Akute Pankreatitis

Acute pancreatitis is a potentially fatal disease with individually differing expression of systemic involvement. For this reason early diagnosis with subsequent risk stratification is essential in the clinical management of this frequent gastroenterological disorder. Severe forms of acute pancreatitis occur in approximately 20?% of cases often requiring intensive care monitoring and interdisciplinary therapeutic approaches. In the acute phase adequate fluid replacement and sufficient analgesic therapy is of major therapeutic importance. Concerning the administration of antibiotics and the nutritional support of patients with acute pancreatitis a change in paradigms could be observed in recent years. Furthermore, endoscopic, radiological or surgical interventions can be necessary depending on the severity of the disease and potential complications.     

Remaining local subclinical joint inflammation is associated with deteriorated metacarpeal head bone microarchitecture in rheumatoid arthritis patients low disease activity

Objectives

Bone alterations at the subchondral level during rheumatoid arthritis (RA) remain under investigation. It remains unknown whether subchondral bone damage might still occur in RA patients in clinical remission, which could then infer suggesting that even minor subclinical inflammatory changes in the joint can induce local bone loss.

The African-specific CYP2D617 allele encodes an enzyme with changed substrate specificity

OBJECTIVE: The effects of the CYP2D6*17 and *29 alleles on substrate specificity and enzyme activity were studied by correlating CYP2D6 genotype to phenotype with 4 probe drugs (codeine, debrisoquine, dextromethorphan, metoprolol) in black Tanzanians and white Swedes. METHODS: The black Tanzanian subjects represented the following 6 genotypic groups: A, (CYP2D6*1 or *2)/(*1 or *2) (n = 13); B, CYP2D6*17 /*17 (n = 5); C, CYP2D6*29 /*29 (n = 4); D, CYP2D6*1 /*17 (n = 5); E, CYP2D6*5/*17 (n = 4); and F, various genotypes (n = 4). The white subjects were from 4 groups, as follows: A, (CYP2D6*1 or *2)/(*1 or *2) (n = 7); B, (CYP2D6*1 or *2)/(*3, *4, or *5) (n = 7); C, homozygous for defect alleles (n = 7); and D, duplicated CYP2D6 gene (n = 2). RESULTS: The metabolic ratios of the 4 probe drugs correlated significantly (r (s) = 0.69-0.92; P <.001) in both populations. Tanzanian subjects homozygous for the CYP2D6*17 allele were slower metabolizers when debrisoquine or dextromethorphan was used as the probe drug than when codeine or metoprolol was used, showing a different substrate specificity of CYP2D6.17 than of CYP2D6.1 and CYP2D6.2. This was confirmed with analysis of covariance of the different metabolic ratios for a subgroup of subjects carrying only the CYP2D6*17 mutated allele (n = 9) compared with all other subjects (n = 44). The metabolic ratios of dextromethorphan and metoprolol differed significantly among Tanzanian subjects homozygous for the CYP2D6*29 allele compared with those with CYP2D6*1 or *2 alleles. CONCLUSION: We found differences in the disposition of 4 CYP2D6 probe drugs in black Tanzanians compared with Swedes. The differences were caused by the presence of CYP2D6.17 and CYP2D6.29. The results show that CYP2D6.17 exhibits altered substrate specificity compared with CYP2D6.1 and CYP2D6.2.     

间充质干细胞的来源

目的:间充质干细胞具有强大的增殖能力和多向分化潜能,文章对其主要的来源途径予以综述。资料来源:应用计算机检索Medline1991-01/2006-01期间的相关文章,检索词为“mesenchyma stem cells,origin,research progress”,并限定文章语言种类为English。同时计算机检索中国期刊全文数据库1998-01/2006-10期间的相关文章,检索词为“间充质干细胞,来源,研究进展”,并限定文章语言种类为中文。资料选择:对资料进行初审,并查看每篇文献后的引文。纳入标准:①间充质干细胞的起源。②间充质干细胞研究进展、干细胞的分离及鉴定。排除标准:重复研究、个案报告或Meta分析类文章。资料提炼:共收集到96篇相关文献,40篇文献符合纳入标准,排除的56篇文献为内容陈旧或重复。符合纳入标准的40篇文献中,分别涉及骨髓、肌肉、脐血、胎盘、外周血、脂肪组织、血管及其他来源的间充质干细胞。资料综合:间充质干细胞是属于中胚层的一类多能干细胞,具有强大的增殖能力和多向分化潜能,动物模型试验和临床应用研究也取得了一定的效果。间充质干细胞来源广泛,易于获得,临床上为神经损伤及其他系统的损伤修复提供了更为广泛的途径。结论:间充质干细胞主要来源于骨髓、肌肉、脐血、外周血、胎盘等组织,具有广阔的应用前景。     

Frequency of -163 C>A and 63 C>G single nucleotide polymorphism of cytochrome P450 1A2 in two African populations.

Cytochrome P450 1A2 (CYP1A2) is an important member of the cytochrome P450 superfamily of enzymes because of its involvement in the metabolism of some carcinogens and therapeutically important drugs. As a result, factors affecting the activity of the enzyme are the focus of considerable research effort as they may have important pharmacological or toxicological implications. CYP1A2 has been shown to exhibit a genetic polymorphism with most of the data, however, coming from studies in Caucasian and Oriental populations. In this study therefore, we investigated the frequencies of two point mutations, -163C>A and 63C>G, in two Bantu African populations. A total of 214 healthy subjects were recruited from Zimbabwe (n=143) and Tanzania (n=71). The two single nucleotide polymorphisms were detected using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. The frequency of -163A was 57% (95% confidence interval (CI), 54%, 60%) and 49% (95% CI, 45%, 53%) among Zimbabweans and Tanzanians, respectively, but the difference between the two populations was not statistically significant (p=0.123). The base change 63 C>G was not found in any of the subjects from the two populations. We report here a high frequency of -163 C>A base change and an absence of the 63 C>G change in the two African populations.