Carthami Semen Pharmacopuncture Combined with Electroacupuncture on Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: A Retrospective Case Series Study.

While carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is the most common entrapment neuropathy affecting the wrist, resulting in substantial physical, psychological, and economic effects, there is no gold standard therapy for CTS. In this case series study, we aimed to report CTS patients treated with Carthami Semen Pharmacopuncture (CSP) and electroacupuncture (EA) showing improvements in their symptoms, and the combinatorial effects of CSP and EA. We collected medical records of CTS outpatients who received CSP and EA at Chuk-u Acupuncture & Moxibustion Korean Medicine Clinic from August 2017 to September 2018. The outcome measures were the visual analog scale (VAS) for pain, paresthesia, the Korean version of the Boston carpal tunnel questionnaire (K-BCTQ) score, and changes in nocturnal pain, Tinel sign, and Phalen's test. We included patient satisfaction at the completion of all treatments. 17 patients were included for this case series study. After treatment, VAS for pain decreased significantly from 50.41 ± 16.19 to 9.59 ± 9.46, VAS for paresthesia also decreased significantly from 63.50 ± 11.49 to 14.75 ± 12.97, and K-BCTQ symptom severity scale decreased from 2.48 ± 0.68 to 1.89 ± 0.70 (all p < 0.001). Nocturnal pain, Tinel signs, and Phalen's test showed improvements after all the treatments. All the patients reported favorable overall satisfaction with the treatments, and 69.23% wanted future pharmacopuncture treatments if CTS recurred. No complications were detected. The combination of CSP and EA could be an effective and safe option in treating CTS.

Scolopendra Pharmacopuncture Combined with Electroacupuncture for the Treatment of Ganglion Cysts: A Retrospective Study.

OBJECTIVES: Ganglion cysts require a sustainable treatment that suppresses their frequent recurrence. This study aimed to explore the clinical effects of Scolopendra pharmacopuncture (SP) and electroacupuncture on ganglion cysts. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the patient records and follow-up reports for 20 patients with wrist ganglion cysts who received SP and electroacupuncture from April 2016 to March 2017. The cyst diameter, recurrence, visual analog scale (VAS) scores for pain, the Korean version of the disabilities of arm, shoulder, and hand (K-DASH) score, and the Korean version of the patient-rated wrist evaluation (K-PRWE) score before and after treatment were noted. RESULTS: After treatment, the cyst diameter decreased significantly from 13.61 ± 6.41 mm to 5.15 ± 6.18 mm (p < 0.001), and VAS score for pain decreased from 1.31 ± 1.77 to 0.41 ± 0.33 (p = 0.021). Further, the K-DASH score decreased significantly from 8.97 ± 12.66 to 2.21 ± 7.39 (p = 0.016), and score for the function subscale of K-PRWE decreased from 11.37 ± 4.48 to 9.1 ± 3.67 (p = 0.046). No recurrences were reported from the followed-up patients. Any complication related to SP or electroacupuncture was not observed, except mild rash, itching, and swelling at the injection site in four patients. CONCLUSION: Combination of SP and electroacupuncture may be effective in treating ganglion cysts; further prospective studies with large population are needed to clarify the effect of SP and electroacupuncture.

Mesotherapy with Snake Venom Pharmacopuncture to Treat Hand Eczema: Two Cases Report.

Hand eczema is a recurrent and resistant disease that seriously affects the quality of life of patients; currently, there are no ideal treatments for hand eczema. Here, we describe two patients who presented with hand eczema to illustrate the potential efficacy of mesotherapy with snake venom pharmacopuncture (SVP). A 23-year-old woman (Case 1) and a 47-year-old woman (Case 2) presented to the clinic with symptoms of pruritic rash, blisters, and itchiness on both the hands and the left hand, respectively. Both patients were diagnosed with hand eczema based on the physical examination of blisters and redness only on the hands. The patients underwent 1 month (Case 1) and 1 week (Case 2) of mesotherapy with SVP. After treatment, the lesions completely improved and did not recur at 1 year of follow-up. These outcomes suggest that mesotherapy with SVP may be effective for the resolution of hand eczema; however, further research is needed to confirm these findings.

Gravimetric Standard Gas Mixtures for Global Monitoring of Atmospheric SF6.

In this study, standard gas mixtures of SF6 in synthetic air were gravimetrically developed as a suite consisting of 6 mixtures with mole fractions of SF6 ranging from 5 to 15 pmol/mol. For precision in weighing the gas fills, an automatic weighing system coupled with a high sensitivity mass balance was used and a gravimetry precision of 3 mg (2σ) was achieved. Impurity profiles of the raw gases were determined by various analyzers. In particular, sub pmol/mol levels of SF6 in the matrix components (N2, O2, and Ar) were carefully measured, since the mole fraction of SF6 in the final step can be significantly biased by this trace amount of SF6 in the raw gases of the matrix components. Gravimetric dilution of SF6 by purity-assessed N2 was performed in 6 steps to achieve a mole fraction of 440 pmol/mol. In the final step, O2 and Ar were added to mimic the atmospheric composition. Gravimetric fractions of SF6 and the associated standard uncertainty in each step were computed according to the ISO 6142 and JCGM 100:2008, respectively, and validated experimentally. Eventually, the SF6 fraction uncertainty of the standard gas mixtures combined by uncertainties of gravimetric preparation and verification measurements were found to be nominally 0.08% at a 95% confidence interval. A comparison with independent calibration standards from NOAA shows agreement within 0.49%, satisfying the extended WMO compatibility goal, 0.05 ppt.

Automatic extension of Gene Ontology with flexible identification of candidate terms.

MOTIVATION: Gene Ontology (GO) has been manually developed to provide a controlled vocabulary for gene product attributes. It continues to evolve with new concepts that are compiled mostly from existing concepts in a compositional way. If we consider the relatively slow growth rate of GO in the face of the fast accumulation of the biological data, it is much desirable to provide an automatic means for predicting new concepts from the existing ones. RESULTS: We present a novel method that predicts more detailed concepts by utilizing syntactic relations among the existing concepts. We propose a validation measure for the automatically predicted concepts by matching the concepts to biomedical articles. We also suggest how to find a suitable direction for the extension of a constantly growing ontology such as GO. AVAILABILITY: http://autogo.biopathway.org SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Supplementary materials are available at Bioinformatics online.