Clinical features of obstructive sleep apnea in children with obesity. / è‚¥èƒ–å„¿ç«¥é˜»å¡žæ€§ç¡çœ å‘¼å¸æš‚åœçš„ä¸´åºŠç‰¹å¾.

OBJECTIVES: To study the clinical features of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in children with obesity. METHODS: A retrospective analysis was performed on the medical data of 33 obese children aged 7-15 years, who were diagnosed with OSA and received polysomnography (PSG) in the Department of Respiratory Medicine in Shenzhen Children's Hospital. Fifty OSA children with normal body weight, matched for sex and age, were enrolled as the control group. RESULTS: Among the 33 obese children with OSA, the three most common daytime symptoms were inattention in 30 children (91%), somnolence in 22 children (67%), and morning fatigue in 21 children (64%), and the three most common nocturnal symptoms were snoring in 27 children (82%), mouth breathing in 20 children (61%), and sweating in 16 children (49%). Compared with the reference values of normal children, both the OSA + obesity group and the control group had prolonged light sleep, shortened deep sleep, and a significantly shortened rapid eye movement (REM) period, while there was no significant difference in these indices between the two groups (P>0.05). The apnea-hypopnea index, obstructive apnea/hypopnea index, and oxygen desaturation index in both REM and non-REM periods in the OSA +obesity group were significantly higher than those in the control group (P<0.05), while the lowest blood oxygen saturation during sleep was significantly lower in the OSA + obesity group (P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The children with obesity and OSA have the main daytime symptoms of inattention, somnolence, and morning fatigue and the main nocturnal symptoms of snoring, mouth breathing, and sweating. There is no significant difference in sleep structure between OSA children with obesity and those with normal body weight; however, respiratory events and blood oxygen saturation decline are more severe in OSA children with obesity. Citation.

Use of traditional medicine for dental care by different ethnic groups in New Zealand.

BACKGROUND: There is an increasing public interest in the use of TM internationally, yet there is a paucity of research on the use of TM by the public in the dental setting. This study aimed to explore the views, use of and access to TM in dentistry among different ethnic groups residing in New Zealand. METHODS: Qualitative study and in-depth interviews were used. An individual semi-structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analysed using an inductive approach to identify the main themes. RESULTS: Three main themes were extracted from interviews with 14 participants from diverse cultural backgrounds: [1] the perspectives of TM varied among different ethnic groups and included the involvement of spirituality, the environment, knowledge and usage of TM. [2] The TM that was used by different ethnic groups included plants, herbs, massage, and other forms of healing. Reasons for choosing traditional or western medicines generally included family tradition, access to TM, and finding a competent traditional healer. [3] The barriers in accessing TM included the paucity of traditional healers, difficulty accessing plants and cost, therefore most would look for a substitution or alternative treatment. CONCLUSION: Even though the access to these TM in New Zealand was a challenge for the majority of the participants, they are still considered the first-line treatment for the majority. This study provided dental practitioners an insight into the different sort of TM used by the population. By understanding and acknowledging the use of TM, dental practitioners could create a supportive environment for patients to disclose their use of TM and allow them to educate patients on the use of TM.

Salivary metabolites are promising noninvasive biomarkers of drug-induced liver injury.

BACKGROUND: Drug-induced liver injury (DILI) is one of the most common adverse events of medication use, and its incidence is increasing. However, early detection of DILI is a crucial challenge due to a lack of biomarkers and noninvasive tests. AIM: To identify salivary metabolic biomarkers of DILI for the future development of noninvasive diagnostic tools. METHODS: Saliva samples from 31 DILI patients and 35 healthy controls (HCs) were subjected to untargeted metabolomics using ultrahigh-pressure liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry. Subsequent analyses, including partial least squares-discriminant analysis modeling, t tests and weighted metabolite coexpression network analysis (WMCNA), were conducted to identify key differentially expressed metabolites (DEMs) and metabolite sets. Furthermore, we utilized least absolute shrinkage and selection operato and random fores analyses for biomarker prediction. The use of each metabolite and metabolite set to detect DILI was evaluated with area under the receiver operating characteristic curves. RESULTS: We found 247 differentially expressed salivary metabolites between the DILI group and the HC group. Using WMCNA, we identified a set of 8 DEMs closely related to liver injury for further prediction testing. Interestingly, the distinct separation of DILI patients and HCs was achieved with five metabolites, namely, 12-hydroxydodecanoic acid, 3-hydroxydecanoic acid, tetradecanedioic acid, hypoxanthine, and inosine (area under the curve: 0.733-1). CONCLUSION: Salivary metabolomics revealed previously unreported metabolic alterations and diagnostic biomarkers in the saliva of DILI patients. Our study may provide a potentially feasible and noninvasive diagnostic method for DILI, but further validation is needed.

Nanofiber membrane of graphene oxide/polyacrylonitrile with highly efficient antibacterial activity.

Infection from bacterial resistance to antibiotics has given rise to a grave threat to human health in the world. It is vital to developing highly efficient antibacterial materials that are safe and biocompatible with humans and without bacterial resistance. In this study, nanofiber membranes of graphene oxide/polyacrylonitrile (GO/PAN) with highly efficient antibacterial activity were fabricated via electrospinning technique. As the spindle-knot structure of membranes formed by the addition of GO sheets increased, the hydrophilicity and surface roughness increased. The antibacterial test indicated that antibacterial ratios of 3GO/PAN membranes against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus were 98.5% and 99.6%, respectively after contracting 24 h, with highly efficient antibacterial activity. Furthermore, the E. coli cell structures of adhered to the GO/PAN nanofiber surface changed significantly shrunk and deformed, and the number of S. aureus cell were obviously less contrast than the pure PAN. The main antibacterial mechanism was GO of spindle-knot in nanofiber membranes produced ROS destroyed the physiological activities of the bacteria lead to death. The fabricated GO/PAN nanofiber membrane of this study is promising to develop to a kind of novel antibacterial materials.

[Isolation and purification of 10-hydroxycamptothecin and vincoside-lactam from Camptotheca acuminata seed by polyamide].

To investigate the technological parameters of the isolation and purification of 10-hydroxycamptothecin and vincoside-lactam from Camptotheca acuminata seed by polyamide. The static arid dynamic adsorption characteristics of 10-hydroxycamptothecin and vincoside-lactam on polyamide were studied, and the contents were determined by HPLC. The optimum parameters for adsorption were as follows: the contents of 10-hydroxycamptothecin and vincoside-lactam in the extracts were 0.189 g x L(-1) and 0.334 g x L(-1), respectively, pH 6, flow rate was 1.0 mL x min(-1), processing volume was 3 BV; for desorption: ethanol-water (60:40), flow rate was 1.0 mL x min(-1), 5 BV as an eluent. After treated with polyamide, the contents of 10-hydroxycamptothecin and vincoside-lactam were 17.52% and 32.87%, respectively, the recovery yields were 66.05% and 75.86%, respectively. Results showed that polyamide revealed a good ability to separate 10-hydroxycamptothecin and vincoside-lactam. Therefore, we concluded that results in this study may provide scientific references for the large-scale production of 10-hydroxycamptothecin and vincoside-lactam extracted from C. acuminata seed.

Cardioprotective effect of liposomal prostaglandin E1 on a porcine model of myocardial infarction reperfusion no-reflow.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether liposomal prostaglandin E1 (lipo-PGE1) can decrease reperfusion no-reflow in a catheter-based porcine model of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). METHODS: Twenty-two male Chinese mini-swines were randomized into three groups: six in a sham-operation group, and eight each in the control and lipo-PGE1 groups. The distal part of the left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) in the latter two groups was completely occluded for 2 h, and then reperfused for 3 h. Lipo-PGE1 (1 µg/kg) was injected 10 min before LAD occlusion until reperfusion for 1 h in the lipo-PGE1 group. Hemodynamic data and proinflammatory cytokines were examined before AMI, 2 h after occlusion, and 1, 2, and 3 h after reperfusion. Myocardial contrast echocardiography (MCE) and double staining were performed to evaluate the myocardial no-reflow area (NRA). RESULTS: Left ventricular systolic pressure and end-diastolic pressure significantly improved in the lipo-PGE1 group after reperfusion compared with the control group and also 2 h after AMI (P<0.05 for both). MCE and double staining both showed that lipo-PGE1 decreased reperfusion NRA after AMI (P<0.05, P<0.01). Lipo-PGE1 decreased serum interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) after myocardial infarction reperfusion (P<0.05 for both). CONCLUSIONS: Lipo-PGE1 is cardioprotective in our porcine model of myocardial infarction reperfusion no-reflow, decreasing NRA and attenuating the inflammatory response.