Endothelial progenitor cells in peripheral blood may serve as a biological marker to predict severe acute pancreatitis.

AIM: To investigate the significance of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) in predicting severe acute pancreatitis (SAP). METHODS: We recruited 71 patients with acute pancreatitis (AP) and excluded 11 of them; finally, cases of mild acute pancreatitis (MAP) (n = 30) and SAP (n = 30), and healthy volunteers (n = 20) were internalized to investigate levels of EPCs, C-reactive protein (CRP), tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), fibrinogen (FIB) and white blood cells (WBC) in peripheral blood. RESULTS: The levels of TNF-α, WBC, FIB and CRP were higher both in SAP and MAP cases than in healthy volunteers (P < 0.05, all). Interestingly, the level of EPCs was higher in SAP than MAP (1.63% ± 1.47% vs 6.61% ± 4.28%, P < 0.01), but there was no significant difference between the MAP cases and healthy volunteers (1.63% ± 1.47% vs 0.55% ± 0.54%, P > 0.05). Receiver operating characteristics curve (ROC) showed that EPCs, TNF-α, CRP and FIB were significantly associated with SAP, especially EPCs and CRP were optimal predictive markers of SAP. When the cut-off point for EPCs and CRP were 2.26% and 5.94 mg/dL, the sensitivities were 90.0% and 73.3%, and the specificities were 83.3% and 96.7%. Although, CRP had the highest specificity, and EPCs had the highest sensitivity and highest area under the curve value (0.93). CONCLUSION: Data suggest that EPCs may be a new biological marker in predicting SAP.

[Astragalus Granule Combined Auricular Point Sticking for Cough Variant Asthma in Children].

Objective To observe the clinical efficacy and effect of Astragalus Granule (AG) , auricular point sticking combined with aerosol inhalation on the levels of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF- a), interleukin-4 (IL-4), interleukin-10 (IL-10), eosinophil cell count (EOS), and immunoglobulin E (IgE) in cough variant asthma (CVA) children. Methods Totally 150 CVA children patients were ran- domly assigned to three group, the Western medicine group (WM) , the Chinese medicine group (CM) , and the combined group, 50 in each group. All patients received basic treatment of aerosol inhalation with Budesonide suspension and Terbutaline Sulphate Solution. Patients in the WM group received basic treatment alone. Those in the CM group additionally took AG. Those in the combined group additionally took AG and received auricular point sticking. The therapeutic course for all was 8 weeks. Expression levels of TNF-α, IL-4, and IL-10 were detected in each group using ELISA before and after treatment. Levels of EOS and IgE were detected using hematology analyzer. Results Compared with before treatment in the same group, the expression levels of TNF-α and IgE decreased in the WM group after treatment (P < 0. 05) ; the expression levels of TNF-α, IL-4, EOS, and IgE decreased, but the level of IL-10 increased in the CM group and the combined group after treatment (P <0. 05). Compared with the WM group at the same time, the expression level of IL-10 increased, and the level of IgE decreased in the CM group (P < 0. 05). The control rate, the markedly effective rate, and the total effective rate were elevated (P < 0. 05), and the ineffective rate was lowered (P <0. 05) in the CM group. In the combined group the expression levels of TNF-α, IL-4, EOS, and IgE decreased, and the level of IL-10 increased after treatment (P <0. 05). The cough alleviation time and the disappearance time were shortened in the combined group after treatment (P <0. 05). The control rate, the markedly effective rate, and the total effective rate were elevated (P <0. 05), and the ineffective rate was lowered (P <0. 05) in the combined group after treatment. Compared with the CM group at the same time point, the expression level of IL-10 increased (P < 0. 05), the levels of IgE and EOS were lowered (P <0. 05), the cough alleviation time and the disappear- ance time were shortened (P <0. 05) , the control rate and the total effective rate were elevated in the combined group after treatment (P <0. 05). Conclusion AG, auricular point sticking combined with aerosol inhalation could significantly reduce the levels of TNF-α, IL-4, EOS, and IgE, and improve the level of IL-10 in CVA children patients, with significant clinical effects.