Exploring Tai Chi in rheumatoid arthritis: a quantitative and qualitative study

Background  

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, inflammatory and systemic disease which affects the musculoskeletal system. Exercise programmes are reported to improve physical functioning in patients with RA. Tai Chi is a traditional Chinese martial art which combines slow and gentle movements with mental focus. The purpose of this study was to study in which way Tai Chi group exercise impacted on disease activity, physical function, health status and experience in RA patients, applying quantitative and qualitative methods.     

体外与肝细胞共培养对结肠癌细胞移行和增殖的影响

目的探讨肝细胞对结肠癌细胞的移行、增殖能力的影响。方法在体外建立结肠癌细胞与肝细胞三维共培养模型，将结肠癌细胞系Colon-26细胞培养在共培养系统上层，肝细胞培养在下层。实验分为3组：（1）Colon-26细胞与小鼠的肝细胞共培养（肝细胞组）。（2）与成纤维细胞共培养（纤维细胞组）。（3）Colon-26细胞单独培养（对照组）。观察肝细胞对结肠癌细胞的移行、增殖的影响，以及共培养液内表皮细胞生长因子（EGF）、血管内皮生长因子（VEGF）浓度的变化。结果肝细胞组的Colon-26细胞移行能力分别比纤维细胞组和对照组增强（t1=6．296，P=0．000；t2=5．322，P=0．000），Colon-26细胞增殖能力在肝细胞组亦分别比另两组增强（t1=3．905，P=0．005；t2=3．719，P=0．006）。肝细胞组的共培养液中EGF浓度明显升高（z=3．077，P=0．002）。结论在体外能建立结肠癌细胞与肝细胞的三维共培养模型。体外肝细胞能通过分泌生长因子促进结肠癌细胞的移行和增殖。     

Imaging human cerebral pain modulation by dose-dependent opioid analgesia: a positron emission tomography activation study using remifentanil

BACKGROUND: Previous imaging studies have demonstrated a number of cortical and subcortical brain structures to be activated during noxious stimulation and infusion of narcotic analgesics. This study used O-water and positron emission tomography to investigate dose-dependent effects of the short-acting mu-selective opioid agonist remifentanil on regional cerebral blood flow during experimentally induced painful heat stimulation in healthy male volunteers. METHODS: Positron emission tomography measurements were performed with injection of 7 mCi O-water during nonpainful heat and painful heat stimulation of the volar forearm. Three experimental conditions were used during both sensory stimuli: saline, 0.05 microg x kg x min remifentanil, and 0.15 microg x kg x min remifentanil. Cardiovascular and respiratory parameters were monitored noninvasively. Across the three conditions, dose-dependent effects of remifentanil on regional cerebral blood flow were analyzed on a pixel-wise basis using a statistical parametric mapping approach. RESULTS: During saline infusion, regional cerebral blood flow increased in response to noxious thermal stimulation in a number of brain regions as previously reported. There was a reduction in pain-related activations with increasing doses of remifentanil in the thalamus, insula, and anterior and posterior cingulate cortex. Increasing activation occurred in the cingulofrontal cortex (including the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex) and the periaqueductal gray. CONCLUSIONS: Remifentanil induced regional cerebral blood flow increases in the cingulofrontal cortex and periaqueductal gray during pain stimulation, indicating that mu-opioidergic activation modulates activity in pain inhibitory circuitries. This provides direct evidence that opioidergic analgesia is mediated by activation of established descending antinociceptive pathways.     

The effects of long-term medical treatment combined with clean intermittent catheterization in children with neurogenic detrusor overactivity

Objectives  

To assess whether conservative treatment of pediatric patients with neurogenic detrusor overactivity (NDO) results in lower bladder pressure and increased expected bladder volume (EBV), we investigated the clinical and urodynamic effects of long-term intravesical oxybutynin instillation compared with a standard treatment of oral anticholinergic medication in patients with clean intermittent catheterization (CIC).     

Comparison of clonidine and midazolam as anxiolytic premedication before wisdom tooth surgery: a randomized, double-blind, crossover pilot study

Purpose

Anxiolytic and possible side effects of clonidine 150?μg compared to midazolam 7.5?mg for premedication in surgical wisdom tooth extraction were evaluated.

Methods

In a prospective, randomized, double-blind crossover trial, ten patients undergoing bilateral wisdom tooth surgery received clonidine or midazolam orally 1?h before the treatment. Patients receiving midazolam for the first surgery received clonidine at the second surgery and vice versa. The anxiolytic efficacy was evaluated with a visual analogue scale (VAS) upon admission and 30, 50 and 60?min after administration of the medication. Patient satisfaction was recorded on a VAS after surgery and 7?days postoperatively.

Results

As soon as 30?min after administration of midazolam (p?<?0.03) and clonidine (p?<?0.02), an anxiolytic effect was recorded. Both medications did not differ in patient satisfaction.

Conclusion

Oral administration of clonidine 150?μg and midazolam 7.5?mg were rated as medications with equal anxiolytic effects before wisdom tooth surgery under local anesthesia.     

Analysis of human immunodeficiency virus-infected tissues by amplification and in situ hybridization reveals latent and permissive infections at single-cell resolution.

Latent and productive viral infections are at the extremes of the spectrum of virus-cell interactions that are thought to play a major role in the ability of such important human pathogens as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) to elude host defenses and cause disease. The recent development of PCR-based methods to amplify target sequences in individual cells in routinely fixed tissues affords opportunities to directly examine the subtle and covert virus-cell relationships at the latent end of the spectrum that are inaccessible to analysis by conventional in situ hybridization techniques. We have now used PCR in situ with in situ hybridization to document latent and permissive HIV infection in routinely fixed and paraffin-embedded tissue. In one of the first specimens we examined, a tumor biopsy from an HIV-infected individual, we found many of the lymphocytes and lymphocytes infiltrating the tumor had HIV DNA that was detectable only by PCR in situ. The fraction of positive cells varied regionally, but there were foci where most of the cells contained HIV DNA. Most of these lymphocytes and macrophages are latently infected, as we could detect HIV RNA in fewer than one in a thousand of these cells. We also detected HIV RNA, surprisingly, in 6% of the tumor cells, where the number of copies of viral RNA per cell was equivalent to productively infected cell lines. The alternative states of HIV-gene expression and high local concentration of latently infected lymphocytes and monocytes revealed by these studies conceptually supports models of lentiviral pathogenesis that attribute persistence to the reservoir of latently infected cells and disease to the consequences of viral-gene expression in this population. The magnitude of infection of lymphocytes documented in this report is also consistent with the emerging view that HIV infection per se could contribute substantially to depletion of immune cells in AIDS.     

Exogenous and Endogenous Triggers Differentially Stimulate Pigr Expression and Antibacterial Secretory Immunity in the Murine Respiratory Tract

Purpose

Transport of secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA) through the airway epithelial cell barrier into the mucosal lumen by the polymeric immunoglobulin receptor (pIgR) is an important mechanism of respiratory mucosal host defense. Identification of immunomodulating substances that regulate secretory immunity might have therapeutic implications with regard to an improved immune exclusion.

Thus, we sought to analyze secretory immunity under homeostatic and immunomodulating conditions in different compartments of the murine upper and lower respiratory tract (URT&LRT).

Methods

Pigr gene expression in lung, trachea, and nasal-associated lymphoid tissue (NALT) of germ-free mice, specific pathogen-free mice, mice with an undefined microbiome, as well as LPS- and IFN-γ-treated mice was determined by quantitative real-time PCR. IgA levels in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), nasal lavage (NAL), and serum were determined by ELISA. LPS- and IFN-γ-treated mice were colonized with Streptococcus pneumoniae and bacterial CFUs were determined in URT and LRT.

Results

Respiratory Pigr expression and IgA levels were dependent on the degree of exposure to environmental microbial stimuli. While immunostimulation with LPS and IFN-γ differentially impacts respiratory Pigr expression and IgA in URT vs. LRT, only prophylactic IFN-γ treatment reduces nasal colonization with S. pneumoniae.

Conclusion

Airway-associated secretory immunity can be partly modulated by exposure to microbial ligands and proinflammatory stimuli. Prophylactic IFN-γ-treatment modestly improves antibacterial immunity in the URT, but this does not appear to be mediated by SIgA or pIgR.

     

Fatigue is cross-sectionally not associated with objective assessments of inflammation,but changes in fatigue are associated with changes of disease activity assessments during biologic treatment of patients with established rheumatoid arthritis

Clinical Rheumatology - The associations between fatigue and disease activity in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have not been defined. The present objectives were to explore in RA patients...     

The assessment of values in laryngeal cancer: reliability of measurement methods

Although quantitative estimates of patients' attitudes toward the relative importance of different aspects of health are of great potential usefulness in medical decision making, there is little information about the stability of such values over time, particularly in patients whose clinical state is changing. To examine these questions, we selected a group of patients with laryngeal cancer undergoing treatment with radiotherapy. In this group of patients clinical problems are relatively circumscribed and related to the voice, and a temporary deterioration in voice-related symptoms and abilities is expected during treatment. Thirty patients were interviewed at the start and completion of a month's course of treatment. At each interview patients rated the quality of their own voices using a number of visual analogue scales and also provided both holistic and decomposed quantitative values for the importance of different aspects of voice function and sound. Although the analogue scales demonstrated the anticipated deterioration in the quality of the patients' voices, these changes in clinical state were not accompanied by any changes in the values the patients assigned to each aspect of voice sound and function. These results indicate that at least in the short term the values expressed by patients appear to be stable and uninfluenced by changes in their own clinical state. Longer term studies involving more systemic illnesses should now be carried out.