To investigate whether modification of liver complement factor H (CFH) production, by alteration of liver CFH Y402H genotype through liver transplantation (LT), influences the development of ...age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Multicenter, cross-sectional study.
We recruited 223 Western European patients ≥ 55 years old who had undergone LT ≥ 5 years previously.
We determined AMD status using a standard grading system. Recipient CFH Y402H genotype was obtained from DNA extracted from recipient blood samples. Donor CFH Y402H genotype was inferred from recipient plasma CFH Y402H protein allotype, measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays. This approach was verified by genotyping donor tissue from a subgroup of patients. Systemic complement activity was ascertained by measuring levels of plasma complement proteins using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, including substrates (C3, C4), activation products (C3a, C4a, and terminal complement complex), and regulators (total CFH, C1 inhibitor).
We evaluated AMD status and recipient and donor CFH Y402H genotype.
In LT patients, AMD was associated with recipient CFH Y402H genotype (P = 0.036; odds ratio OR, 1.6; 95% confidence interval CI, 1.0-2.4) but not with donor CFH Y402H genotype (P = 0.626), after controlling for age, sex, smoking status, and body mass index. Recipient plasma CFH Y402H protein allotype predicted donor CFH Y402H genotype with 100% accuracy (n = 49). Plasma complement protein or activation product levels were similar in LT patients with and without AMD. Compared with previously reported prevalence figures (Rotterdam Study), LT patients demonstrated a high prevalence of both AMD (64.6% vs 37.1%; OR, 3.09; P<0.001) and the CFH Y402H sequence variation (41.9% vs 36.2%; OR, 1.27; P = 0.014).
Presence of AMD is not associated with modification of hepatic CFH production. In addition, AMD is not associated with systemic complement activity in LT patients. These findings suggest that local intraocular complement activity is of greater importance in AMD pathogenesis. The high AMD prevalence observed in LT patients may be associated with the increased frequency of the CFH Y402H sequence variation.
The authors have no proprietary or commercial interest in any materials discussed in this article.
The study chooses the standard stripe and dual polarization SAR images of GF-3 as the basic data. Residential areas extraction processes and methods based upon GF-3 images texture segmentation are ...compared and analyzed. GF-3 images processes include radiometric calibration, complex data conversion, multi-look processing, images filtering, and then conducting suitability analysis for different images filtering methods, the filtering result show that the filtering method of Kuan is efficient for extracting residential areas, then, we calculated and analyzed the texture feature vectors using the GLCM (the Gary Level Co-occurrence Matrix), texture feature vectors include the moving window size, step size and angle, the result show that：window size is 11*11, step is 1, and angle is 0°, which is effective and optimal for the residential areas extracting. And with the FNEA (Fractal Net Evolution Approach), we segmented the GLCM texture images, and extracted the residential areas by threshold setting. The result of residential areas extraction verified and assessed by confusion matrix. Overall accuracy is 0.897, kappa is 0.881, and then we extracted the residential areas by SVM classification based on GF-3 images, the overall accuracy is less 0.09 than the accuracy of extraction method based on GF-3 Texture Image Segmentation. We reached the conclusion that，residential areas extraction based on GF-3 SAR texture image multi-scale segmentation is simple and highly accurate. although, it is difficult to obtain multi-spectrum remote sensing image in southern China, in cloudy and rainy weather throughout the year, this paper has certain reference significance.
To date, the decision to treat multilevel cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) with anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) or anterior cervical corpectomy and fusion (ACCF) remains ...controversial. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis to quantitatively determine the efficacy of ACDF and ACCF in the treatment of multilevel CSM.
We searched several databases for related research articles published in English or Chinese. We extracted and assessed the data independently. We determined the pooled data, data heterogeneity, and overall effect, respectively.
We identified 15 eligible studies with 1,368 patients. We found that blood loss and numbers of complications during surgery in ACDF were significantly less that in ACCF; however, other clinical outcomes, such as operation time, bone fusion failure, post Japanese Orthopedic Association scores, recovery rates, and visual analog scale scores between ACDF and ACCF with multilevel CSM were not significantly different.
Our results strongly suggest that surgical treatments of multilevel CSM are similar in terms of most clinical outcomes using ACDF or ACCF.
Herbs are often administered in combination with therapeutic drugs, raising the potential of herb-drug interactions. An extensive review of the literature identified reported herb-drug interactions ...with clinical significance, many of which are from case reports and limited clinical observations. Cases have been published reporting enhanced anticoagulation and bleeding when patients on long-term warfarin therapy also took Salvia miltiorrhiza (danshen). Allium sativum (garlic) decreased the area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC) and maximum plasma concentration of saquinavir, but not ritonavir and paracetamol (acetaminophen), in volunteers. A. sativum increased the clotting time and international normalised ratio of warfarin and caused hypoglycaemia when taken with chlorpropamide. Ginkgo biloba (ginkgo) caused bleeding when combined with warfarin or aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid), raised blood pressure when combined with a thiazide diuretic and even caused coma when combined with trazodone in patients. Panax ginseng (ginseng) reduced the blood concentrations of alcohol (ethanol) and warfarin, and induced mania when used concomitantly with phenelzine, but ginseng increased the efficacy of influenza vaccination. Scutellaria baicalensis (huangqin) ameliorated irinotecan-induced gastrointestinal toxicity in cancer patients.Piper methysticum (kava) increased the 'off' periods in patients with parkinsonism taking levodopa and induced a semicomatose state when given concomitantly with alprazolam. Kava enhanced the hypnotic effect of alcohol in mice, but this was not observed in humans. Silybum marianum (milk thistle) decreased the trough concentrations of indinavir in humans. Piperine from black (Piper nigrum Linn) and long (P. longum Linn) peppers increased the AUC of phenytoin, propranolol and theophylline in healthy volunteers and plasma concentrations of rifamipicin (rifampin) in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis. Eleutheroccus senticosus (Siberian ginseng) increased the serum concentration of digoxin, but did not alter the pharmacokinetics of dextromethorphan and alprazolam in humans. Hypericum perforatum (hypericum; St John's wort) decreased the blood concentrations of ciclosporin (cyclosporin), midazolam, tacrolimus, amitriptyline, digoxin, indinavir, warfarin, phenprocoumon and theophylline, but did not alter the pharmacokinetics of carbamazepine, pravastatin, mycophenolate mofetil and dextromethorphan. Cases have been reported where decreased ciclosporin concentrations led to organ rejection. Hypericum also caused breakthrough bleeding and unplanned pregnancies when used concomitantly with oral contraceptives. It also caused serotonin syndrome when used in combination with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (e.g. sertraline and paroxetine). In conclusion, interactions between herbal medicines and prescribed drugs can occur and may lead to serious clinical consequences. There are other theoretical interactions indicated by preclinical data. Both pharmacokinetic and/or pharmacodynamic mechanisms have been considered to play a role in these interactions, although the underlying mechanisms for the altered drug effects and/or concentrations by concomitant herbal medicines are yet to be determined. The clinical importance of herb-drug interactions depends on many factors associated with the particular herb, drug and patient. Herbs should be appropriately labeled to alert consumers to potential interactions when concomitantly used with drugs, and to recommend a consultation with their general practitioners and other medical carers.
Future Physics Programme of BESIII Ahmed, S.; Amoroso, A.; Bennett, J. V. ...
Chinese Physics C, High Energy Physics and Nuclear Physics/Chinese physics C,
04/2020, Volume:
44, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Abstract
There has recently been a dramatic renewal of interest in hadron spectroscopy and charm physics. This renaissance has been driven in part by the discovery of a plethora of charmonium-like
...XYZ
states at BESIII and
B
factories, and the observation of an intriguing proton-antiproton threshold enhancement and the possibly related
X
(1835) meson state at BESIII, as well as the threshold measurements of charm mesons and charm baryons.
We present a detailed survey of the important topics in tau-charm physics and hadron physics that can be further explored at BESIII during the remaining operation period of BEPCII. This survey will help in the optimization of the data-taking plan over the coming years, and provides physics motivation for the possible upgrade of BEPCII to higher luminosity.
Particles directly produced at electron–positron colliders, such as the J/ψ meson, decay with relatively high probability into a baryon–antibaryon pair1. For spin-1/2 baryons, the pair can have the ...same or opposite helicites. A non-vanishing phase ΔΦ between the transition amplitudes to these helicity states results in a transverse polarization of the baryons2–4. From the joint angular distribution of the decay products of the baryons, this phase as well as the parameters characterizing the baryon and the antibaryon decays can be determined. Here, we report the measurement of ΔΦ = 42.4 ± 0.6 ± 0.5° using Λ → pπ− and Λ¯→p¯π+,n¯π0 decays at BESIII. We find a value for the Λ → pπ− decay parameter of α− = 0.750 ± 0.009 ± 0.004, 17 ± 3% higher than the current world average, which has been used as input for all Λ polarization measurements since 19785,6. For Λ¯→p¯π+ we find α+ = −0.758 ± 0.010 ± 0.007, giving ACP = (α− + α+)/(α− − α+) = −0.006 ± 0.012 ± 0.007, a precise direct test of charge–parity symmetry (CP) violation in Λ decays.The decay asymmetry and helicity phase of polarized baryon–antibaryon pairs are measured at the BESIII experiment, testing charge–parity symmetry and revealing a discrepancy of the Λ → pπ− decay asymmetry with respect to the current world average.
This Letter reports the first extraction of individual antineutrino spectra from ^{235}U and ^{239}Pu fission and an improved measurement of the prompt energy spectrum of reactor antineutrinos at ...Daya Bay. The analysis uses 3.5×10^{6} inverse beta-decay candidates in four near antineutrino detectors in 1958 days. The individual antineutrino spectra of the two dominant isotopes, ^{235}U and ^{239}Pu, are extracted using the evolution of the prompt spectrum as a function of the isotope fission fractions. In the energy window of 4-6 MeV, a 7% (9%) excess of events is observed for the ^{235}U (^{239}Pu) spectrum compared with the normalized Huber-Mueller model prediction. The significance of discrepancy is 4.0σ for ^{235}U spectral shape compared with the Huber-Mueller model prediction. The shape of the measured inverse beta-decay prompt energy spectrum disagrees with the prediction of the Huber-Mueller model at 5.3σ. In the energy range of 4-6 MeV, a maximal local discrepancy of 6.3σ is observed.
Purpose
Due to the high number of multiple embryo transfers into the uterus performed in assisted reproductive technology treatment (ART), the incidences of twin pregnancy and of vanishing twin ...syndrome (VTS) are correspondingly high. A number of studies have described the obstetric outcomes of the remaining fetus produced after the other twin had vanished compared with a singleton at the start following ART, but the results are mixed and contradictory. We performed a systematic review of the existing studies to explore the actual obstetric outcome of VTS to allow physicians to adequately advise their patients.
Methods
A detailed search strategy was used to conduct electronic literature searches (spanning 1978–2015) on Medline, EMBASE, the Cochrane library and Web of Science. As randomized trials are not feasible in this aspect, we included observational (cohort and case–control) studies which compared the obstetric outcomes of the VTS group and singleton at the start control group after ART. The outcomes were evaluated by two aspects, the duration of pregnancy (gestational age, preterm delivery rate, extremely preterm delivery rate) and the birth weight of the fetus mean birth weight, low birth weight rate, very low birth weight rate and small for gestational age (SGA).
Results
1271 publications were identified by the initial search. 499 studies were excluded following duplication checks. 760 were excluded after reviewing the abstracts. Of the remaining 12 articles, 7 were excluded after a detailed full-text review. Two case–control studies and three cohort studies were included in the final analysis. The pooled mean gestational age difference (95% confidence intervals) was −0.27 (−0.60, 0.06) and failed to demonstrate a difference between the two groups. A similar result was found in the preterm delivery rate, with a pooled risk ratio of 1.33 (0.91, 1.94). The prevalence of extremely preterm delivery rate was higher in the VTS group, with a pooled risk ratio of 3.5 (1.72, 7.12). The mean birth weight was lower in the VTS group, with a mean difference of −0.3 (−0.59, −0.01). No difference was found in low birth weight rate, very low birth weight rate and rate of small for gestational age, with risk ratio of 1.85 (0.88, 3.86), 4.86 (0.91, 25.91) and 1.29 (0.52, 3.18), correspondingly.
Conclusions
There is a slight adverse effect of VTS on the remaining fetus for birth weight and extremely preterm delivery rate, but sensitivity analysis shows these effects to be statistically unstable. It is too early to draw conclusions for adverse obstetric outcomes for VTS patients. It could reduce much of the anxiety of couples who experience early embryonic loss of one of their twins. More research with rigorously designed and standardized methodologies are required that include larger, better clinically defined populations. Studies that show no correlation should be published in the future to avoid any possible impact of publication bias. After that, patients can receive the most accurate information.
PDF
