The Value of Cell-Free Circulating DNA Profiling in Patients with Skin Diseases.

Liquid biopsy, also known as fluid biopsy or fluid-phase biopsy, is the sampling and analysis of the blood, cerebrospinal fluid, saliva, pleural fluid, ascites, and urine. Compared with tissue biopsy, liquid biopsy technology has the advantages of being noninvasive, having strong repeatability, enabling early diagnosis, dynamic monitoring, and overcoming tumor heterogeneity. However, interest in cfDNA and skin diseases has not expanded until recently. In this review, we present an overview of the literature related to the basic biology of cfDNA in the field of dermatology as a biomarker for early diagnosis, monitoring disease activity, predicting progression, and treatment response.

MicroRNA-155 from sputum as noninvasive biomarker for diagnosis of active pulmonary tuberculosis.

OBJECTIVES: Tuberculosis (TB), caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is a widespread infectious disease around the world. Early diagnosis is always important in order to avoid spreading. At present, many studies have confirmed that microRNA (miRNA) could be a useful tool for diagnosis. This study aimed to evaluate whether miRNAs could be regarded as a noninvasive diagnosis biomarker from sputum for pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB). MATERIALS AND METHODS: The M. tuberculosis strain H37Rv was incubated and cultured with human macrophage line THP-1. The total RNA was extracted from the THP-1 cells for detection. Six increased expressions of miRNAs were selected by miRNA microarray chips and the miRNAs were confirmed by qRT-PCR in the M. tuberculosis infection cell model. At last, the efficiency of other methods was compared with using miRNA. RESULTS: Only miR-155 showed a better diagnostic value for PTB than the other five miRNAs to distinguish PTB from non-PTB, including pneumonia, lung cancer, and unexplained pulmonary nodules. Next, we detected and analyzed the results of 68 PTB patients and 122 non-PTB, the sensitivity and specificity of miR-155 detection was 94.1% and 87.7%, respectively. It was higher than sputum smear detection and anti-TB antibody detection. But slightly lower than ELISpot (97%, P=0.404). Interestingly, the ranking of sputum smear by Ziehl-Neelsen staining had positive correlation with the expression level of miR-155 in smear-positive sputum (R2=0.8443, P<0.05). CONCLUSION: Our research suggested that miR-155 may be an efficiency biomarker for active PTB diagnosis and bacteria-loads evaluation.

A systematic review on the correlation between selective dipeptidyl peptidase inhibitor vildagliptin and risk of arthralgia/osteoarthritis / 药学实践杂志

Objective To systematically evaluate the correlation between selective dipeptidyl peptidase (DPP)-4 inhibi-tor ,vildagliptin and risk of arthralgia/osteoarthritis .Methods The following databases of PubMed (1978 to February 2016) , the Cochrane Library (Issue 4 ,2015) ,EMbase (1974 to February 2016) ,CBM(1978 to February 2016) ,CNKI(1978 to Feb-ruary 2016) ,VIP(1989 to February 2016) were searched .The randomized controlled trials (RCTs) for vildagliptin related ar-thralgia/osteoarthritis were assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration system .The meta-analysis was performed with RevMan 5 .3 software .Results Ten RCTs were included .Meta-analysis showed that vildagliptin had higher risk of arthralgia/osteoar-thritis than other oral hypoglycemic agents or placebo (RR=1 .24 ,95% CI 1 .08 to 1 .44 ,P=0 .003) .Further analysis indica-ted that patients received different doses of vildagliptin had higher risk of arthralgia/osteoarthritis than the placebo group (RR=1 .35 ,95% CI 1 .02 to 1 .78 ,P=0 .04) .In particular ,the group who took vildagliptin 50mg once daily had significantly higher risk of arthralgia/osteoarthritis than the placebo group (RR=3 .04 ,95% CI 1 .44 to 6 .44 ,P=0 .004) .In comparison of other oral hypoglycemic agents ,the vildagliptin group had higher risk of arthralgia /osteoarthritis (RR=1 .19 ,95% CI 1 .01 to 1 .41 ,P=0 .04) .Conclusion Based on the Meta-analysis results ,vildagliptin increases the risk of arthralgia/osteoarthri-tis .Especially vildagliptin 50mg once daily had two times higher risk than the placebo group .However the long-term safety of vidagliptin still needs to be confirmed by RCTs with larger samples and long term follow-up .

Study on emergency endoscopic variceal ligation treated esophageal varices bleeding in cirrhosis patients / 中华消化内镜杂志

0. 05). There were no complications during EEVL. During a follow-up of 3 to 30 months in 76 patients with cirrhosis, the mortality was 14. 5% and 2 patients rebled in the near future. Conclusion It is concluded that EEVL is safe, effective, reliable and fast measure in treating esophageal varices bleeding.