Endoscopic heater probe thermocoagulation and hemoclip are considered to be safe and very effective in the treatment of bleeding peptic ulcer. So far, there are only few reports concerning hemostasis ...with endoscopic hemoclip. The aims of this study were to compare the hemostatic effects of both therapeutic modalities in patients with peptic ulcer bleeding.
A total of 80 patients with active bleeding or nonbleeding visible vessels were randomized to receive endoscopic hemoclip (n = 40) or heater probe thermocoagulation (n = 40).
Initial hemostasis was achieved in 34 patients (85%) in the hemoclip group and 40 patients (100%) in the heater probe group (p = 0.01277). Rebleeding occurred in three patients (8.8%) in the hemoclip group and two patients (5%) in the heater probe group (p > 0.1). Among patients with difficult-to-approach bleeding, we obtained a better hemostatic rate in the heater probe group (nine of 11 patients vs three of 10, p = 0.02417). The volume of blood transfused after entry into the study, duration of hospital stay, number of patients requiring urgent surgery, and the mortality rate were not statistically significantly different between the two groups.
For patients with peptic ulcer bleeding, heater probe thermocoagulation offers an advantage in achieving hemostasis than hemoclip. In difficult-to-approach bleeders, heater probe is a more suitable therapeutic modality.
AIM:To investigate the prognostic value of vascular endothelial growth factor messenger RNA (VEGF mRNA) in the peripheral blood (PB) of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) undergoing ...curative resection.METHODS:Using a reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-based assay, VEGF mRNA in the PB was determined prospectively in 50 controls and in 50 consecutive patients undergoing curative resection for HCC.RESULTS:Among the isoforms of VEGF mRNA, VEGF165 and VEGF121 were expressed. By multivariate analysis, a higher level of VEGF165 in preoperative PB correlated with a risk of HCC recurrence with borderline significance (P=0.050)and significantly with recurrence-related mortality (P=0.048);while VEGF121 did not. Other significant predictors of HCC recurrence included cellular dedifferentiation (P=0.033),an absent or incomplete capsule (P=0.020), vascular permeation (P=0.018), and daughter nodules (P=0.006).The other significant parameter of recurrence related mortality was cellular dedifferentiation (P=0.053). The level of circulating VEGF mRNA, however, did not significantly correlate with tumor size, cellular differentiation, capsule,daughter nodules, vascular permeation, necrosis and hemorrhage of tumors.CONCLUSION: The preoperative level of circulating VEGF mRNA, especially isoform VEGF165, plays a significant role in the prediction of postoperative recurrence of HCC.
Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) is a herpesvirus usually infecting B-cells but may occasionally infect T- or natural killer (NK)-cells. EBV-associated T- or NK-cell lymphoproliferations represent a ...continuous spectrum of diseases ranging from asymptomatic infection, infectious mononucleosis (IM), to clonal and malignant lymphoproliferations including systemic EBV-positive T/NK-cell lymphoproliferative disease (EBV-T/NK-LPD) of childhood and hydroa-vacciniforme-like lymphoma of the skin. The clonal diseases are more prevalent in East Asia and exhibit overlapping clinical and pathological features with chronic active EBV infection. Here we report our experience on 10 cases of EBV-associated T-cell lymphoproliferation from Taiwan including five males and five females with a median age of 18 years old (range, 15-28). The most common clinical symptoms were fever, neck mass and hepatosplenomegaly. Eight of these patients showed elevated lactate dehydrogenase level and half of the patients had cytopenia. All patients had either elevated EBV antibody titers or increased serum EBV DNA levels. Five cases were clinically IM-like with polyclonal (3 cases) or clonal (2 cases) T-cell lymphoproliferation. Two patients each had chronic active EBV infection (CAEBV) and hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH). One patient had both CAEBV and HLH. One of the HLH patients with marrow infiltration by intra-sinusoidal large atypical lymphocytes experienced a fulminant course. In a median follow-up time of 21.5 months, seven patients were free of disease, one was alive with disease, and two died of disease in 31 and 3 months, respectively, despite chemotherapy. We confirmed a wide clinicopathological range of EVB-associated T-cell lymphoproliferation in Taiwan. Furthermore, monomorphic LPD and the single case with fulminant course as defined by Ohshima et al (Pathol Int 2018) as categories A3 and B, respectively, died of disease despite chemotherapy. Our report, the largest series in the recent decade from Taiwan, adds to the understanding of these rare diseases with variable clinical and histopathological presentations.
To evaluate how long patients with small bowel obstruction caused by postoperative adhesions can tolerate conservative treatment.
The records of patients with small bowel obstruction due to ...postoperative adhesions were retrospectively reviewed. Data collected included the number of admissions, type of management for each admission, duration of conservative treatment, number of repeat laparotomies, and operative findings.
One hundred fifty-five patients with this condition from January 1999 to December 2001, for a total of 293 admissions were enrolled in this study. Medical treatment alone was given in 220 admissions, and repeat laparotomy was performed in 73 admissions. The period of observation in patients managed medically ranged from 2 to 12 days (average: 6.9 days), while for those who underwent surgery, the range was 1 to 14 days (average 5.4 days). At surgery, adhesions were the only finding in 46 cases, while there were intestinal complications in 27, or 9.2 % of all 293 admissions. Fever and leukocytosis greater than 15 000/mm(3) were prediction of intestinal complications.
With closely monitoring, most patients with small bowel obstruction due to postoperative adhesions could tolerate supportive treatment and recover well averagely within 1 week, although some patients require more than 10 days of observation.
This article considers the robust passivity analysis for a class of discrete-time recurrent neural networks (DRNNs) with mixed time-delays and uncertain parameters. The mixed time-delays that consist ...of both the discrete time-varying and distributed time-delays in a given range are presented, and the uncertain parameters are norm-bounded. The activation functions are assumed to be globally Lipschitz continuous. Based on new bounding technique and appropriate type of Lyapunov functional, a sufficient condition is investigated to guarantee the existence of the desired robust passivity condition for the DRNNs, which can be derived in terms of a family of linear matrix inequality (LMI). Some free-weighting matrices are introduced to reduce the conservatism of the criterion by using the bounding technique. A numerical example is given to illustrate the effectiveness and applicability.
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BFBNIB, GIS, IJS, KISLJ, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
To date liver transplantation is the only effective treatment for end-stage liver diseases. Considering the potential of pluripotency and differentiation into tridermal lineages, induced pluripotent ...stem cells (iPSCs) may serve as an alternative of cell-based therapy. Herein, we investigated the effect of iPSC transplantation on thioacetamide- (TAA-) induced acute/fulminant hepatic failure (AHF) in mice. Firstly, we demonstrated that iPSCs had the capacity to differentiate into hepatocyte-like cells (iPSC-Heps) that expressed various hepatic markers, including albumin, α-fetoprotein, and hepatocyte nuclear factor-3β, and exhibited biological functions. Intravenous transplantation of iPSCs effectively reduced the hepatic necrotic area, improved liver functions and motor activity, and rescued TAA-treated mice from lethal AHF. 1,1′-dioctadecyl-3,3,3′,3′-tetramethylindocarbocyanine perchlorate cell labeling revealed that iPSCs potentially mobilized to the damaged liver area. Taken together, iPSCs can effectively rescue experimental AHF and represent a potentially favorable cell source of cell-based therapy.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
► An on chip ZnO thin film varistor for the ESD protection of LED is proposed. ► ZnO thin films with low-temperature PDA have good nonlinear varistor properties. ► The proposed devices will enhance ...the ESD protection from 750V to 2kV.
In this work, an on top sputtered varistor-like ZnO thin film is deposited and studied which is light emitting diodes (LEDs) fabrication process compatible. Apply this simplify structure, the extra sintered ZnO varistor which is essentially attached on the plastic circuit board (PCB) together with the conventional LED can be omitted. The well known Electric Static Discharge (ESD) protective junction submount and Conductor Insulator Semiconductor (CIS) submount for the flip chip LEDs application can be also negligible. The grown ZnO passivated LED chips were followed by low temperature post deposition annealing treatments (PDA) to enhance the correspondent electrode adhesive property. The resulted current–electric field (I–E) characteristics showed out a good nonlinear property to accomplish high ESD handling capability. In the demonstrated LEDs application, the proposed devices are shown to have the obvious advantage of enhancing the correspondent ESD reliability from 750V to 2kV and with the high yield rated of 92% as well.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
AIM:To study whether vascular endothelial growth factor messenger RNA (VEGF mRNA) in the hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tissues obtained after curative resection has a prognostic value.METHODS: Using ...a reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-based assay, VEGF mRNA was determined prospectively in liver tissues of 50 controls and in HCC tissues of 50 consecutive patients undergoing curative resection for HCC.RESULTS: Among the isoforms of VEGF mRNA, VEGF165 and VEGF121 were expressed. By multivariate analysis, a higher level of VEGF165 in HCC tissue correlated with a significant risk of HCC recurrence (P=0.038) and significantly with recurrencerelated mortality (P=0.045); while VEGF121 did not. Other significant predictors of HCC recurrence included cellular dedifferentiation (P=0.033), an absent or incomplete capsule(P=0.020), vascular permeation (P=0.018), and daughter nodules (P=0.006). The other significant variables of recurrence related mortality consisted of vascular permeation (P=0.045),and cellular dedifferentiation (P=0.053). The level of VEGF mRNA in HCC tissues, however, did not significantly correlate with tumor size, cellular differentiation, capsule, daughter nodules,vascular permeation, necrosis and hemorrhage of tumors.CONCLUSION: The expression of VEGF mRNA, especially isoform VEGF165,in HCC tissues, may play a significant and independant role in the prediction of postoperative recurrence of HCC.
We propose a new method based on statistical analysis technique to determine the minimum setup distance of a well chamber used in the calibration of 192Ir high dose rate (HDR). The chamber should be ...placed at least this distance away from any wall or from the floor in order to mitigate the effect of scatter. Three different chambers were included in this study, namely, Sun Nuclear Corporation, Nucletron, and Standard Imaging. The results from this study indicated that the minimum setup distance varies depending on the particular chamber and the room architecture in which the chamber was used. Our result differs from that of a previous study by Podgorsak et al. Med. Phys. 19, 1311-1314 (1992), in which 25 cm was suggested, and also differs from that of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)-TECDOC-1079 report, which suggested 30 cm. The new method proposed in this study may be considered as an alternative approach to determine the minimum setup distance of a well-type chamber used in the calibration of 192Ir HDR.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
AIM: TO investigate the prognostic role of isoform 165 vascular endothelial growth factor messenger RNA (VEGF165 mRNA) in noncancerous liver tissues from patients with primary hepatocellular ...carcinoma (HCC). METHODS: Using a reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)-based assay, VEGF mRNA was determined prospectively in noncancerous liver tissues from 60 consecutive patients with HCC undergoing curative resection. We categorized the patients with VEGF16s mRNA over 0.500 in noncancerous liver tissues as group A, and those below 0.500 as group B. RESULTS: Among the isoforms of VEGF mRNA by multivariate analysis, a higher level of VEGF165 mRNA in noncancerous liver tissue correlated significantly with a higher risk of HCC recurrence (P=0.039) and recurrence-related mortality (P= 0.048), but VEGF121 did not. The other significant predictors of recurrence consisted of vascular permeation (P=0.022), daughter nodules (P=0.033), cellular dedifferentiation (P=0.033), an absent or incomplete capsule (P=0.037). A significant variable of recurrence-related mortality was vascular permeation (P=0.012). As to the clinical manifestations of 16 patients who developed recurrence, the recurrent tumor number over 2, recurrent extent over two-liver segments, and the median survival after recurrence, all significantly correlated with group A patients (P=0.043, 0.043, and 0.048, respectively). However, the presence of extrahepatic metastasis was not (P>0.05). The difference in recurrence after treatment between the two groups had no statistical significance (P>0.05). CONCLUSION: The higher expression of isoform VEGF165 mRNA in noncancerous liver remnant of patients with HCC may be a significant biological indicator of the invasiveness of postoperative recurrence.
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