[Therapeutic Effect of Autologous Platelet-rich Gel in the Treatment of Chronic Skin Ulcer with Tophus].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the clinical effectiveness and safety of autologous platelet-rich gel (APG) in the treatment of chronic skin ulcer with tophus. METHODS: Four patients of chronic skin ulcer with tophus received routine debridement to remove necrotic tissue and erasion tophus as far as possible,and then received the treatment of APG. RESULTS: All of the patients had their wounds healed after the treatment of APG (one wound was treated twice). The wounds were healed between 8 to 22 d, average (13. 7±6. 8) d, while there were no adverse effects observed. CONCLUSION: Topical therapy with APG may be considered as an effective and safe adjuvant method for the treamtment of chronic skin ulcer with tophus.

[Joint diagnostic value of four temperature sensation tests in elderly patients with type 2 diabetic peripheral neuropathy].

OBJECTIVE: To explore the joint diagnostic value of four temperature sensation tests in elderly patients with type 2 diabetic peripheral neuropathy. METHODS: Thermal sensory analyzer-II were applied to measure cool sensation (CS), warm sensation (WS), cold pain sensation (CP)and heat pain sensation (HP) of 308 elderly patients with type 2 diabetes. Logistic regression model was adopted to create the new variable Temp4 from four temperature sensation tests to diagnose type 2 diabetic peripheral neuropathy. The ROC curve analysis was used to determine the best cut-off points of the four temperature sensation and Temp4, and the diagnostic value of it was evaluated. RESULTS: The means of temperature sensation tests of the diabetic peripheral neuropathy (DPN) group were significantly different from those of the non-DPN group (P < 0.05). According to the current reference intervals of the four temperature sensation tests to diagnose the DPN, the sensitivity of WS test was the highest, and the value was 0.710; but the specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value, Youden index, diagnostic accuracy and Kappa value of cold sensation test were the highest, and the values were 0.842, 0.746, 0.799, 0.528, 77.92% and 0.535, respectively; the Kappa values of the other three temperature sensation tests were all greater than 0.4 (P < 0.05). The area under the ROC curve of the new variable Temp4 was 0.93 (95% CI 0.91-0.96), and was larger than the four temperature sensation tests (P < 0.05). The sensitivity, specificity, Youden index and diagnostic accuracy of Temp4 were 0.823, 0.897, 0.719 and 86.69%, respectively. The new best cut-off points of the CS test, WS test, CP test, HP test and Temp4 was 27.5 degrees C, 34.7 degrees C, 20.5 degrees C, 43.5 degrees C and 0.416, respectively. CONCLUSION: The results of the four temperature sensation quantitative tests were in good agreementand could be applied to diagnose DPN; the new variable Temp4 could be used for diagnosis of DPN with a higher diagnostic accuracy.

Induction of anti-tumour immunity by dendritic cells transduced with hTERT recombinant adenovirus in mice.

Dendritic cells (DCs) transfected with recombinant, replication-defective adenovirus (Ad) vectors encoding the human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT) are potent inducers of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) and anti-tumour immunity. However, previous studies have mostly been in vitro. In this study, we sought to determine whether DCs transfected with hTERT (DC/Ad-hTERT) could elicit a potent anti-tumour immunogenic response in vivo. We found that murine DCs transfected with recombinant adenovirus encoding the hTERT gene (DC/Ad-hTERT) induced hTERT-specific CTLs in vivo effectively, compared with Ad-LacZ-transduced DC (DC/Ad-LacZ) controls. These hTERT-specific CTLs lysed various tumour cell lines in an hTERT-specific and MHC-I molecule-restricted fashion. We also found that DC/Ad-hTERT could increase antigen-specific T-cell proliferation and augment the number of IFN-gamma secreting T-cells in mice. These data suggest that the DC/Ad-hTERT vaccine may induce anti-tumour immunity against tumour cells expressing hTERT in an MHC-I molecule-restricted fashion in vivo through the augmentation of the hTERT-specific CTL response. The DC/Ad-hTERT vaccine may thus be used as an efficient DC-based tumour vaccine in clinical applications.