Effect of Traditional Chinese Non-Pharmacological Therapies on Knee Osteoarthritis: A Narrative Review of Clinical Application and Mechanism.

Knee osteoarthritis (KOA) stands as a degenerative ailment with a substantial and escalating prevalence. The practice of traditional Chinese non-pharmacological therapy has become a prevalent complementary and adjunctive approach. A mounting body of evidence suggests its efficacy in addressing KOA. Recent investigations have delved into its underlying mechanism, yielding some headway. Consequently, this comprehensive analysis seeks to encapsulate the clinical application and molecular mechanism of traditional Chinese non-pharmacological therapy in KOA treatment. The review reveals that various therapies, such as acupuncture, electroacupuncture, warm needle acupuncture, tuina, and acupotomy, primarily target localized knee components like cartilage, subchondral bone, and synovium. Moreover, their impact extends to the central nervous system and intestinal flora. More perfect experimental design and more comprehensive research remain a promising avenue in the future.

Research progress of microparticles in traditional Chinese medicine decoction / 药学学报

Decoction is a classical dosage form of traditional Chinese medicines. In the process of decocting, various complex components produce physical interactions and chemical reactions, among which physical interactions include van der Waals force, hydrogen bond, electrostatic interaction, π-π stacking, etc., and chemical reactions include Maillard reaction, oxidation reaction, hydrolysis reaction, degradation reaction, polymerization reaction, etc. New substances and original ingredients from chemical reactions can be further activated. These effects form the basis of particle formation in the broth. The sizes of the particles in decoctions range from nanoscale to micron scale, mostly composed of polysaccharide, protein matrix, wrapped in water insoluble molecules, can increase the dispersion of insoluble components and the stability of unstable components, as well as reduce the volatile components and toxic components of volatile components, and ultimately achieve the purpose of efficient absorption and toxicity reduction. From the angle of physical change and chemical reaction in the process of decoction, this paper expounds the formation mechanism of particles in decoction, expounds the research method of particles, analyzes the components in particles and the interaction between components, and then explains the pharmacodynamic characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine decoction, which provides the foundation for the modernization of Chinese decoction.

HMGB1-induced autophagy promotes extracellular matrix degradation leading to intervertebral disc degeneration.

Intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) remains a leading cause of adult disability. High mobility group box l (HMGB1) is a nuclear DNA-binding protein and acts as a central mediator of inflammation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of HMGB1 in IDD. In our study, IDD intervertebral disc tissues were collected and nucleus pulposus cells (NPCs) were primarily cultured. The HMGB1 expression and the effect of HMGB1 on NPCs and extracellular matrix and autophagy were all evaluated. Results showed that HMGB1 was markedly overexpressed in IDD (P<0.05), and upregulated expression of HMGB1 can inhibit NPC proliferation and promote NPC apoptosis (P<0.05), promote extracellular matrix degradation, and activate cell autophagy (P<0.05). Therefore, we concluded that HMGB1 was up-regulated in IDD and HMGB1-induced autophagy can promotes extracellular matrix degradation and thus lead to intervertebral disc degeneration. In brief, HMGB1 may serve as a novel diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target for IDD.

Multilevel and Multiscale Feature Aggregation in Deep Networks for Facial Constitution Classification.

Constitution classification is the basis and core content of TCM constitution research. In order to improve the accuracy of constitution classification, this paper proposes a multilevel and multiscale features aggregation method within the convolutional neural network, which consists of four steps. First, it uses the pretrained VGG16 as the basic network and then refines the network structure through supervised feature learning so as to capture local image features. Second, it extracts the image features of different layers from the fine-tuned VGG16 model, which are then dimensionally reduced by principal component analysis (PCA). Third, it uses another pretrained NASNetMobile network for supervised feature learning, where the previous layer features of the global average pooling layer are outputted. Similarly, these features are dimensionally reduced by PCA and then are fused with the features of different layers in VGG16 after the PCA. Finally, all features are aggregated with the fully connected layers of the fine-tuned VGG16, and then the constitution classification is performed. The conducted experiments show that using the multilevel and multiscale feature aggregation is very effective in the constitution classification, and the accuracy on the test dataset reaches 69.61%.

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Classifying Body Constitution Based on Face Image.

Body constitution classification is the basis and core content of traditional Chinese medicine constitution research. It is to extract the relevant laws from the complex constitution phenomenon and finally build the constitution classification system. Traditional identification methods have the disadvantages of inefficiency and low accuracy, for instance, questionnaires. This paper proposed a body constitution recognition algorithm based on deep convolutional neural network, which can classify individual constitution types according to face images. The proposed model first uses the convolutional neural network to extract the features of face image and then combines the extracted features with the color features. Finally, the fusion features are input to the Softmax classifier to get the classification result. Different comparison experiments show that the algorithm proposed in this paper can achieve the accuracy of 65.29% about the constitution classification. And its performance was accepted by Chinese medicine practitioners.

Effect of FOCUS-PDCA program on unplanned extubation in ICU patients / 现代临床护理

Objective To observe the effect of FOCUS-PDCA on the unplanned extubation (UEX) in ICU patients. Methods About 237 ICU patients during Jan. to Dec. 2014 were assigned as the control group, where the FOCUS-PDCA program was not used. Another 235 patients during Jan. to Dec. 2015 were assigned as the study group, where the the FOCUS-PDCA program was used. The two groups were compared in view of unplanned extubation rate and nurse's comprehensive ability. Result Compared with the control group, hospitalization time was comprehensively shortened in the observation group and the nurses comprehensive abibity increased (all P<0.05). Conclusion The FOCUS-PDCA program can prevent UEX in ICU patients, reduce the rate of UEX, improve the comprehensive ability of nurses and the quality of nursing.

Association between Essen stroke risk score and coronary heart disease / 中华老年心脑血管病杂志

Objective To study the association between Essen stroke risk score (ESRS) and coronary heart disease (CHD).Methods One hundred and forty-six patients who underwent coronary angiography in our hospital from July 1,2015 to December 31,2016 were divided into CHD group (n=105) with their stenosis ≥50％ and non-CHD group (n=41) with their stenosis ＜50％.Their clinical,laboratory and coronary angiography data were recorded and analyzed by univariate logistic regression analysis and multivariate logistic regression analysis respectively.ROC curve of ESRS was plotted for diagnosing CHD.Results The age was significantly older,the incidence of hypertension,diabetes mellitus and myocardial infarction,the ESRS and fasting blood glucose level were significantly higher in CHD group than in non-CHD group (P＜0.05,P＜0.01).The age,history of smoking and alcohol drinking,and the incidence of abnormal blood lipid,AF,other heart diseases,peripheral artery disease,ischemic stroke or the serum levels of TIA,TC,TG,LDL-C,HDL-C and uric acid were significantly different between CHD group and non-CHD group (P＞0.05).Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that ESRS was an independent risk factor for CHD (OR=2.070,95％CI:1.473-2.908,P＜0.01).The area under the ROC curve of ESRS for diagnosing CHD was 0.743 (95％CI:0.651-0.834,P＜0.01).The Youden's index was the highest when the ESRS was 2 with a sensitivity of 80.95％ and a specificity of 58.54％.Conclusion ESRS is related with CHD and can thus predict the occurrence of CHD.It is necessary to make an overall assessment of CHD when the ESRS is ≥2.

Effect of pelvic inflammatory disease grades on in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer outcome / 中华妇产科杂志

Objective To evaluate the effect of different grades of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID)and of salpingectomy on outcomes of in vitro fertilization-embryo transfer(IVF-ET).Methods Two hundred and twenty three cycles of IVF-ET were divided into three groups,including mild group,moderate group and severe group,according to different grades of sequelae of PID finding in exploratory operations before IVF.Patients in each group were divided into two subgroups according to receiving salpingectomy or not.The data of total dose of gonadotrophin(Gn),oocyte number,low response rate,fertilization rate,good embryo number and pregnancy rate were analysed between three groups and the two subgroups of each group, respectively.Results All parameters were related to PID grades except fertilization rate.The total dose of Gn,oocyte number,good embryo number,low response rate and pregnancy rate were(2057?503)IU/L, (16?6),(6.0?4.3),4.2%,63.9% in mild group;(2204?603)IU/L,(12?6),(4.5?3.5), 13.9%,46.8% in moderate group;and(2372?1018)IU/L,(9?6),(3.1?2.9),33.8%,41.2% in severe group.The total dose of Gn and low response rate increased with the aggravation of the grades of PID (P