[The efficacy of sublingual immunotherapy for allergic rhinitis and the predictive role of cytokines in its therapeutic effect].

Objective:The study aimed to investigate the efficacy of sublingual immunotherapy(SLIT) in treatment of adult allergic rhinitis, and to explore the predictive role of baseline serum cytokine levels in its therapeutic effect.Method:Sixty patients with moderatesevere perennial AR sensitized with house dust mites were treated for 2 years. The SLIT group(n=30) were treated with standardized dust mite vaccine SLIT and conventional drugs, and the control group(n=30) were treated with placebo and conventional drugs. The combined symptom and medication score(CSMS) were compared between the two groups to evaluate the efficacy at baseline and 2 year endpoint. According to therapeutic effect, the SLIT group and the control group were divided into subgroups respectively, and the baseline IFN-γ and IL4, IL10, IL17 levels were compared between the effective group and the ineffective group in each group. The ROC curve was drawn to find the best predictive index and the best cut-off value was calculated. Result:①There was no significant difference between the SLIT group and the control group at baseline CSMS(P>0.05). There was significant difference between the two groups at 2year endpoint CSMS(P<0.05). ②In the SLIT group, there was no significant difference between the effective group and the ineffective group with the IFN-γ and IL17(P>0.05). The IL4 level in the effective group was significantly higher than the ineffective group while the IL10 level was significantly lower(P<0.05). In the control group, there were no significant differences in the levels of IFN-γ, IL4, IL10 and IL17 between the two subgroups(P>0.05). ③Baseline IL4/IL10 has higher predictive value than IL4 and IL10 alone. The best cut-off value is 2.04, and the sensitivity and specificity of predictive value were 72.7% and 73.7% respectively. Conclusion: SLIT combined with conventional drug therapy is more effective than conventional drug therapy alone. IL4/IL10 has a better predictive role in SLIT effect than IL4 or IL10 alone. The higher the ratio, the better therapeutic effect is.

Intense beam production of highly charged heavy ions by the superconducting electron cyclotron resonance ion source SECRAL.

There has been increasing demand to provide higher beam intensity and high enough beam energy for heavy ion accelerator and some other applications, which has driven electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source to produce higher charge state ions with higher beam intensity. One of development trends for highly charged ECR ion source is to build new generation ECR sources by utilization of superconducting magnet technology. SECRAL (superconducting ECR ion source with advanced design in Lanzhou) was successfully built to produce intense beams of highly charged ion for Heavy Ion Research Facility in Lanzhou (HIRFL). The ion source has been optimized to be operated at 28 GHz for its maximum performance. The superconducting magnet confinement configuration of the ion source consists of three axial solenoid coils and six sextupole coils with a cold iron structure as field booster and clamping. An innovative design of SECRAL is that the three axial solenoid coils are located inside of the sextupole bore in order to reduce the interaction forces between the sextupole coils and the solenoid coils. For 28 GHz operation, the magnet assembly can produce peak mirror fields on axis of 3.6 T at injection, 2.2 T at extraction, and a radial sextupole field of 2.0 T at plasma chamber wall. During the commissioning phase at 18 GHz with a stainless steel chamber, tests with various gases and some metals have been conducted with microwave power less than 3.5 kW by two 18 GHz rf generators. It demonstrates the performance is very promising. Some record ion beam intensities have been produced, for instance, 810 e microA of O(7+), 505 e microA of Xe(20+), 306 e microA of Xe(27+), and so on. The effect of the magnetic field configuration on the ion source performance has been studied experimentally. SECRAL has been put into operation to provide highly charged ion beams for HIRFL facility since May 2007.

An electron cyclotron resonance ion source based low energy ion beam platform.

To satisfy the requirements of surface and atomic physics study in the field of low energy multiple charge state ion incident experiments, a low energy (10 eV/q-20 keV/q) ion beam platform is under design at IMP. A simple test bench has been set up to test the ion beam deceleration systems. Considering virtues such as structure simplicity, easy handling, compactness, cost saving, etc., an all-permanent magnet ECRIS LAPECR1 [Lanzhou all-permanent magnet electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion source No. 1] working at 14.5 GHz has been adopted to produce intense medium and low charge state ion beams. LAPECR1 source has already been ignited. Some intense low charge state ion beams have been produced on it, but the first test also reveals that many problems are existing on the ion beam transmission line. The ion beam transmission mismatches result in the depressed performance of LAPECR1, which will be discussed in this paper. To obtain ultralow energy ion beam, after being analyzed by a double-focusing analyzer magnet, the selected ion beam will be further decelerated by two afocal deceleration lens systems, which is still under design. This design has taken into consideration both ions slowing down and also ion beam focusing. In this paper, the conceptual design of deceleration system will be discussed.