Comparative study of clinical symptoms of chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps patients.

AIM: The aim of this study is to explore the clinical characteristics in chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) patients with different serum specific IgE (SIgE) and eosinophilic granulocyte infiltration status. METHODS: This retrospective observational study included patients diagnosed with CRSwNP and underwent functional endoscopic sinus surgery at the Yinchuan First People's Hospital between June 2019 and June 2021. A total of 192 patients with CRSwNP were included (100 males). The patients were 41.7 ± 15.1 years old. The disease course ranged 4.6-18.2 months. The visual analog scale (VAS) score (p < .001), endoscopic score (p = .014), computerized tomography (CT) score (p < .00) and the sino-nasal outcome Test-22 (SNOT-22) score (p < .001) were significantly different among patients with SIgE-positive combined eosinophilic chronic rhinosinusitis (ECRS), patients with SIgE-positive combined non-ECRS, patients with SIgE-negative combined ECRS, and patients with SIgE-negative combined non-ECRS. RESULTS: In pairwise comparison, the VAS score (20.72 ± 2.24 vs. 13.09 ± 1.62, 13.84 ± 1.34, and 12.67 ± 1.20, respectively), endoscopic score (8.09 ± 1.04 vs. 7.06 ± 0.98, 7.69 ± 1.18, and 7.75 ± 1.07, respectively), CT score (13.18 ± 1.66 vs. 8.79 ± 0.88, 11.08 ± 1.12, and 11.08 ± 1.12, respectively), and SNOT-22 score (27.62 ± 2.31 vs. 12.09 ± 1.83, 14.84 ± 1.84, and 12.97 ± 1.50, respectively) was significantly higher in patients with SIgE-positive combined ECRS compared to patients with SIgE-positive combined non-ECRS, patients with SIgE-positive combined non-ECRS (all p < .0083). The VAS score, endoscopic score, and CT score might be higher in CRSwNP patients with SIgE-positive combined ECRS. CONCLUSION: In this study, the VAS score, endoscopic score, and CT score were higher in the patients with SIgE-positive combined ECRS. This study might provide a reference for treatment in patients with CRSwNP.

Enhancement of alkaline protease production in recombinant Bacillus licheniformis by response surface methodology.

Alkaline protease is widely used in the food, detergent, and pharmaceutical industries because of its comparatively great hydrolysis ability and alkali tolerance. To improve the ability of the recombinant Bacillus licheniformis to produce alkaline protease, single-factor experiments and response surface methodology (RSM) were utilized to determine and develop optimal culture conditions. The results showed that three factors (corn starch content, soybean meal content, and initial medium pH) had significant effects on alkaline protease production (P < 0.05), as determined through the Plackett‒Burman design. The maximum enzyme activity was observed with an optimal medium composition by central composite design (CCD): corn starch, 92.3 g/L; soybean meal, 35.8 g/L; and initial medium pH, 9.58. Under these optimum conditions, the alkaline protease activity of strain BL10::aprE was 15,435.1 U/mL, 82% higher than that in the initial fermentation medium. To further investigate the application of the optimum fermentation medium, the overexpressed strain BL10::aprE/pHYaprE was cultured using the optimized medium to achieve an enzyme activity of 39,233.6 U/mL. The present study achieved the highest enzyme activity of alkaline protease by B. licheniformis at the shake-flask fermentation level, which has important application value for large-scale production.

Dairy product consumption and risk of hip fracture: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND: Dairy product consumption may affect the risk of hip fracture, but previous studies have reported inconsistent findings. The primary aim of our meta-analysis was to examine and quantify the potential association of dairy product consumption with risk of hip fracture. METHODS: We searched the databases of PubMed and EMBASE for relevant articles from their inception through April 17, 2017. The final analysis included 10 cohort studies and 8 case-control studies. Random-effects models were used to estimate the pooled risk. Subgroup and dose-response analyses were conducted to explore the relationships between the consumption of milk and the risk of hip fracture. RESULTS: After pooling the data from the included studies, the summary relative risk (RR) for hip fracture for highest versus lowest consumption were 0.91 (95% CI: 0.74-1.12), 0.75 (95% CI: 0.66-0.86), 0.68 (95% CI: 0.61-0. 77), 1.02 (95% CI: 0.93-1.12) for milk, yogurt, cheese, and total dairy products in cohort studies, respectively. Higher milk consumption [Odds ratio (OR), 0.71, 95% CI: 0.55-0. 91] was associated with lower risk of hip fracture for highest versus lowest consumption in case-control studies. After quantifying the specific dose of milk, the summary RR/OR for an increased milk consumption of 200 g/day was 1.00 (95% CI: 0.94-1.07), and 0.89 (95%CI: 0.64-1.24) with significant heterogeneity for cohort and case-control studies, respectively; There was a nonlinear association between milk consumption and hip fracture risk in cohort, and case-control studies. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that consumption of yogurt and cheese was associated with lower risk of hip fracture in cohort studies. However, the consumption of total dairy products and cream was not significantly associated with the risk of hip fracture. There was insufficient evidence to deduce the association between milk consumption and risk of hip fracture. A lower threshold of 200 g/day milk intake may have beneficial effects, whereas the effects of a higher threshold of milk intake are unclear.

Duloxetine prevents the effects of prenatal stress on depressive-like and anxiety-like behavior and hippocampal expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines in adult male offspring rats.

Stress during pregnancy may cause neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. However, the mechanisms are largely unknown. Currently, pro-inflammatory cytokines have been identified as a risk factor for depression and anxiety disorder. Unfortunately, there is very little research on the long-term effects of prenatal stress on the neuroinflammatory system of offspring. Moreover, the relationship between antidepressant treatment and cytokines in the central nervous system, especially in the hippocampus, an important emotion modulation center, is unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the effects of prenatal chronic mild stress during development on affective-like behaviors and hippocampal cytokines in adult offspring, and to verify whether antidepressant (duloxetine) administration from early adulthood could prevent the harmful consequences. To do so, prenatally stressed and non-stressed Sprague-Dawley rats were treated with either duloxetine (10mg/kg/day) or vehicle from postnatal day 60 for 21days. Adult offspring were divided into four groups: 1) prenatal stress+duloxetine treatment, 2) prenatal stress+vehicle, 3) duloxetine treatment alone, and 4) vehicle alone. Adult offspring were assessed for anxiety-like behavior using the open field test and depression-like behavior using the forced swim test. Brains were analyzed for pro-inflammatory cytokine markers in the hippocampus via real-time PCR. Results demonstrate that prenatal stress-induced anxiety- and depression-like behaviors are associated with an increase in hippocampal inflammatory mediators, and duloxetine administration prevents the increased hippocampal pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-6 and anxiety- and depression-like behavior in prenatally stressed adult offspring. This research provides important evidence on the long-term effect of PNS exposure during development in a model of maternal adversity to study the pathogenesis of depression and its therapeutic interventions.

Sex-specific effects of prenatal chronic mild stress on adult spatial learning capacity and regional glutamate receptor expression profiles.

Both animal experiments and clinical studies have demonstrated that prenatal stress can cause cognitive disorders in offspring. To explore the scope of these deficits and identify potential underlying mechanisms, we examined the spatial learning and memory performance and glutamate receptor (GluR) expression patterns of adult rats exposed to prenatal chronic mild stress (PCMS). Principal component analysis (PCA) was employed to reveal the interrelationships among spatial learning indices and GluR expression changes. Female PCMS-exposed offspring exhibited markedly impaired spatial learning and memory in the Morris water maze (MWM) task compared to control females, while PCMS-exposed males showed better initial spatial learning in the MWM compared to control males. PCMS also altered basal and post-MWM glutamate receptor expression patterns, but these effects differed markedly between sexes. Male PCMS-exposed offspring exhibited elevated basal expression of NR1, mGluR5, and mGluR2/3 in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), whereas females showed no basal expression changes. Following MWM training, PCMS-exposed males expressed higher NR1 in the PFC and mammillary body (MB), higher mGluR2/3 in PFC, and lower NR2B in the hippocampus (HIP), PFC, and MB compared to unstressed MWM-trained males. Female PCMS-exposed offspring showed strongly reduced NR1 in MB and NR2B in the HIP, PFC, and MB, and increased mGluR2/3 in PFC compared to unstressed MWM-trained females. This is the first report suggesting that NMDA subunits in the MB are involved in spatial learning. Additionally, PCA further suggests that the NR1-NR2B form is the most important for spatial memory formation. These results reveal long-term sex-specific effects of PCMS on spatial learning and memory performance in adulthood and implicate GluR expression changes within HIP, PFC, and MB as possible molecular mechanisms underlying cognitive dysfunction in offspring exposed to prenatal stress.

[Network Pharmacological Studies of Puerariae Radix in Improving Insulin Resistance].

Objective: To investigate the active components and potential mechanism of Puerariae Radix in improving insulin resistance by using network pharmacological method. Methods: Key target proteins related with insulin resistance were selected based on molecular docking technology, and then took the selected components with 31 target proteins of four pathways for docking. Meanwhile, component-target proteins network was established to network analysis by software Cytoscape 3. 2. 1. Results: 19 compounds had close interactions with four pathways such as AMPK. There were 13 compositions can verify through literature, which revealing that active ingredients and potential molecular mechanism of Puerariae Radix in improving insulin resistance, preliminarily. Conclusion: The network pharmacological method is helpful to explore the possible active components in Puerariae Radix and elucidate the mechanism.

Values of the Wells and revised Geneva scores combined with D-dimer in diagnosing elderly pulmonary embolism patients.

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary embolism (PE) can be difficult to diagnose in elderly patients because of the coexistent diseases and the combination of drugs that they have taken. We aimed to compare the clinical diagnostic values of the Wells score, the revised Geneva score and each of them combined with D-dimer for suspected PE in elderly patients. METHODS: Three hundred and thirty-six patients who were admitted for suspected PE were enrolled retrospectively and divided into two groups based on age (≥65 or <65 years old). The Wells and revised Geneva scores were applied to evaluate the clinical probability of PE, and the positive predictive values of both scores were calculated using computed tomography pulmonary arteriography as a gold standard; overall accuracy was evaluated by the area under the curve (AUC) of receiver operator characteristic curve; the negative predictive values of D-dimer, the Wells score combined with D-dimer, and the revised Geneva score combined with D-dimer were calculated. RESULTS: Ninety-six cases (28.6%) were definitely diagnosed as PE among 336 cases, among them 56 cases (58.3%) were ≥65 years old. The positive predictive values of Wells and revised Geneva scores were 65.8% and 32.4%, respectively (P < 0.05) in the elderly patients; the AUC for the Wells score and the revised Geneva score in elderly was 0.682 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.612-0.746) and 0.655 (95% CI: 0.584-0.722), respectively (P = 0.389). The negative predictive values of D-dimer, the Wells score combined with D-dimer, and the revised Geneva score combined with D-dimer were 93.7%, 100%, and 100% in the elderly, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The diagnostic value of the Wells score was higher than the revised Geneva score for the elderly cases with suspected PE. The combination of either the Wells score or the revised Geneva score with a normal D-dimer concentration is a safe strategy to rule out PE.

A need for cancer patient education from the perspective of Chinese patients and nurses: a comparison study.

PURPOSE: Little is known about Chinese cancer patients' desire for cancer education, nor what cancer nurses perceive their cancer patients need to know about cancer. The purpose of this study was to assess the need for cancer patient education from both patients' and nurses' perspectives. METHOD: A descriptive, correlational study was conducted by surveying 49 Chinese cancer patients and 49 cancer nurses using a cancer education need assessment tool. SPSS 16.0 statistical program was used for data analysis. RESULTS: Based on the needs assessment, the desire for cancer patient education was clearly supported by both cancer patients and cancer nurses. The data showed that the topics were very wide and diverse with categories that include cancer as a disease, ways cancer is treated, side effect management, how therapies are determined, diet management, impact on family, and availability of community resources. Differences between nurses' and patients' responses were mostly in the degree of "need or want to learn" but not statistically significant. Patient responses appeared to be influenced by their age, educational level, and type of treatment being received, whereas length of the nurses' work experience impacted their responses. CONCLUSIONS: A cancer patient education curriculum should be based on a well-designed needs assessment. This study reports the results of a needs assessment from a selected group of cancer patients and oncology nurses in a large Chinese cancer hospital. Information about living with cancer was identified as the need of greatest importance for both patients and oncology nurses.