The survey population involved students of 9th grade and 8600 of them were respondents of the prepared questionnaire. Opting for the survey questionnaires to collect the basic information from the survey subjects, the study measured and compared the prevalence of physical, verbal, social and cyber bullying observed in 2016. Therefore, impacts of bullying on physical and mental/psychological health of students were respectively examined u-sing multiple OLS regression model and multi-factor sequential logit model. Results: The results of the survey found that during the past academic year, 49. 29% of students suffered verbal bullying, 37. 69% experienced social bull-ying followed by 18. 41% for those who caught physical bullying and finally 14. 08% were cyber bullied. The results of the multiple OLS regression analysis indicated that being bullied was a risk factor for students’ mental health, and social bullying was the most deleterious, followed by verbal bullying. The multi-factor sequential logit model results showed that the risk of illness was higher for students who were bullied than for those who were not bullied and verbal bullying was a notable health risk factor for physical health of students. Conclusions: Currently, verbal bullying is the most prevalent of the existing types of bullying in schools while new problems emerged with cyber bullying. Being bul-lied has a negative effect on both physical and mental health of students. The main risk factor for mental health is so-cial bullying and verbal bullying presents higher risks for physical health of students.

A new method for agreement evaluation based on AC / 南方医科大学学报

Medical studies use various methods for assessing agreement among different raters or measurement methods. Many of these coefficients have limitations, and among them the paradoxes of kappa are the best known. To achieve a higher accuracy and reliability, we propose an alternative statistic method based on AC1, known as CEA, which adjusts the chance agreement. We explored the influences of the prevalence rate and chance agreement probability on the total agreement and compared the accuracy and stability of kappa, AC1 and CEA coefficient through simulations and real data analysis. The proposed method offers a stable and reliable option for assessing agreement of binary data.

Updated molecular genetic mechanisms of globozoospermia / 中华男科学杂志

Globozoospermia is a rare and serious teratozoospermia, which is one of the important causes contributing to human male infertility. The assisted reproductive technique remains the only means for such patients to produce offspring. However, the pathogenesis of globozoospermia is not yet clear. In recent years, related studies have shown that some genes are connected with the onset of globozoospermia. This paper outlines the progress in the studies of pathogenicity genes, aiming to contribute to the molecular diagnosis and mechanism investigation of the disease.

Role of mitochondrial quality control in exercise-induced health adaptation / 中国应用生理学杂志

Long-term endurance training or physical activity has been confirmed not only to improve physical performance, but to bring about an obvious beneficial effect on human health; however, the mechanism of this effect is not clear. The most studied health adaptations in skeletal muscle response to endurance exercise are increased muscle glycogen level and insulin sensitivity, fiber type transformation toward oxidative myofibers, and increased mitochondrial content/function. Mitochondria are dynamic organelles in eukaryotic cells critical in physical performance and disease occurrence. The mitochondrial life cycle spans biogenesis, maintenance, and clearance. Exercise training may promote each of these processes and confer positive impacts on skeletal muscle contractile and metabolic functions. This review focused on the regulation of these processes by endurance exercise and discussed its potential benefits in health and disease. We presented evidence suggesting that exercise training potentiates not only the biogenesis of mitochondria but also the removal of old and unhealthy mitochondria through mitochondrial quality control.

Ouabain stimulates slowly adapting pulmonary stretch receptors / 生理学报

Ouabain, a Na(+)/K(+)-ATPase inhibitor, induces slowly adapting pulmonary stretch receptors (SARs) to discharge paradoxically. Paradoxical discharge is characterized by increased SAR activity during lung deflation coupled with silence during lung inflation. We hypothesized that over-excitation silences the SARs. Accordingly, if cyclic inflation pressure was reduced so as to lower SAR stimulation, paradoxical discharge would be prevented. In the present study, single-unit activity of SARs was recorded in anesthetized, open-chest and mechanically ventilated rabbits with positive-end-expiratory pressure (PEEP). After microinjection of ouabain into the receptive field, SAR activity initially increased and then gradually became paradoxical. During paradoxical cycling, SAR activity started and stopped abruptly, oscillating between high frequency discharge during lung deflation and silence during peak inflation. Removing PEEP reduced basal cyclic stimulation and returned the discharge pattern to normal, that is, SAR activity was highest at peak inflation pressure but silent during deflation. It is speculated that stretching SARs causes Na(+) influx, producing generator potential (GP). Normally, GP recovers by Na(+) extrusion via Na(+)/K(+)-ATPase. Ouabain inhibits the ATPase, which limits Na(+) extrusion, and thus sustains the GP. Therefore, after ouabain microinjection, lung inflation will further increase GP, causing over-excitation to silence the SARs.