[Diagnostic value of 4-dimensional computed tomography in preoperative localization in patients with primary hyperparathyroidism].

Objective: To provide more options for preoperative localization diagnosis in patients with primary hyperparathyroidism (PHPT), the diagnostic efficacy of parathyroid 4-dimensional computed tomography (4D-CT) in patients with PHPT was evaluated. Methods: This was a single-center retrospective study including 57 patients with surgical proved PHPT. All of the patients underwent 4D-CT, 99Tcm -sestamibi parathyroid imaging (MIBI), and ultrasonography (US) preoperatively. The reference standard for correct localization was based on operation reports and pathology confirmation. The patients were grouped according to the preoperative serum calcium levels, tumor diameter, or ectopic lesions (yes/no), respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and area under the curve (AUC) of 4D-CT, MIBI and US, alone or in combination, were analyzed in total and each subgroup patients. Results: Fifty-seven patients (39 women, 18 men; mean age of 56.5 years) were evaluated, including four cases with multi-gland disease and thirteen cases with ectopic parathyroid lesions. In all the patients, similar diagnostic efficacy was found in 4D-CT (AUC: 0.943) and MIBI (AUC: 0.927), both of which were higher than that of US (AUC: 0.847) (P = 0.01 for 4D-CT vs. US; P = 0.04 for MIBI vs. US). In a subset analysis for ectopic quadrants, the diagnostic efficacy of 4D-CT was significantly higher than that of MIBI (P = 0.04) or US (P = 0.01), with the sensitivity of 100%, 69.2%, and 61.5%, and AUC of 0.989, 0.846, and 0.808 for 4D-CT, MIBI and US, respectively. Conclusions: 4D-CT has similar diagnostic efficacy for preoperative localization to MIBI in patients with PHPT, and it is superior to MIBI and US in identifying the ectopic parathyroid gland. 4D-CT can be recommended as an alternative preoperative localization method, especially when parathyroid lesions could not be precisely located by US and MIBI.

[Study on expression of the glycoprotein in myocardial cell membrane of the rat's early myocardial ischemic].

OBJECTIVE: To explore expression of the glycoprotein in early myocardial ischemic. METHODS: The glycoprotein changes occurred at the early acute cardiac ischemic area induced experimentally by ligation of left coronary artery of 32 SD rats. 6 lectins were measured by means of immunohistochemical methods. RESULTS: Positive staining of PNA could be observed in ischemic area at 5 min after ischemia, and the positive area increased with the prolongation of ischemic period. It became the strongest for 2 h and then decreased. CONCLUSION: This experiment proved that myocardial cell membrane in ischemia expressed D-galactose. This may be of some value in forensic medicine practice.

Sudden death caused by stricture of the sinus node artery.

The sudden unexpected deaths of two young people and the findings in their hearts at autopsy are described. The striking feature was marked narrowing of the sinus node arteries by fibromuscular dysplasia. There were no other histological abnormalities present elsewhere. The observations suggest that pathological changes of the sinus node arteries might lead to a terminal cardiac arrhythmia acting as the mechanism of death.

[Cloning and expression of an antifreeze peptide gene of winter flounder in E. coli].

Antifreeze peptide (AFP) produced in some animals is able to lower freezing temperature to prevent serum from freezing. There is a great potential to apply AFP in various circumstances wherever tolerance to cold environment is required. cDNA copies of AFP and proAFP coding sequence were synthesized according to the published sequence from a winter flounder (Pseudopleuronectes americanus). Expression of AFP or proAFP cDNA was initially tested in E. coli using a procaryotic expression vector. Level of the expression was essentially low indicated by SDS-PAGE and protein staining procedures. In order to detect the low level expression, the AFP (or proAFP) cDNA was fused, in frame, to the 5'-end of the CAT reporter gene resulting in a chimeric AFP/CAT (or proAFP/CAT) cDNA. The product translated from such a chimeric mRNA must contain a N'-terminal AFP (or proAFP) portion and C'-terminal CAT portion. Thus, low level of expression of AFP (or proAFP) in the fused form may be detected indirectly by sensitive CAT assay as long as the chimeric CAT still remains the activity. As expected, CAT activity has been clearly detected in protein extract from induced E. coli indicating that AFP (or proAFP) cDNA clones be expressed in E. coli.