The contemporary role of antioxidant therapy in attenuating liver ischemia-reperfusion injury: a review.

Oxidative stress is an important factor in many pathological conditions such as inflammation, cancer, ageing and organ response to ischemia-reperfusion. Humans have developed a complex antioxidant system to eliminate or attenuate oxidative stress. Liver ischemia-reperfusion injury occurs in a number of clinical settings, including liver surgery, transplantation, and hemorrhagic shock with subsequent fluid resuscitation, leading to significant morbidity and mortality. It is characterized by significant oxidative stress but accompanied with depletion of endogenous antioxidants. This review has 2 aims: firstly, to highlight the clinical significance of liver ischemia-reperfusion injury, the underlying mechanisms and the main pathways by which the antioxidants function, and secondly, to describe the new developments that are ongoing in antioxidant therapy and to present the experimental and clinical evidence about the role of antioxidants in modulating hepatic ischemia-reperfusion injury.     

眼针治疗阵发性室上性心动过速120例的即时疗效观察

目的:观察眼针对阵发性室上性心动过速的即时疗效。方法:选择符合诊断标准的门诊患者120例,针其眼针穴区:心区和上焦区。针后30分钟描记心电图,计算心率,观察眼针对阵发性室上性心动过速的影响。结果:显效103例,占85.83%;有效9例,占7.5%;无效8例,占6.66%;总有效率93.33%.结论:眼针对阵发性室上性心动过速有较好的即时疗效。     

The concept of culture: A core issue in health disparities

Contemporary discourse contains numerous examples of use of the concept of culture by social and behavioral scientists. Simple reification, where the speaker makes culture into a thing capable of action exemplifies one usage in public discourse. Some quantitative social scientists attempt to characterize people’s cultural identities by means of a single categorical variable, which often “lumps” people into categories such as “Hispanic” or “Black” that in fact have numerous culturally bounded subcategories. Approaches that emphasize cultural process are preferable to those who attempt to categorize; more complex measures of acculturation help investigators to make convincing analyses of circumstances in which health disparities occur. Examples in which investigators make appropriate use of cultural characterizations demonstrate their utility in investigating health disparities in Haitian American women, injecting and noninjecting drug users, Hispanic youth, and adult Hispanics at risk of HIV infection. Focus on culture in the study of health disparities can identify entanglements between structural factors such as poverty and lack of education and cultural factors such as beliefs about health. Qualitative methods coupled with quantitative methods have great potential to improve investigators’ grasp of cultural nuance while capturing the distribution of qualitatively derived behaviors.     

Discussing options between patients and health care professionals in genetic diagnosis: ethical and legal criteria

The specific characteristics of genetic data lead to ethical-legal conflicts in the framework of genetic diagnosis. Several international organisations, including UNESCO and the Council of Europe, have enacted rules referring to the use of genetic information. This paper discusses possible legal and ethical criteria that could be used in genetic testing.     

Transvaginal sonography in the assessment of distal ureteral calculi.

OBJECTIVES: To explore the morphological and functional findings of transvaginal sonography (TVS) in the diagnosis and management of distal ureteral calculi. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the imaging studies in seven cases of distal ureteral calculi (study group) and 20 cases of female volunteers without urinary tract infection (control group). All 27 patients had undergone TVS for assessment of the lower urinary tract. The variables measured on ultrasound included the presence or absence of distal ureteral calculi, the size and location of a calculus if present, the presence or absence of the ureter jet phenomenon, morphological changes of the ureteral papilla and adjoining tissue, and the height of the ureteral papilla, as well as vascular changes seen on Doppler imaging. RESULTS: In the controls, 80% of the ureteral papillae were triangular and 20% trapezoidal. The average (+/-SD) height of the ureteral papillae was 3.5 +/- 0.7 mm on the right and 3.6 +/- 0.9 mm on the left. There was no statistically significant difference between the heights of the right and left papillae (P = 0.619). In the study group, echogenic stones were identified in all seven patients and a hypoechogenic tubular structure connected to the involved papilla was identified in 6/7 patients. The average height of the involved papilla was 6.7 +/- 1.6 mm. Ureteric jets were visible in all patients in both the study and control groups. CONCLUSION: In patients with distal ureteral calculi, TVS provides a rapid, non-invasive and repeatable means of assessing the morphology and function of the distal ureter.     

Intussusception in Taiwanese children: analysis of incidence, length of hospitalization and hospital costs in different age groups.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: This study investigated the characteristics of intussusception in Taiwanese children of different age groups, including the incidence, length of hospitalization and hospital costs. METHODS: Children with a diagnosis of intussusception who were hospitalized from 1999 through 2001 were identified from a nationwide health insurance claims database. The incidence of intussusception was calculated by age, gender, and season. Length of hospitalization and hospital costs were also analyzed. RESULTS: A total of 6988 cases of intussusception were identified in Taiwan from 1999 to 2001. Among them, 4859 cases occurred in children below 15 years of age. The average incidence among children below age 15 years was 34.5 per 100,000, with a peak incidence of 118.8 per 100,000 observed among children younger than 24 months old. The highest incidence of intussusception in Taiwanese children occurred between 12 and 24 months of age. According to the data for patients below 15 years of age hospitalized for intussusception in year 2000, males were more likely to be affected than females (61.3% vs 38.7%). Intussusception-related hospitalizations were rare in infants in the first few months of life, increased in those 6 to 12 months old, and peaked among children 1 to 3 years old. Among the 952 patients with intussusception admitted to hospitals in 2000, 297 (31.2%) received surgery, incurring higher median medical costs (New Taiwan Dollars [NT dollars] 42,265 or US dollars 1234) and longer median hospital stay (6.2 days) than the 655 patients who did not require surgery (NT dollars 6290 or US dollars 185 for hospitalization of 2.4 days). CONCLUSIONS: The study found that the incidence of intussusception peaked in the second year of life in Taiwanese children. There was also a male predominance and lack of seasonal variation in incidence.     

Acute pancreatitis combined with acute Budd-Chiari syndrome as the initial manifestation of small cell lung cancer.

Tumor metastasis to the pancreas is a rare but recognized cause of acute pancreatitis. Autopsy series have reported a 24-40% of pancreatic involvement in small cell lung cancer. However, only a very few cases of tumor-induced acute pancreatitis have been described. Budd-Chiari syndrome complicating lung cancer is a rarely reported condition. We report a 68-year-old woman with extensive small cell lung cancer with the unusual initial presentation of both acute pancreatitis and acute Budd-Chiari syndrome. This patient suffered from progressive epigastralgia for 3 weeks. Severe epigastralgia with radiation to back and progressive jaundice developed 2 days prior to admission. After admission, the liver enlarged rapidly and the ascites increased markedly. Chest roentgenogram showed a mass lesion over the left lower lung field. Poorly differentiated carcinoma cells were found in ascites and bone marrow. The patient died on the ninth day of hospitalization before chemotherapy was initiated. Prompt diagnosis of extensive-stage small cell lung cancer may allow early chemotherapy treatment which favorably influences recovery when the pancreatitis is mild. Although prolonged survival might have been expected had this patient recovered from pancreatitis and received chemotherapy, diagnosis was delayed due to difficulty in immunohistochemical diagnosis of the tumor and the unusual clinical presentation. The use of stains employing antibodies against neurofilament and neuron-specific enolase cell antigens is important for early diagnosis of poorly differentiated metastatic tumor cells.     

Matched-unrelated-donor bone marrow transplantation for children with leukemia.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: This report describes the results of matched-unrelated-donor transplant for leukemia or myelodysplasia in the first 23 recipient children at a single medical center in Taiwan. METHODS: Between August 1994 and February 2003, 23 consecutive children with leukemia or myelodysplasia underwent matched-unrelated-donor bone marrow transplantation (BMT). The preparative regimen consisted of fractionated total body irradiation and cyclophosphamide in 6 patients; busulfan in combination with etoposide and cyclophosphamide in 4 patients who received cranial irradiation before transplantation; and busulfan and cyclophosphamide in 13 patients. RESULTS: Engraftment was achieved in 91.3% of cases. Acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) occurred in 18 of 21 patients who engrafted (85.7%). Event-free survival for all patients was 24.46 +/- 9.24%. The 12 children with standard-risk disease had better event-free survival than the 11 children with high-risk disease (46.88 +/- 15.03% vs 0%, p < or = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The major obstacles to successful matched-unrelated-donor BMT are acute GVHD, relapse and infection. Early transplantation and patient selection, prophylactic and therapeutic maneuvers for GVHD, as well as appropriate donor selection and virus prophylaxis may improve the results.