Analysis of the clinical diagnosis data of four experimental detection methods for pediatric syphilis.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to analyze the clinical testing data of syphilis suspected children, to give more comprehensive detection information and offer experimental basis for the clinical diagnosis of syphilis. METHODS: From April 2010 to December 2012, 141 suspected syphilis children, 0-3 years old in XuZhou Children's Hospital were selected and divided into two groups: infants group (0-1 years old, 119 cases) and children group (1-3 years old, 22 cases). Blood samples were collected from these children and following experimental detection methods were used: the rapid plasma reagin (RPR) test, the colloidal gold test (SYP), the enzyme-linked immuno-sorbent assay (ELISA) and the Treponema pallidum particle agglutination (TPPA) test. The relevant experimental data were analyzed by SPSS 13.0 software. RESULTS: The positive rate of ELISA was the highest, RPR was the lowest; the positive rate of SYP and TPPA were higher than RPR, the positive rate of SYP and TPPA were lower than ELISA, and the differences were statistically significant. Among the 86 false positives, the rate for ELISA was the highest, and no TPPA false positive was found. False positive were higher in the children group than the infant group. CONCLUSIONS: High false positive rate of ELISA could be caused by hemolysis. RPR had low sensitivity in suspected syphilis neonates, and SYP was suitable for emergency treatment. TPPA was fit for the diagnosis of syphilis. Thus a combination of all these methods would be the best choice to cure syphilis infection in children. Final diagnosis can only be confirmed after periodically reexamining samples of suspected syphilis children.

[Application of continuous thoracic close drainage using central venous catheter in the treatment of tuberculous pleurisy in children].

OBJECTIVE: To study the clinical effect of continuous thoracic close drainage using central venous catheter instead of repeated thoracocentesis in the treatment of tuberculous pleurisy in children. METHODS: Thirty-nine children with tuberculous pleurisy, who received continuous thoracic close drainage using central venous catheter in addition to conventional antituberculous chemotherapy, were used as the observation group and 42 children with tuberculous pleurisy who underwent repeated thoracocentesis in addition to conventional antituberculous chemotherapy served as the control group. The two groups were compared in terms of time to pleural effusion absorption, improvement in pleural thickening, length of hospital stay, and puncture-related expenses. RESULTS: Compared with the control group, the observation group had significantly faster pleural effusion absorption (8 ± 4 d vs 12 ± 6 d; P < 0.01), significantly more improvement in pleural thickening (1.50 ± 0.25 mm vs 3.10 ± 0.30 mm; P < 0.05), a significantly shorter length of hospital stay (11 ± 3 d vs 18 ± 6 d; P < 0.01), and significantly lower puncture-related expenses (269 ± 24 yuan vs 475 ± 50 yuan; P < 0.05), as well as alleviated pain. CONCLUSIONS: Continuous thoracic close drainage using central venous catheter is superior to repeated thoracocentesis in the treatment of tuberculous pleurisy in children, and it holds promise for clinical application in pediatric patients.

Elevated circulating macrophage inhibitory cytokine 1 is a biological marker for the diagnosis and prognosis of osteosarcoma.

Osteosarcoma is among the most frequently occurring bone tumors in infants and teenagers. However, despite its widespread prevalence, no effective diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers for osteosarcoma are known. Macrophage inhibitory cytokine 1 (MIC-1) has been considered a promising biological marker of various tumor types. However, the possible role of circulating MIC-1 as a screening biomarker for osteosarcoma remains to be elucidated. The present study evaluated the circulating levels of MIC-1 in patients with osteosarcoma with the aim of elucidating its effect on the diagnosis and prognosis of this specific tumor. The circulating levels of MIC-1 were measured via an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in 300 individuals, including 100 patients with osteosarcoma, 100 patients with benign bone tumors, and 100 healthy subjects, and its correlation with clinicopathological characteristics was then evaluated. Various analyses were performed to determine its utility in diagnosis and prognosis. The levels of circulating MIC-1 were increased considerably in patients with osteosarcoma. The patients bearing larger tumors, those with distant metastases, and those with later-stage tumors had relatively higher levels of MIC-1. According to the multivariate logistic regression analysis, a high level of circulating MIC-1 was an independent variable for distant metastases. Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed MIC-1 as a possible biological marker for distinguishing patients from healthy controls. Patients with osteosarcoma with higher levels of MIC-1 had relatively higher risk of mortality. Furthermore, multivariate data analysis on general survival rate revealed that a high level of circulating MIC-1 was a prognostic indicator of osteosarcoma. These findings suggest that an elevated level of circulating MIC-1 is a novel potential diagnostic and prognostic biomarker for osteosarcoma.

Unveiling transcription factor regulation and differential co-expression genes in Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

BACKGROUND: Gene expression analysis is powerful for investigating the underlying mechanisms of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). Previous studies mainly neglected co-expression or transcription factor (TF) information. Here we integrated TF information into differential co-expression analysis (DCEA) to explore new understandings of DMD pathogenesis. METHODS: Using two microarray datasets from Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) database, we firstly detected differentially expressed genes (DEGs) and pathways enriched with DEGs. Secondly, we constructed differentially regulated networks to integrate the TF-to-target information and the differential co-expression genes. RESULTS: A total of 454 DEGs were detected and both KEGG pathway and ingenuity pathway analysis revealed that pathways enriched with aberrantly regulated genes are mostly involved in the immune response processes. DCEA results generated 610 pairs of DEGs regulated by at least one common TF, including 78 pairs of co-expressed DEGs. A network was constructed to illustrate their relationships and a subnetwork for DMD related molecules was constructed to show genes and TFs that may play important roles in the secondary changes of DMD. Among the DEGs which shared TFs with DMD, six genes were co-expressed with DMD, including ATP1A2, C1QB, MYOF, SAT1, TRIP10, and IFI6. CONCLUSION: Our results may provide a new understanding of DMD and contribute potential targets for future therapeutic tests. VIRTUAL SLIDES: The virtual slide(s) for this article can be found here: http://www.diagnosticpathology.diagnomx.eu/vs/13000_2014_210.