Clinical experience of pain treatment for postherpetic neuralgia in elderly patients.

Background: Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) is a neuropathic pain syndrome that occurs following acute herpes zoster infection. The main clinical problem is intractable pain which interferes with activity of daily life and reduces the quality of life in the elderly patients. This retrospective study was to evaluate the outcome of pain treatment for the elderly patients with PHN at the Pain Clinic of Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital.

Value of serum procalcitonin, neopterin, and C-reactive protein in differentiating bacterial from viral etiologies in patients presenting with lower respiratory tract infections.

The values of procalcitonin (PCT), neopterin, and C-reactive protein (CRP) alone and in combination to differentiate bacterial from viral etiology in patients with lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs) were evaluated. Sera obtained on the day of hospitalization for LRTI from 139 patients with confirmed bacterial etiology and 128 patients with viral etiology were examined. A further 146 sera from healthy Chinese subjects with no infection were included as controls.

Viral etiology of acute exacerbations of COPD in Hong Kong.

Introduction: Viral respiratory infections may precipitate acute exacerbations of COPD (AECOPD). However, little is known about viral etiology related to AECOPD in Asia. We aimed to study the viral etiology of AECOPD in Hong Kong.

Fluoroquinolone resistance in atypical pneumococci and oral streptococci: evidence of horizontal gene transfer of fluoroquinolone resistance determinants from Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Atypical strains, presumed to be pneumococcus, with ciprofloxacin MICs of > or =4.0 microg/ml and unique sequence variations within the quinolone resistance-determining regions (QRDRs) of the gyrase and topoisomerase genes in comparison with the Streptococcus pneumoniae R6 strain, were examined. These strains were reidentified using phenotypic methods, including detection of optochin susceptibility, bile solubility, and agglutination by serotype-specific antisera, and genotypic methods, including detection of pneumolysin and autolysin genes by PCR, 16S rRNA sequencing, and multilocus sequence typing (MLST).

Predictors of health service barriers for older Chinese immigrants in Canada.

Elderly people from ethnic minority groups often experience different barriers in accessing health services. Earlier studies on access usually focused on types and frequency but failed to address the predictors of service barriers. This study examined access barriers to health services faced by older Chinese immigrants in Canada.

Longitudinally tracking fluoroquinolone resistance and its determinants in penicillin-susceptible and -nonsusceptible Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates in Hong Kong, 2000 to 2005.

Of 1,388 Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates collected from 2000 to 2005, 10.5% had a ciprofloxacin MIC of >/=4.0 mug/ml and 1.

Features discriminating SARS from other severe viral respiratory tract infections.

This study investigated the discriminatory features of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and severe non-SARS community-acquired viral respiratory infection (requiring hospitalization) in an emergency department in Hong Kong. In a case-control study, clinical, laboratory and radiological data from 322 patients with laboratory-confirmed SARS from the 2003 SARS outbreak were compared with the data of 253 non-SARS adult patients with confirmed viral respiratory tract infection from 2004 in order to identify discriminatory features. Among the non-SARS patients, 235 (93%) were diagnosed as having influenza infections (primarily H3N2 subtype) and 77 (30%) had radiological evidence of pneumonia.

Prospective comparison of three predictive rules for assessing severity of community-acquired pneumonia in Hong Kong.

Background: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is a leading infectious cause of death throughout the world, including Hong Kong.

Aim: To compare the ability of three validated prediction rules for CAP to predict mortality in Hong Kong: the 20 variable Pneumonia Severity Index (PSI), the 6-point CURB65 scale adopted by the British Thoracic Society and the simpler CRB65.

Methods: A prospective observational study of 1016 consecutive inpatients with CAP (583 men, mean (SD) age 72 (17) years) was performed in a university hospital in the New Territories of Hong Kong in 2004.

Sonic hedgehog promotes CD4+ T lymphocyte proliferation and modulates the expression of a subset of CD28-targeted genes.

Sonic hedgehog (Shh) is a crucial morphogen in the development of numerous tissues and organs, including the nervous system, gastrointestinal tract and lung. Recent findings suggest that Shh plays an important role in thymocyte development and peripheral T cell function. Here we report that the Shh receptors, patched and smoothened, are expressed in resting and activated T cells and their expression is regulated upon T cell activation.

Streptococcus suis in Hong Kong.

Streptococcus suis was isolated from 6.1% of raw pork meat from 3 of the 6 wet markets in 6 districts in Hong Kong. S.

Use of the housekeeping genes, gdh (zwf) and gki, in multilocus sequence typing to differentiate Streptococcus pneumoniae from Streptococcus mitis and Streptococcus oralis.

Polymerase chain reaction and sequencing of the housekeeping genes, gdh (zwf) and gki, based on the primers and alleles from multilocus sequence typing can be used to delineate and support the identity of clinical isolates of Streptococcus pneumoniae and differentiate from the closely related Streptococcus mitis and Streptococcus oralis.

Crystal structure of the SENP1 mutant C603S-SUMO complex reveals the hydrolytic mechanism of SUMO-specific protease.

SUMO (small ubiquitin-related modifier)-specific proteases catalyse the maturation and de-conjugation processes of the sumoylation pathway and modulate various cellular responses including nuclear metabolism and cell cycle progression. The active-site cysteine residue is conserved among all known SUMO-specific proteases and is not substitutable by serine in the hydrolysis reactions demonstrated previously in yeast. We report here that the catalytic domain of human protease SENP1 (SUMO-specific protease 1) mutant SENP1C(C603S) carrying a mutation of cysteine to serine at the active site is inactive in maturation and de-conjugation reactions.

Rapid screening of fluoroquinolone resistance determinants in Streptococcus pneumoniae by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism and single-strand conformational polymorphism.

A rapid method, using PCR-restriction fragment length and single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP), was applied to screen for mutations of the fluoroquinolone resistance determinants in Streptococcus pneumoniae. One hundred nonduplicate Streptococcus pneumoniae isolates with ciprofloxacin MICs of > or = 4.0 microg/ml from the Prince of Wales Hospital, Hong Kong, years 2000 to 2003, were examined.

Cryptococcosis in apparently immunocompetent patients.

Background: Few reports have described the clinical and microbiological features of cryptococcosis in immunocompetent patients.

Aim: To compare clinical presentations and outcomes of cryptococcosis in immunocompetent vs. immunocompromised patients.

Evaluation of the effects of caudal or cephalic epidural catheterization on the characteristics of lumbar epidural anesthesia.

Background: The delayed and incomplete sensory block of the sacral roots in epidural anesthesia often results from too huge the size of the first sacral nerve root. To overcome the problem, the enhancement of anesthetic effect on the sacral segment by injecting the local anesthetic toward the caudal direction has been reported. Thus, in this study, we compared the anesthetic effects of epidural anesthesia by catheterization toward caudal direction with that toward cephalic direction on the areas innervated by the sacral nerve roots.

Pax-6 expression in posthatch chick retina during and recovery from form-deprivation myopia.

The expression of Pax-6 in fully-differentiated chick retina remains largely confined to the amacrine and ganglion cell layers. In the developing posthatch chick retina, Pax-6 expression shows a biphasic pattern; a decrease by posthatch day 17 followed by a steady increase in the adult eye. Interestingly, we find that this biphasic expression of Pax-6 is reflected in the biphasic growth pattern of the posthatch chick eye, which is disrupted by form-deprivation myopia (FDM).

The role of Raf-1 in radiation resistance of human hepatocellular carcinoma Hep G2 cells.

Development of radiation resistance is one of the major reasons that cancer cells do not respond to radiotherapy and the mechanism for resistance is still not clear. Two sublines of human hepatocellular carcinoma Hep G2 cells were established from cells that survived two different irradiation regimes, 2 Gy for 10 days or 10 Gy for 2 days, respectively. Using MTT assay, the radiation conditioned cells were found to be more resistant to gamma-irradiation and have a greater extent of potentially lethal damage repair (PLDR) for radiation than the parent cells.

Novel resistance-nodulation-cell division efflux system AdeDE in Acinetobacter genomic DNA group 3.

Resistance-nodulation-cell division type efflux pump AdeDE was identified in acinetobacters belonging to genomic DNA group 3. Inactivation of adeE showed that it may be responsible for reduced susceptibility to amikacin, ceftazidime, chloramphenicol, ciprofloxacin, erythromycin, ethidium bromide, meropenem, rifampin, and tetracycline. However, unlike what was found for other similar efflux systems, the open reading frame for the outer membrane component was not found downstream of the adeDE gene cluster.

The fluid property dependency on micro-fluidic characteristics in the deposition process for microfabrication.

The droplet impingement into a cavity at micrometer-scale is one of important fluidic issues for microfabrications, e.g. the inkjet deposition process in the PLED display manufacturing.

Reactive oxygen species mediate doxorubicin induced p53-independent apoptosis.

Doxorubicin (DOX) is a common anticancer drug. The mechanisms of DOX induced apoptosis and the involvement of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in apoptotic signaling were investigated in p53-null human osteosarcoma Saos-2 cells. Accumulation of pre-G1 phase cells and induction of DNA laddering, which are the hallmarks of apoptosis, were detected in cells at 48 h upon DOX treatment.

Factors predictive of corticosteroid psychosis in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus.

Corticosteroid-induced psychosis occurred in 5% of a prospective cohort of 92 patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Psychosis was unpredictable by the routes and dosage of corticosteroid used. Factors predictive of psychosis were low serum levels of albumin, complement, and creatinine; history of anxiety disorders; and a family history of psychiatric illnesses.