A pilot split-scalp study of combined fractional radiofrequency microneedling and 5% topical minoxidil in treating male pattern hair loss.

BACKGROUND: Various trials have been conducted on the management of male pattern hair loss (MPHL), but the outcomes often seem to be limited. Adjuvant therapies are urgently needed. AIM: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of combined fractional radiofrequency microneedling (FRM) and 5% topical minoxidil in the treatment of male pattern hair loss. METHODS: In total, 19 Chinese men were enrolled in this randomized, controlled, split-scalp trial. Participants received monotherapy with 5% topical minoxidil twice daily to one half of the scalp, while on the other half of the scalp the treatment with twice-daily 5% topical minoxidil was combined with five sessions of FRM at 4-week intervals. Mean hair count and hair thickness, global assessment by the investigators, subject self-assessment and adverse effects were assessed. RESULTS: After 5 months of treatment, mean hair count increased from 44.12 ± 21.58 to 73.14 ± 25.45 on the combined-therapy side and from 46.22 ± 18.77 to 63.21 ± 19.22 on the monotherapy side, while mean hair thickness increased from 53 ± 13 µm to 71 ± 15 µm and from 52 ± 16 µm to 66 ± 14 µm, respectively. Compared with the monotherapy side, the combined-therapy side had a higher degree of improvement in both hair count (P = 0.01) and hair thickness (P = 0.02). CONCLUSIONS: Combined treatment with fractional radiofrequency microneedle and 5% topical minoxidil could be an effective and safe treatment option for male pattern hair loss.

[Initial study of transthoracic echocardiography guided three-dimensional printing on the application of assessment of structural heart disease].

Objective: To investigate the feasibility and diagnostic value of preoperative transthoracic echocardiography guided three dimensional printing model (TTE Guided 3DPM) on the assessment of structural heart disease (SHD). Methods: From February 2016 to October 2016, 44 patients underwent cardiac surgery in Tianjin Chest Hospital, forty-four patients were assessed preoperatively using TTE Guided 3DPM, including 25 males and 19 females, aged 3-75 years, with an average of (44±22) years. compared to conventional three dimensional transthoracic echocardiography (3D-TTE), and took direct intraoperative findings as "Golden Standard" simultaneously. There are twelve patients with SHD, including four cases with mitral prolapse, two cases with partial endocardial cushion defect, two cases with secondary atrial septal defect, two cases with rheumatic mitral stenosis, one case with tetralogy of Fallot, one case with ventricular septal defect (VSD), thirty-two patients without SHD were designed as negative control. Results: The sensitivity and specificity of TTE Guided 3DPM were greater than or equal to 3D-TTE, P value of McNemar test of 3D-TTE was greater than 0.05, the difference was not statistically significant, kappa=0.745, P<0.01, indicated that the results of 3DTTE and the gold standard were generally consistent.P value of McNemar test of TTE Guided 3DPM was greater than 0.05, the difference was not statistically significant, kappa=0.955, P<0.01, indicated that the results of TTE Guided 3DPM and gold standards were consistent. Compared with 3D-TTE and TTE Guided 3DPM, P value was greater than 0.05, the difference was not statistically significant, kappa=0.879, P<0.01, indicated that the results of 3D-TTE and TTE Guided 3DPM were consistent. TTE Guided 3DPM displayed the three-dimensional structure of SHD cardiac lesions clearly, which were consistent with intraoperative findings. Conclusion: TTE Guided 3DPM provides essential information for the preoperative evaluation and decision of SHD.

Pregnancy outcome in women exposed to leflunomide before or during pregnancy.

OBJECTIVE: Findings from animal studies have suggested that leflunomide may be a human teratogen. In the only human cohort study published to date, an increase in adverse outcomes in pregnancies after exposure to leflunomide was not detected. The aim of the present analysis was to expand on the previously published data with a description of birth outcomes among women who did not meet the previous cohort study criteria but who were exposed to leflunomide either during pregnancy or prior to conception. METHODS: Data on pregnancy exposures and outcomes were collected from 45 pregnant women who had contacted counseling services of the Organization of Teratology Information Specialists in the US or Canada between 1999 and 2009. Sixteen women were exposed to leflunomide during the first trimester of pregnancy and 29 women were exposed preconception. RESULTS: All 16 of the pregnancies with leflunomide exposure during pregnancy and 27 (93%) of the pregnancies with exposure prior to conception resulted in liveborn infants. There were 2 infants with major malformations from mothers who were exposed during pregnancy, and no malformations reported in the preconception group. There was a potential known alternative etiology for at least some of the defects observed. CONCLUSION: These data provide additional reassurance to women who inadvertently become pregnant while taking leflunomide and who undergo the washout procedure, as well as women who discontinue the medication prior to conception but have no prepregnancy documentation of drug clearance. However, until more conclusive data become available, women receiving leflunomide should be advised to use contraceptive methods and avoid pregnancy.

Combination of intense pulsed light and fractional CO(2) laser treatments for patients with acne with inflammatory and scarring lesions.

BACKGROUND: Various laser and light sources are been used increasingly in cosmetic dermatology. AIM: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of combination intense pulsed light (IPL) and fractional CO2 laser in treating patients with acne with both inflammatory and scarring lesions. METHODS: In total, 37 Chinese patients with acne with facial inflammatory and scar lesions were treated. Successive sessions of 4-6 IPL treatments followed by 2 sessions of fractional CO2 laser treatments were applied. Effectiveness was determined by the dermatologist's evaluation, patient self-assessment, and devices that measure skin colour, sebum secretion and skin hydration. RESULTS: IPL treatments significantly reduced the inflammatory lesion score and the atrophic scar score compared with baseline. Subsequent fractional CO2 laser treatments further decreased the atrophic scar score. Both scores remained low when patients were followed up at 6 months. Around 90% of the patients experienced significant or moderate overall improvement, and almost 80% patients rated their results as 'excellent' or 'good'. The melanin index (MI), erythema index (EI) and skin sebum level all significantly decreased after IPL treatments, and the EI and sebum level were still low when assessed at the 3-month follow-up, although the MI had increased again. The adverse effects (AEs) of both treatments were transient and bearable. CONCLUSIONS: IPL in combination with fractional CO2 laser was effective in treating patients with acne with both inflammatory lesions and atrophic scars, and the AEs were acceptable.

Resveratrate protects human skin from damage due to repetitive ultraviolet irradiation.

BACKGROUND: Ultraviolet (UV) exposure results in the production reactive oxygen species. Resveratrol has attracted considerable attentions owing to its natural abundance and multiple biological effects. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the protective effects of resveratrate against damage to human skin induced by repetitive solar simulator ultraviolet radiation (ssUVR). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fifteen healthy volunteers were enrolled, and six sites on the non-exposed dorsal skin of each volunteer were marked for study. Sites 1-4 were exposed to ssUVR at a dosage of 1.5 minimal erythema dose for consecutive 4 days. Immediately after each exposure, one test material (resveratrate + antioxidant, antioxidant, resveratrate, vehicle) was applied to one of the four sites. Site 5 and site 6 were marked as positive control site (UVR only) and baseline control site (no treatment, no UVR). L*a*b values were assessed preprocedure and postprocedure. Skin biopsies were taken 24 h after the last irradiation. The specimens were stained to determine the number of sunburn cells and melanin content melanin. RESULTS: On resveratrate treated sites, erythema was barely seen with only slight decrease of L value and insignificant increase of *a value. Furthermore, resveratrate significantly inhibited sunburn cell formation, and decreased Fontana-Masson staining in skin samples. CONCLUSIONS: Resveratrate exerts protective effects against repetitive ssUVR-induced sunburn and suntan.

Construction of an autophagy-related eleven long noncoding RNA signature to predict the outcomes, immune cell infiltration, and immunotherapy response in patients with gastric cancer.

Long noncoding RNAs (LncRNAs) may be involved in the occurrence, development, and drug resistance of gastric cancer (GC) by regulating autophagy. This study aims to establish an autophagy-related LncRNA (ARL) signature (ARLSig) and explore its immunogenomic implications in patients with GC. The RNA sequencing and clinical data of patients with GC from The Cancer Genome Atlas database, and autophagy genes from the Human Autophagy Database were extracted. The co-expression and Cox regression analyses were performed to establish a prognostic ARLSig. Further, the differences in clinicopathology, immune microenvironment, immune function, and response to immunotherapy between the risk groups were explored by several algorithms. A prognostic risk model consisting of 11 ARLs was constructed. The clinical correlation analysis between the ARLSig and clinicopathological factors indicated that the ARLSig was correlated with the comprehensive, T, and N stages (all P<0.05). Further, a nomogram including the ARLSig and clinical factors suggested it had a powerful predictive value for survival, with a higher prediction efficiency for 1-, 3-, and 5-year survival than other clinicopathological factors. Finally, the immune-related analysis between the two risk groups showed that the high-risk group had significantly higher infiltration proportions of natural killer cells resting, monocytes, M2 macrophages, and dendritic cells resting, as well as higher expression of 25 immune checkpoint genes. In addition, the immunotherapy response prediction by the tracking of indels by decomposition algorithm showed the low-risk group was more sensitive to immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy. The ARLSig consisting of 11 ARLs in GC showed highly efficient predictive value for survival of patients with GC and might provide novel targets for their individualized immunotherapy.

IgE-mediated allergy: a rare cause of chronic spontaneous urticarial with allergen-specific immunotherapy as treatment option - a systematic review with meta-analysis from China.

BACKGROUND: Allergen-specific immunotherapy (SIT) has long been a controversial treatment for chronic urticaria (CU), although SIT has been used in patients with allergic diseases for more than 90 years. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of SIT vs. conventional treatment (CT) in the treatment of CU. METHODS: Systematic searches were conducted without language restrictions in MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library, ISI Web of Knowledge, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Chinese Scientific Journals Full Text Database. The primary outcomes were efficacy and quality of life (QOL) and the secondary outcomes were relapse rate and adverse events (AEs). RESULTS: Fourteen studies (1838 patients) were included. None of them was double-blind placebo controlled. Our study demonstrated that SIT seemed to show more clinical efficacy rate (OR 2.39; 95% CI, 1.73-3.30; I(2) = 55%, P = 0.008), more complete recovery rate (OR 2.13; 95% CI, 1.55-2.91; I(2) = 61%, P=0.008) and less relapse rate 2 weeks after treatment (OR 0.38; 95% CI, 0.24-0.61; I(2) = 6%, P=0.20) than CT. Only one study reported improved QOL and no study reported serious AEs after SIT. CONCLUSIONS: Current evidence indicates that IgE-mediated allergy may be causative in a small number of CU patients and specific immunotherapy with these allergens may be beneficial in those patients. However, the number of included studies was small and those qualities were low. So, available evidence is not adequate to draw an affirmative conclusion and larger studies of high quality are needed to provide increasingly convincing data and cases.

Mitochondrial haplogroup D4 confers resistance and haplogroup B is a genetic risk factor for high-altitude pulmonary edema among Han Chinese.

High-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) is a life-threatening condition caused by acute exposure to high altitude. Accumulating evidence suggests that genetic factors play an important role in the etiology of HAPE. However, conclusions from association studies have been hindered by limited sample size due to the rareness of this disease. It is known that mitochondria are critical for hypoxic adaptation, and mitochondrial malfunction can be an important factor in HAPE development. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that mitochondrial DNA haplotypes and polymorphisms affect HAPE susceptibility. We recruited 204 HAPE patients and 174 healthy controls in Tibet (3658 m above sea level), all Han Chinese, constituting the largest sample size of all HAPE vulnerability studies. Among mtDNA haplogroups, we found that haplogroup D4 is associated with resistance to HAPE, while haplogroup B is a genetic risk factor for this condition. Haplogroup D4 (tagged by 3010A) may enhance the stability of 16S rRNA, resulting in reduced oxidative stress and protection against HAPE. Within haplogroup B, subhaplogroup B4c (tagged by 15436A and 1119C) was associated with increased risk for HAPE, while subhaplogroup B4b may protect against HAPE. We indicate that there are differences in HAPE susceptibility among mtDNA haplogroups. We conclude that mitochondria are involved in adverse reactions to acute hypoxic exposure; our finding of differences in susceptibility as a function of mitochondrial DNA haplotype may shed light on the pathogenesis of other disorders associated with hypoxia, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Meta-analysis demonstrates association between Arg72Pro polymorphism in the P53 gene and susceptibility to keloids in the Chinese population.

Although there is evidence suggesting genetic susceptibility for keloids, studies investigating the association between Arg72Pro polymorphism in the P53 gene and tendency to form keloids have given variable results. We made a meta-analysis of the effects of P53 Arg72Pro polymorphism on keloid risk in the Chinese population by conducting searches of the published literature in Pubmed, Embase, CBMdisc, and CNKI databases up to June 2011. Six studies were included in the meta-analysis, with a total of 359 keloid cases and 493 healthy controls. Meta-analysis results, respectively in the PCR-reverse dot blot and PCR-RFLP subgroups, showed significant associations between P53 Arg72Pro polymorphism and susceptibility to keloid in the comparisons of Pro allele vs Arg allele (odds ratio (OR) = 2.29, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.45-3.60; OR = 0.74, 95%CI = 0.56-0.98); Pro/Pro vs Pro/Arg + Arg/Arg (OR = 2.91, 95%CI = 1.88-4.53; OR = 0.54, 95%CI = 0.32-0.92); Pro/Pro vs Arg/Arg (OR = 2.79, 95%CI = 1.54-5.06; OR = 0.51, 95%CI = 0.28-0.92); Pro/Pro vs Pro/Arg (OR = 2.85, 95%CI = 1.75-4.63; OR = 0.57, 95%CI = 0.32-0.99). We conclude that the Pro allele of P53 Arg72Pro polymorphism is a risk factor for keloids in the Chinese population.

Physiological and transcriptomic analyses of leaves from Gardenia jasminoides Ellis under waterlogging stress.

Gardenia jasminoides Ellis is a Chinese herbal medicine with medicinal and economic value, but its mechanism of response to waterlogging stress remains unclear. In this study, the "double pots method" was used to simulate the waterlogging stress of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis to explore its physiological and transcriptomic response mechanism. We found no significant damage to Gardenia jasminoides Ellis membrane lipid during stress. POD played a vital antioxidant role, KEGG enrichment showed that secondary metabolites such as flavonoids might also play an antioxidant role, and PRO played a significant osmotic adjustment. Endogenous hormones regulate the Gardenia jasminoides Ellis's growth and development and play a role in signal transduction. Among them, light waterlogging stress is delayed. At the same time, there were 19631, 23693, and 15045 differentially expressed genes on the 5th, 10d, and 15d of Gardenia jasminoides Ellis under waterlogging stress. These genes were closely associated with the proteasome, endopeptidase, ribosome, MAPK signal transduction, and endogenous hormone signal transduction, plant-pathogen interaction and phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and other physiological and metabolic pathways, which regulate the turnover and transportation of protein, the reinforcement and adhesion of cell walls, the induction of stomatal closure, allergic reactions, defense reactions, leaf movements and others. It also can absorb ultraviolet rays to reduce the generation of oxygen free radicals, change the way of energy utilization and adjust the osmotic pressure of plant cells.

Adaptive watershed segmentation of binary particle image.

Oversegmentation is a tough problem in the morphological watershed segmentation of irregular-shaped binary particles, which is usually caused by spurious minima in the inverse distance transform. The position relationship between two objects is clear, according to the value of overlap parameter defined in the paper, and an adaptive algorithm is presented to depress oversegmentation by building the criterion to merge the spurious local minima. Some particle images are provided to validate the performance of the proposed method.

Improvement of natural microbial remediation of petroleum-polluted soil using graminaceous plants.

A 150-day pot experiment was conducted with graminaceous plants grown in natural soil contaminated with petroleum. The relationships among microbial activity, dehydrogenase activity, catalase activity, soil moisture, and the petroleum degradation rate were analyzed. All three plants accelerated the degradation of petroleum compared with unplanted soil. Plant roots improved the soil moisture by about 5% (from 15% in unplanted soil to 20% in soil containing plant roots), and the number of microorganisms in the rhizosphere increased by more than three orders of magnitude. The induction of the rhizosphere environment and the intimidation of the petroleum changed the abundance and activity of the microorganisms. Dehydrogenase activity in the rhizosphere was 1.54 to 1.87 times the value in the unplanted soil, but catalase activity was 0.90 to 0.93 times the value in unplanted soil. The petroleum degradation rates in the rhizosphere were 2.33 to 3.19 times higher than in the unplanted soil. The effect of rhizosphere degradation clearly changed the hydrocarbon composition, increasing the degradation of alkane hydrocarbons with low and moderate carbon contents. The rhizosphere environment promoted degradation of the high-carbon-content hydrocarbons into low-carbon-content hydrocarbons. At the same time, the Pr/nC(17), Ph/nC(18), and Pr/Ph values increased by 0.99 and 2.69 units, and decreased by 1.25 units, respectively, compared with the undegraded oil. The plants also accelerated the isomerization of alkane hydrocarbons.

Dynamics of the spatial scale of visual attention revealed by brain event-related potentials.

The temporal dynamics of the spatial scaling of attention during visual search were examined by recording event-related potentials (ERPs). A total of 16 young participants performed a search task in which the search array was preceded by valid cues that varied in size and hence in precision of target localization. The effects of cue size on short-latency (P1 and N1) ERP components, and the time course of these effects with variation in cue-target stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), were examined. Reaction time (RT) to discriminate a target was prolonged as cue size increased. The amplitudes of the posterior P1 and N1 components of the ERP evoked by the search array were affected in opposite ways by the size of the precue: P1 amplitude increased whereas N1 amplitude decreased as cue size increased, particularly following the shortest SOA. The results show that when top-down information about the region to be searched is less precise (larger cues), RT is slowed and the neural generators of P1 become more active, reflecting the additional computations required in changing the spatial scale of attention to the appropriate element size to facilitate target discrimination. In contrast, the decrease in N1 amplitude with cue size may reflect a broadening of the spatial gradient of attention. The results provide electrophysiological evidence that changes in the spatial scale of attention modulate neural activity in early visual cortical areas and activate at least two temporally overlapping component processes during visual search.

The hemispheric difference of semantic processing of Chinese characters in two dimensions as revealed by ERPs.

An experiment was conducted to examine the hemispheric dominance in semantic processing of Chinese characters. Results showed that N1 is the earliest component that reflects the semantic processing of Chinese characters. Although N1 of the left hemisphere is larger in amplitude, that of the right hemisphere is shorter in latency. Based on these findings, the authors propose that the left hemisphere does not start processing until the necessary information has been transferred from the right hemisphere. Once the left hemisphere starts processing, its intensity is stronger. Thus, it is more appropriate to differentiate hemispheric processing dominance into two dimensions: speed and intensity. Moreover, the semantic cognition onset of Chinese characters occurs from 100 ms to 160 ms in the posterior perceptual processing area of brain.

Cross-modal selective attention to visual and auditory stimuli modulates endogenous ERP components.

In two experiments event-related potentials (ERPs) to visual and auditory stimuli were measured in 12 healthy subjects. A cross-modal and delayed response paradigm was used that allows ERPs to be obtained separately to attended and unattended stimuli under conditions in which unattended stimuli are less likely to be covertly or randomly attended. The results showed: (1) N1 enhancement with attention for standard stimuli in auditory and visual modalities and for deviant stimuli in the visual modality; (2) The onset time and scalp distribution of both the N1 for attend condition and Nd1 were similar regardless of standard or deviant stimuli in the auditory and visual modality; the onset time of Nd1 elicited by auditory and visual deviant stimuli was earlier than that of the unattended N1, and their scalp distributions were different; and (3) The Nd1 components elicited by auditory and visual deviant stimuli were distributed over the respective primary sensory areas, but Nd1 components evoked by auditory and visual standard stimuli were distributed over the frontal scalp. These results suggest that the attended N1 enhancement is primarily caused by a component with endogenous origins and that the early attention effect occurs before the exogenous components. The results support the view that the cross-modal attention to deviant stimuli modulates modality-specific processing in the brain, whereas attention to standard stimuli affects modality-nonspecific or supramodal brain systems.

Drinking milk or water has no effect on the severity of optokinetic rotation-induced symptoms of motion sickness.

BACKGROUND: The present study investigated the effects of drinking milk or water before viewing an optokinetic rotation drum on the severity of motion sickness and abnormal gastric myoelectric activity. METHODS: There were 27 subjects who drank 300 ml of milk or water, or drank nothing, in three separate sessions with 2-d intervals between every two sessions. Subjects in each session then viewed a vertically striped optokinetic rotation drum for 16 min. Symptoms of motion sickness and electrogastrograms (EGGs) were measured. RESULTS: Subjects reported no significant difference in symptoms of motion sickness among sessions of drinking milk, water, or nothing. EGG recordings indicated that subjects in sessions of drinking milk and water significantly increased normal gastric myoelectric activity at EGG 3 cycles per minute (cpm). Subjects in all three sessions increased abnormal EGG activity at 4-9 cpm during drum rotation period, however, the ratios of EGG 4-9 cpm of drum rotation and baseline periods were not significantly different among sessions. CONCLUSION: These results demonstrated that drinking milk or water before viewing an optokinetic rotation drum exhibited no effect on the severity of symptoms of motion sickness and abnormal gastric myoelectric activity.

The effect of a disastrous flood on the quality of life in Dongting lake area in China.

We carried out an epidemiological study to assess the impact of flood on the quality of life (QOL) of residents in the affected areas in China. We used a natural experiment approach, randomly selected 494 adults from 18 villages, which suffered from flooding as a result of embankments collapsing, 473 adults from 16 villages, which suffered from, soaked flood, and 773 adults from 11 villages without flood (control group). We used the Generic QOL Inventory-74 (GQOLI-74), social support scale, and questionnaires to assess the QOL of all study participants. The QOL was significantly poorer in soaked group (58.4) and (especially) in collapsed group (55.1) than in control group (59.5, p<0.001). Adjustment for potential confounding factors did not change the results. The impact of flood on QOL was stronger among farmers, seniors, persons with introvert personality, and residents with adverse life-events, whereas social support and extrovert personalities offset the negative impact of flood on QOL.

Susceptibility to motion sickness induced by optokinetic rotation and self-rotation by walking around a vertical pole.

31 subjects viewed an optokinetic rotating drum for 12 min. in one session and self-rotated by walking quickly around a vertical pole with eyes closed while alternately flexing and extending the neck in another session. The self-rotation session contained 6 trials (3 clockwise and 3 counterclockwise rotations). Each trial contained 20 cycles of self-rotations. Self-reported ratings of nausea and symptoms of motion sickness were obtained for each session. The subjects developed symptoms of nausea, sweating, dizziness, headache, drowsiness, and changes in salivation in both drum rotation and self-rotation sessions. However, the subjects reported higher ratings of nausea in the session of optokinetic rotation than in the session of self-rotation around a vertical pole. These results indicated that both optokinetic rotation and self-rotation with eyes closed while alternately flexing and extending the neck are effective means of inducing nausea and motion sickness.

Preliminary study of associations between objective parameters of facial electromyography and subjective estimates of taste palatability.

20 subjects' palatability reports and facial electromyographic (EMG) activities at the zygomaticus major, corrugator supercilli, and levator labii (superioris/alaeque nasi) regions were recorded while they were tasting water or pickle juice. The results showed that subjects reported significantly higher ratings of palatability to water than to pickle juice. The EMG activities at the levator labii region generated significantly higher power than those at the corrugator supercilli region while tasting water. The EMG activities at the levator labii region generated significantly higher power than those at the corrugator supercilli region and those at the zygomaticus major region while tasting pickle juice. It was concluded that the facial EMG activity at the levator labii region was the most sensitive indicator of palatability.