Int J Med Sci
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The middle meningeal artery (MMA) is a very important artery in neurosurgery. Many diseases, including dural arteriovenous fistula (DAVF), pseudoaneurysm, true aneurysm, traumatic arteriovenous fistula (AVF), moyamoya disease (MMD), recurrent chronic subdural hematoma (CSDH), migraine and meningioma, can involve the MMA. In these diseases, the lesions occur in either the MMA itself and treatment is necessary, or the MMA is used as the pathway to treat the lesions; therefore, the MMA is very important to the development and treatment of a variety of neurosurgical diseases. ⋯ For recurrent CDSHs, after burr hole irrigation and drainage have failed, MMA embolization may be attempted. The MMA can also contribute to the occurrence and treatment of migraines. Because the ophthalmic artery can ectopically originate from the MMA, caution must be taken to avoid causing damage to the MMA during operations.
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Review
An Association Map on the Effect of Flavonoids on the Signaling Pathways in Colorectal Cancer.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common type of cancer in the world, causing thousands of deaths annually. Although chemotherapy is known to be an effective treatment to combat colon cancer, it produces severe side effects. Natural products, on the other hand, appear to generate fewer side effects than do chemotherapeutic drugs. ⋯ In this review article, we summarize the in vitro and in vivo studies that have been performed since 2000 on the anti-CRC properties of flavonoids. We also describe the signaling pathways affected by flavonoids that have been found to be involved in CRC. Some flavonoids have the potential to be an effective alternative to chemotherapeutic drugs in the treatment of colon cancer; well-controlled clinical studies should, however, be conducted to support this proposal.
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To investigate the association of the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR) at admission with presence of fracture, comorbid conditions, and its prognostic value for short-term outcomes in orthogeriatric patients. ⋯ In orthogeriatric patients, high NLR on admission is an independent indicator of fracture presence, a significant risk factor and moderate predictor of postoperative myocardial injury, high inflammatory response/infection and in-hospital death.
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A previous genome-wide association study (GWAS) has found that some common variations in the BARD1 gene were associated with neuroblastoma susceptibility especially for high-risk subjects, and the associations have been validated in Caucasians and African-Americans. However, the associations between BARD1 gene polymorphisms and neuroblastoma susceptibility have not been studied among Asians, not to mention Chinese subjects. In the present study, we investigated the association of three BARD1 polymorphisms (rs7585356 G>A, rs6435862 T>G and rs3768716 A>G) with neuroblastoma susceptibility in 201 neuroblastoma patients and 531 controls using TaqMan methodology. ⋯ Similar results were observed for the variant genotypes of rs3768716 A>G polymorphism among these three subgroups. Our results suggest that the BARD1 rs6435862 T>G and rs3768716 A>G polymorphisms may contribute to increased susceptibility to neuroblastoma, especially for the subjects at age ≥12 months, with adrenal gland-originated or with late clinical stage neuroblastoma. These findings need further validation by prospective studies with larger sample size with subjects enrolled from multicenter, involving different ethnicities.
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It has been shown that forced expression of four mouse stem cell factors (OCT4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc) changed the phenotype of rat endothelial cells to vascular progenitor cells. The present study aimed to explore whether the expression of OCT4 alone might change the phenotype of human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) to endothelial progenitor cells and, if so, to examine the possible mechanism involved. A Matrigel-based in vitro angiogenesis assay was used to evaluate the angiogenesis of the cells; the gene expression profile was analyzed by an oligonucleotide probe-based gene array chip and validated by RT-QPCR. ⋯ We found that induced ectopic expression of mouse OCT4 in HUVECs significantly enhanced angiogenesis of the cells, broadly changed the gene expression profile and particularly increased the expression of CD133, CD34, and VEGFR2 (KDR) which are characteristic marker molecules for endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs). Furthermore by analyzing the cellular functions that were targeted by the mRNAs altered by OCT4 we found that stem cell maintenance and cell differentiation were among the top functional response targeted by up-regulated and down-regulated mRNAs upon forced expression of OCT4. These results support the argument that OCT4 remodels the phenotype of HUVECs from endothelial cells to EPCs by up-regulating the genes responsible for stem cell maintenance and down-regulating the genes for cell differentiation.