Value of serum alpha-fetoprotein for the prognostic evaluation of hepatitis B virus-related acute-on-chronic liver failure treated with artificial liver / 中华肝脏病杂志

Objective@#To investigate the value of alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) level on survived hepatitis B virus-related acute-on-chronic liver failure (HBV-ACLF) patients treated with artificial liver.@*Methods@#Clinical indicators of HBV-ACLF patients who were previously treated with plasma exchange-based artificial liver at our department were retrospectively collected. The difference of serum AFP level between the survival and the death group was compared at 30, 90 and 180 days after artificial liver treatment. The ROC curves of the subjects were plotted, and the sensitivity and specificity of AFP for the survival prediction of the patients at 30, 90 and 180 days after artificial liver surgery were calculated. AFP was divided into a high AFP group and a low AFP group using median value. AFP and postoperative survival predictive value at 30, 90, and 180 days were analyzed.@*Results@#A total of 93 cases were included in this study. The AFP of the survival group at 30, 90, and 180 days was (231.0 ± 286.2) ng / ml, (237.69 ± 297) ng / ml, (229.44 ± 286.46) ng/ml, and the death group was (76.4 ± 104.7) ng/ml, (103.13 ± 116.99) ng / ml, (136.34 ± 2.9.29) ng/ml, respectively. AFP of the death group was significantly lower than the corresponding survival group (P < 0.05). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses indicated that the area under the curve (AUC) and its 95% confidence interval at 30, 90, and 180 days after artificial liver surgery were 0.739 (0.611 ~ 0.867), 0.675 (0.550 ~ 0.80), 0.653 (0.524 ~ 0.781), respectively. The median serum AFP value was 110 ng/ml, and the survival analysis showed that the survival time of the high AFP group was significantly higher than the low AFP group at 30 d (P = 0.01), 90 d (P = 0.04) and 180 d (P = 0.03) after artificial liver surgery.@*Conclusion@#Serum AFP can be used as a predictor of survival for HBV-ACLF patients after artificial liver therapy and its clinical value needs to be further verified by the larger sample size.

Role of anterior thalamic nucleus in trigeminal nerve electrostimulation-induced reduction of seizures and hippocampal damage / 中国病理生理杂志

[ ABSTRACT] AIM: To investigate the role of anterior thalamic nucleus in trigeminal nerve electrostimulation ( TNS)-induced effects on seizures and hippocampal damage.METHODS: The rats were intraperitoneally injected with pilocarpine to induce chronic epilepsy, and then received sham treatment, TNS treatment and TNS treatment after stereotac-tic lesion to the anterior thalamic nucleus.The TNS treatment lasted for 1 month in each group.Another injection of pilo-carpine was conducted to induce seizures, and the severity and duration of seizures were quantitatively evaluated.TUNEL, Fluoro-Jade B ( FJB) and Nissl staining were applied to determine in situ apoptosis, neuronal degeneration and neuron loss in the hippocampal CA1 area respectively.RESULTS:Compared with TNS group, TNS treatment after stereotactic lesion to the anterior thalamic nucleus significantly increased the severity and duration of seizures (P<0.05), and the numbers of TUNEL positive cells, FJB positive cells and lost neurons in the hippocampal CA1 area (P<0.01).CONCLUSION:Anterior thalamic nucleus plays a role in TNS-induced reduction of seizures and hippocampal damage.The mechanisms might be due to the chronically activation of the cortex through anterior thalamic nucleus pathway induced by TNS, resulting in the down-regulation of neuronal excitatory susceptibility.

Reliability and validity of SF-36 in advanced schistosomiasis / 中国血吸虫病防治杂志

Objective To evaluate the reliability and validity of SF-36 in patients with advanced schistosomiasis,so as to proride scientific basis for the selection of suitable tools for health measure.Methods A Chinese version of SF-36 scale was applied to evaluate the health of patients with advanced schistosomiasis by a household survey in Hanshou County of Hunan Province and Jiangling County of Hubei Province,then the reliability and validity of the scale were tested.Results Atotal of 326 patients were investigated in the two counties.The split-half reliability(with a split-half coefficient of 0.95) and the internal consistency (Cronbach'α coefficients of the eight dimensions ranged from 0.86 to 0.88)were satisfying;the convergent and discriminative validity were high with the test successful rates of 97.14%and 87.86%,respectively;the criterion validity was acceptable with a correlation coefficient between the total score of SF-36 and EQ-5D+C VAS score of 0.70.However,the construct validity seemed to be not so reasonable as only 2 dimensions out of 8 were completely in accordance with the theoretical model on factor loading.The percentages of floor effect and ceiling effect in most dimensions were not significant except RP and RE(with the percentages of floor effect of 50.31%and 48.16%,respectively).Conclusions SF-36 is appropriate to be used in patients with advanced schistosomiasis.but some items need to be improved according to the local settings of endemic areas.

Effects of corticosteroid on Eotaxin and Eotaxin-2 in nasal polyps / 临床耳鼻咽喉头颈外科杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To study the expression of Eotaxin and Eotaxin-2 in nasal polyp and observe the effects of steroids on Eotaxin and Eotaxin-2 in nasal polyps.@*METHOD@#The SP immunohistochemical method was applied to explore the expression of Eotaxin and Eotaxin-2 in nasal polyps before and after systemic corticosteroids therapy; the optical density of positive cells were measured by using HPIAL-2000 image-conduct system.@*RESULT@#The expression of Eotaxin and Eotaxin 2 were positive in mucosal epithelia, vascular endothelial, glandular epithelium, and inflammatory cells. After corticosteroids use, the number of eosinophils, the expression of Eotaxin in mucosal epithelia, inflammatory cells and vascular endothelial, and the expression of Eotaxin-2 in mucosal epithelia were significantly decreased (P<0.05). The steroids affected the expression of on Eotaxin-2 in mucosal epithelia of nasal polyps mostly.@*CONCLUSION@#1) The expression of Eotaxin and Eotaxin-2 in nasal polyp are positive. 2) The effects of steroid on the nasal polyps may depend on decreasing the infiltration of eosinophils and the expression of Eotaxin and Eotaxin-2.

The study on growth and proliferation of neural stem cells from rats in vitro / 临床耳鼻咽喉头颈外科杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To investigate culturing neural stem cells (NSCs) from rat embryos in vitro and to observe their growth and differentiation.@*METHOD@#NSCs were isolated from hippocampus of SD rat embryos (P16-P18) and cultured in DMEM/F12 medium containing EGF, bFGF, B27. To observe process of cell proliferation by microscope and identify cell types by immunocytochemical analyses after differentiation.@*RESULT@#NSCs grew well in serum-free conditional medium and their cell bodies present transparent with good refraction at about eighth day. After differentiation, the cells demonstrated NSE and GFAP immunoreactive.@*CONCLUSION@#NSCs were cultured well in serum-free conditional medium and they could be induced to differentiate into neurons and astrocytes in serum conditional medium.

Potential Risks for Transmission of Schistosomiasis Caused by Mobile Population in Shanghai / 中国寄生虫学与寄生虫病杂志

Objective To understand the potential risk for schistosomiasis transmission caused by introduction of infection source from mobile population in Shanghai. Methods Field investigation was conducted in the suburb of Shanghai City by screening the mobile population living in Shanghai for more than 1 month and over 1 years old in a procedure of interviewing, serum indirect hemagglutination (IHA) test, and then fecal examination to detect the eggs with nylon sedimentation approach for those IHA positives. Results Among 2 931 mobile people investigated, 1 575 were male (53.74%) and 1 356 were female(46.26%); 138 out of 2 931 were positive in IHA test (4.71%). 1 938 (66.12%) out of 2 931 came from Schistosoma japonicum-endemic provinces and its positive rate in mobile population (5.99%) was significantly higher than those from the transmission-interrupted provinces (2.6%) (?2=10.28, P