Efficacy and Safety of Adalimumab in Moderately to Severely Active Cases of Ulcerative Colitis: A Meta-Analysis of Published Placebo-Controlled Trials

BACKGROUND/AIMS: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of adalimumab (ADA) in moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis (UC) patients who are unresponsive to traditional therapy. METHODS: Electronic databases, including the PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane databases, were searched to April 20, 2014. UC-related randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that compared ADA with placebo were eligible. Review Manager 5.1 was used for data analysis. RESULTS: This meta-analysis included three RCTs. ADA was considerably more effective compared with a placebo, and it increased the ratio of patients with clinical remission, clinical responses, mucosal healing and inflammatory bowel disease questionnaire responses in the induction and maintenance phases (p<0.05), as well as patients with steroid-free remission (p<0.05) during the maintenance phase. Clinical remission was achieved in a greater number of UC cases in the ADA 160/80/40 mg groups (0/2/4 week, every other week) compared with the placebo group at week 8 (p=0.006) and week 52 (p=0.0002), whereas the week 8 clinical remission rate was equivalent between the ADA 80/40 mg groups and the placebo group. Among the patients who received immunomodulators (IMM) at baseline, ADA was superior to the placebo in terms of inducing clinical remission (p=0.01). Between-group differences were not observed in terms of serious adverse events (p=0.61). CONCLUSIONS: ADA, particularly at doses of 160/80/40 mg (0/2/4 week, every other week), is effective and safe in patients with moderate-to-severe UC who are unresponsive to traditional treatment. Concomitant IMM therapy may improve the short-term therapeutic efficacy of ADA.

Analysis on therapeutic effect of acupoint-injection on chronic hepatitis B / 中国针灸

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To search for an effective method for treatment of chronic hepatitis B.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>One hundred and twenty-three cases were randomly divided into a treatment group (n = 63) and a control group (n = 60). The treatment group were treated with injection of Huangqi injectio and Danshen Injectio into Ganshu (BL 18) and Zusanli (ST 36), once every other day; and the control group were treated with oral administration of Gankangning tablet and fufang yiganling tablet. The clinical symptoms, hepatic function, hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg), hepatitis B virus-desoxyribose nucleic acid (HBV-DNA) were compared between the two groups.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The total effective rate was 93.7% in the treatment group and 76.7% in the control group with significant difference between the two groups (P < 0.01); and the treatment group in hepatic function and the effects of turning negative for HBeAg and HBV-DNA was better than the control group (P < 0.01).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Acupoint-injection has a better therapeutic effect on chronic hepatitis B.</p>

Development of a multiple ligator and its endoscopic therapy for patients with esophageal varices / 中国医疗器械杂志

The ligators we have developed is a kind of economical and effective six-ring ligator. Endoscopic variceal ligation (EVL) was performed to treat bleeding from esophageal varices in patients with liver cirrhosis using self-made ligator and foreign multiple ligator. There are similar effects with both self-made ligator and foreign mutiple ligator in the control of variceal bleeding, variceal obliteration and rebleeding (93.8%, 87.5%, 0 in the group with self-made ligator, 94.5%, 87.1%, 2.4% in the group with foreign multiple ligator, P>0.05). In terms of the quality index, successful operation rate, hemastatic rate, variceal obliteration rate, rebleeding rate, complications and variceal recurrence rate, the self-made ligator is as good as the foreign multiple ligator, but much cheaper.

ICAM-1 expression in experimental fibrosistissue affected by Radis Astragali / 中国临床药理学与治疗学

Aim To observe the antifibrotic effect of Radis Astragali and to explore the mechanism. Methods The fibrosis of animal model was induced with CCl4,and the model animals were treated with Radis Astragali in treatment group and saline in control group respectively. Results The serum hyaluronic acid (HA), fibrosis score and ICAM_1_positive hepatocytes all the decreased in the treatment group as compared to those in the control group.Conclusion Radis Astragali has satisfactory effect on experimental fibrosis. The mechanism may be correlated with its affection on ICAM_1 in liver tissue.