Preparation and evaluation of a water-in-oil nanoemulsion drug delivery system loaded with salidroside / 中国天然药物

Salidroside (SAL) is a phenolic substance with high solubility and low permeability, which make it easy to cause the efflux effect of P-glycoprotein and degradation of intestinal flora, resulting in lower bioavailability. The aim of this study was to develop and optimize a water-in-oil nanoemulsion of SAL (w/o SAL-N) to explore its suitability in oral drug delivery systems. In this work, SAL-N was successfully prepared by water titration method at K

Clinical study of the application of enhanced recovery after surgery in cervical spondylotic myelopathy / 中国骨伤

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To evaluate the role of enhanced recovery after surgery in treating cervical spondylotic myelopathy.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The clinical data of 55 patients with cervical spondylotic myelopathy underwent surgical treatment from January 2012 to December 2015 were retrospectively analyzed. There were 30 males and 25 females, age from 36 to 71 years old with an average of (45.2±3.2) years, course of disease was for 1 to 12 months with an average of (4.5±1.8) months. The concept of enhanced recovery after surgery and perioperative management were applied to surgical treatment in 35 patients (study group), and the same period, 20 patients without strategy of enhanced recovery after surgery (control group). Thirty-eight patients were treated by anterior cervical discectomy decompression and fixation(ACDF), 17 patients were treated by posterior single-open door laminoplasty decompression. The activity time out of bed, hospitalization days after surgery were compared between two groups. Japanese Orthopaedic Association (JOA) score and visual analogue score(VAS) before operation, after operation at 1, 7, 30 days and 6, 12 months was respectively used to evaluate the neurological function and pain.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>All the patients were followed up for 12 to 18 months with an average of (14.3±1.5) months. There was no significant difference in age, gender, surgical methods, preoperative VAS, JOA score between two groups (>0.05). The activity time out of bed was 3 to 8 h with an average of (5.54±1.54) h, postoperative hospitalization time was 3 to12 d with an average of (5.62±1.59) d in study group, while in control group, the activity time out of bed was 24 to 48 h with an average of (18.80±4.78) h, and postoperative hospitalization time was 7 to 17 d with an average of (9.85±1.94) d; there was significant difference between two groups (<0.01). There was significant difference in VAS and JOA scores between two groups at 1, 7, 30 d after operation (<0.01), and there was no significant difference at 6, 12 months after operation(>0.05). There were no neurologic function deterioration, hematoma, wound infection, internal fixation loosening and other complications in study group during hospitalization and following-up;there were 2 cases of superficial wound infection in the control group, who healed by dressing change for 2 weeks;there was no significant difference between two groups(>0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The strategy of enhanced recovery after surgery in treating cervical spondylotic myelopathy can promote the early recovery, shorten the length of stay and improve the patient's degree of satisfaction.</p>

Comparison of Histological, Microbiological, and Molecular Methods in Diagnosis of Patients with TBLN Having Different Anti-TB Treatment Background / 生物医学与环境科学（英文）

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>The influence of anti-tuberculosis (TB) treatment history on tuberculous lymphadenitis (TBLN) diagnosis is unclear. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the diagnostic methods, including histology, microbiology, and molecular tests, used for TBLN.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>In this study, suspected patients with TBLN and having different anti-TB treatment background were enrolled. All the samples were tested simultaneously by histology, Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) staining, mycobacterial culture (culture), Xpert MTB/RIF (xpert), real-time PCR, and high-resolution melting curve PCR (HRM). Thereafter, the performance of these methods on samples with different anti-TB treatment background was assessed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>In our study, 89 patients were prospectively included 82 patients with TBLN and 7 with other diseases. The overall sensitivities of Xpert, real-time PCR, histology, ZN staining, and culture were 86.6%, 69.5%, 58.5%, 43.9%, and 22.0%, respectively. The anti-TB treatment history revealed dramatic influences on the sensitivity of culture (P < 0.0001). In fact, the treatment that lasted over 3 months also influenced the sensitivity of Xpert (P < 0.05). However, the treatment history did not affect the performance of remaining tests (P > 0.05). For rifampicin drug susceptibility test (DST), the anti-TB treatment showed only significant influence on the success rate of culture DST (P = 0.001), but not on those of Xpert and HRM tests (P > 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Other tests as well as culture should be considered for patients with TBLN having retreatment history or over 1-month treatment to avoid false negative results.</p>

Analysis of a Community-based Intervention to Reduce Heat-related Illness during Heat Waves in Licheng, China: a Quasi-experimental Study / 生物医学与环境科学（英文）

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To reduce health-related threats of heat waves, interventions have been implemented in many parts of the world. However, there is a lack of higher-level evidence concerning the intervention efficacy. This study aimed to determine the efficacy of an intervention to reduce the number of heat-related illnesses.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A quasi-experimental design was employed by two cross-sectional surveys in the year 2014 and 2015, including 2,240 participants and 2,356 participants, respectively. Each survey was designed to include one control group and one intervention group, which conducted in Licheng, China. A representative sample was selected using a multistage sampling method. Data, collected from questionnaires about heat waves in 2014 and 2015, were analyzed using a difference-in-difference analysis and cost effectiveness analysis. Outcomes included changes in the prevalence of heat-related illnesses and cost-effectiveness variables.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Relative to the control participants, the prevalence of heat-related illness in the intervention participants decreased to a greater extent in rural areas than in urban areas (OR=0.495 vs. OR=1.281). Moreover, the cost-effectiveness ratio in the intervention group was less than that in the control group (US$15.06 vs. US$15.69 per participant). Furthermore, to avoid one additional patient, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio showed that an additional US$14.47 would be needed for the intervention compared to when no intervention was applied.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>The intervention program may be considered a worthwhile investment for rural areas that are more likely to experience heat waves. Meanwhile, corresponding improving measures should be presented towards urban areas. Future research should examine whether the intervention strategies could be spread out in other domestic or international regions where heat waves are usually experienced.</p>

Cellular model of neuronal atrophy induced by DYNC1I1 deficiency reveals protective roles of RAS-RAF-MEK signaling

Neuronal atrophy is a common pathological feature occurred in aging and neurodegenerative diseases. A variety of abnormalities including motor protein malfunction and mitochondrial dysfunction contribute to the loss of neuronal architecture; however, less is known about the intracellular signaling pathways that can protect against or delay this pathogenic process. Here, we show that the DYNC1I1 deficiency, a neuron-specific dynein intermediate chain, causes neuronal atrophy in primary hippocampal neurons. With this cellular model, we are able to find that activation of RAS-RAF-MEK signaling protects against neuronal atrophy induced by DYNC1I1 deficiency, which relies on MEK-dependent autophagy in neuron. Moreover, we further reveal that BRAF also protects against neuronal atrophy induced by mitochondrial impairment. These findings demonstrate protective roles of the RAS-RAF-MEK axis against neuronal atrophy, and imply a new therapeutic target for clinical intervention.

Loading rate-dependent property of different layers for articular cartilage / 医用生物力学

Objective To investigate the loading rate-dependent property of different layers for articular cartilage by unconfined compression testing on articular cartilage at different loading rates. Methods The non-contact digital image correlation (DIC) technique was applied to investigate the mechanical properties of different layers for fresh pig articular cartilage at different loading rates. Results At constant loading rate, the compressive strain of superficial layer and deep layer was the largest, while that of middle layer was in between under the same compressive stress. The Poisson’s ratio increased from superficial layer to deep layer along with cartilage depth increasing. The stress-strain curves of cartilage were different at different loading rates, indicating that the mechanical properties of cartilage were dependent on the loading rate. The elastic modulus of cartilage increased with loading rates increasing, and the compressive strains of different layers decreased under the same compressive stress with loading rates increasing. Conclusions The compressive strain decreased while the Poisson’s ratio increased from superficial layer to deep layer along the cartilage depth. The mechanical properties of different layers for cartilage were dependent on the loading rate. This study can provide the basis for clinical cartilage disease prevention and treatment, and is important for mechanical function evaluation of artificial cartilage as well.

Normal displacement of different layers for articular cartilage under sliding loads / 医用生物力学

Objective To obtain distributions of normal displacement on different layers of articular cartilage under sliding loads and investigate effects of compressive strain, sliding rate and sliding numbers on depth-dependent normal displacement of articular cartilage. Methods The non-contact digital image correlation (DIC) technique was applied to investigate the normal displacement of different layers for fresh pig articular cartilage under sliding loads, respectively. ResultsThe largest normal displacement was found on the superficial layer, while that on the deep layer was the smallest, with the middle layer was in between under sliding loads. The normal displacement for cartilage at different normalized depth increased with compressive strain increasing and the largest increasing amplitude was in the superficial layer. The depth-dependent normal displacement for cartilage decreased with sliding rates increasing. The normal displacement for cartilage kept increasing with different sliding numbers within its sliding time. The most significant increasing amplitude of normal displacement was found between the first and second slide. Conclusions Under sliding loads, the normal displacement of cartilage usually changes along with its depth from surface to deep layer, and compressive strain, sliding rate and sliding numbers all play important roles in such normal displacement distributions on different layers. These results can provide the basis for clinical cartilage disease treatment and cartilage defect repair, and are also important for structure and construction of artificial cartilage as well as in mechanical function evaluation.

Expression of HDGF and its implication in stage I non-small cell lung cancer / 中华肿瘤杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To evaluate the expression of HDGF and its implication in patients who undergone radical resection for stage I non-small cell lung cancer.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Immunohistochemical technique was applied to detect the expression of HDGF in 118 lung cancer tissues and 30 normal lung tissues as control. At the same time, the expression of VEGF and Ki-67 labeling rate of the tumors was evaluated.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>HDGF expression was observed in all cases, and significantly higher than that in normal lung tissues (52.23 +/- 10.35 vs. 156.73 +/- 70.95, P < 0.01). Expresson of HDGF was closely related to histological classification, and the expression in adenocarcinoma was much stronger than that in squamous cell cancers (P = 0.001), but not related to other clinicopathological factors. VEGF expression was closely related to the expression of HDGF. HDGF expression in the VEGF high expression group was much higher than that in VEGF low expression group (171.77 +/- 81.07 vs. 142.81 +/- 59.84, P = 0.028). Ki-67 expression was also closely related to the expression of HDGF, the labeling rate of Ki-67 in high HDGF expression group was much higher than that in low HDGF expression group (30.49% +/- 7.88% vs. 17.80% +/- 5.63%, P = 0.001). Univariate analysis showed that the patients with high HDGF expression had a shorter overall survival than that with low HDGF expression (40.0% vs. 77.5%, P = 0.008), and multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that HDGF was a significantly independent predictive factors for patients with stage I NSCLC (RR = 1.011, P = 0.002).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>HDGF expression is upgraded in postoperative stage I non-small cell lung cancer patients. HDGF is a significantly independent predictive factor for patients with stage I NSCLC. HDGF may play an important role on carcinogenesis and development of stage I NSCLC through promoting cell proliferation and neoangiogenesis of the tumor.</p>

Second-line Hycamtin in the treatment of lung cancer / 中华肿瘤杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To discuss the therapeutic effect and toxicity of second line Hycamtin for lung cancer patients.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Ten of these 21 patients had been treated with operation. All these 21 patients received second line Hycamtin treatment; given at the dose of 1.2 mg/m(2) per day, four consecutive days as one cycle and 21 days as one course. A total of 1 - 4 courses were given according to the patient's tolerance. Four of these 21 patients also received combination of cisplatin.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Among the 13 un-operated patients, two patients showed CR, six showed PR, three SD and two PD, giving an effective rate of 62%. Among the 8 operated patients, seven showed SD but one developed distant metastasis. The 1-year survival rate was 88%.</p><p><b>TOXICITY</b>leukopenia I-II degree 14 (66.7%), leukopenia III-IV degree 5 (23.8%), thrombocytopenia III-IV degree 1 (4.8%) and one patient died of high fever and neutocytopenia. Nausea 8 (38.1%), vomiting 3 (14.3%) and diarrhea 2 (9.5%) alopecia 4 (19.1%). Were the other side-effects.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Hycamtin is indicated for second line therapy for lung cancer giving tolerable toxicity.</p>