[Managements and prognostic analyses in patients with invasive fungal rhinosinusitis].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the survival outcomes of invasive fungal rhinosinusitis by analyzing the clinical features. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed for cases of invasive fungal sinusitis proved by histological analysis between March 2006 and November 2015. All relevant factors including interval from the onset of symptoms to initiation of diagnosis, clinical characteristics, features of CT and MRI, treatment and prognosis were collected. A total of 18 patients (10 males; 8 females) were identified. The median age was 54 years old. Three patients suffered from acute invasive fungal sinusitis, while the other 15 suffered from chronic invasive fungal sinusitis. RESULTS: The mean duration between onset of symptoms and diagnosis was 5 months. The most common symptom was headache (10/18), followed by visual disturbance (7/18), nasal obstruction (4/18), facial numbness and pain (2/18) and diplopia(2/18). Two patients had diabetes mellitus; one patient had ankylosing spondylitis receiving immunosuppressive drugs treatment for one year. Four patients had the disease confined in the sinus. Complications of this disease included orbital apex involvement in 6 patients, intraorbital and optic nerve involvement in 3 patients, cavernous sinus involvement in 5 patients, pterygopalatine fossa and infratemporal fossa involvement in 5 patients, intracranial extension involvement in 3 patients. Fungal species included aspergillus (15 cases) and mucor (3 cases). Seventeen patients received intravenous antifungal therapy after surgery. The duration of follow-up ranged from 1 to 60 months. Two patients reoccurred and one patient died of the disease. CONCLUSION: Endoscopic debridement combined with intravenous antifungals is efficacious in the management of invasive fungal sinusitis.

T-lymphocyte subpopulations and B7-H1/PD-1 expression in nasal polyposis.

T-lymphocyte subpopulations and B7-H1/programmed death-1 (PD-1) positive lymphocytes infiltrating nasal polyps were evaluated in 17 patients with chronic sinusitis with nasal polyposis. Peripheral blood samples were also obtained from the patients and from 11 healthy controls. The CD4(+), CD8(+), CD3(+), CD19(+), B7-H1(+) and PD-1(+) lymphocyte populations were measured using flow cytometry. Lymphocytes from nasal polyps had significantly fewer CD4(+) but significantly more CD8(+) T-cells compared with lymphocytes from the peripheral blood of patients and controls. The percentages of CD19(+)/B7-H1(+) B-cells and of CD3(+)/PD-1(+) T-cells were significantly higher in the nasal polyp samples than in those from peripheral blood of patients and controls. Changes in the T-lymphocyte subpopulations and in the up-regulation of B7-H1 and PD-1 in lymphocytes infiltrating nasal polyps may be involved in the development of the chronic inflammation associated with nasal polyposis.

In-line ultrasonic monitoring of semi-solid magnesium die casting process.

Ultrasonic velocity and attenuation measurements in AZ91D magnesium (Mg) alloy with dendritic, rosette and globular microstructures were performed at elevated temperatures using a non-contact laser-ultrasonic technique. It was found that the ultrasonic velocity in the globular microstructure and the ultrasonic attenuation in the dendritic microstructure are the highest among the three microstructures. An ultrasonic clad steel buffer rod sensor embedded in the die has been used to monitor the semi-solid die casting process in-line for the AZ91D Mg alloy. This probe monitored the completion of the die filling, the release of the pressure, the opening of the die, part detachment, solidification of the part, the averaged temperature of the die and the part.

Self-setting kinetics of new type calcium phosphate bioactive bone cement: a thermokinetics study.

Thermokinetics method was used to study the self-setting kinetics of a new kind of calcium phosphate cement (CPC) in the present study. A calcium-deficient hydroxyapatite CPC was developed by using alpha-TCP and other calcium phosphate bioceramics. The mixing liquids used were deionized water and 0.25 M NaH2PO4/Na2HPO4, respectively. The calorimetric curves, heat evolution curves and total heat evolution in the setting and hardening process of CPC were determined. It has been found that mixing liquids, reaction temperature had influences on the calorimetric curves and heat evolution, and mixing liquids exhibited the greatest influence on the kinetics of CPC during the self-setting and hardening process. Based on the calorimetric curves obtained, the kinetic model equation was simulated, and the reaction control step was determined.

[An investigation of the bio-tribological performance of diamond-like carbon/ultrahigh molecular weight polyethylene couple].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the friction property of diamond-like carbon (DLC) film/Ti6Al4V gradient material sliding against UHMWPE couple. METHOD: Tests of this couple were made under dry sliding and lubrication of Hank's solution and 0.9% NaCl solution respectively, and they were compared with the friction property of Ti6Al4V sliding against UHMWPE couple. The tests were performed on an SRV friction and wear tester by means of surface-contact and coefficients of friction were recorded real-time. RESULT: DLC film could reduce the friction coefficient evidently. The coefficients of friction reduced 24%, 5.0%, 10% than these of Ti6Al4V under dry sliding and lubrication of Hank's solution and 0.9% NaCl solution respectively. Mechanism of friction was also studied by observing scanning electrical microscopy (SEM) morphology of frictional surfaces. CONCLUSION: Friction-reduction mechanism of DLC film/Ti6Al4V could be resulted from amorphous structure of DLC film which was smooth and hard.

Segmentation of medical ultrasonic image using hybrid neural network.

Objective. To solve one of the most difficult problems in multi-dimensional reconstruction of medical ultrasonic images: image segmentation. Method. A new segmental method based on hybrid neural network was presented in this paper. The hybrid neural network comprised two phases. The first phase was Kohonens self-organization neural network, which was used to segment and label the image coarsely. The feature vectors of those pixels within a specified distance from the cluster centers were employed to train the second phase--a three-layer perception network using back-propagation (BP) technique. Then the trained BP network was used to label every pixel of the image. In the end, a post-processing stage was used to remove the small isolated points and smooth out the contours of the segmented image. Result. The segmented image had smooth continuous edges, few noises or speckles, and the contour of ventricle was clear and accurate. Conclusion. Our method could segment the ultrasonic images accurately and effectively, and had a lot of advantages compared to traditional methods. The unsupervised segmentation problems could be solved using supervised methods.

[Effect of intranasal treatment with capsaicin on polyp recurrence after polypectomy and ethmoidectomy].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the influence of polypectomy and anterior ethmoidectomy associated with intranasal applications of capsaicin on the recurrence of nasal polyps. METHOD: Fifty one patients (19 females, 32 males, mean age 43) undergoing polypectomy and anterior ethmoidectomy were included in the study. In 29 patients, a cotton pellet soaked with capsaicin (3 x 10(-6) mol, dissolved in 70% ethanol) was left into the middle meatus for 20 min under local anaesthesia. As a control group, 22 patients were treated with the capsaicin vehicle alone (70% ethanol). All patients studied received the intranasal capsaicin or vehicle treatment once a week for 5 weeks. The clinical objective examination and the subjective evaluation of nasal obstruction, rhinorrhea were recorded by means of a visual analogic scale graded from 0 to 4 throughout the study. RESULT: Patients treated with intranasal capsaicin application reported 9 months later and 55 months later separately, a marked reduction of their subjective evaluation of nasal obstruction when compared to the pretreatment evaluation (P < 0.01). In contrast, patients treated with the capsaicin vehicle alone did not have any significant improvement of their subjective evaluation of nasal obstruction. Subjective rhinorrhea was not modified by either treatment. Of 29 patients with capsaicin treatment, 25 (86.2%) patients (9 months later) and 20 (69%) patients (55 months later) showed satisfactory result, compared to 10 (45.4%) patients and 8 (36.4%) patients separately in the control group, the difference was significant (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Intranasal capsaicin application can reduce polyp recurrence and nasal obstruction after polypectomy and ethmoidectomy.

Soil-transmitted helminthiases: nationwide survey in China.

A total of 2848 study sites, with about 500 people in each, were randomly sampled for this investigation which covered a total population of 1 477 742. By stool examinations using the Kato-Katz thick-smear and larval-culture techniques, overall prevalences of 47.0%, 18.8%, and 17.2% were obtained for Ascaris lumbricoides, Trichuris trichiura, and hookworm infections, respectively. The number of infections due to Ascaris, Trichuris, and hookworm was estimated as 531 million, 212 million, and 194 million, respectively. Egg counts showed that 75-95% of the subjects had light infections. Higher prevalences of ascariasis and trichuriasis were found in the age group of 5-9, 10-14 and 15-19 years, and among adults for hookworm. Students, farmers (including vegetable growers) and fishermen were the occupational groups with high infection rates. The prevalence of helminthiases was found to be closely associated with climatic and geographical factors. In view of the morbidity and mortality due to these helminthiases, their control, particularly in schoolchildren, is very important.