A method of lung puncture path planning based on multi-level constraint / 生物医学工程学杂志

Percutaneous pulmonary puncture guided by computed tomography (CT) is one of the most effective tools for obtaining lung tissue and diagnosing lung cancer. Path planning is an important procedure to avoid puncture complications and reduce patient pain and puncture mortality. In this work, a path planning method for lung puncture is proposed based on multi-level constraints. A digital model of the chest is firstly established using patient's CT image. A Fibonacci lattice sampling is secondly conducted on an ideal sphere centered on the tumor lesion in order to obtain a set of candidate paths. Finally, by considering clinical puncture guidelines, an optimal path can be obtained by a proposed multi-level constraint strategy, which is combined with oriented bounding box tree (OBBTree) algorithm and Pareto optimization algorithm. Results of simulation experiments demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method, which has good performance for avoiding physical and physiological barriers. Hence, the method could be used as an aid for physicians to select the puncture path.

Analysis of drug-resistant multi-loci mutation of P area of HBV genome in 32 patients with chronic hepatitis B / 中华实验和临床病毒学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>In order to deeply understand the effects of nucleoside analogues to HBV DNA polymerase area, which initiate a state of drug resistance due to HBV genome mutation.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>Using PCR product direct sequencing method to test the gene sequence of P area of HBV genome of the patients who taking nucleoside analogues and showing signs of virologic breakthrough.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>More resistance mutations can be find in HBV DNA polymerase area, which causing clinically cross drug resistance and multiple resistance.</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>We should choose higher genetic barrier for the initial treatment. And the patients long-term using of nucleoside analogues, should be regularly monitored serum HBV DNA level, in order for early detection of virological breakthrough and timely intervention.</p>

Efficacy and safety of lamivudine plus adefovir combination therapy and entecavir monotherapy for chronic hepatitis B patients / 中华肝脏病杂志

To compare the efficacy and safety of Lamivudine (LAM) plus Adefovir dipivoxil (ADV) combination therapy and Entecavir (ETV) monotherapy for chronic hepatitis B patients. 120 patients with chronic hepatitis B managed in a single-centre clinical practice (median 96 weeks) were split into 2 cohorts, one was treated with de-novo combination Lamivudine (100 mg/day) plus Adefovir (10 mg/day) (LAM+ADV), the other with Entecavir (0.5 mg/day) monotherapy. Serum levels of ALT, creatinine, HBsAg, HBeAg and HBV viral load, together with genotypic resistence were analyzed at 0, 12, 24, 48, 96 weeks, respectively. HBV DNA was determined by real-time PCR. HBsAg and HBeAg were assessed by chemiluminescence. Serum levels of ALT and creatinine were detected by automatic biochemical analyzer. HBV genotypic resistence was tested by direct sequencing. (1) At the time point of 96 weeks, a total of 99 patients (51 cases in combination therapy cohort and 48 case in monotherapy cohort) were compared. The baseline characteristics as for HBV viral load, median age, serum levels of ALT and creatinine were compatible between combination therapy cohort and monotherapy cohort. (2) The rates of HBV DNA values is less than 300 copies/ml and HBV DNA values is less than 1000 copies/ml had no significant difference between LAM + ADV and ETV cohorts by the 12 and 24 weeks (P more than 0.05). (3) At the time point of 48 weeks, the rates of HBV DNA is less than 1000 copies/ml, HBeAg seroconversion, and ALT normalization were similar in both cohorts, though the rate of HBV DNA values is less than 300 copies/ml was obviously higher in combination therapy cohort than that of monotherapy cohort (90.7% vs 76%, P values is less than 0.05). (4) At the time point of 96 weeks, the rates of HBV DNA values is less than 300 copies/ml (96.1% vs 79.2%), HBV DNA values is less than 1000 copies/ml (98% vs 87.5%) and the HBeAg seroconversion (41.7% vs 16.7%) were markedly higher in combination therapy cohort than those of monotherapy cohort statistically (P values is less than 0.05 for all). The mean values of decreases for HBV viral loads and HBsAg levels were smilar in both cohorts at 48 and 96 weeks. (5) Elevated serum creatinine not be found in both cohorts at the end of treatment. (6) No virological breakthrough occurred in combination therapy cohort at the end of treatment. Four patients in monotherapy cohort were found with virological breakthrough at 96 weeks and three cases among were confirmed to be of variants associated with ETV resistance (rtL180M + T184L + M204V). Present study suggests that Lamivudine plus Adefovir dipivoxil de-novo combination therapy was more efficacious than Entecavir monotherapy for CHB patients and the tolerance is compatible.

Effects of single nucleotide polymorphisms 869 T/C and 915 G/C in the exon 1 locus of transforming growth factor-beta1 gene on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease susceptibility in Chinese / 中华医学杂志(英文版)

<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>The main risk factor for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is cigarette smoking. However, only 10% - 20% of chronic heavy smokers develop systematic COPD. We hypothesized that the inheritance of gene polymorphisms could influence the development of COPD, which was investigated by studying two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) in exon 1 of the transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1) gene.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>We enrolled 219 patients with COPD as the research group and 148 healthy people as the control group, all of whom were Chinese Han people. The polymorphisms of the TGF-beta1 gene, 869T/C and 915G/C, were analyzed using the method of amplification refractory mutation system-polymerase chain reaction (ARMS-PCR).</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The occurrence of the TGF-beta1 gene 869T/C polymorphism in patients with COPD was significantly different from the control group (P < 0.05), in which the relative risk of this disease increased in cases who had the C allele (OR: 1.131, 95%CI: 1.101 - 1.539). There was no increased frequency of TGF-beta1 915G/C gene in COPD patients compared with control subjects (P > 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>The polymorphism 869T/C in TGF-beta1 gene has a significant association with disease occurrence in COPD patients and the C allele might be a risk factor. The homozygous wild-type CC of 869T/C on TGFbeta1 could be a predisposing factor in COPD and those who carry the C allele might have particularly susceptibility to developing COPD.</p>

Level of serum and liver tissue TGF-beta1 in patients with liver fibrosis due to chronic hepatitis B / 中华实验和临床病毒学杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To detect the level of serum and liver tissue TGF-beta1 in patients with chronic hepatitis B, to study their relation to liver fibrosis and gain the evidence for diagnosis of liver fibrosis.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>The liver fibrosis grades (S0-S4) of 131 cases with chronic HBV infection were diagnosed after liver biopsy. Serum TGF-beta1 was detected by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, and the semiquantitative analysis was applied after detecting the expression of TGF-beta1 in liver tissue with immunohistochemistry. Their relations to liver fibrosis were analyzed.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>Serum and tissue level of TGF-beta1 increased significantly with the development of fibrosis, and the same result was obtained between themselves (P < 0.01). There was very significant difference for serum level of TGF-beta1 among the groups with different fibrosis grades (P < 0.01). Serum levels of TGF-beta1 were decreased significantly comparing the Group S0 or S1 to S4 (P < 0.005). There were significant difference for serum level of TGF-beta1 among S0 and the others (P < 0.005). And there was significant difference between S1 and S3 (P < 0.005). The expression level of TGF-beta1 in liver tissue has no significant difference between group S3 and S4 (P > 0.05). However, the differences were significantly among the other comparisons (P < 0.01).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>There is close relation between the level of TGF-beta1 and the different liver fibrosis grades due to chronic hepatitis B. The serum level of TGF-beta1 is a potential noninvasive maker for diagnosis of liver fibrosis.</p>

Inhibition of proliferation, adhesion and invasion ability of human lung carcinoma cell A549 by tumor necrosis factor-alpha converting enzyme (TACE) / 生物工程学报

We constructed prokaryotic expression vectors for different domains of TACE gene and expressed the fusion proteins, so as to explore their effects on the proliferation, adhesion and invasion potential of tumor cells in vitro. The total RNA was isolated from THP1 cell. TACE cDNA was amplified by RT-PCR and subcloned into pMD18-T vector to construct pMD-18T-TACE vector. The different cDNA fragment of TACE were amplified from plasmid pMD-18T-TACE and then cloned into pET-28a( + ) to construct expression vector pET28a( + )- 300, pET28a( + )-T800, and pET28a( + )-T1300, which respectively transformed into E. coli BL21 (DE3). The expression of His-tagged fusion proteins were induced with IPTG and purified through BBST NTA resin. The proliferation ability was examined by MTT assay. The adhesive and invasive ability were examined by plated adhesion model and Transwell assay. The protein pET28a( + )-T300 and pET28a( + )-T1300 can reduce the proliferation, adhesion and invasion ability of human lung carcinoma cell A549 in vitro, but otherwise the protein pET28a( + )-T800 had not shown the inhibitive function. The fusion protein of disintegrin domain of TACE have the similar biological function to other disintegrins, which can be used for further research on function of TACE in inflammation and tumor.

Quasi-Newton iteration algorithm for ICA and its application in VEP feature extraction / 生物医学工程学杂志

Some noises still exist in the single-trial averaged visual evoked potentials (VEP), so further extraction of the above results is of significance. Independent component analysis (ICA)can separate the sources from their mixtures and make the output statistically as independent as possible; it can remove noises effectively. In this paper, the principle, experiment analyses and results of ICA based on quasi-Newton iteration rule for VEP feature extraction are introduced, It is compared with the fixed-point FastICA algorithm. The experiment results show that the provided algorithm may reinforce signals effectively and extract distinct P300 from the single-trial averaged VEP. It is of good applicability.