Liver Shear-Wave Velocity and Serum Fibrosis Markers to Diagnose Hepatic Fibrosis in Patients with Chronic Viral Hepatitis B

OBJECTIVE: To compare several noninvasive indices of fibrosis in chronic viral hepatitis B, including liver shear-wave velocity (SWV), hyaluronic acid (HA), collagen type IV (CIV), procollagen type III (PCIII), and laminin (LN). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Acoustic radiation force impulse (ARFI) was performed in 157 patients with chronic viral hepatitis B and in 30 healthy volunteers to measure hepatic SWV (m/s) in a prospective study. Serum markers were acquired on the morning of the same day of the ARFI evaluation. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was performed to evaluate and compare the accuracies of SWV and serum markers using METAVIR scoring from liver biopsy as a reference standard. RESULTS: The most accurate test for diagnosing fibrosis F ≥ 1 was SWV with the area under the ROC curve (AUC) of 0.913, followed by LN (0.744), HA (0.701), CIV (0.690), and PCIII (0.524). The best test for diagnosing F ≥ 2 was SWV (AUC of 0.851), followed by CIV (0.671), HA (0.668), LN (0.562), and PCIII (0.550). The best test for diagnosing F ≥ 3 was SWV (0.854), followed by CIV (0.693), HA (0.675), PCIII (0.591), and LN (0.548). The best test for diagnosing F = 4 was SWV (0.965), followed by CIV (0.804), PCIII (0.752), HA (0.744), and LN (0.662). SWV combined with HA and CIV did not improve diagnostic accuracy (AUC = 0.931 for F ≥ 1, 0.863 for F ≥ 2, 0.855 for F ≥ 3, 0.960 for F = 4). CONCLUSION: The performance of SWV in diagnosing liver fibrosis is superior to that of serum markers. However, the combination of SWV, HA, and CIV does not increase the accuracy of diagnosing liver fibrosis and cirrhosis.

Ginsenosides from Panax ginseng by supercritical CO_2 reverse microemulsion extraction / 中草药

Objective To raise ginsenosides yield from Panax ginseng by supercritical CO2 reverse microemulsion extraction.Methods Bis-(2-ethylhexyl)sodium sulphosuccinate(AOT)/ethanol/water/supercritical CO2 reverse microemulsion extraction was carried out to extract gingsenosides.Results The ginsenosides extracting rate by supercritical CO2 reverse microemulsion extraction was 3.2 times that of by ethanol/water/supercritical CO2 extraction in extracting pressure 25 MPa,extracting temperature 45 ℃,extracting time 4 h,and CO2 flow rate 2.0 L/h,respectively.The ginsenosides extracting yield increased with the increasing of the water amount and the extracting pressure,increased first and then decreased with the increasing of AOT concentration and the extracting temperature.The ginsenosides extracting yield with P.ginseng soaked with water before extraction was 1.3 times that with P.ginseng soaked with water during the extraction.Conclusion Combined the experimental results with the theoretic deduction,the mechanism of supercritical CO2 reverse microemulsion extraction is that the polar water pools of reverse microemulsion can make more ginsenosides dissolved.