Clinical features and diagnostic approaches for abdominal tuberculosis: five-year experience from a non-tuberculosis-designated hospital in China.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: abdominal tuberculosis (TB) is a common form of extrapulmonary TB but it is still a diagnostic dilemma in clinical practice. This study aimed to highlight the clinical features and diagnostic approaches for abdominal TB. METHODS: seventy cases of diagnosed abdominal TB were retrospectively collected between August 1st, 2015 and June 30th, 2020. They were classified as peritoneal TB, lymph node TB, gastrointestinal TB, visceral TB or mixed TB. RESULTS: eighteen patients were diagnosed with peritoneal TB, nine with lymph node TB, five with gastrointestinal TB, two with visceral TB and 36 with mixed TB. More than 65 % of the patients had tuberculosis of other sites except the abdomen. The median diagnosis time was 60 days. Ascites (58.6 %), abdominal distension (48.6 %), weight loss (44.3 %) and fever (42.9 %) were the most common symptoms. The overall microbiological and histological detection rates were 70.0 % and 38.6 %, respectively. The non-ascite samples yielded a higher microbiological confirmation rate (63.6 %) than the total samples (40.8 %). Diagnosis was confirmed histologically in 18 patients (69.2 %). Forty-five cases (64.3 %) were clinically diagnosed. Invasive procedures such as surgery (6/7), percutaneous biopsy (7/7) and endoscopy in lymph node TB (4/5) had high confirmation rates. CONCLUSIONS: the diagnosis of abdominal TB should be reached by a combination of clinical, laboratory, radiological, microbiological and pathological findings.

MicroRNA-210 mediates the protective effect of rosuvastatin on human mesenchymal stem cells apoptosis induced by tumor necrosis factor-α / 中华心血管病杂志

<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To explore the effect and mechanism of rosuvastatin on tumor necrosis factor-α induced human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) apoptosis.</p><p><b>METHOD</b>Human MSCs were treated as follows: (1) culture medium; (2) TNF-α (20 µg/ml) for 6 h; (3) rosuvastatin (20 µmol/L) for 24 h; (4) rosuvastatin (20 µmol/L) for 24 h followed by TNF-α (20 µg/ml) for 6 h; (5) TNF-α+rosuvastatin+50 nmol/L antago-miRNA; (6) TNF-α+rosuvastatin+100 nmol/L antago-miRNA. Cell survival and apoptosis were determined by MTT, TUNEL and caspase-3 activity assay. The changes of miRNA-210 in each group were detected with quantitative PCR.</p><p><b>RESULT</b>TNF-α significantly induced human MSCs apoptosis in a concentration-dependent manner, and pretreatment with rosuvastatin significantly reduced MSCs apoptosis (caspase-3 assay: TNF-α+Statin group vs. TNF-α group: (1.63 ± 0.25) vs. (2.05 ± 0.36), P < 0.05). Meanwhile, TNF-α progressively reduced the expression of miRNA-210 in human MSCs in a dose-dependent manner, while the miRNA-210 expression was significantly upregulated in TNF-α+Statin group (P < 0.05). The protective effect of rosuvastatin on TNF-α induced MSCs apoptosis was largely abolished by co-treatment with 100 nmol/L antago-miRNA (TUNEL:TNF-α + Statin + antago-miR group vs. TNF-α + Statin group: (42.58 ± 6.71) % vs. (16.87 ± 9.27) %, P < 0.05).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Pretreatment with rosuvastatin can significantly improve the viability of human MSCs after TNF-α injury, the protective mechanism of rosuvastatin is partly mediated through miRNA-210 up-regulation.</p>