Descriptive study of relationship between cardio-ankle vascular index and biomarkers in vascular-related diseases.

BACKGROUND: Cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) was supposed to be an independent predictor for vascular-related events. Biomarkers such as homocysteine (Hcy), N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), and urine albumin(microalbumin) (UAE) have involved the pathophysiological development of arteriosclerosis. The present study was to investigate relationship between CAVI and biomarkers in vascular-related diseases. METHODS: A total of 656 subjects (M/F 272/384) from department of Vascular Medicine were enrolled into our study. They were divided into four groups according to the numbers of suffered diseases, healthy group (group 0: subjects without diseases of hypertension, diabetes mellitus (DM), coronary heart disease (CHD); n = 186), group 1 (with one of diseases of hypertension, CHD, DM; n = 237), group 2 (with two of diseases of hypertension, CHD, DM; n = 174), and group 3 (with all diseases of hypertension, CHD, DM; n = 59). CAVI was measured by VS-1000 apparatus. RESULTS: CAVI was increasing with increasing numbers of suffered vascular-related diseases. Similar results were found in the parameters of biomarkers such as Hcy, log NT-ProBNP, and log UAE. There were positive correlation between log NT-proBNP, Hcy, log UAE, and CAVI in the entire study group and nonhealthy group. Positive correlation between log UAE and CAVI were found in the entire study group after adjusting for age, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, uric acid, and lipids. Multivariate analysis showed that log UAE was an independent associating factor of CAVI in all subjects. CONCLUSIONS: CAVI was significantly higher in subjects with hypertension, CHD, and DM. There was correlation between arterial stiffness and biomarkers such as NT-proBNP, Hcy, and UAE.

A new silver nanochain SERS analytical platform to detect trace hexametaphosphate with a rhodamine S molecular probe.

Using AgNO3 as the precursor, stable silver nanochain (AgNC) sols, orange-red in color, were prepared using hydrazine hydrate. A strong surface plasmon resonance Rayleigh scattering (RRS) peak occurred at 420 nm plus two surface plasmon resonance (SPR) absorption peaks at 410 nm and 510 nm. Rhodamine S (RhS) cationic dye was absorbed on the as-prepared AgNC substrate to obtain a RhS-AgNC surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) nanoprobe that exhibited a strong SERS peak at 1506 cm(-1) and a strong RRS peak at 375 nm. Upon addition of the analyte sodium hexametaphosphate (HP), it reacted with RhS, which resulted in a decrease in the SERS and RRS peaks that was studied in detail. The decreased SERS and RRS intensities correlated linearly with HP concentration in the range of 0.0125-0.3 µmol/L and 0.05-1.0 µmol/L, with a detection limit of 6 nmol/L and 20 nmol/L HP respectively. Due to advantages of high sensitivity, good selectivity and simple operation, the RhS molecular probes were used to determine HP concentration in real samples.

[A Facile Nanogold Surface Plasmon Resonance Absorption Method for CO Tracing].

The detection of gas pollutants in atmosphere and indoor air is very important to human health and safety. Monoxide carbon (CO) is a common gas pollutant with high toxicity that mainly comes from the inadequacy oxidization of carbon such as oil, coal and petrol inadequacy combustion, auto-gas and some natural disasters whose limit value in air is lower than 6.0 mg·m-3 in the national standard. Due to its toxicity and uneasy detection, it is one of very dangerous component in the silent killer. Recently, several methods, including infra-red absorption, gas chromatography, potentiometry, Hg replacement, spectrophotometry, I2O5 and PdCl2 nake-eye, semiconductor sensor have been reportedly used for the detection of CO. To our best knowledge, there are no SPR absorption methods for CO, based on the NG SPR absorption. In this paper, the reaction between CO and HAuCl4 was studied with absorption spectrophotometry and transmission electron microscopy (TEM)while a simple and rapid SPR absorption method was developed for the determination of trace CO. In pH 7.2 phosphate buffer solutions, monoxide carbon reduced HAuCl4 to form nanogold (NG) particles with the size of about 45 nm that exhibited surface plasmon resonance (SPR) absorption peak at 540 nm and three energy spectral peaks at 1.70 keV, 2.20 and 9.70 keV for gold element. The analytical conditions were examined, and a pH 7.2 phosphate buffer solution with a concentration of 40 mmoL·L-1 PO3-4, a concentration of 40.0 µg· mL-1 HAuCl4 and a reaction time of 5 min was selected for use. Under the selected conditions, the SPR absorption peak value was linear to CO concentration in the range of 0.2～8.75 µg· mL-1, with a detection limit of 0.1 µg· mL-1 CO. According to the procedure, the influence of coexistent substances on the determination of 1.0 mg·L-1 CO was tested, with a relative error of ±5%. Results indicated that 200 times SO2-3, PO3-4, SO2-4, CO2-3 and NO-3, 100 times Zn2+, K+, BrO-3, Na2S, ethanol, methanol, 80 times Ni2+, Cr3+, Co2+, Ca2+, Mg2+, Fe3+, glucose, Pb2+, Al3+, SeO2-3, Na2S2O3, formaldehyde, 50 times Mn2+ do not interfere with the determination. It showed that this SPR method had good selectivity. The CO content in air samples was determined with the SPR method, with a relative standard deviation (RSD) of 1.8%～4.2%, the SPR method results were agreement with that of the gas chromatography (GC).

Acquired hemophilia A in a patient treated by Ginkgo-dipyridamolum.

Acquired hemophilia A might be caused by Ginkgo-dipyridamolum especially by Ginkgo, and it was successfully treated with hemostasis and immune-suppression therapy including methylprednisolone and cyclophosphamide.

The design and rationale of the Beijing Vascular Disease Patients Evaluation Study (BEST study).

AIMS: Arteriosclerosis and arterial stiffness increasing are the basic pathophysiological changes of vascular-related diseases, and also the predictor factors of future cardiovascular events. Plasma biomarkers such as glucose, lipids, Homocysteine (Hcy), N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) have been shown to be involved the development of arteriosclerosis. The present study is a prospective observational and follow-up study of the characteristics of subclinical vascular disease detected by non-invasive methods that can predict progression of clinical overt vascular events in a Chinese population. METHODS: The study including both genders with age of 45 years to 75 years was designed as observational research by questionnaires and 3-year follow-up with vascular functional and structural parameters evaluation without any interventions. Questionnaire was designed to survey the lifestyle, personal history, family history of the study population. Arterial function indexes such as pulse wave velocity, cardio-ankle vascular index, flow mediated vascular dilation, ankle brachial index, carotid intima-media thickness, and plasma biomarkers such as glucose, lipids, Hcy, NT-pro BNP, Glycosylated hemoglobin, insulin resistance index, uric acid are collected. The outcome is the composite of acute myocardial infarction or coronary reperfusion therapy or stroke or peripheral vascular diseases. CONCLUSIONS: 2858 subjects were enrolled into our present study at baseline, and this present study will provide important information on the metabolic related traditional and new risk factors, establish a new vascular disease early detection system and scoring systems based on comprehensive vascular disease risk factors and vascular function and structure evaluation indexes.

Arterial stiffness evaluation by cardio-ankle vascular index in hypertension and diabetes mellitus subjects.

Arterial stiffness is an independent predictor for vascular diseases. Cardio-ankle vascular index (CAVI) is a new index of arterial stiffness. In the present study, we investigated the possible risk factors involving CAVI in hypertension and diabetes mellitus (DM) subjects. One thousand sixty-three subjects (M/F 533/530) from Shougang Corporation Examination Center were divided into four groups: healthy group (n = 639); hypertension group (n = 312); DM group (n = 58); and hypertension with DM group (n = 54). CAVI was measured by VS-1000 apparatus. Our results showed that CAVI was significantly higher in hypertension subjects with DM than in healthy and hypertension group, respectively (8.59 ± 1.08 vs 7.23 ± 1.10; 8.59 ± 1.08 vs 7.94 ± 1.33; both P < .05). CAVI was positively correlated with age, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, pulse pressure, fasting plasma glucose, HbA1c, uric acid, total cholesterol, triglycerides in the entire group (r = 0.633, 0.280, 0.172, 0.269, 0.209, 0.254, 0.176, 0.129, 0.175; all P < .05, respectively). There was negatively correlation between CAVI and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in the entire group (r = -0.167; P < .05). Multivariate analysis showed that age, body mass index, HbA1c, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol were independent associating factors of CAVI in all subjects (ß = 0.699; P < .001, ß = -0.189; P = .001, ß = 0.144; P = .015, ß = -0.136; P = .019, respectively). Our present study suggested that CAVI was significantly higher in hypertension subjects with DM compared with healthy and hypertension groups.