ABSTRACT
Stroke is a cerebrovascular disease that damages brain tissue due to blockage or rupture of blood vessels, and is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. Diagnosing, monitoring stroke and the treatment effects all rely on neuroimaging that detects changes in the brain. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is a novel neuroimaging technique which is based on the non-invasively measuring of concentration changes of oxyhemoglobin and reduced hemoglobin. This review summarizes the underlying mechanisms of NIRS and its current clinical application in stroke, as well as the limitations of NIRS in broader clinical applications.
ABSTRACT
Objective: To propose an automatic skeleton thinning algorithmfor accurate extracting the center line of coronary artery from CT images. Methods The region of coronary artery on CT images were segmented, and complete 3D data of coronary artery were obtained after 3D reconstruction. Then the center line of coronary artery was extracted using skeleton thinning algorithm. Dijkstra algorithm was introduced according to the characteristics of coronary artery to improve the accuracy of extraction. Results Compared with the skeleton thinning algorithm which didn't remove mini branches, the rate of overlap was increased by 2%, the average distance was reduced by 38.2%, and the average running time was 0.48 s. Conclusion Using improved skeleton thinning algorithm could effectively extract the center line of coronary arteries.
ABSTRACT
Objective To explore the value and advantage of intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring in the treatment of hypertensive intracerebral hemorrhage (HICH) through minimally invasive surgery. Methods Seventy-three HICH cases were randomly selected and then divided into control group and treatment group. Thirty-four of them in control group received soft-channel minimally invasive hematoma removal. The head of the soft-channel was placed in the center of the hematoma. One third to half of the initial hematoma was extracted during the operation. Urokinase was injected into the soft channel to dissolve the hematoma. Thirty-nine of them in treatment group underwent the same operation procedure but with ICP monitoring to control aspirating hematoma during the operation. The target ICP was 15 mmHg. The aspiration of hematoma may stop once the ICP down to the target. Treatment such as urokinase injection was adjusted according to the value of ICP monitoring throughout the operation. The incidence of rebleeding, hematoma evacuation time and the average length of stay between two groups were compared. Results The results showed that one fifth of hematoma extracted was enough for a desired ICP. There found no rebleeding case in treatment group while 4 cases in control group and the difference had statistical significance. The hematoma evacuation time and the average length of stay between two groups had statistical significance. Conclusion Continuous ICP monitoring combined with directional software channel minimally invasive surgery changes the concept of empirically intraoperative hematoma evacuation and postoperative drug injection and proposes the idea of controlling drainage. It can shorten the course, provide sensitive and objective indicators and basis, reduce the secondary brain injury and improve prognosis.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE@#To study the mTOR expression of cancer stem cells(CSCs) in nasopharyngeal carcinoma and preliminarily explore the mechanism of inhibiting its proliferation with rapamycin.@*METHOD@#Nasopharyngeal carcinoma spherical cells were gathered by using serum-free suspension culture method, CCK8 assay was used to detect cell proliferation, Western blot assay was used to detect the expression of CD44, OCT4, SOX2 and mTOR signaling. The spherical cells and CNE2 were treated with rapamycin in concentrations of 0, 0.1, 1.0, 10.0, 100.0, 1000.0 nmol/L, CCK8 assay was used to detect cell inhibition ratio, Western blot assay was used to detect the expression of mTOR signaling of nasopharyngeal carcinoma spherical cells.@*RESULT@#Compared with CNE2, the spherical cells exhibited a high proliferation rate in RPMI 1640 medium supplemented with fetal bovine serum, and overexpressed in OCT4, SOX2 (P 0.05). Although the expression levels of mTOR, P70S6, 4EBP1 were not significantly different between the two kinds of cells (P > 0.05) the proteins of phosphorylation activation form of them (P-mTOR, P-P70S6, P-4EBP1) were highly expressed in spherical cells (P < 0.05). The spherical cells and CNE2 were treated with rapamycin in different concentrations, the concentrations for 50% of maximal effect of spherical cells and CNE2 were 2.59 nmol/L and 78.12 nmol/L respectively, rapamycin inhibited the spherical cells more strongly compared with CNEZ. The expression levels of P-mTOR, P-70S6, P-4EBP1 in spherical cells were gradually decreased with increasing of the concentrations of rapamycin, but the difference of the expression levels of mTOR, P70S6, 4EBP1 were not significant.@*CONCLUSION@#The proteins of mTOR signaling pathway of CSCs in nasopharyngeal carcinoma are overexpressed, and rapamycin can effectively inhibit cell proliferation of CSCs in nasopharyngeal carcinoma by blocking mTOR signaling pathway.