Effectiveness of Electroacupuncture and Electroconvulsive Therapy as Additional Treatment in Hospitalized Patients With Schizophrenia: A Retrospective Controlled Study.

Electroacupuncture (EA) and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) are often used in the management of schizophrenia. This study sought to determine whether additional EA and ECT could augment antipsychotic response and reduce related side effects. In this retrospective controlled study, 287 hospitalized schizophrenic patients who received antipsychotics (controls, n = 50) alone or combined with EA (n = 101), ECT (n = 55) or both (EA + ECT, n = 81) were identified. EA and ECT were conducted for 5 and 3 sessions per week, respectively, with a maximum of 12 sessions for ECT during hospitalization. The Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) were used to assess the severity of psychotic symptoms. Clinical response on SAPS and SANS, weight gain, and adverse events were compared. Survival analysis revealed that the ECT and EA + ECT groups had markedly greater clinical response rate than controls on SAPS [72.7 and 90.1% vs. 64.0%; relative risk (RR), 1.974 and 2.628, respectively, P ≤ 0.004] and on SANS (67.3 and 70.4% vs. 42.0%; RR, 1.951 and 2.009, respectively, P ≤ 0.015). A significantly greater response rate on SANS than controls was also observed in the EA group (64.4% vs. 42.0%; RR = 1.938, P = 0.008). EA-containing regimens remarkably reduced weight gain and incidences of headache, insomnia, dry mouth, and electrocardiographic abnormalities. These results suggest that EA and ECT can serve as additional treatment for enhancing antipsychotic response and reduce the side effects in hospitalized patients with schizophrenia. Clinical Trial Registration: http://www.chictr.org.cn/showprojen.aspx?proj=38901, identifier ChiCTR1900023563.

Identification of a novel human leukocyte antigen allele B∗46:34.

A new human leukocyte antigen (HLA) B allele was found in a healthy male Chinese Kazak individual. Sequencing-based typing (SBT) was used to identify and analyze the difference between the new allele and the closest matching HLA-B allele. HLA-B(∗)46 new allele has 1nt change from B(∗)46:01:01 at nt 853 where G->C (condon 260 GTA->CTA), resulting in a coding change: 260 Val is changed to Leu. The new HLA-B(∗)46:34 allele was identified, and was named officially by the World Health Organization (WHO) Nomenclature Committee in June 2012. The GenBank sequence accession number is JX035785.

[Gene and haplotype frequencies for the loci HLA-A, B and DRB1 in 11755 north Chinese Han bone marrow registry donors].

The study was aimed to investigate the human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A, B, DRB1 alleles and haplotype frequencies and the characteristics of linkage disequilibrium in north Chinese Han bone marrow donors. HLA phenotype data of 11 755 north Chinese Han bone marrow donors were identified by PCR-SSP and PCR-SSO. HLA-A, B, DRB1 allele and haplotype frequencies were calculated by computer software named Arleguin which was based on Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithms. The results showed that the population of 11755 unrelated-donors was tested by Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, and 18,42 and 15 specificities of HLA alleles were identified on the HLA-A, B, DRB1 locus respectively, including HLA-A25, B42, B53, B73 and DR3 which were rarely reported in Han population. HLA-A36, A43, A80, B78, B82 and DR18 were not detected in this study. The most frequent alleles with a frequency of over 0.05 were HLA-A*02, A*11, A*24, A*33, A*30, A*01, A*03, A*13, B62, B*51, B*46, B60, B61, B*35, B*44, DRB1*15, DRB1*09, DRB1*04, DRB1*07, DRB1*12, DRB1*11, DRB1*14, DRB1*08, DRB1*13. There were a total of 2 026 kinds of HLA-A-B-DR haplotypes (with a frequency of over 10(-6)) to be obtained. The each frequency of 26 kinds of three-locus haplotypes including HLA-A30-B13-DR7, A2-B46-DR9, A33-B58-DR17 etc was higher than 0.005. A30-B13-DR7 was the most frequent haplotype in north Chinese Han population. There were a total of 538 kinds of haplotypes for HLA-A-B, 227 kinds for A-DR and 522 kinds for B-DR to be obtained, and there were 409, 195, 423 kinds of haplotypes respectively with a frequency higher than 10 - 6. There were 28 kinds of HLA-A-B haplotypes including A30-B13, A2-B46, A33-B58 etc, 26 kinds of HLA-A-DR haplotypes including A2-DR9, A2-DR15, A30-DR7 etc, and 24 kinds of HLA-B-DR haplotypes including B13-DR7, B46-DR9, B13-DR12 etc with a frequency higher than 0.01. 296 (72%) kinds of HLA-A-B, 130 (67%) kinds of A-DR and 308 (73%) kinds of B-DR haplotypes were statistical linkage disequilibrium. HLA-A30-B13, A33-B58, A1-B37, A30-DR7, A33-DR13, A1-DR10, B37-DR10, B8-DR17, B13-DR7, B58-DR17 were significant positive linkage disequilibrium. It is concluded that this HLA-A, B, DRB1 gene and haplotype frequencies and linkage disequilibrium data with the largest sample size up to now is unique in north Chinese Han population. The study will be helpful to find matched donors for patients and establish the important foundation for further studying of transplantation immunity, HLA-related diseases and population genetics of this area.