Comparison among three standards of TW2 to skeletal age determination in children with central precocious puberty / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To discuss the diagnostic value of English, Chinese and Japanese standards of TW2 to skeletal age assessment of children with central precocious puberty (CPP), then to confirm the normal thresholds.@*METHODS@#Sixty one children as patient group were definitely assured CPP. The control group had 67 children. Among them, 61 were normal children, another 6 children as a special control group. Left hand-wrist X-ray radiographs were retrospectively analyzed by two doctors separately and their skeletal ages were assessed with the three standards of TW2 method. The differences between skeletal age and chronological age were analyzed with ROC in SPSS 13.0.@*RESULTS@#(1) The skeletal age results showed kappa value is 0.776 deduced by two clinical doctors(u = 16.128, P < 0.05). (2) There were no statistic differences for the areas under ROC curves among three methods. (3) d > or = 1.15 years in TW2, d > or = 1.25 years in TW2-CHN and d > or = 0.65 years in TW2-JP were more susceptive and specific points.@*CONCLUSION@#TW2, TW2-CHN and TW2-JP provided a higher value for the diagnosis of skeletal age in unhealthy children, and TW2-CHN is highest value for Chinese children.

TW systems in estimation of carpal bone age and their potential applications in diagnosis of idiopathic precocious puberty in Chinese girls / 法医学杂志

OBJECTIVE@#To compare three assessment methods (TW2, TW2CH, and TW3) for carpal bone age and their potential applications in diagnosis of idiopathic precocious puberty (IPP) in Chinese girls.@*METHODS@#Fifty-five (55) girls with IPP and 83 normal girls as control group were selected in this study. The X-ray films of the left hand-wrist taken at their first visit were analyzed retrospectively. Three assessment methods were used to estimate the carpal bone age with single-blinded method and percentiles were set at 5 different decision thresholds (1)>97th percentile, (2)>90 th percentile, (3)>75th percentile, (4)>50 th percentile, and (5)< or =50th percentile.@*RESULTS@#All of the three methods showed similar high sensitivity and specificity at the threshold above 90th percentile.@*CONCLUSION@#Our data indicate that all of the three methods for estimation of the carpal bone age are useful in diagnosis of IPP. TW2CH and TW3 methods appear to be superior to TW2 method.

HER2 expression and its prognostic implication in lymph node negative breast carcinoma: a Meta-analysis / 中华病理学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To evaluate the clinical value of HER2 overexpression in breast cancer and its prognostic implication in patients with lymph node negative breast carcinoma.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The following electronic database were extracted using appropriate inclusive and exclusive standards: Cochrane library, PUBMED, Embase (1984 - 2003), OVID, CMCC and CNKI. Excel and RevMan 4.2 were used for statistical analysis.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Fifty-six articles were extracted to calculate the positive rate of HER2 overexpression. The pooled positive rate was 23.14% [19.54%, 26.73%], with positive immunohistochemistry (IHC) rate of 23.13% [19.49%, 26.77%] and positive FISH rate of 20.90% [15.54%, 26.25%]. Seven articles were used to evaluate prognostic predication of HER2 expression. It was concluded that in patients with lymph node negative breast carcinoma, HER2 overexpression (both IHC and FISH) independently predicted a poor prognosis based on disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) with a P < 0.05. For DFS, the pooled RR was 1.38 [1.07, 1.80] with 1.16 [1.02, 1.31] for IHC and 1.98 [1.56, 2.52] for FISH. For OS, the pooled RR was 1.58 [1.16, 2.14] with 1.37 [1.14 to 1.64] for IHC and 2.33 [1.45 to 3.75] for FISH. HER2 overexpression effectively predicted DFS/OS of patients without adjuvant therapy and OS of patients with the therapy, but not for DFS, with the pooled RR of 1.46 [1.02, 2.09] and 1.11 [0.95, 1.31] for DFS, respectively and the pooled RR of 1.93 [1.44 to 2.58] and 1.25 [1.01, 1.56] for OS, respectively.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>In patients with lymph node negative breast carcinoma, the positive rate of HER2 overexpression is 23.14%. HER2 overexpression indicates a poor prognosis and adjuvant therapy after surgery should be recommended.</p>

Cost analysis of Shenqi Fuzheng injection on reducing adverse effects during chemotherapy / 中华流行病学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>The goals of this work was to analyse the cost of Shenqi Fuzheng injection-an extraction of a Chinese traditional herbs on reducing adverse effects in lung cancer patients during chemotherapy.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>In a randomized cross-over trial, each patient completed two identical cisplatin-based chemotherapy cycles, one with Shenqi Fuzheng injection, another without Shenqi Fuzheng injection. Adverse effects and change scores of quality of life (QOL) during chemotherapy were compared in tow cycles. The direct cost dealing with adverse effect and cost-effectiveness analysis were taken.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>One hundred and thirty were enrolled with 123 of whom were evaluable. The patient characteristics were well balanced between the two groups. The chemotherapy cycles with Shenqi Fuzheng injection spent 220.5 more Chinese yuan, but the adverse effect of leukopenia, thrombocytopenia and vomiting were slight different and the change of score of several QOL domains showed significant better as compared to those in another cycle.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Shenqi Fuzheng injection could reduce the severity of toxicity related to chemotherapy and improve the QOL of patients and had some benefits in terms of cost-effectiveness.</p>