Fractal, a mathematics concept, is used to describe an image of self-similarity and scale invariance. Some organisms have been discovered with the fractal characteristics, such as cerebral cortex surface, retinal vessel structure, cardiovascular network, and trabecular bone, etc. It has been preliminarily confirmed that the three-dimensional structure of cells cultured in vitro could be significantly enhanced by bionic fractal surface. Moreover, fractal theory in clinical research will help early diagnosis and treatment of diseases, reducing the patient's pain and suffering. The development process of diseases in the human body can be expressed by the fractal theories parameter. It is of considerable significance to retrospectively review the preparation and application of fractal surface and its diagnostic value in medicine. This paper gives an application of fractal and its theories in the medical science, based on the research achievements in our laboratory.
ObjectiveTo systematically review the effect of thalidomide as first-line therapy on postrelapse survival rate of patients with multiple myeloma (MM). MethodsDatabases including PubMed, EMbase, The Cochrane Library (Issue 1, 2007) and Web of Science were searched to collect randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about thalidomide as first-line therapy for MM from 2006 to 2011. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias of included studies. Then, meta-analysis was performed by using RevMan 5.1 software. ResultsA total of 16 RCTs involving 6097 patients were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, compared with the chemotherapy alone group, early application of thalidomide could significantly decrease the postrelapse survival rate (HR=1.23, 95%CI 1.05 to 1.45, P=0.002). Subgroup analysis showed that, compared with the chemotherapy alone group, thalidomide maintenance therapy after autologous stem cell transplantation (ASCT) couldn’t decrease the postrelapse survival rate (HR=0.90, 95%CI 0.57 to 1.41, P=0.64), but thalidomide induction therapy before ASCT (HR=1.21, 95%CI 1.01 to 1.45, P=0.04) and thalidomide induction therapy before ASCT combined maintenance therapy after ASCT (HR=1.41, 95%CI 1.13 to1.76, P=0.002) could significantly decrease the postrelapse survival rate. ConclusionCurrent evidence shows that, thalidomide maintenance therapy after ASCT for MM is a better therapy regimen. It couldn’t decrease the survival rate after recurrence, but could increase the disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) of patients with MM. Due to the limited quality of included studies, the above conclusion still needs to be verified by more high quality studies.
ObjectiveTo investigate the medium-term effectiveness of both side stereo suture for meniscus bucket handle tear under arthroscopy. MethodsBetween January 2009 and December 2012, 38 patients with combined injury of meniscus bucket handle tear underwent arthroscope surgery by the method of both side stereo suture. There were 26 males and 12 females with an average age of 32 years (range, 19-42 years). The injury causes included sports injury in 21 cases, traffic accident injury in 11 cases, and other trauma in 6 cases. The left knee was involved in 15 cases and the right knee in 23 cases. The interval between injury and operation was 2 days to 6 months (mean, 2.5 months). MRI examination showed meniscus injury at grade Ⅲ, including 22 cases of internal injury and 16 cases of lateral injury. The Barrett standard, Lysholm score of knee joint, and joint mobility were used to assess the function recovery of the knee joint. ResultsAll incisions healed primarily with no complication. All cases were followed up 24.5 months on average (range, 18-36 months). Based on the Barrett standard, meniscus bucket handle tear was successfully repaired in all cases. The Lysholm scores and range of motion of the knee at 6 months, 12 months, and last follow-up were significantly better than preoperative ones (P<0.05). ConclusionThe both side stereo suture of meniscus bucket handle tear under arthroscopy has an excellent medium-term effectiveness, with the advantages of firm suture and high healing rate.
The study of neuronal activity with low frequency has shown an increasing interest for its greater stability and reliability recent years. One challenge in analyzing this kind of activity is to find similarities and differences between signals efficiently and effectively. The traditional analysis methods, such as short-time Fourier transform, are easily obscured by background noises and often involve a large number of parameters. Therefore, this paper introduces a novel time-frequency analysis method based on wavelet transformation and half-ellipsoid modeling to extract instantaneous frequency and instantaneous phase information. This method overcomes some shortcomings of conventional time-frequency analysis. In this method, wavelet transformation is used to provide high-level representations of raw signals, and parsimonious half-ellipsoid models are used to extract changes in time domain and frequency domain of neural recordings. The method was validated to local field potentials (LFPs) of olfactory bulb of anesthetized rats during three different odor stimuli. The results suggested that this method could detect odor-relevant features from olfactory signals with large variability. The Odors then were classified with support vector machine (SVM) algorithm and the classification accuracy reached 79.4%.
ObjectiveTo systematically review anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) drugs on visual acuity in patients with central vetinal vein occlnsion-macular edema (CRVO-ME). MethodsDatabases including PubMed, The Cochrane Library (Issue 11, 2012), EMbase, CBM, CNKI, VIP and WanFang Data were electronically searched for the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) about anti-VEGF drugs on visual acuity in patients with CRVO-ME from the date of establishment of the databases to December 2012. Two reviewers independently screened literature according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and evaluated the included studies. Then, meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.1 software. The quality of evidence was analyzed using GRADEpro 3.6 software. ResultsA total 9 trials involving 1 072 patients (1 072 eyes) were included. The results of meta-analysis showed that, anti-VEGF injection, compared with sham injection, increased BCVA score measured by ETDRS (MD=16.27, 95%CI 9.98 to 22.55, P < 0.000 01); decreased CFT score measured by OCT (MD=245.25, 95%CI 136.02 to 354.48, P < 0.000 1); gained more than 15 letters in BCVA (OR=4.43, 95% CI 2.23 to 8.83, P < 0.000 1); and the long term anti-VEGF effect index, gained no less than 15 letters in BCVA (OR=2.25, 95% CI 1.56 to 3.23, P < 0.000 1). The score of short term BCVA changes was of intermediate quality, while another three outcomes were of low quality in the GRADE system. ConclusionCurrent evidence shows that, anti-VEGF drugs could improve the visual acuity of patients with CRVO-ME. The clinicians could recommend this kind of drugs to the patients. Due to the limitations of the included studies, more large-sample multicentre high-quality RCTs are required to verify its effectiveness.
ObjectiveTo observe intervention effect of Shenlingcao oral liquid on asymptomatic chronic hepatitis B virus carriers (AsC). MethodsA self control before-after trial was conducted in the First Affiliated Hospital of Jiangxi University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Ninth People's Hospital of Nanchang City from November 2011 to May 2012. A total of 64 AsCs were treated by Shenlingcao oral liquid (1 bottle/d, 200 mL, once daily for 6 months). Serum HBV viral load, six specific serum markers of HBV and 11 liver function index were tested and recorded before and at the 1th, 3th, 6th months of the treatment. Analysis of variance of repeated data was conducted. ResultsAfter one month of the treatment, 35/57 (61.40%) AsCs' serum HBV-DNA loads decreased, 1 log decrease was observed in 15 cases, 2 log decrease was observed in 4 cases, and decrease under the detection limit was observed in 12 cases. 41/57 (71.93%) AsCs' serum HBV-DNA loads decreased after 3 months of treatment, 1 log decrease was observed in 21 cases, 2 log decrease was observed in 5 cases, and decrease under the detection limit was observed in 15 cases. 31/49 (63.26%) AsCs' serum HBV-DNA loads decreased after 6 months of the treatment, 1 log decrease was observed in 19 cases, decrease more than 2 log was observed in 7 cases, and decrease under the detection limit was observed in 12 cases. The serum HBV viral loads at different time points of the treatment were significantly different (P<0.001). As medication time went, AsCs' serum HBV viral loads presented a decrease trend after taking Shenlingcao oral liquid, especially obvious at the 3th month. ConclusionShenlingcao oral liquid could help promote AsCs' ability of clearing virus and controlling serum HBVDNA loads.
ObjectiveTo assess the diagnostic value of procalcitonin (PCT) and/or (1,3)-β-D-glucan test (serum BG assay) for pulmonary infection. MethodsWe collected 1 027 cases randomly from January 24th, 2013 to January 25th, 2014. First, we accumulated isolates from these cases in sputum culture. Second, we compared PCT and sputum culture, serum BG assay and sputum culture, CT and serum BG assay. Then we accumulated these PCT and studied its distribution when PCT>0.5 ng/mL and when their sputum culture was positive. We also accumulated these serum BG assay results and studied its distribution when their sputum culture was positive for aspergillus or suggested aspergillus infection by CT. Finally, we estimated the significance of the combined use of PCT and serum BG assay for diagnosis of pulmonary infection. ResultsIn these cases, pathogens were mainly multiple drug-resistant organisms and tuberculosis, or fungi. We found that PCT value presented a skew distribution in disease with a median of 2.06 ng/mL. Single PCT or combination of PCT and sputum culture had similar distribution. With sputum culture as the reference, PCT sensitivity was 41.2% and specificity was 66.4%. In the cases of sputum culture aspergillus and CT suggestion of aspergillus infection, serum BG assay value distribution was similar, and the median and average were both lower than cut-off. With sputum culture as the reference, serum BG assay sensitivity was 13.2% and specificity was 84.1%. In the 12 cases with positive sputum culture and serum BG assay, serum BG assay median was 112.91 pg/mL. With CT as the reference, serum BG assay sensitivity was 21.4% and specificity was 75.0%. In the 17 cases with the same sputum and blood culture result with the PCT median of 7.51 pg/mL, there were three cases whose PCT value was under the cutoff and three cases whose serum BG assay value was above the cutoff. In evaluation of the combination of PCT and serum BG assay, the analysis had yielded that we could neither diagnose pulmonary infection with both being positive, nor exclude the disease with both being negative. ConclusionWith regard to PCT and serum BG assay, we should be prudent and wise and use it after reasonable evaluation and entire analysis.
Immuno-fluorescence technique can qualitatively determine certain nuclear translocation, of which NF-κB/p65 implicates the activation of NF-κB signal pathways. Immuno-fluorescence analysis software with independent property rights is able to quantitatively analyze dynamic location of NF-κB/p65 by computing relative fluorescence units in nuclei and cytoplasm. We verified the quantitative analysis by Western Blot. When we applied the software to analysis of nuclear translocation in lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced (0.5 h, 1 h, 2 h, 4 h) primary human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs), we found that nuclear translocation peak showed up at 2h as with calculated Western blot verification results, indicating that the inventive immuno-fluorescence analysis software can be applied to the quantitative analysis of immuno-fluorescence.