Frailty, Quality of Life, and Loneliness of Aging in Native and Diasporic Chinese Adults.

BACKGROUND: Global migration has increased in the past century, and aging in a foreign country is relevant to the Chinese diaspora. OBJECTIVE: With regard to migration, this study focuses on the places of aging as the context of older Chinese adults. This study aimed to describe the general health and wellbeing of this population with respect to their location. DESIGN: This study has a cross sectional design. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: Participants were recruited who were "aging in place" from Tianjin, China (199 participants), and "aging out of place" from the Netherlands (134 participants). Data from April to May 2019 in China and November 2018 to March 2019 in the Netherlands were aggregated. MEASUREMENTS: frailty, QoL and loneliness were used in both samples. RESULTS: T-tests and regression analyses demonstrated that social domains of frailty and QoL, as well as loneliness and frailty prevalence characterized the major differences between both places of aging. A correlation analysis and visual correlation network revealed that frailty, quality of life (QoL), and loneliness were more closely related in the aging out of place sample. Social domains of frailty and QoL, as well as the prevalence of loneliness and frailty, characterized the major differences between both places of aging. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that frailty, QoL, and loneliness have a complex relationship, confirming that loneliness is a major detriment to the general wellbeing of older Chinese adults aging out of place. This study examined the places of aging of the larger Chinese population and allows a comprehensive understanding of health and wellbeing. The social components, especially loneliness, among the aging out of place Chinese community should receive more attention practice and clinical wise. On the other hand, frailty as well as its prevention is of more importance for the Chinese community aging in place.

Management of congenitally missing maxillary lateral incisors.

Congenitally absent maxillary permanent lateral incisors often lead to an unattractive appearance and difficulties in treatment planning. Many factors must be considered before a decision is made either to close spaces and modify the canines, or to redistribute the spaces and replace the missing teeth with prostheses. Good communication among patients, parents, dental specialists, and general practitioners is necessary.

Serum concentrations of bupivacaine during prolonged continuous paravertebral infusion in young infants.

We have studied the efficacy of prolonged, continuous paravertebral infusion of bupivacaine for the management of post-thoracotomy pain in 22 infants with a median age of 1.5 weeks (range 1 day to 20.4 weeks). Immediately before chest closure, 0.25% bupivacaine 1.25 mg kg-1 was given into an extrapleural paravertebral catheter, inserted under direct vision. Subsequently, 0.125% bupivacaine with adrenaline 1:400000 was infused at a rate of 0.2 ml kg-1 h-1 for 48 h. We confirmed that extrapleural paravertebral catheter placement under direct vision was easy in neonates and infants. The technique provided effective post-operative pain relief in 86% of patients, with three patients requiring morphine in addition. Mean serum concentration of bupivacaine after 48 h was 1.60 (0.67) micrograms ml-1, but bupivacaine concentrations > 3 micrograms ml-1 were found in three patients at 30-48 h. There were no major complications relating to the technique, and paravertebral block was an effective method of providing prolonged post-thoracotomy analgesia in these young infants.

Ultrastructural studies on interactions of choriocarcinoma cells with stromal cells in monolayers.

Choriocarcinoma is a common cancer in the tropical and subtropical areas including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan. An experimental model consisting of monolayer of decidual or smooth muscle cells growing on collagen gels was established to study the invasiveness of choriocarcinoma cells in vitro. It was found that tumour cells induced retraction of stromal cells in the process of invasion.

In vitro studies on the invasion of blood vessel wall by choriocarcinoma cells.

The development of metastases represents the lethal event in the clinical course of most neoplastic diseases. The complex mechanism responsible for the spread of cancer are governed by interactions between tumour cells and the host tissues. Choriocarcinoma cells and cultured blood vessels were used to study the interaction between tumour and endothelial cells. Seeding of tumour cells onto blood vessel wall caused retraction of endothelial cells leading to the exposure of underlying tissue. Subsequently, the tumour cells penetrated the sub-endothelial connective tissue and the internal elastic lamina.