Analgesic and Anti-Inflammatory Activities of Methanol Extract of Ficus pumila L. in Mice

This study investigated possible analgesic and anti-inflammatory mechanisms of the methanol extract of Ficus pumila (FPMeOH). Analgesic effects were evaluated in two models including acetic acid-induced writhing response and formalin-induced paw licking. The results showed FPMeOH decreased writhing response in the acetic acid assay and licking time in the formalin test. The anti-inflammatory effect was evaluated by λ-carrageenan-induced mouse paw edema and histopathological analyses. FPMeOH significantly decreased the volume of paw edema induced by λ-carrageenan. Histopathologically, FPMeOH abated the level of tissue destruction and swelling of the edema paws. This study indicated anti-inflammatory mechanism of FPMeOH may be due to declined levels of NO and MDA in the edema paw through increasing the activities of SOD, GPx, and GRd in the liver. Additionally, FPMeOH also decreased the level of inflammatory mediators such as IL-1β, TNF-α, and COX-2. HPLC fingerprint was established and the contents of three active ingredients, rutin, luteolin, and apigenin, were quantitatively determined. This study provided evidence for the classical treatment of Ficus pumila in inflammatory diseases

Inflammatory Marker but Not Adipokine Predicts Mortality among Long-Term Hemodialysis Patients

Aims: chronic inflammation contributes significantly to the morbidity and mortality of chronic hemodialysis patients. A recent research has shown that adipokines were associated with inflammation in these patients. We aim to investigate whether biomarkers of inflammation, adipokines, and clinical features can predict the outcome of hemodialysis patients. Materials and methods: we enrolled 181 hemodialysis patients (men: 97, mean age: 56.3±13.6) and analyzed predictors of long-term outcomes. Results: during the 3-year followup period, 41 patients died; the main causes of death were infection and cardiovascular disease. Elevated serum levels of hsCRP and albumin and advanced age were highly associated with death (all P<.001). Leptin and adiponectin levels were not significantly different between deceased patients and survivors. Cox-regression analysis indicated that age, diabetes, albumin level, and hsCRP were independent factors predicting mortality. Conclusion: the presence of underlying disease, advanced age, and markers of chronic inflammation is strongly related to survival rate in long-term hemodialysis patients

Persistent surgical wound bleeding: A rare condition related to acquired hemophilia A

SummaryAcquired hemophilia A (AHA) is a rare condition that predisposes affected patients to a bleeding tendency, even after a trivial physical insult. We present our experience with a 45-year-old male patient who was referred to our institute because of persistent bleeding from a left forearm surgical wound after fasciotomy. He was diagnosed as having AHA. Surgical treatment in combination with recombinant activated factor VII (rFVIIa) led to a satisfactory result. Clinical awareness and multidisciplinary professional connections are necessary in the treatment of AHA. Acquired hemophilia should be considered in the differential diagnosis of patients with uncontrolled bleeding episodes

Lack of association between mutations of gene-encoding mitochondrial D310 (displacement loop) mononucleotide repeat and oxidative stress in chronic dialysis patients in Taiwan

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Mitochondria (mt) are highly susceptible to reactive oxygen species (ROS). In this study, we investigated the association between a region within the displacement loop (D-loop) in mtDNA that is highly susceptible to ROS and oxidative stress markers in chronic dialysis patients. We enrolled 184 chronic dialysis patients and 213 age-matched healthy subjects for comparison. Blood levels of oxidative stress markers, such as thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) and free thiol, and the mtDNA copy number were determined. A mononucleotide repeat sequence (CCCC...CCCTCCCCCC) between nucleotides 303 and 316-318 (D310) was identified in mtDNA.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Depending on alterations in the D310 mononucleotide repeat, subjects were categorized into 4 subgroups: 7-C, 8-C, 9 or 10-C, and T-to-C transition. Oxidative stress was higher in chronic dialysis patients, evidenced by higher levels of TBARS and mtDNA copy number, and a lower level of free thiol. The distribution of 7-C, 8-C, and 9-10C in dialysis and control subjects was as follows: 7-C (38% <it>vs. </it>31.5%), 8-C (35.3% <it>vs. </it>43.2%), and 9-10C (24.5% <it>vs. </it>22.1%). Although there were significant differences in levels of TBARS, free thiol, and the mtDNA copy number in the D310 repeat subgroups (except T-to-C transition) between dialysis patients and control subjects, post hoc analyses within the same study cohort revealed no significant differences.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Although oxidative stress was elevated in chronic dialysis patients and resulted in a compensatory increase in the mtDNA copy number, homopolymeric C repeats in the mtDNA region (D310), susceptible to ROS, were not associated with oxidative stress markers in these patients.</p

Constraining Intra-cluster Gas Models with AMiBA13

Clusters of galaxies have been used extensively to determine cosmological parameters. A major difficulty in making best use of Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (SZ) and X-ray observations of clusters for cosmology is that using X-ray observations it is difficult to measure the temperature distribution and therefore determine the density distribution in individual clusters of galaxies out to the virial radius. Observations with the new generation of SZ instruments are a promising alternative approach. We use clusters of galaxies drawn from high-resolution adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) cosmological simulations to study how well we should be able to constrain the large-scale distribution of the intra-cluster gas (ICG) in individual massive relaxed clusters using AMiBA in its configuration with 13 1.2-m diameter dishes (AMiBA13) along with X-ray observations. We show that non-isothermal beta models provide a good description of the ICG in our simulated relaxed clusters. We use simulated X-ray observations to estimate the quality of constraints on the distribution of gas density, and simulated SZ visibilities (AMiBA13 observations) for constraints on the large-scale temperature distribution of the ICG. We find that AMiBA13 visibilities should constrain the scale radius of the temperature distribution to about 50% accuracy. We conclude that the upgraded AMiBA, AMiBA13, should be a powerful instrument to constrain the large-scale distribution of the ICG.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, 12 pages, 9 figure

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Changes in Serum Concentrations of Fibroblast Growth Factor 23 and Soluble Klotho in Hemodialysis Patients after Total Parathyroidectomy

Background. We examined the changes in circulating fibroblast growth factor 23 (FGF23) and Klotho concentrations in hemodialysis patients after parathyroidectomy (PTX). Methods. We enrolled a cohort of hemodialysis patients who received PTX. Postoperatively, patients received calcium supplements and/or vitamin D analogue (calcitriol) to maintain serum calcium within 7.0–8.0 mg/dL. Information on clinical parameters including bone-mineral metabolic variables was collected pre-PTX and on days 5 and 90 after PTX. Concomitantly, serum full-length FGF23 and α-Klotho levels were measured. The relationship between FGF23 and clinical parameters was analyzed by single linear regression. Results. Forty-six participants (33 women; 13 men) were enrolled in the study. Their mean age was 56.49 years. Serum FGF23 and α-Klotho concentrations were elevated on days 5 and 90 after PTX compared to baseline (p>0.05). Serum FGF23 concentrations negatively correlated with serum calcium concentrations pre-PTX (Beta -0.31; R2 0.0949; p=0.040), day 5 post-PTX (Beta -0.31; R2 0.0982; p=0.036), and day 90 post-PTX (Beta -0.39; R2 0.1528; p=0.008). Conclusions. There was no change in circulating FGF23 and Klotho concentrations after PTX in hemodialysis patients given postoperative calcium supplements and/or vitamin D analogue. Serum FGF23 concentrations pre-PTX and at days 5 and 90 after PTX were inversely related to serum calcium concentrations

Evaluation of Clinical Parameters to Distinguish Mucinous Cystic Neoplasms from Serous Cystic Neoplasms of Pancreas- A Retrospective Study

Introduction: Pancreatic cystic neoplasms represent approximately 15% of all pancreatic tumours. Serous Cystic Neoplasm (SCN) is a benign lesion, and observation instead of surgical resection is suggested as first line treatment. Mucinous Cystic Neoplasm (MCN) has malignant potential and surgical resection has been considered the first line treatment. The preoperative distinction between SCN and MCN is important due to their completely different treatment strategies. Aim: This study was aimed to find clinical parameters for distinguishing between mucinous and serous cystic neoplasms of pancreas. Materials and Methods: From 1992 to 2010 at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Linkou, Taiwan and from 1988 to 2014 at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Keelung, Taiwan 141 patients underwent pancreatic tumour resection for pathologically proven SCN or MCN. The demographic data, characteristics and biochemistry data were reviewed and analysed. Results: In our study cohort, the levels of Aspartate Transaminase (AST) (p=0.009), Alanine Transaminase (ALT) (p=0.032), albumin (p=0.043) and Alkaline Phosphatase (ALP) (p61.5 U/L in the case of a proximally located pancreatic cystic neoplasm, SCN was indicated (84.2% specificity and 94.1% negative predictive value), but otherwise, MCN may be implicated. Conclusion: Preoperatively, SCN and benign MCN are not easily distinguishable from each other. However, a combination of the tumour location and the preoperative ALP level may provide some diagnostic benefit

The Prognosis of Blunt Bowel and Mesenteric Injury—The Pitfall in the Contemporary Image Survey

Delayed diagnosis and intervention of blunt bowel and mesenteric injury (BBMI) is a hazard because of poor prognosis. Computed tomography (CT) is the standard imaging tool to evaluate blunt abdominal trauma (BAT). However, a high missed diagnosis rate for BMMI was reported. In this study, we would like to evaluate the presentation of CT in BBMI. Moreover, we want to evaluate the impact of deferred surgical intervention of BBMI on final prognosis. We performed a retrospective study from 2013–2017, including patients with BAT and BBMI who underwent surgical intervention. We evaluated clinical characteristics, CT images, and surgical timing, as well as analyzed the prognosis of BBMI. There were 6164 BAT patients and 188 BMI patients included. The most common characteristics of CT were free fluid (71.3%), free air (43.6%), and mesenteric infiltration (23.4%). There were no single characteristics of a CT image that can predict BBMI significantly. However, under close monitoring, we find that deferred intervention did not prolong the hospital and intensive care unit stays and did not worsen the prognosis and mortality