Is there any relationship between serum and urine neopterin and serum interferon‐γ levels in the activity of Behcet's disease?

Background  Behcet's disease (BD) is a chronic, inflammatory, multisystem vasculitic disorder. There is no reliable laboratory marker that indicates disease activity. Neopterin is an immunological marker of cellular immune activation, which is secreted by monocytes/macrophages as a result of interferon-gamma (IFN-γ) secretion by activated T lymphocytes.
Objective  We aimed to investigate serum and urine neopterin levels in BD patients.
Methods  Forty-five patients who were diagnosed according to the criteria of the International Study Group for BD and 45 age- and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled in the study. Disease activity was considered by clinical findings. Serum and urine neopterin levels and serum IFN-γ levels were measured.
Results  The mean values of serum and urine neopterin levels were 12.68 ± 4.87 nmol/L and 167.53 ± 148.73 µmol/mol creatinine, respectively, in BD patients ( P =  0.000 and P  = 0.008, respectively), which were statistically significantly different from the control group. However, there was no significant statistical difference between serum and urine neopterin levels of the clinically active and inactive patients. It was also found that the mean value of serum IFN-γ levels was higher in healthy controls than in BD patients ( P =  0.000).
Conclusions  We conclude that serum and urinary neopterin measurement can not be used as a reliable laboratory marker as the BD patients' serum and urinary neopterin levels do not increase in the active stage even though these levels increase when compared to healthy controls.     

血清HBV-DNA水平的变化与慢性乙型活动性肝炎的关系

目的:研究慢性肝炎患者HBV-DNA水平与病情变化的关系. 方法:采用荧光标记定量PCR的方法,测定慢性乙型肝炎急性发作患者(HBeAg阳性45例,抗HBe阳性30例)其活动期和恢复期的血清HBV-DNA含量. 结果:HBeAg阳性组血清HBV-DNA含量(Logarrithm copy/mL)在活动期显著高于恢复期[(10.2±1.6) vs (5.3±2.1), P<0.05],抗-HBe阳性组血清HBV-DNA含量(Logarrithm copy/mL)在活动期显著高于恢复期[(7.6±1.3) vs (4.0±2.0), P<0.05]. 另外,活动期血清HBV-DNA含量(Logarrithm copy/mL)在HBeAg阳性组显著高于抗HBe阳性组[(10.2±1.6) vs (7.6±1.3), P<0.05]. 血清HBV-DNA水平与丙氨酸转氨酶(ALT)、门冬氨酸转氨酶(AST)及总胆红素(T-BLLI)之间无相关性. 结论:HBV-DNA复制水平与慢性乙型病毒性肝炎的活动密切相关.     

Dynamic tomographic digital subtraction angiography using temporal filtration

A variation of temporal recursive filtering for intravenous and intra-arterial digital subtraction angiography (DSA) is described. It results in a dynamic tomographic DSA display that may improve intravenous DSA performance by removing the confusion introduced by vessel overlap and reducing the severity of motion artifacts. A conventional circular tomographic apparatus was modified by the addition of a 23-cm image intensifier-television chain and made to run continuously at one revolution each 1.5 seconds. The video output was processed by the recursive filter in a two-step process resulting in a dynamic tomographic display of arterial opacification. Theory and results of initial animal studies are presented.     

Pulmonary arteriography: comparison of cough stimulation effects of diatrizoate and ioxaglate

Twenty-five patients were observed in a prospective crossover study to determine whether the new low-osmolality contrast agents would be less prone than conventional agents to produce coughing during pulmonary arteriography. Selective left and right pulmonary arteriography (two views of each side) was performed with alternating administrations of diatrizoate sodium meglumine and ioxaglate sodium meglumine. Twenty-one patients had all four injections while four patients received injections on only one side. Sixteen of 25 patients coughed on at least one injection of diatrizoate, with three of these experiencing explosive coughing. One of 25 patients coughed with ioxaglate, and that was only minimally. This difference is statistically significant (P less than .001, on the basis of McNemar chi 2 test for paired data). When no coughing occurred, the quality of the diatrizoate and ioxaglate radiographs was indistinguishable. We conclude that ioxaglate is useful in pulmonary arteriography because of its lack of cough stimulation.     

新疆藁本有效成分coniselin的全合成研究

新疆藁本有效成分ｃｏｎｉｓｅｌｉｎ的全合成研究丁平羽，于德泉（中国医学科学院，中国协和医科大学药物研究所北京１０００５０）新疆藁本（ＣｏｎｉｓｅｌｉｎｕｍｖａｇｉｎａｔｕｍＴｈｅｌｌ）是新疆地区常用中药藁本的代用品，应用广泛，主要功能是祛风散寒。本研...