Ci ji yi xue za zhi = Tzu-chi medical journal最新文献

Objective: Women pass through many stages throughout her lifetime. Among these phases, pregnancy is crucial phase. If women are not able to cope with this stress, it may lead to adverse outcomes of pregnancy. Early detection of possible depression in pregnant women may lead to decrease in incidence of depression and adverse outcomes of pregnancy.

Materials and methods: The present study was done in an urban primary health center of east Delhi where antenatal and postnatal services are provided. Two hundred pregnant women who attended antenatal clinic for their antenatal checkup were included in the study. Edinburgh postnatal depression scale was used to diagnose possible depression. The presence of a statistically significant difference between possibility of depression in terms of various socioeconomic, obstetric, gender issues, life events, previous psychiatric history and family relationships was ascertained using Chi-square/Fisher's exact test. Logistic regression was carried out to determine important confounding variables.

Results: The mean age of participants was 25.32 ± 3.86 years. Of total 200 women, 42 (21%) women were found to be suffering from possible depression. The possibility of depression was found to be significantly higher in literate participants (P = 0.001) and in women who were married after 18 years of age (P = 0.016). Participants who wanted the present pregnancy and whose spouses were alcoholic were found to be associated significantly (P = 0.00). On applying logistic regression, age and abortion history was found to be significant.

Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the prevalence of antenatal depression is high in developing countries, and universal screening of depression during antenatal and postnatal period is feasible along with other antenatal and postnatal services provided to them.

Objective: Human interleukin-10 (IL-10) is a dimeric and pleiotropic cytokine that plays a crucial role in cellular immunoregulatory responses. As IL-10 binds to its receptors, IL-10Ra and IL-10Rb, it will suppress or induce the downstream cellular immune responses to protect from diseases.

Materials and methods: In this study, a potential peptide derived from IL-10 based on molecular docking and structural analysis was designed and validated by a series of cell assays to block IL-10 binding to receptor IL-10Ra for the inhibition of cell growth.

Results: The simulation results indicate that the designed peptide IL10NM25 bound to receptor IL-10Ra is dominated by electrostatic interactions, whereas van der Waals (VDW) and hydrophobic interactions are minor. The cell experiments showed that IL10NM25 specifically binds to receptor IL-10Ra on the cell surface of two B-lineage cell lines, B lymphoma derived (BJAB), and lymphoblastoid cell line, whereas the mutant and scramble peptides are not able to suppress the binding of IL-10 to receptor IL-10Ra, consistent with the molecular simulation predictions.

Conclusion: This study demonstrates that structure-based peptide design can be effective in the development of peptide drug discovery.

Traditionally, osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease (CVD) are considered as separate chronic diseases. Increasing evidence now links osteoporosis with hypertension, abnormal lipid metabolism, atherosclerosis, vascular calcification (VC), and congestive heart failure. VC coexists with bone loss, and aortic calcification is a strong predictor of low bone mineral density (BMD) and fragility fractures. The same holds true for coronary artery calcification (CAC): the lower the BMD, the higher the CAC. Trabecular bone score (TBS) iNsight software can analyze the existing BMD database to obtain the bony microstructure score (TBS). Many TBS-related studies include fracture risk, normal aging, diabetes, potential genes, obesity, and asthma severity prediction. The inverse relationship of TBS to VC may provide insight into bone-vascular interactions in chronic kidney disease. A higher TBS has been associated with moderate, but not high, CAC. One explanation is that bone microstructural remodeling becomes more active during early coronary calcification. Increased risk of 10-year likelihood of hip fracture and major osteoporotic fracture as estimated by the fracture risk assessment tool FRAX^® is significantly and independently associated with more severe CAC scores. Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and FRAX^® can be used to predict fracture risk and CAC scores, identifying patients who may benefit from early intervention. This review will discuss the relationship and possible mechanism of BMD, TBS, and FRAX^® with CVD and VC or CAC.

Millions of individuals worldwide are affected by age-related lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTSs), including impaired detrusor contractility, detrusor overactivity, decreased bladder sensation, as well as increased bladder capacity often resulting in incomplete bladder emptying. Yet, the underlying factors that contribute to these symptoms are not known and there are few therapies to treat these disorders. Because of the complex pathophysiology, a number of animal models have been studied over the years to better understand mechanisms underlying patient symptoms. Such animal models can aid in the investigation of aspects of age-associated LUTSs that cannot be pursued in humans as well as to develop and test potential therapies. In addition, the search for urinary factors that may be a causative agent has resulted in the discovery of a number of potential targets that could serve as predictive biomarkers which can aid in early diagnosis and treatment of these chronic disorders. Recent evidence has supported a role for chronic changes in mitochondrial function and oxidative stress (along with production of reactive oxygen species) and abnormal urodynamic behavior in older patients. This review discusses new insights into how aging alters fundamental cellular processes that impair signaling in the bladder wall, resulting in abnormal voiding function.

Exosomes, 60-200-nm extracellular vesicles secreted from cells, have been used as an active pharmaceutical ingredient or drug carrier in disease treatment. Human- and plant-derived exosomes are registered in clinical trials, but more complete reports are available for human-derived exosomes. Because exosomes act as vesicles and carry cell secreting components, they have been used as drug or peptide vehicles to treat diseases. The dendritic cells (DCs) and mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) are two popular cell sources for exosome preparation. Exosomes from DCs can initiate inflammation in patients, particularly in patients with cancer, as they contain the tumor antigen to induce specific inflammation response. A well-established cell bank of MSCs is available, and these cells can be used as an alternative source for exosome preparation. The major application of MSC-derived exosomes is in inflammation treatment. Exosomes in clinical trials need to comply with good manufacturing practice (GMP). Three important issues are prevalent in GMP for exosomes, i.e., upstream of cell cultivation process, downstream of the purification process, and exosome quality control. This paper concisely reviews exosome development, including exosome generation and clinical trial application.

Taiwanese women frequently receive Shenghua decoction treatment for uterus involution. However, prolonged Shenghua decoction treatment can be detrimental. Herein, we report the case of a woman with disastrous postpartum hemorrhage after prolonged Shenghua decoction treatment. A 36-year-old woman underwent scheduled cesarean delivery due to cephalopelvic disproportion. On the 8^th postpartum day, she started taking Shenghua decoction twice per day. Massive vaginal bleeding was noted after 3 days of Shenghua decoction treatment. Emergency hysterectomy was performed due to severe hypotension and refractory postpartum hemorrhage. Despite being rare, disastrous delayed postpartum hemorrhage could occur after 3 days of Shenghua decoction treatment. Further research might be needed to clarify the relationship between prolonged Shenghua decoction treatment and delayed postpartum hemorrhage.

In today's world, when there is a rapid surge of biomedical publications, maintaining research integrity of articles is of prime importance. It is expected that the submitted work is genuine of submitting authors'. Ease in the availability of these digitally published biomedical papers and pressure to publish for academic and professional advancement had resulted in numerous novice scientists and students falling into unethical practice of plagiarizing others' work to get the job done quickly. Plagiarists are continuously in search of finding new and easy ways to plagiarize someone else's work, currently seen as different forms of plagiarism. Hence, this narrative review intends to help young and upcoming researchers to understand plagiarism, its type, the reason for plagiarists getting involved in that, and possible ways to detect and prevent it.

Objective: Minimally invasive thyroidectomy can be categorized into either video-assisted method or remote access thyroidectomy (RAT). Although RAT provided excellent cosmetic results, some debate about the advantages and disadvantages remains in different countries. Thus, this study aimed to compare the surgical results between endoscopic thyroid surgery and conventional thyroidectomy.

Materials and methods: The study retrospectively reviewed the conventional and endoscopic thyroidectomy performed at our institution from September 2011 to July 2012. Overall, 30 patients were recruited for this study. The patients were divided into two groups: Group O (open group, n = 15) and Group E (endoscopic group, n = 15). Postoperative outcomes (including wound pain, swallowing disturbance, and chest wall paresthesia) and complications were analyzed and assessed.

Results: The endoscopic group was associated with longer operation time and hospital stay. The visual analog scale (VAS) score of surgical wound pain was significantly higher in the open group in 1-week postoperation. However, the VAS score of swallowing disturbance was significantly higher in the endoscopic group in 1-week postoperation. More than half of the patients (53%) had chest wall paresthesia within 1-month postoperation in the endoscopic group. No surgical complications occurred in both groups.

Conclusion: Although endoscopic thyroidectomy provides excellent cosmetic results in thyroid surgery, higher immediate postoperative pain, and prolonged chest wall paresthesia compared with those in conventional surgery are a concern and warrant careful patient selection.

The high incidence of colorectal cancer and the occurrence of interval cancers after screening colonoscopy support the need to develop methods to increase adenoma detection rate (ADR). This review focuses on the importance of ADR and the impact of new techniques on ADR based on meta-analysis data. The low-cost interventions (such as water-aided colonoscopy, second observation, and dynamic position change) were effective in increasing ADR. So were enhanced imaging techniques and add-on devices. Increase with higher cost interventions such as newer scopes is uncertain. Water exchange (WE) has the highest ADR compared with water immersion, air insufflation, and carbon dioxide insufflation. Second observation with forward or retroflexed views improved the right colon ADR. Add-on devices result in only modest improvement in ADR, of particular help in low performing endoscopists. The second-generation narrow-band imaging (NBI) provided a two-fold brighter image than the previous system. The improvement in ADR with NBI required the "best" quality bowel preparation. New endoscopic techniques incur various additional costs, nil for WE, small for tip attachments but large for the newer scopes. In conclusion, one or more of the above methods to improve ADR may be applicable in Taiwan. A comparison of these approaches to determine which is the most cost-effective is warranted.