Novel cardiovascular magnetic resonance oxygenation approaches in understanding pathophysiology of cardiac diseases

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) permits accurate phenotyping of many cardiac diseases. CMR’s inherent advantages are its non‐invasive nature, lack of ionizing radiation and high accuracy and reproducibility. Furthermore, it is able to assess many aspects of cardiac anatomy, structure and function. Specifically, it can characterize myocardial tissue, myocardial function, myocardial mass, myocardial blood flow/perfusion, irreversible and reversible injury, all with a high degree of accuracy and reproducibility. Hence, CMR is a powerful tool in clinical and pre‐clinical research. In recent years there have been novel advances in CMR myocardial tissue characterization. Oxygenation‐sensitive CMR (OS‐CMR) is a novel non‐invasive, contrast independent technique that permits direct quantification of myocardial tissue oxygenation, both at rest and during stress. In this review, we will address the principles of the OS‐CMR technique, its recent advances and summarize the studies in the effects of oxygenation on cardiac diseases.     

Cardiovascular effects of sitagliptin – An anti‐diabetes medicine

Dipeptidyl‐peptidase‐4 (DPP‐4) inhibitors, as the most recent available anti‐diabetic agents, were generally used in clinical treatment of type 2 diabetes (T2DM). In addition to anti‐diabetic effects, the five most widely used DPP‐4 inhibitors (sitagliptin, vildagliptin, saxagliptin, linagliptin and alogliptin) also exert cardiovascular protective effects. In recent years, increasing studies suggest that sitagliptin shows pleiotropic impacts towards the cardiovascular system either with or without diabetes. In this review, we summarized the recent reports to provide an update discussion about cardiovascular protective effects of sitagliptin and the corresponding mechanisms. Sitagliptin has positive effects towards ischaemic cardiovascular diseases, atherosclerosis and hypertension. These effects are mainly conducted through DPP‐4 inhibitions. In addition, sitagliptin exerts anti‐inflammation, anti‐oxidative stress, anti‐apoptosis, mediation on lipid accumulation and so on, which also contribute to its cardiovascular effects.     

RhPDCD5 combined with dexamethasone increases antitumor activity in multiple myeloma partially via inhibiting the Wnt signalling pathway

Multiple myeloma (MM) is one of the most common hematological malignancies and characterized by the clonal accumulation of malignant plasma cells. Significant progress has been made in MM treatment recently, while MM still remains incurable. Our previous studies showed that the recombined human programmed cell death 5 (rhPDCD5) can promote MM apoptosis induced by dexamethasone (Dex). Here, we expanded the findings by showing that the rhPDCD5 alone could not induce an obvious growth inhibition of U266 cells (a MM cell line). Of note, with the combination of dexamethasone (Dex), the growth of MM cells was significantly inhibited and accompanied with the cell cycle arrest in G0/G1. For mechanism study, we found that the combination treatment of rhPDCD5 plus Dex downregulated the mRNA and protein expressions of Wnt effectors including β‐catenin, β‐catenin (Ser675), TCF4, survivin and c‐Myc when compared to Dex only. Moreover, the activation of WNT pathway induced by LiCl can also be inhibited by this combination treatment. Taken together, our study demonstrated that the combination of rhPDCD5 and Dex can suppress the proliferation of multiple myeloma cells partially via inhibiting the WNT signalling pathway.     

The vial kit formulation for preparation of no‐carrier‐added 131I‐MIBG

We have developed a new set of lyophilized kits, composed of 3 different kits, for the instant preparation of no‐carrier‐added ¹³¹I‐MIBG in the clinic. We here discussed the formulation of the kits, optimization of radiolabelling, quality control of radiolabeled ¹³¹I‐MIBG, and studies of animal biodistribution. The no‐carrier‐added (nca) ¹³¹I‐MIBG injection could be prepared within 30 minutes in the clinic with the help of the lyophilized kits. The radiochemical purity and specific activity (SA) could achieve above 98% and 6700 MBq/mg, respectively.     

Short‐term effects of heat and cold on respiratory drug use. A time‐series epidemiological study in A Coruña,Spain

The consumption of medication, especially over‐the‐counter drugs, can reflect environmental exposure with a lesser degree of severity in terms of morbidity. The non‐linear effects of maximum and minimum apparent temperature on respiratory drug sales in A Coruña from 2006 to 2010 were examined using a distributed lag nonlinear model. In particular, low apparent temperatures proved to be associated with increased sales of respiratory drugs. The strongest consistent risk estimates were found for minimum apparent temperatures in respiratory drug sales with an increase of 33.4% (95% CI, 12.5%‐58.0%) when the temperature changed from 2.8°C to ?1.4 °C. These findings may serve to guide the planning of public health interventions to predict and manage the health effects of exposure to the thermal environment for lower degrees of morbidity. More precisely, significant increases in the use of measured over‐the‐counter medication could be used to identify and anticipate influenza outbreaks due to a more sensitive degree of the data source.