Acupuncture and other traditional Chinese medicine therapies in the treatment of children's tic syndrome: A network meta-analysis.

Background: Tic disorders (TD) are a kind of neuropsychiatric disease that frequently occur among preschool and school-age children, mainly characterized by motor tics or sometimes accompanied by vocal tics, and its pathogenesis is still unclear. The clinical manifestations are mainly characterized by chronic multiple movements, rapid muscle twitching, involuntary occurrence, and language disorder. Acupuncture, tuina, traditional Chinese medicine, and other methods are commonly used in clinical treatments, which have unique therapeutic advantages but have not been recognized and accepted by the international community. This study conducted a quality evaluation and meta-analysis of the currently published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of acupuncture for TD in children in order to provide reliable evidence-based medical evidence for acupuncture for TD. Methods: All the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) using the intervention methods acupuncture + traditional Chinese medical herbs, acupuncture + tuina, and acupuncture, and the control group using Western medicine were included in the analysis. The main outcomes were obtained by using the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS), the Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) syndrome score scale, and clinical treatment efficiency. Secondary outcomes included adverse events. The risk of bias in the included studies was assessed according to the tool recommended by Cochrane 5.3. The risk of bias assessment chart, risk of bias summary chart, and evidence chart in this study will be produced using R and Stata software. Results: There were 39 studies that met the inclusion criteria, including 3,038 patients. In terms of YGTSS, the TCM syndrome score scale changes and shows a clinically effective rate, and we found that acupuncture combined with Chinese medicine is the best treatment. Conclusion: Acupuncture + traditional Chinese medical herbs may be the best therapy to improve TD in children. At the same time, compared with Western medicine commonly used in clinical practice, acupuncture and acupuncture combined with tuina therapy have better effects on improving TD in children.

Effect of Different Doses of Vitamin D on the Intestinal Flora of Babies with Eczema: An Experimental Study.

Infantile eczema is a common allergic disease caused by a variety of factors, which is often accompanied by immune dysfunction and dysbiosis of the intestinal flora. Vitamin D may affect the composition and function of intestinal flora by regulating the expression of antimicrobial peptides, thereby avoiding intestinal dysbiosis. The present study aims to explore whether the disorder of intestinal flora and immune function can be reversed by changing the Vit D intake of eczema infants. In this study, 12 healthy infants were selected as the healthy control group (CON), and 32 infants with eczema were selected for the eczema patient groups, of which 8 were randomly allocated as the eczema model group (ECZ, for which the infants' peripheral blood and stool were collected before any treatment). The 12 healthy infants and 32 eczema infants all regularly adhered to the feeding of Vit D 400 IU/d. The 32 eczema infants were randomly divided into 3 groups, and patients in each group took Vit D 200 (D-LOW), 400 (D-MED), and 800 (D-HIGH) IU/day for 1 month, respectively. The peripheral blood and stool of the three groups were collected one month later. Flow cytometry was used to detect the levels of T lymphocyte subsets (CD4+, CD8+, and CD4+/CD8+) and serum inflammatory factor interleukin IL-6, IL-10, and interferon-γ(IFN-γ). The contents of serum immunoglobulin Ig E and 25-(OH) D3 were detected by chemiluminescence. Two hypervariable regions of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene (V3−V4) were high-throughput sequenced for stool intestinal flora analysis. The results showed that no significant difference was found in the content of 25 (OH) D3 between the ECZ and the CON groups. However, the intestinal flora and immune function in the ECZ group were remarkably more disordered than those in the CON group (p < 0.05). After the corresponding medical treatments for one month, the LOW-D and HIGH-D groups presented some reversals in the intestinal flora and immune-related indexes in comparison to the ECZ group, and the reversal effect in the LOW-D group was most significant (p < 0.05). These results indicated that low-dose Vit D(200 IU/d) can partly improve the disorder of intestinal flora and immune function in eczema infants who usually adhere to a Vit D preventive dose of 400 IU/d feeding.

[Plasma proteomic analysis in children with infectious mononucleosis].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the abnormal expression of plasma proteins by analysis of proteomic expression profile in children with infectious mononucleosis (IM). METHODS: Two dimensional gel electrophoresis (2-DE) followed by the mass spectrometry was used to examine important protein spots with different expression levels between children with IM and normal controls. RESULTS: Seven differential proteins were obtained: hemopexin, vitamin D binding protein, fetuin A, C-reactive protein, apolipoprotein A, haptoglobin and transthyretin. Compared with the control group, haptoglobin showed a higher expression level in children with IM, and the expression levels of the other proteins were obviously down-regulated. CONCLUSIONS: The expression changes of differential proteins identified in this study are all related with the liver acute injury, suggesting that children with IM are associated with acute liver injury. Further studies on the characteristics of above proteins will contribute to the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric IM.