ABSTRACT
There are many kinds of processed products of Aconiti Lateralis Radix Praeparata (ALRP), but their differences in toxicity and efficacy have not been identified. The minimum premature ventricular contraction (PVC) method was used to evaluate the biological toxicity of eight processed products. The results showed that the minimal toxic dose (MTD) of an ethanol extract of Shengfupian (SFP) was 0.16 g·kg-1, which was much lower than that of Heishunpian (HSP), Baifupian (BFP), Baofupian (BAP), Paofuzi (PFZ) or Zhengfupian (ZFP), with MTDs ranging from 2.64 to 5.75 g·kg-1. No cardiotoxicity was detected with Chaofupian (CFP) and Paotianxiong (PTX). A novel +dp/dtmax assay for acute heart failure in rats was developed to evaluate the cardiac activity. It was found that all eight processed products had cardiac effects, with Shengfupian showing the strongest cardiotonic effect and the ability to restore damaged cardiac function to normal within 15 minutes of injection. Heishunpian, Baifupian and the three other products displayed moderate activity, while Paofuzi and Paotianxiong were the weakest. An LC-MS/MS method was utilized to determine the content of 13 alkaloids in water extracts. The results demonstrated that hypertoxic aconitine, mesaconitine, and hypaconitine could not be detected, higenamine was only present in Shengfupian, and salsolinol was about 4-56 times higher in Shengfupian than in other products. A correlation analysis showed that salsolinol had the best correlation with the cardiotonic index, with a correlation coefficient as high as 0.817, while the three monoester alkaloids failed to correlate with the cardiotonic effect. Higenamine and salsolinol were cardiotonic, while the 11 other components had no cardiotonic activity. This study establishes methods for precise evaluation of cardiotoxicity and cardiac activity, reveals the toxicity and efficacy of common processed products, and identifies the key quality markers for cardiac activity, providing scientific support for the quality evaluation and clinical application of processed products of aconite.
ABSTRACT
There is often a need to access heart rate measuring system which provides accurate and quick readings of patients. This paper presents the design of simple heart rate measurement system based on Arduino board which displays and simultaneously transmitting the data to a smartphone via Bluetooth. Here the cardiac activity of the patient is acquired by a pulse sensor and the output of this sensor is transmitted using Bluetooth. By using this system unlike the conventional method, the doctor doesn't need to be present at the time of measuring the heart rate. The system takes the physical input from pulse sensor by placing the patients’ finger on the sensor and then the input is processed by Arduino to count the number of pulses and displaying the output in the smartphone using a Bluetooth application.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of intra-amniotic methotrexate instillation for the treatment of viable cervical pregnancy. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Four patients were enrolled in this study after confirmation of cervical pregnancy by ultrasonography. Viable cervical pregnancy was determined by ultrasonographic findings with the entire chorionic sac containing a live fetus below the internal os, empty uterine cavity, and significantly dilated or barrel shaped cervical canal. Under the transvaginal ultrasonographic guidence, 50 mg of methotrexate was injected directly into the amniotic sac after complete aspiration of amniotic fluid. Serial serum beta-human chorionic gonadotropin (beta-hCG) was evaluated weekly until normalized. RESULTS: All the patients were successfully treated with conservative method and one patient received hysterectomy due to arterio-venous malformation diagnosed during follow up. Initial serum beta-hCG concentration was 22,484-93,803 mIU/ml and decreased by log scale after treatment. CONCLUSION: Intra-amniotic methotrexate instillation without concomitant feticide injection or feticidal procedure can be used for the initial treatment in viable cervical pregnancy. Initial titer or falling rate pattern of serum beta-hCG did not seem to be related with the prognosis.
Subject(s)
Female , Humans , Pregnancy , Amniotic Fluid , Chorion , Chorionic Gonadotropin , Fetus , Follow-Up Studies , Hysterectomy , Methotrexate , Prognosis , UltrasonographyABSTRACT
Uracil (I) (2,4-Diketo-pyrimidine) was isolated from the radix aconiti collected from Jiangyou region of Sichuan Province.The chemical structure of this principle was determined by elemental analysis,IR,UV,MS,'H and 13C-NMR spectral data. The experiments were made to study the effect of uracil (I) on the cardiac contractile force and beating rate of the isolated toad hearts in comparison with uracil (II) (artificial synthesis). The results indicated that the 5?mol/L of uracil (I) and uracil (II) both had the effect of increasing the amplitude of myocardial contraction (P0.05) at 3 and 5 min. When the concentration was increased to 10 and 20?mol/L, the amplitudes of myocardial contraction were more incremental and 3 min later,the estimated value of uracil (I) and uracil (II) to increase the amplitude of myocardial contraction by 50% approached to 4.17 and 4.68, respectively. As described above, uracil (I) is a new cardiotonic in Jiangyou Fuzi.