ABSTRACT
Levetiracetam （LEV） is the second generation of broad-spectrum anti-epileptic drug. LEV has the advantages of rapid absorption， short half-life， precise efficacy， good tolerance and few drug interactions. In order to improve the clinical efficacy of LEV， and reduce the occurrence of adverse reactions， children， pregnant women， the elderly， and patients with renal insufficiency should receive therapeutic drug monitoring （TDM）. Clinically， the samples are usually plasma or serum， and the TDM methods are mostly immunoassay or chromatography. There is currently no consensus on the effective concentration range of LEV， and the correlation between plasma concentration and adverse reactions is also unclear. The main factors affecting LEV plasma concentration include age， pregnancy， and patient compliance. How to interpret TDM results and adjust dosage based on the results will be the focus of future work.
ABSTRACT
As an important tool to evaluate cardiac autonomic function, heart rate variability (HRV) is closely associated with ischemic stroke. The change of HRV can not only increase the incidence and recurrence risk of ischemic stroke, but also affect the severity of the disease and the risk of complications, resulting in poor outcomes. Effective intervention for patients with stroke to restore their autonomic nerve function is expected to become a new target for the treatment of ischemic stroke. This article reviews the research progress of the correlation between HRV changes and ischemic stroke.
ABSTRACT
To investigate the difference of serum estrogen, serum lipids and inflammatory factors levels in postmenopausal women with coronary heart blood stasis syndrome and non-blood stasis syndrome. Twenty five healthy postmenopausal women were selected as a healthy control group who were compared with 43 postmenopausal women with coronary heart disease [CHD] first visiting a doctor for the CHD. Among the postmenopausal women with CHD, There were 23 patients with blood stasis syndrome [BSS] and 20 patients with non-blood stasis syndrome [NBSS]. The levels of plasma triglyceride [TG], total cholesterol[TC] were determined in blood samples taken after patients' admission in Beijing Anzhen Hospital. The serum estradiol[E2] was measured by electrochemiluminescence assay and soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1[sICAM-1] was measured by enzyme-linked immune sorbent assay [ELISA]. Compared with the healthy control group, the levels of TG and TC, sICAM-1 in coronary heart disease group were all significantly increased [P<0.05], but serum E2 were significantly decreased [P<0.05]. The levels of E2 of patients with blood stasis syndrome [BSS] were decreased further [P>0.05], and there was an increasing trend of serum sICAM-1 levels [P>0.05]. There were negative significant correlations between serum E2 levels and TC, sICAM-1 levels in patient with coronary heart disease. The estrogen level of menopausal women with coronary heart disease is lower than healthy menopausal women. With the low estrogen levels, postmenopausal women tend to have high levels of blood lipids and sICAM-1, which elucidates that the estrogen could regulate lipids and attenuate inflammatory response to play a protective role on blood vessels
ABSTRACT
Ginsenoside Rb3 (GRb3) is one of the main components in plasma of Panax quinquefolius Saponin of stem and leaf (PQS), which can be into human plasma. Previous studies have found PQS has estrogen-like vascular protective effects. In the present study, we investigated the estrogen-like protective effect of GRb3 on oxidative stress and dysfunction of endothelial cells induced by oxidized low-density lipoprotein. The activities of SOD, NOS and the contents of MDA in the cell lysate were examined by enzyme method or spectrophotometry. The NO and ET-1 concentrations in the cell culture supernatant were measured by ELISA method. The iNOS and eNOS mRNA expression were measured by real time RT-PCR, while the phosphorylation levels of Akt was measured by Western blotting. The results showed that GRb3 could enhance the activity of SOD, reduce the content of MDA, increase the level of NOS, NO, ET-1 and iNOS mRNA expression while decrease the eNOS mRNA expression and the phosphorylation level of Akt. These effects were blocked by estrogen receptor antagonist ICI182780. GRb3 can play a role in protecting vascular endothelial cells by estrogen receptors, the protective mechanism is similar to 17-β estrodiol.