Up-regulation of endocrine gland-derived vascular endothelial growth factor but not vascular endothelial growth factor in human ectopic endometriotic tissue

Objective: To study the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), endocrine gland-derived VEGF (EG-VEGF/PK1), and its receptors (PKR1 and PKR2) in eutopic and ectopic endometrial tissues. Design: A case-control study. Setting: University reproduction unit. Patient(s): Infertile women undergoing diagnostic laparoscopy for tubal patency. Intervention(s): Endometrial and endometriotic tissue sampling from women with and without endometriosis. Main Outcome Measure(s): Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis of genes in eutopic and ectopic endometrial tissues. The EG-VEGF protein was studied by immunohistochemistry. Result(s): In normal endometrium, EG-VEGF messenger RNA (mRNA) expression was 50-fold higher in the secretory than in the proliferative phase, but that of PKR1 was 6-fold higher in the latter than in the former. The PKR2 transcript was detected in the proliferative but not the secretory endometrium. In patients with endometriosis, eutopic endometrial PKR2 transcript level was 4-fold higher in the proliferative than in the secretory phase. No differences in EG-VEGF or PKR1 were found in proliferative versus secretory endometrium in these patients. There were no significant differences in the expression of EG-VEGF in eutopic endometrium of normal women and in those with endometriosis. In the paired laser-captured microdissected eutopic endometrial and ectopic endometriotic samples, a significantly higher EG-VEGF, but not VEGF, transcript level was detected in the ectopic when compared with eutopic samples; whereas the expressions of PKR1 and PKR2 were barely detectable. The H-scoring confirmed that the stroma of endometriotic samples had a significantly higher EG-VEGF protein expression than that in the paired eutopic endometrium. Conclusion(s): High levels of EG-VEGF expression may play an important role in angiogenesis in endometriotic tissues. © 2010 American Society for Reproductive Medicine.postprin

Anti-NMDA-R encephalitis: an encephalitis lerthargica-like illness

Posters: no. P14A girl of 3 years and 9 months with a 3-day history of fever and upper respiratory tract infection (URTI) was admitted with a generalised tonic-clonic convulsion, and delirium with screaming, non-sense talking, and agitation. For the first week after admission, she was lethargic with fluctuating awareness and mutism during the day but poor sleep at night. Workup for acute encephalopathy including autoimmune, infective, toxicology, metabolic and vasculitic screening showed negative findings. Erythrocyte sedimentation rate was markedly elevated and ...published_or_final_versionThe 1st Hong Kong Neurological Congress cum 22nd Annual Scientific Meeting of the Hong Kong Neurological Society, Hong Kong, 6-8 November 2009. In Hong Kong Medical Journal, 2009, v. 15 n. 6, suppl. 7, p. 47, abstract P1

Paediatric Epilepsy Surgery Programme in Hong Kong: experience in Queen Mary Hospital/Duchess of Kent Children's Hospital

Poster: no. P6BACKGROUND: Surgery is a well-established treatment for adults with intractable seizures. Increasingly, infants and children are being considered for epilepsy surgery. In a growing child, epilepsy surgery has the additional benefit of aborting cognitive decline and improving development and behaviour. METHODS: The paediatric epilepsy surgery programme ...published_or_final_versio

Paediatric Epilepsy Surgery Programme in Hong Kong: experience in Queen Mary Hospital / Duchess of Kent Children's Hospital

Poster: no. P6BACKGROUND: Surgery is a well-established treatment for adults with intractable seizures. Increasingly, infants and children are being considered for epilepsy surgery. In a growing child, epilepsy surgery has the additional benefit of aborting cognitive decline and improving development and behaviour ...published_or_final_versio

Parental restriction reduces the harmful effects of in-bedroom electronic devices

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Prescribing trends and indications of antipsychotic medication in Hong Kong from 2004 to 2014: General and vulnerable patient groups

PURPOSE: Antipsychotic-prescribing patterns remain unclear in Asia. The aims of our study were to investigate prescribing trends of antipsychotic medication in the general population, children, and older patients by drug generation (first or second), the prescribing trend in pregnant women, the probable indication for antipsychotic prescription, and the prescribing trend by dosage form. METHODS: This descriptive study identified and included all patients prescribed with antipsychotic in Hong Kong from 2004 to 2014 using the Clinical Data Analysis and Report System. This study calculated and reported the prevalence of antipsychotic prescribing in patient groups of interest, the percentage with diagnoses of mental disorders were derived, and the prevalence of antipsychotic by dosage forms. RESULTS: The study included 10 109 206 prescriptions of any antipsychotics to 256 903 patients. Over the study period, the prevalence of antipsychotic prescribing increased from 1.06% to 1.54% in the general population, from 0.10% to 0.23% in children (3-17 years old), and from 2.61% to 3.26% in older patients (≥65 years old). The prevalence of second-generation antipsychotics increased, but the prevalence of first-generation antipsychotics did not. Prevalence of antipsychotic prescribing in prepregnancy, pregnancy, and postpartum timeframes varied from 0.18% to 0.38%. The percentage of incident prescriptions with a diagnosis of psychosis decreased from 54.1% to 47.5%. CONCLUSIONS: Antipsychotics have been increasingly prescribed in the general population, children, and older patients. There is an increase in second-generation antipsychotic prescribing. Over half of incident users had a recent diagnosis of a nonpsychotic mental disorder in 2014, suggesting that off-label prescribing of antipsychotics might be common. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd

Test-retest reliability of a computer-assisted self-administered questionnaire on early life exposure in a nasopharyngeal carcinoma case-control study

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Early visual ERPs show stable body-sensitive patterns over a 4-week test period

Event-related potential (ERP) studies feature among the most cited papers in the field of body representation, with recent research highlighting the potential of ERPs as neuropsychiatric biomarkers. Despite this, investigation into how reliable early visual ERPs and body-sensitive effects are over time has been overlooked. This study therefore aimed to assess the stability of early body-sensitive effects and visual P1, N1 and VPP responses. Participants were asked to identify pictures of their own bodies, other bodies and houses during an EEG test session that was completed at the same time, once a week, for four consecutive weeks. Results showed that amplitude and latency of early visual components and their associated body-sensitive effects were stable over the 4-week period. Furthermore, correlational analyses revealed that VPP component amplitude might be more reliable than VPP latency and specific electrode sites might be more robust indicators of body-sensitive cortical activity than others. These findings suggest that visual P1, N1 and VPP responses, alongside body-sensitive N1/VPP effects, are robust indications of neuronal activity. We conclude that these components are eligible to be considered as electrophysiological biomarkers relevant to body representation

Information seeking behaviour and purchasing decision: case study in digital cameras

This case study explores the information seeking behaviour of digital camera consumers based on Assael’s consumer information acquisition and processing model. 135 responses were received from potential target group who had purchased or was planning to purchase digital cameras. Findings show that respondents who had not purchased digital camera before tended to seek for related information and generally spent more time on the search. Motivation of information seeking triggered by risk and uncertainty is also supported by resulting data .Significant difference was found in information seeking and time spent on the search based on different education attainment and income level of consumers. These results give hints to promoters to outline strategies for capturing potential customers based on their information seeking behaviour, as well as highlight informational supports that could be provided by relevant information agencies such as consumer councils and public libraries

Metadata Design of a Content Management System for Music Virtual Learning Environment

Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) uncovers a new learning space for students to start their learning in multidisciplinary subjects and provides an enormous storage for different types of learning materials. This brings not only the ease and flexibility to our learning, but also the challenges in organizing, managing, and controlling of information which is indispensable to the design of an effective online learning system. In particular, Music Information Retrieval (MIR) is an interdisciplinary science on the process of retrieving information from music related resources. Due to the unique application characteristics and various forms of music, appropriate design and application of metadata plays an important role for the MIR in such a Content Management System (CMS) as it would affect the comprehensiveness and effectiveness of the music information retrieval process. In this paper, the authors propose their ontology-based metadata scheme to address such requirements of a music VLE, based on the Dublin Core with modifications according to specific nature of the music learning materials. The metadata design of music resources aims to support students' daily music learning by providing instant and appropriate learning materials which enables cross-collection searching and enhances the sustainability of the contents over time