【Abstract】 Objective To evaluate the relationship between multiple tumor biomarkers and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis ( IPF) , and analyze the prognostic value of these biomarkers in IPF. Methods Clinical data of 43 confirmed IPF patients with no evidence of malignant disaeses, admitted in Peking Union Medical College Hospital between January 2000 and June 2010, were retrospectively analyzed. All IPF patients had detected serum alpha fetoprotein ( AFP) , cancer antigen 50 ( CA50) , cancer antigen 24-2( CA24-2) , carcinoembryonic antigen ( CEA) , carbohydrate antigen 19-9 ( CA19-9) , cancer antigen 125( CA125) , cancer antigen 15-3 ( CA15-3) , tissue polypeptide antigen ( TPA) , neuron specific enolase( NSE) , and cytokeratin-19-fragment ( Cyfra211) . Results The serum levels of CEA, CA19-9, CA125,CA15-3, and TPA were obviously higher than normal range, while the serum levels of AFP, CA50, CA24-2,NSE, and Cyfra211 were within normal range. Neither tumor biomarkers had correlation with 6-minute walk distance, FVC% pred, TLC% pred, DLCO/VA, PaO2 , PaO2 /FiO2 , P( A-a) O2 , BALF cell differentiation counting,or CD4 /CD8. The patients with increased CA19-9 level had shorter survival time than those with normal CA19-9 level ( P lt; 0. 05) . There was no significant difference in survival time between the patients with increased CEA/TPA levels and those with normal CEA/TPA levels( P gt;0. 05) , neither between the patients with glucocorticoid treatment and those with non-glucocorticoid treatment ( P gt; 0. 05) . Conclusions Multiple tumor biomarkers, especially CA19-9, increase in IPF patients. The degrees of those increases arenot associated with the severity of disease, but closely relate to prognosis, and may also indicate the progression. The increases of multiple tumor biomarkers may be a sign of poor prognosis of IPF with no evidence of malignant disaeses.
Objective To investigate the serum level of surfactant protein D ( SP-D) in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease ( COPD) and its clinical significance. Methods Serumlevels of SP-D in patients with acute exacerbations of COPD ( n = 29) , stable COPD ( n = 26) , and control subjects ( n = 19 ) were measured by ELISA. Multiple regression modeling was performed to determine the independent relationship between SP-D and lung function variables. Results The serum SP-D levels were significantly increased in the patients who experienced an acute exacerbation [ ( 70. 6 ±20. 7) ng/mL] compared with the patients with stable COPD and the control subjects [ ( 47. 9 ±13. 3) ng/mL and ( 31. 2 ±11. 4) ng/mL] ( both P lt; 0. 01) . The serum SP-D levels in the patients with stable COPD increased significantly than the control subjects ( P lt; 0. 01) . Smoking index and staging of COPD were positively related to SP-D level. Serum SP-D levels were also found to be inversely related to FEV1% pred in stable COPD. Conclusion Serum SP-D may be a potential diagnostic and staging biomarker for COPD.
Breathing gas carries important physiological information. Technology for detection of breathing gas has become a research focus because of the advantages of nondestructive sampling and convenient operation. Proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) plays an irreplaceable role because of the advantages of high sensitivity, fast response and good specificity. In this paper, the principle of PTR-MS is introduced first, followed by research progress of PTR-MS in the field of breathing gas detection. Factors influencing the test results are analyzed. Finally, future prospects of development for PTR-MS in the field of breathing gas detection are discussed.
The dysfunction of subthalamic nucleus is the main cause of Parkinson’s disease. Local field potentials in human subthalamic nucleus contain rich physiological information. The present study aimed to quantify the oscillatory and dynamic characteristics of local field potentials of subthalamic nucleus, and their modulation by the medication therapy for Parkinson’s disease. The subthalamic nucleus local field potentials were recorded from patients with Parkinson’s disease at the states of on and off medication. The oscillatory features were characterised with the power spectral analysis. Furthermore, the dynamic features were characterised with time-frequency analysis and the coefficient of variation measure of the time-variant power at each frequency. There was a dominant peak at low beta band with medication off. The medication significantly suppressed the low beta component and increased the theta component. The amplitude fluctuation of neural oscillations was measured by the coefficient of variation. The coefficient of variation in 4-7 Hz and 60-66 Hz was increased by medication. These effects proved that medication had significant modulation to subthalamic nucleus neural oscillatory synchronization and dynamic features. The subthalamic nucleus neural activities tend towards stable state under medication. The findings would provide quantitative biomarkers for studying the mechanisms of Parkinson’s disease and clinical treatments of medication or deep brain stimulation.
To solve the problem that the method based on tumor morphology or overall average parameters of tumor cannot conduct the early evaluation of tumor treatment response, we proposed a voxel-wise method. The voxel-wise method uses the method combining rigid and elastic registration algorithm to align the tumor area before and after treatment on the images which are acquired by the dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI). We calculated voxel-wise volume transport constant (Ktrans) using pharmacokinetic model, and designed a threshold d to get the volume fraction of voxels which Ktrans increased significantly (F+), Ktrans decreased significantly (F-) or had no significant change (F0). Linear regression analysis was performed to get the correlation between volume fractions and pathological tumor cell necrosis rate (TCNR). We then determined the ability of volume fractions to evaluate treatment response at early stage by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. We performed experiments on 10 patients with soft tissue sarcomas. The results indicated that F- had significant negative correlation with TCNR (R2=0.832 8, P=0.0002), F0 has significant positively correlation with TCNR (R2=0.788 4, P=0.0006). In addition, F-(AUC=0.905,P=0.053), F0 (AUC=0.857,P=0.087) had a good ability in early tumor treatment response evaluation. Therefore, F- and F0 can be used as effective imaging biomarkers for early evaluation of tumor treatment.
ObjectiveTo evaluate the monitoring value of brain injury biomarkers in the patients during extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO). MethodsWe searched PubMed, EMbase, the Cochrane Library, CNKI, and CBM from inception of each database to May 2015 to identify randomized controlled trials, or case-control trials, or cohort trials of brain injury biomarkers predict brain injury during ECMO. Data were extracted independently by two reviewers. Meta-analysis was conducted using STATA 12.0 software. ResultsFour retrospective trials were included. The results showed that compared with patients without brain injury, the patients with brain injury had a higher level of S100B protein (P < 0.05). The incidence of major neurological events was higher for high neuron-specific enolase level patients than mild-to-moderate neuron-specific enolase level patients (85% vs. 29%, P=0.01). The incidence of brain injury was higher for normal glial fibrillary acidic protein level than patients with glial fibrillary acidic protein > 0.436 ng/ml (OR=11.5, 95%CI 1.3-98.3). ConclusionsBrain injury biomarkers may be used as an indicator for earlier diagnosis of brain injury in patients during ECMO.
Objective To explore the diagnostic value of a disintegrin-like and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin type 1 motifs (ADAMTS)-9 in acute aortic dissection (AAD). Methods A total of 328 patients with acute onset of chest pain within 24 hours were enrolled in West China Hospital from January 2015 to June 2016 and according to the results of computed tomography angiography they were divided into an AAD group (n=172, 107 males, 65 females, mean age of 50.4±13.1 years) and a control group (n=156, 89 males, 67 females, mean age of 54.9±14.7 years). The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test was used to measure the level of ADAMTS-9. Results Patients in two groups had no significant difference in age, gender, smoke history, hypertension history, total cholesterol, triacylglyceride and hemoglobin (P>0.05). But systolic and diastolic blood pressures were significantly higher in the AAD group than those in the control group (P<0.05, respectively). The level of ADAMTS-9 was significantly higher in the AAD group than that in the control group (249.4±186.8 ng/mlvs. 78.2±48.6 ng/ml,t=11.107, P<0.001). Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis showed that ADAMTS-9 (156.7 ng/ml) was predictive in the diagnosis of AAD with sensitivity of 0.942 and specificity of 0.628. Conclusion ADAMTS-9 might be an effective and important biomarker in diagnosis of AAD.
Delirium is an acute cognitive disorder caused by a variety of factors which lead to cerebral cortical dysfunction. At present the studies on the pathophysiology of delirium is still very few. But studies on serum biomarker of delirium can help to elucidate the pathophysiological mechanism of delirium, and the studies are significant for delirium diagnosis, severity classification and prediction of long-term outcome. This review examines three major groups of delirium related serum biomarkers: ① risk markers: those that are present or elevated prior to disease onset, including serum chemistries, genetic markers and so on; ② disease markers: those markers elevate with delirium onset and fall when delirium recovery, including acetylcholine and serum anticholinergic activity, serotonin, serum amino acids, and melatonin, interleukin, C-reactive protein; and ③ end products: those that rise in proportion to the consequences of disease, including S-100ß and neuron specific enolase. The three markers mentioned above are helpful to further investigate the mechanism of delirium.
The nucleic acid adapters of tumor serum markers are oligonucleotide molecules with high specificity and high affinity with tumor serum markers obtained by in vitro screening with systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX). Researchers take the advantage of the nucleic acid adapter to explore new tumor serum markers that have more diagnostic value for tumor diagnosis. Recently, some achievements have been achieved in the research of liver cancer and stomach cancer. This paper has reviewed nucleic acid adapter and its research in the serum tumor marker screening, and discussed the value of the nucleic acid adapter of serum tumor markers in the diagnosis, as well as current problems existing in the research. This paper is very useful to help people better understand the screening of nucleic acid adapters of tumor serum markers, and to provide help in discovering new tumor serum markers.
Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is a multi-effect endocrine factor, mainly secreted in liver and adipose tissue, with the properties of lipid-lowering, anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and anti-atherosclerosis. Recent studies found that FGF21 can induce protective effect in cardiovascular disease, and plasma FGF21 levels in patients with disease cardiovascular are elevated. These studies have suggested the use of FGF21 as a biomarker for subclinical atherosclerosis and its potential role in the treatment of established atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. This article will review the recent advances in the anti-atherosclerosis effect of FGF21.