[Therapeutic effect of acupoint injection as adjuvant treatment on dry eyes of convalescent herpes simplex keratitis].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinical effect of acupoint injection of houttuynia cordata as the accessory treatment on dry eyes of convalescent herpes simplex keratitis (HSK). METHODS: A total of 60 patients with dry eyes of convalescent HSK were randomized into an observation group and a control group, 30 cases in each one. In the control group, the artificial tears and anti-inflammatory drugs were combined in treatment. In the observation group, on the base of the treatment as the control group, the acupoint injection of houttuynia cordata at Neiqiuhou (Extra) was combined, 3 mL each time, once a day. After consecutive 3 injections, the injection was adjusted to be once every two days, consecutively for 3 times. The treatment for 6 times was as one course and one course of treatment was required. Separately, before treatment and in 7, 15 and 30 days after treatment, the changes of the scores of visual analogue scale (VAS), theresults of SchirmerⅠtest (SⅠT), the tear break-up time (BUT) and the score of corneal fluorescein staining (CFS) were observed and analyzed in the patients of the two groups. RESULTS: In 7, 15 and 30 days after treatment, VAS scores and CFS scores were all reduced as compared with those before treatment in the patients of the two groups (P<0.05), and the scores of VAS and CFS in the observation group were lower than those in the control group (P<0.05). In 7, 15 and 30 days after treatment, the values of SⅠT and BUT were all increased as compared with those before treatment in the patients of the two groups (P<0.05), and the values in the observation group were higher than the control group in 15 and 30 days after treatment (P<0.05). CONCLUSION: Acupoint injection of houttuynia cordata promotes corneal epithelial recovery, reduces the discomfort symptoms as well as increases tear secretion and the stability of tear film in dry eyes of convalescent herpes simplex keratitis.

Predicting novel salivary biomarkers for the detection of pancreatic cancer using biological feature-based classification.

AIM: The use of saliva as a diagnostic fluid enables non-invasive sampling and thus is a prospective sample for disease tests. This study fully utilized the information from the salivary transcriptome to characterize pancreatic cancer related genes and predict novel salivary biomarkers. METHODS: We calculated the enrichment scores of gene ontology (GO) and pathways annotated in Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes database (KEGG) for pancreatic cancer-related genes. Annotation of GO and KEGG pathway characterize the molecular features of genes. We employed Random Forest classification and incremental feature selection to identify the optimal features among them and predicted novel pancreatic cancer-related genes. RESULTS: A total of 2175 gene ontology and 79 KEGG pathway terms were identified as the optimal features to identify pancreatic cancer-related genes. A total of 516 novel genes were predicted using these features. We discovered 29 novel biomarkers based on the expression of these 516 genes in saliva. Using our new biomarkers, we achieved a higher accuracy (92%) for the detection of pancreatic cancer. Another independent expression dataset confirmed that these novel biomarkers performed better than the previously described markers alone. CONCLUSION: By analyzing the information of the salivary transcriptome, we predict pancreatic cancer-related genes and novel salivary gene markers for detection.