Acute associations between air pollution on premature rupture of membranes in Hefei, China.

Numerous studies had focused on the association between air pollution and health outcomes in recent years. However, little evidence is available on associations between air pollutants and premature rupture of membranes (PROM). Therefore, we performed time-series analysis to evaluate the association between PROM and air pollution. The daily average concentrations of PM2.5, SO2 and NO2 were 54.58 µg/m3, 13.06 µg/m3 and 46.09 µg/m3, respectively, and daily maximum 8-h average O3 concentration was 95.67 µg/m3. The strongest effects of SO2, NO2 and O3 were found in lag4, lag06 and lag09, and an increase of 10 µg/m3 in SO2, NO2 and O3 was corresponding to increase in incidence of PROM of 8.74% (95% CI 2.12-15.79%), 3.09% (95% CI 0.64-5.59%) and 1.68% (95% CI 0.28-3.09%), respectively. There were no significant effects of PM2.5 on PROM. Season-specific analyses found that the effects of PM2.5, SO2 and O3 on PROM were more obvious in cold season, but the statistically significant effect of NO2 was observed in warm season. We also found the modifying effects by maternal age on PROM, and we found that the effects of SO2 and NO2 on PROM were higher among younger mothers (< 35 years) than advanced age mothers (≥ 35 years); however, ≥ 35 years group were more vulnerable to O3 than < 35 years group. This study indicates that air pollution exposure is an important risk factor for PROM and we wish this study could provide evidence to local government to take rigid approaches to control emissions of air pollutants.

Modified Hand-Assisted Retroperitoneoscopic Living Donor Nephrectomy with a Mini-Open Muscle Splitting Gibson Incision.

BACKGROUND: We aimed to confirm the advantages of a modified hand-assisted retroperitoneoscopic living donor nephrectomy (HARPLDN) compared to the performance of standard retroperitoneoscopic living donor nephrectomy (RPLDN). METHODS: One hundred twenty-eight consecutive surgical cases were categorized into 2 groups, one receiving standard RPLDN (group 1) and one receiving modified HARPLDN (group 2). Perioperative factors of both groups were evaluated retrospectively, including donors' demographics, overall operating time, warm ischemia time (WIT), graft vessel length, blood loss, complications, pain visual analogue scale (VAS) scores, hospital stay, and matched recipients' perioperative outcomes. One-year follow-up data were also examined. RESULTS: The standard RPLDN group (n = 44) and modified HARPLDN group (n = 84) had comparable age, gender, and body mass index. The RPLDN group donors had longer operative time, shorter vein length and longer WIT than the modified HARPLDN (all p < 0.001). RPLDN had higher VAS scores (p < 0.001), longer carminative time (p = 0.002) and higher morphine requirement (p = 0.039) than the modified HARPLDN. No complications occurred in either group. All recipients and grafts had survived at 1-year follow-up. CONCLUSION: The modified HARPLDN technique is safe and effective for living donor nephrectomy and has shorter operating time, shorter WIT and better pain control. Further study is required to evaluate donors' long-term quality of life and recipients' long-term outcomes.

[Necessity of prophylactic contralateral nephroureterectomy in the renal transplantation patients with transitional cell carcinoma of unilateral upper urinary tract].

OBJECTIVE: To discuss the necessity of prophylactic contralateral nephroureterectomy in renal transplantation patients with upper urinary tract transitional cell carcinoma (TCC). METHODS: In our study 15 renal transplantation patients with upper urinary tract TCC were involved from Dec.2006 to May 2013. All the patients received prophylactic contralateral nephroureterectomy 3 months after their last nephroureterectomy. A retrospective analysis was performed. RESULTS: TCC of upper urinary tract was confirmed by postoperative pathology in all the 15 cases .Similarly, TCC of contralateral upper urinary tract was detected in 7 of these cases (46.7%), and 13 survived after 36 months' follow-up (86.7%). CONCLUSION: In the renal transplantation patient with unilateral upper urinary tract TCC, the possibility of contralateral upper urinary tract TCC is high, thus the necessity of prophylactic contratateral nephroureterectomy is certain.

The Preliminary Outcome of Applying a Patient Transportation Management System for Non-Emergency Intra-Hospital Transportation of Patients.

In Taiwan, the safety of intra-hospital patient transportation (IHT) is an important issue of patient safety. However, the effects on the quality of patient transportation and the results of patient safety in applying informatics and communication technology were less discussed. The purpose of this study is aimed to understand the current status of IHT events through the patient transportation management system as a reference for further improving the IHT quality.

[Application of ICP-AES to the chemical speciation of heavy metals in flyash].

Chemical speciation of seven heavy metals of flyashes in incinerator was quantitatively tested using ICP-AES. Results showed that ICP-AES procedure could carry out quick, exact and high precision experiments. RSD ratio for most detected metals was lower than 3% while few metals present a comparatively high RSD when whose content was near the detection limits. The recovery ratio was 85.7%-100.63% flyashes were found to have high content of Zn, Pb. Cd, Cu, Mn, Pb and Zn existed mostly as carbonates and were leachable, while Cr and Ni were combined to metal oxides substrates and present immobilization characteristics.

[Evaluation of sexual function in men with symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia].

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the degree of sexual dysfunction in an unselected population of men with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) accompanied by lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS), and to assess the correlation between sexual dysfunction and urinary symptoms and age. METHODS: A total of 88 men with symptomatic BPH were investigated using the International Prostate Symptom Score (IPSS), International Index of Erectile Function-5 (IIEF-5), Brief Sexual Function Inventory (BSFI), and the measurement of urinary flow rate, the total prostatic volume and serum testosterone. Regression analysis was used to determine the correlation among the variables. RESULTS: The mean age of the patients was (67.90 +/- 7.59) years, the mean IPSS score was (18.4 +/- 7. 79), and the mean IIEF-5 was (8.50 +/- 8.98). There were 76 cases of erectile dysfunction (86.36%). Among the BSFI scores, the mean sexual drive score was (1.92 +/- 2.21), the mean erectile function score was (4.18 +/- 4.96), the mean ejaculation score was (2.55 +/- 3.57), the mean problem assessment score was (10.44 +/- 3.57), and the mean overall satisfaction score was (1.90 +/- 1.37). Among the 88 cases, 65 (72.86%) had poor sexual drive, 70 (79.55%) erectile dysfunction, and 60 (68.18%) poor ejaculation. There was statistically significant correlation between age and sexual symptom scores for erection (gamma = -0.552, P = 0.000), IIEF-5 scores (gamma = - 0.567, P = 0.000), and IPSS (gamma = 0.213, P = 0.047) as well as between IPSS and sexual symptom scores for erection and overall satisfaction (gamma = -0.332, P = 0.002 and gamma = -0.302, P = 0.005). IIEF-5 scores were significantly correlated with sexual symptom scores for each of the three categories (sexual drive, erection and ejaculation) (P < 0.05). Serum testosterone did not correlate to age, IIEF-5 scores and sexual function (P > 0.05), nor did peak urinary flow rate and total prostatic volume to IPSS, IIEF-5 scores and sexual function (P > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Results of this study suggest that age and LUTS are risk factors of sexual function, and sexual dysfunction is closely related to the severity of LUTS.

Epstein-Barr virus in hepatocellular carcinogenesis.

AIM: In recent years, studies have suggested that Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is associated with HCC. The present study was to determine the prevalence of EBV in HCC patients, and whether EBV acted synergistically with hepatitis viruses in HCC carcinogenesis. METHODS: Liver tissue 115 HCC patients and 26 non-carcinoma patients were studied. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to detect EBV BamHI W DNA, EBV LMP1 DNA, HBV X DNA, and HBV S DNA. Reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) was performed to detect HCV RNA and HDV RNA. Immunohistochemistry was performed to detect LMP1, HBsAg, HBcAg and HCV. The positive ratios were compared between HCC group and control group by chi2 test. RESULTS: Totally, 78 HCC samples whose beta-globulin DNA was positively detected by amplified PCR were selected. PCR was performed in all cases for EBV DNA and HBV DNA. RT-PCR was performed in 18 cases for HCV RNA and HDV RNA. EBV BamHI W and EBV LMP1 were positive in 18 and 6 cases, respectively. HBV X gene and HBV S gene were positive in 42 and 27 cases respectively. HCV was positive in one of the 18 cases, and none was positive for HDV. The positive rates were 28.2% (22 of 78) for EBV DNA (BamHI W and/or LMP1) and 56.4% (44 of 78) for HBV DNA (X gene and/or S gene) respectively. In addition, 12 cases were positive for both EBV DNA and HBV DNA. Among the 26 cases in the control group, 2 cases were positive for EBV BamHI W, 4 positive for HBV X gene and 3 positive for HBV S gene. The positive rates were 8.0% (2 of 26) and 23.1% (6 of 26), respectively, for EBV DNA and HBV DNA. The result of DNA sequencing of BamHI W was 100% homologous with the corresponding sequence of B95-8. There was significant difference in EBV infection rate between HCC patients and controls (chi2 = 4.622, P<0.05). The difference in HBV infection rate was also significant (chi2 = 8.681, P<0.05). However, there was no obvious correlation between HBV and EBV in HCC patients (chi2 = 0.835, P>0.05). LMP1, HBV (HBsAg, HBcAg) and HCV were detected positively in 25, 45 and 6 of 78 cases of HCC tissues respectively. In the 26 control cases, the corresponding positive cases were 2, 4 and 0. The difference in EBV infection rate between HCC patients and control cases was statistically significant (chi2 = 6.02, P<0.05). The difference in HBV infection rate was also statistically significant (chi2 = 10.03, P<0.05). In the 25 cases with positive LMP1 expression, 6 were in the nuclei of tumor cells, 9 in the cytoplasm of tumor cells and 10 in mesenchymal lymphocyte cytoplasm. CONCLUSION: The existence of EBV infection in HCC tissues suggests that EBV may be involved in the hepatocellular carcinogenesis in China. HBV infection may be a major cause of HCC. There is no correlation between EBV and HBV in the development of HCC. The prevalence of HCV infection is low in our area, and HDV appears not to play a direct role in hepatocellular carcinogenesis.

Genealogical-based method for multiple ontology self-extension in MeSH.

During the last decade, the advent of Ontologies used for biomedical annotation has had a deep impact on life science. MeSH is a well-known Ontology for the purpose of indexing journal articles in PubMed, improving literature searching on multi-domain topics. Since the explosion of data growth in recent years, there are new terms, concepts that weed through the old and bring forth the new. Automatically extending sets of existing terms will enable bio-curators to systematically improve text-based ontologies level by level. However, most of the related techniques which apply symbolic patterns based on a literature corpus tend to focus on more general but not specific parts of the ontology. Therefore, in this work, we present a novel method for utilizing genealogical information from Ontology itself to find suitable siblings for ontology extension. Based on the breadth and depth dimensions, the sibling generation stage and pruning strategy are proposed in our approach. As a result, on the average, the precision of the genealogical-based method achieved 0.5, with the best 0.83 performance of category "Organisms." We also achieve average precision 0.69 of 229 new terms in MeSH 2013 version.

Factors potentially affecting the function of kidney grafts.

BACKGROUND: Donor and recipient risk factors on graft function have been well characterized. The contribution of demographic factors, such as age, gender, and other potential factors of donor and recipient at the time of transplantation on the function of a graft is much less well understood. In this study, we analyzed the effects of factors such as age, gender, etc., on the short-term and long-term graft function in kidney transplant recipients from living donor. METHODS: A total of 335 living donors and their recipients, who had kidney transplantation in our center from May 2004 to December 2009, were included. Serum creatinine level was used as the assessment criterion (serum creatinine level lower than 115 mmol/L is normal). Factors related to graft function such as age, gender, blood relation by consanguinity, human leukocyte antigen (HLA) mismatch, ABO type, etc., were analyzed separately. RESULTS: Donor age is the key factor affecting both the short-term and long-term function of a grafted kidney from a living donor. The group with donors younger than 48 years showed the best kidney function post transplantation. Match of gender and age is another important factor that influences the function of grafted kidney from a living donor. The older donor to younger recipient group had the worst outcome after kidney transplantation. After 36 months post transplantation, female donor to male recipient group had worse kidney function compared to other groups. We also found that calcinerin inhibitor used in the maintenance period may influence the function of a grafted kidney. No significant statistical differences were found in consanguinity, blood type, and mismatch of HLA. CONCLUSIONS: Donor age is an important factor affecting the function of a grafted kidney from a living donor. We also recommend taking nephron, immunology factor, infection, and demographic information all into consideration when assessing the outcome of kidney transplantation.

Trigonal-bipyramidal and square-pyramidal chromium-manganese chalcogenide clusters, [E2CrMn2(CO)n](2-) (E=S, Se, Te; n=9, 10): synthesis, electrochemistry, UV/Vis absorption, and computational studies.

The reactions of E powder (E=S, Se) with a mixture of Cr(CO)6 and Mn2(CO)10 in concentrated solutions of KOH/MeOH produced two new mixed Cr-Mn-carbonyl clusters, [E2CrMn2(CO)9](2-) (E=S, 1; Se, 2). Clusters 1 and 2 were isostructural with one another and each displayed a trigonal-bipyramidal structure, with the CrMn2 triangle axially capped by two µ3-E atoms. The analogous telluride cluster, [Te2CrMn2(CO)9](2-) (3), was obtained from the ring-closure of Te2Mn2 ring complex [Te2Mn2Cr2(CO)18](2-) (4). Upon bubbling with CO, clusters 2 and 3 were readily converted into square-pyramidal clusters, [E2CrMn2(CO)10](2-) (E=Se, 5; Te, 6), accompanied with the cleavage of one Cr-Mn bond. According to SQUID analysis, cluster 6 was paramagnetic, with S=1 at room temperature; however, the Se analogue (5) was spectroscopically proposed to be diamagnetic, as verified by TD-DFT calculations. Cluster 6 could be further carbonylated, with cleavage of the Mn-Mn bond to produce a new arachno-cluster, [Te2CrMn2(CO)11](2-) (7). The formation and structural isomers, as well as electrochemistry and UV/Vis absorption, of these clusters were also elucidated by DFT calculations.

[cDNA microarray-based screening of differentially expressed genes in macrophages in the spleen of patients with portal hypertension and hypersplenism].

OBJECTIVE: To identify the differentially expressed genes associated with hypersplenism in patients with portal hypertension. METHODS: The total RNA were extracted from the macrophages isolated from normal spleen and the spleen of patients with portal hypertension and reversely transcribed to cDNA with the incorporation of fluorescent (cy3 and cy5)-labeled dCTP to prepare the hybridization probes. After hybridization of Biostar-H140s chip containing 14,112 spots of cDNAs with the prepared probes, the gene chip was scanned for fluorescence intensity to screen the differently expressed genes. Three gene chips were used for hybridization and only the genes with differential expression in all the three chips were considered to associate with hypersplenism in patients with portal hypertension. RESULTS: Totaling 896, 1330 and 898 genes were identified to be differentially expressed by the three chips, respectively, and 121 genes (0.86%) showed differential expression in all the three chips, including 21 up-regulated known genes and 73 down-regulated known genes. The differently expressed genes were functionally related with ion channels and transport proteins, cyclins, cytoskeleton, cell receptors, cell signal transduction, metabolism, immunity, and so forth. These genes might be involved in hypersplenism in the condition of portal hypertension. CONCLUSION: cDNA microarray-based screening of differentially expressed genes in the macrophages in the spleen may provide new insights into the pathogenesis of hypersplenism in patients with portal hypertension.

[Microscopic autofluorescence study of cardiac cancer and normal gastric tissues].

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the microscopic autofluorescent characteristics of cardiac cancer and autofluorescence distribution in different layers of gastric tissues. METHODS: A double-channel laser scanning confocal microscopy with Argon ion laser (excitation wavelength 488 nm) and Helium-Neon laser (excitation wavelength 543 nm) were used to detect the autofluorescence emitted from 16 surgical specimens of cardiac cancer and corresponding normal gastric tissue. The autofluorescence image was analyzed between the cardiac cancer tissue and normal gastric tissue. RESULTS: Autofluorescence was detected successfully in cardiac carcinoma and corresponding normal gastric corpus tissues of all 16 cases. In different layers of gastric tissue, fluorescence presented the strongest signal in submucosa,the second strong in luminal propria with fluorescence mostly distributed in the glands, fluorescence signal from gastric cancer was significantly decreased compared with those in the different layers of normal tissues (P< 0.01). CONCLUSION: There are significant differences in the shape, color, distribution and fluorescence intensity of microscopic autofluorescence between cardiac cancer tissues and normal gastric corpus tissues.