ObjectiveTo study the local vascular remodeling, inflammatory response, and their correlations following acute spinal cord injury (SCI) with different grades, and to assess the histological changes in SCI rats.MethodsOne hundred and sixteen adult female Sprague Dawley rats were randomly divided into 4 groups (n=29). The rats in sham group were received laminectomy only. A standard MASCIS spinal cord compactor was applied with drop height of 12.5, 25.0, or 50.0 mm to establish the mild, moderate, or severe SCI model, respectively. Quantitative rat endothelial cell antigen 1 (RECA1) and CD68 positive areas and the correlations were studied by double immunofluorescent (DIF) staining at 12 hours, 24 hours, 3 days, 7 days, and 28 days following SCI. Moreover, qualitative neurofilament-H (NF-H) and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) positive glial cells were studied by DIF staining at 28 days. ELISA was used to detect the levels of tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α), interleukin 1β (IL-1β), and IL-6 in spinal cord homogenates at 12 hours, 24 hours, and 3 days, and the correlations between TNF-α, IL-1β, or IL-6 levels and microvascular density (RECA1) were accordingly studied. Moreover, the neural tissue integrity and neuron damage were assessed by HE staining at 12 hours, 24 hours, 3 days, 7 days, and 28 days, and Nissl’s staining at 28 days following SCI, respectively.ResultsDIF staining revealed that the ratio of RECA1 positive area was the highest in moderate group, higher in mild and severe groups, and the lowest in sham group with significant differences between groups (P<0.05). The ratio of CD68 positive area was the highest in severe group, higher in moderate and mild groups, and the lowest in sham group with significant differences between groups (P<0.05), except the comparisons between mild and moderate groups at 24 hours and 28 days after SCI (P>0.05). There was no significant correlation between the RECA1 and CD68 expressions in sham group at different time points (P>0.05). At 12 and 24 hours after SCI, the RECA1 and CD68 expressions in mild and moderate groups showed significant positive correlations (P<0.05), while no significant correlation was found in severe group (P>0.05). No significant correlations between the RECA1 and CD68 expressions was shown in all SCI groups at 3 days and in severe group at 7 days (P>0.05), while the negative correlations were shown in mild and moderate groups at 7 days, and in all SCI groups at 28 days (P<0.05). In mild, moderate, and severe groups, the axons became disrupted, shorter and thicker rods-like, or even merged blocks with increased injury, while the astrocytes decreased in number, unorganized and condensed in appearance. ELISA studies showed that TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 levels in sham group were significantly lower than those in other 3 groups at different time points (P>0.05). The differences in TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 levels between SCI groups at different time points were sinificant (P<0.05), except IL-1β levels between the mild and moderate groups at 12 hours (P>0.05). Three inflammatory factors were all significantly correlated with the microvascular density grades (P<0.05). Histological analysis indicated that the damage to spinal cord tissue structure correlated with the extent of SCI. In severe group, local hemorrhage, edema, and infiltration of inflammatory cells were found the most drastic, the grey/white matter boundary was disappeared concurrently with the formation of cavity and shortage of normal neurons.ConclusionIn the acute stage following mild or moderate SCI, progressively aggravated injury result in higher microvessel density and increased inflammation. However, at the SCI region, the relation between microvessel density and inflammation inverse with time in the different grades of SCI. Accordingly, the destruction of neural structures positively relate to the grades of SCI and severity of inflammation.
Heart valve disease (HVD) is one of the common cardiovascular diseases. Heart sound is an important physiological signal for diagnosing HVDs. This paper proposed a model based on combination of basic component features and envelope autocorrelation features to detect early HVDs. Initially, heart sound signals lasting 5 minutes were denoised by empirical mode decomposition (EMD) algorithm and segmented. Then the basic component features and envelope autocorrelation features of heart sound segments were extracted to construct heart sound feature set. Then the max-relevance and min-redundancy (MRMR) algorithm was utilized to select the optimal mixed feature subset. Finally, decision tree, support vector machine (SVM) and k-nearest neighbor (KNN) classifiers were trained to detect the early HVDs from the normal heart sounds and obtained the best accuracy of 99.9% in clinical database. Normal valve, abnormal semilunar valve and abnormal atrioventricular valve heart sounds were classified and the best accuracy was 99.8%. Moreover, normal valve, single-valve abnormal and multi-valve abnormal heart sounds were classified and the best accuracy was 98.2%. In public database, this method also obtained the good overall accuracy. The result demonstrated this proposed method had important value for the clinical diagnosis of early HVDs.
Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a complex and heterogeneous common endocrine disease, and periodontitis is a chronic infectious immune inflammatory disease caused by dental plaque. In recent years, a large number of studies have shown that PCOS and periodontitis may be related, but the pathological mechanism is still unclear. Therefore, this article reviews the correlation between PCOS and periodontitis and the possible biological mechanisms of their mutual influence, in order to provide a theoretical basis for the prevention and treatment of periodontal disease in patients with PCOS.
Objective To summarize the progress of research about the relationship between papillary thyroid carcinoma (PTC) and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT). Method The relevant literatures at home and abroad in recent years about this topic were collected and analyzed. Results Comprehensive literature reviewed, combined with the author's clinical research results, PTC and HT were indeed closely related, or there was a certain causal link. HT and PTC might both come from the same embryonic stem cells. HT was an autoimmune thyroid disease caused by abnormal immune response, and might be a triggering factor of PTC. Meanwhile, lymphocyte infiltration might play a certain protective role in anti-tumor effect. RET chromosome rearrangement, RAS point mutation and BRAF gene mutation might activate mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway, especially in PTC cases with HT in which RET chromosome rearrangement was more common. In the future, selective targeted therapy aiming at the activation of RET/RAS/BRAF/MAPK pathway was a promising treatment especially in advanced PTC cases. Conclusions The correlation between PTC and HT is not fully clarified. HT is a potential risk factor for PTC but the cases of PTC with HT have a better prognosis. More prospective studies will help to further clarify the correlation between two diseases.
ObjectiveTo explore the correlation between readiness for hospital discharge and short-term quality of life among colorectal cancer (CRC) patients following enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) mode.MethodsSurveys of 127 CRC patients following ERAS mode were conducted in the West China Hospital of Sichuan University. The Readiness for Hospital Discharge Scale and EORTC QLQ-C30 Scale were issued at the discharge and 1 month after the operation, respectively.ResultsThe total score of RHDS was 149.43±33.25. The score of global quality of life was 66.80±18.84. Correlation analysis showed that the total score of RHDS was positively correlated with the score of global quality of life (r=0.220, P=0.013), and negatively correlated with the scores of fatigue, nausea and vomiting, pain, loss of appetite (r=–0.304, P=0.001; r=–0.189, P=0.033; r=–0.257, P=0.004; r=–0.254, P=0.004). The score of personal status dimension were positively correlated with the score of global quality of life and emotional function (r=0.213, P=0.016; r=0.197, P=0.027), and negatively correlated with scores of fatigue, pain and insomnia (r=–0.311, P=0.000; r=–0.264, P=0.003; r=–0.257, P=0.004). The score of knowledge dimension was negatively correlated with nausea and vomiting, pain and loss of appetite (r=–0.212, P=0.017; r=–0.182, P=0.040; r=–0.239, P=0.007). The score of coping ability dimension was positively correlated with the score of global quality of life and physical function (r=0.204, P=0.021; r=0.204, P=0.021), while negatively correlated with scores of fatigue, pain, insomnia and loss of appetite (r=–0.349, P=0.000; r=–0.240, P=0.007; r=–0.202, P=0.022; r=–0.201, P=0.024). The score of expected support was positively correlated with the score of global quality of life (r=0.220, P=0.013), and negatively correlated with scores of fatigue and loss of appetite (r=–0.249, P=0.005; r=–0.227, P=0.010).ConclusionsThe short term quality of life among CRC patients following ERAS keeps at upper middle level, and positively correlated with the readiness for hospital discharge. It is suggested that discharge preparation service is of great significance to improve the quality of life of patients.
Objective To explore the correlation between the inserting angle of vertebral screws and the extent of post-operative lateral angulation instantly in sugery via anterior approach for thoracolumbar fractures. Methods The cl inical data were from 172 patients consecutively treated with surgery via anterior approach in thoracic and lumbar fractures betweenMay 2004 and January 2008. These cases included 124 males and 48 females at the age of 15-70 years old (mean 39 years old). One fracture were located at T11, 37 at T12, 88 at L1, 30 at L2, 15 at L3, 3 at L4. One segment was involved in 170 cases and two segments in 2 cases. According to Frankel assessment for neurological status, there were 19 cases of grade A, 24 cases of grade B, 45 cases of grade C, 53 cases of grade D, and 31 cases of grade E. The time from injury to operation was 2-30 days (median 8 days). According to the coronal Cobb angle instantly after surgery, the patients were divided into three groups: 0-5° group, 5-10° group and over 10°group. Every group was further divided into four subgroups according to the type of the internal fixation instruments: Z-plate subgroup, Antares subgroup, Profile subgroup and single screw rod (SSR) subgroup. Radiograph images were used to evaluate the coronal Cobb angle and inserting angle between the screws and end-plates. The screws were named as A, B, C and D in vertebral bodies from the cephal ic to the caudal portion. The angles between the superior endplate and the screws A, B were named as angles A, B, and the angles between the inferior endplate and the screws C, D were named as angles C, D. The differences were compared between the screw’s inserting angle A+D (or/and B+C) and the post-operative coronal Cobb angle instantly, and l inear regression analysis was done. The satisfaction survey was acommpl ished. Results Surfacialinfection occurred in 1 patient at 7 days and incision healed well after debridement; other incisions healed by first intention. A total of 172 cases were followed up for 6-49 months (mean 39 months). The degree of satisfaction was 3-10 points, median 8.5 points. Various degrees of neurological function recovered in final follow-up except patients for Frankel A grade. The mean coronal Cobb angles were (0.75 ± 3.91)° for pre-operatively, (3.17 ± 4.07)° for instantly post-operatively and (3.46 ± 4.21)° at last follow-up; showing statistically differences between pre-operatively and instantly post-operatively, between pre-operatively and at last follow-up (P lt; 0.05). Comparing the screw’s inserting angle A+D (or/and B+C) and the coronal Cobb angle, there was statistically significant difference between Z-Plate subgroup and other subgroups in 0-5° group (P lt; 0.05), and there were no statistically significant differences between other subgroups in each group (P gt; 0.05). Except the screw’s inserting angle A+D (Z-Plate and SSR subgroups) and angle B+C (Antares subgroup) in 0-5° group, the post-operative coronal Cobb angle correlated closely with the screw’s inserting angle A+D (or/and B+C) in other subgroups of 3 groups. Conclusion Nonparallel ism between the vertebral screws and the correlative end plate is one of the main causes of post-operative spinal lateral angulation.
Sleep apnea syndrome (SAS) is a kind of common and harmful systemic sleep disorder. SAS patients have significant iconography changes in brain structure and function, and electroencephalogram (EEG) is the most intuitive parameter to describe the sleep process which can reflect the electrical activity and function of brain tissues. Based on the non-stationary and nonlinear characteristics of EEG, this paper analyzes the correlation dimension of sleep EEG in patients with SAS. Six SAS patients were classed as SAS group and six healthy persons were classified into a control group. The results showed that the correlation dimension of sleep EEG in the SAS group and the control group decreased gradually with the deepening of sleep, and then increased to the level of awake and light sleep stage with rapid eye movement (REM). The correlation dimension of SAS group was significantly lower than that of control group (P<0.01) throughout all the stages. The results suggested that there were significant nonlinear dynamic differences between the EEG signals of SAS patients and of healthy people, which provided a new direction for the study of the physiological mechanism and automatic detection of SAS.
ObjectivesTo analyze the balance of medical human resource allocation in Chengdu and to discuss the impact of human resource allocation structure on the hospital’s medical service capabilities, so as to provide a theoretical basis for the hospital to optimize the talent team structure.MethodsThe Moran’s index and Gini coefficient were used to evaluate the spatial aggregation and grade distribution difference of human resources allocation, respectively. The case mix index (CMI), the length of hospital stay, and the difficulty of surgery were used as outcome variables, and a multiple regression analysis model was established to explore the impact of human resource indicators on the hospital’s medical service capabilities.ResultsThe distribution of doctors showed an obvious spatial aggregation in Chengdu, and there was a positive spatial correlation (Moran’s Idoctor=0.290); the distribution of nurses had no obvious spatial aggregation (Moran’s Inurse=0.102). Under different medical service capacity segments, the Gini coefficient of doctors was 0.518, and the Gini coefficient of nurses was 0.576, both exceeding 0.5, indicating that the distribution of medical human resources in different levels of hospitals was considerably different. The regression results showed that the expansion of the quantity of senior title doctors and the proportion of medical care both could improve the hospital’s CMI. The increase in the quantity of doctors with senior titles also had a certain impact on improving the hospital’s surgical capabilities. The expansion of the proportion of medical care could lead to a slight increase in the length of patients' hospital stay.ConclusionsOptimizing the allocation structure of medical human resources in different regions and hospitals with different levels is an important task in the construction of a hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system. It is necessary to further integrate medical human resources throughout the whole city and strengthen personnel training and team building in primary health institutions. Hospitals at different levels should implement their own development positioning and further optimize their human resource allocation structure according to development needs. Tertiary hospitals should pay more attention to the cultivation of senior professional doctors, optimize the proportion of medical care, and improve the hospital’s medical service capabilities. The primary health institutions should pay attention to the comprehensive construction of medical personnel, and strengthen the development of the team of general practitioners, so as to achieve a comprehensive improvement of the city’s medical service capabilities.
As one of the important indexes for the diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, cardiac output can reflect the state of cardiovascular system timely, and can play a guiding role in the treatment of related diseases. In recent years detection technology of cardiac output has caused great attention, especially minimally invasive and non-invasive methods. In this paper, the principle of non-invasive detection methods and their recent developments are described, and various detection methods are also analyzed.
Hemispheric asymmetry is a fundamental organizing principle of the human brain. Answering the genetic effects of the asymmetry is a prerequisite for elucidating developmental mechanisms of brain asymmetries. Multi-modal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has provided an important tool for comprehensively interpreting human brain asymmetry and its genetic mechanism. By combining MRI data, individual differences in brain structural asymmetry have been investigated with quantitative genetic brain mapping using gene-heritability. Twins provide a useful natural model for studying the effects of genetics and environment on the brain. Studies based on MRI have found that the asymmetry of human brain structure has a genetic basis. From the perspective of quantitative genetic analysis, this article reviews recent findings on the genetic effects of asymmetry and genetic covariance between hemispheres from three aspects: the asymmetry of heritability, the heritability of asymmetry and the genetic correlation. At last, the article shows the limitations and future research directions in this field. The purpose of this systematic review is to quickly guide researchers to understand the origins and genetic mechanism of interhemispheric differences, and provide a genetic basis for further understanding and exploring individual differences in laterized cognitive behavior.