A Qualitative Study on Illness Perception and Coping Behaviors Among Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Implications for Intervention.

Background: Understanding patients' perceptions of their illness may be more beneficial for healthcare providers in maintaining vigilance than merely focusing on the clinical status of patients. As patients' perceptions can significantly influence their behavior, it is possible that health care providers who are aware of patients' thoughts in advance may help improve their intervention programs, such as increased treatment adherence. However, current research offers limited insight into the subjective perceptions of disease among patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Establishment, verification, and application of concentration intervals corresponding to dipstick grades for urinary protein.

Background: To address the situation that the accuracy of concentration intervals (CI) corresponding to dipstick grades is not given by the manufacturers or literature, we developed a method that determined reasonable dipstick grades with concentration intervals (GCIs) based on the percent agreement (PA) and discussed the GCI application to comparability among currently dipstick tests.

Methods: By comparing the results of 2 dipstick tests (iChem and KU-500) with the quantitative test (AU5800), the GCIs were verified and established based on the PAs, which were calculated and used as an indicator of GCI's accuracy. The overlap (percent) between the 2 GCIs with the same grade (2 dipstick devices), was calculated and used to evaluate the agreement between their test results.

Polymorphisms in the and Gene and Susceptibility to Pulmonary and Spinal Tuberculosis among Southern Chinese Population.

Objective: To investigate the association of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in gene and gene among pulmonary TB (PTB) and spinal TB (STB) patients.

Methods: In a total of 190 PTB patients, 183 STB patients were enrolled as the case group and 362 healthy individuals at the same geographical region as the control group. The SNPs (rs722555 and rs1135791) and the promoter -308G>A (rs1800629) and -238G>A (rs361525) polymorphisms in were genotyped.

P2X7 receptor in spinal tuberculosis: Gene polymorphisms and protein levels in Chinese Han population.

Spinal tuberculosis (TB) accounts for 1%-5% of all TB infections. Host genetic variation influences susceptibility to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB). P2X7 receptor (P2X7R) expressed on cells has been identified as a regulatory molecule in cell death/apoptosis, killing of intercellular pathogens, and bone turnover.

What does it take to synergistically combine sub-potent natural products into drug-level potent combinations?

There have been renewed interests in natural products as drug discovery sources. In particular, natural product combinations have been extensively studied, clinically tested, and widely used in traditional, folk and alternative medicines. But opinions about their therapeutic efficacies vary from placebo to synergistic effects.

Drug discovery prospect from untapped species: indications from approved natural product drugs.

Due to extensive bioprospecting efforts of the past and technology factors, there have been questions about drug discovery prospect from untapped species. We analyzed recent trends of approved drugs derived from previously untapped species, which show no sign of untapped drug-productive species being near extinction and suggest high probability of deriving new drugs from new species in existing drug-productive species families and clusters. Case histories of recently approved drugs reveal useful strategies for deriving new drugs from the scaffolds and pharmacophores of the natural product leads of these untapped species.