Fire Needle Combined Therapy or Surgery Therapy for Carbuncle of Neck? A Case Series.

Background: Skin carbuncle is a suppurative infection of adjacent multiple hair follicles and their surrounding tissues, mostly caused by Staphylococcus aureus. Skin carbuncle often occurs in the neck, the back, and other skin thicker parts. It can also spread to the subcutaneous tissue and cause extensive subcutaneous infection. It is especially common in people with low immunity such as diabetes, nephritis, and malnutrition. Patients and Methods: We reported four cases of carbuncle of the neck, three of which were treated with traditional Chinese medicine therapy based on fire needles combined with topical drugs, and the other one was treated by surgical incision and drainage, debridement, and dressing change. Results: All four cases achieved good therapeutic effects. The results showed that in the treatment of early carbuncle, compared with surgical treatment, fire needle therapy had less trauma, smaller prognosis scar, less cost, and faster recovery. However, when the carbuncle significantly expands or the deep tissue of the late carbuncle shows erosion necrosis, surgical debridement is necessary. Conclusion: The traditional Chinese medicine therapy based on the fire needle for the early treatment of carbuncle has important clinical significance, which is worthy of further study.

Successful Treatment in a Child with Refractory Periungual Warts by Local Hyperthermia: A Case Report.

Periungual wart is a kind of verruca vulgaris that occurs alongside or underlying the nails, which is challenging to treat and prone to recurrence, seriously affecting the quality of patients' life. We report a 6-year-old boy with periungual warts who had experienced various treatments with no improvement and even worsening. Therefore, we tried to treat the patient with local hyperthermia which uses a patented device that has an infrared emission source. The heat generated by infrared rays acts on the local skin surface. The mechanism of this therapy may be to establish a specific immune response against human papillomavirus-infected tissues, thereby facilitating the clearance of human papillomavirus at irradiated and non-irradiated sites. Local hyperthermia has the advantages of non-contact, safety, noninvasive, less pain, and so on. After 5 treatments, the irradiated periungual warts completely cleared after 2 weeks. The unirradiated sites were almost cured after 7 weeks. This case suggests that local thermotherapy has shown great advantages in the treatment of these refractory periungual warts and offers a new and effective therapy in patients with periungual warts.

Induced Superconducting Transition in Ultra-Thin Iron-Selenide Films by a Mg-Coating Process.

Binary Iron selenide (FeSe) thin films have been widely studied for years to unveil the high temperature superconductivity in iron-based superconductors. However, the origin of superconducting transition in this unconventional system is still under debate and worth deep investigations. In the present work, the transition from insulator to superconductor was achieved in non-superconducting FeSe ultrathin films (~8 nm) grown on calcium fluoride substrates via a simple in-situ Mg-coating by a pulsed laser deposition technique. The Mg-coated FeSe film with an optimized amount of Mg exhibited a superconducting critical temperature as 9.7 K and an upper critical field as 30.9 T. Through systematic characterizations on phase identification, carrier transport behavior and high-resolution microstructural features, the revival of superconductivity in FeSe ultrathin films is mostly attributed to the highly crystallized FeSe and extra electron doping received from external Mg-coating process. Although the top few FeSe layers are incorporated with Mg, most FeSe layers are intact and protected by a stable magnesium oxide layer. This work provides a new strategy to induce superconductivity in FeSe films with non-superconducting behavior, which might contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of iron-based superconductivity and the benefit to downstream applications such as magnetic resonance imaging, high-field magnets and electrical cables.

A Biomimetic Non-Antibiotic Approach to Eradicate Drug-Resistant Infections.

The chronic infections by pathogenic Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa) remain to be properly addressed. In particular, for drug-resistant strains, limited medication is available. An in vivo pneumonia model induced by a clinically isolated aminoglycoside resistant strain of P. aeruginosa is developed. Tobramycin clinically treating P. aeruginosa infections is found to be ineffective to inhibit or eliminate this drug-resistant strain. Here, a newly developed non-antibiotics based nanoformulation plus near-infrared (NIR) photothermal treatment shows a remarkable antibacterial efficacy in treating this drug-resistant pneumonia. The novel formulation contains 50-100 nm long nanorods decorated with two types of glycomimetic polymers to specifically block bacterial LecA and LecB lectins, respectively, which are essential for bacterial biofilm development. Such a 3D display of heteromultivalent glycomimetics on a large scale is inspired by the natural strengthening mechanism for the carbohydrate-lectin interaction that occurs when bacteria initially infects the host. This novel formulation shows the most efficient bacteria inhabitation and killing against P. aeruginosa infection, through lectin blocking and the near-infrared-light-induced photothermal effect of gold nanorods, respectively. Collectively, the novel biomimetic design combined with the photothermal killing capability is expected to be an alternative treatment strategy against the ever-threatening drug-resistant infectious diseases when known antibiotics have failed.

The natural therapeutic magnesium lithospermate B potently provides neuroprotective effects on cerebral ischemia/reperfusion injury in rats.

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Salvia miltiorrhiza, a perennial plant in the genus Salvia and popularly known as "Danshen", is highly valued for its roots in traditional Chinese medicines (TCMs). It has widely used for the treatment of cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases in China. Recently, the cerebral protection of magnesium lithospermate B (MLB), a working extract from Salvia miltiorrhiza, has received more attention. Here, we investigated the therapeutic effects of MLB on cerebral ischemia/reperfusion (CI/R) injury using the middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) model in rats. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to CI/R using a thread to occlude the right middle cerebral artery. After 2h of cerebral ischemia, the middle cerebral artery was reperfused for 24 h. Rats were injected with different doses of MLB (15, 30 and 60 mg/kg). Infarct zones, neurological deficit scores, brain water content, glutamate levels and protein expressions were evaluated after 24h of reperfusion. RESULTS: We found that MLB treatment of rats exposed to focal CI/R decreased neurological deficit scores, brain water content, glutamate levels and cerebral infarct zones. We also demonstrated that MLB can inhibit CI/R injury-induced activation of caspase-3, a marker of apoptosis. This protection by MLB against CI/R injury was accompanied by an upregulation of p-Akt in the ischemic hemisphere. Furthermore, the MLB-induced protection was prevented by treatment with a PI3K inhibitor (LY-294002). CONCLUSIONS: The data in the present study suggest a potential protective role of MLB against CI/R injury in rats. The salient finding of the present study is that this protective effect of MLB is likely mediated through an Akt-dependent pathway.

[Analysis of saponin in Chinese ginsengs by NIR spectroscopy].

In the present paper the saponin in Chinese ginseng was analysed quantitatively by using near infrared spectroscopy. The spectral characteristics of the primary ingredients in Chinese ginseng were obtained by applying second derivative, MSC (Multiple Scatter Correction), and correlation chart to the original absorbance spectra of ginseng. Meantime, in combination with the PLS algorithm the calibration process was performed for the quantitative analysis of saponin in Chinese ginseng. The result obtained shows a fine precision of the method, with RMSEC of 0.154% and correlation coefficient of 0.9828.

[Near infrared determination of the total sugar in Chinese ginsengs].

In the present paper the analysis of the total content of sugar in Chinese ginseng was carried out by using near infrared spectroscopy, and in combination with the PLS algorithm the calibration analysis was performed at the same time. The result shows that the precision obtained through common chemical methods is almost the same as the one through NIR spectroscopy. The SEC (standard error of calibration) is 1.9% and the correlation coefficient is 0.951 7, which proves that this technique is well suitable for rapid quantitative determination of the total content of sugar in Chinese ginseng, and is simple, cheap, and without any chemical pollution, and can present real time result.