Infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) may progress toward chronic hepatitis, liver cirrhosis, and liver cancer. A therapy for patients with chronic HCV infection is the combination of pegylated interferon-α with ribavirin, which increases the rate of sustained virological response (SVR) to 56%. However, a practical biomarker to predict SVR is lacking.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Approximately 50% of patients with sepsis-induced acute lung injury and acute respiratory distress syndrome require mechanical ventilation. Patients with extended mechanical ventilator use routinely develop reinfections, which increases hospital stay, mortality, and health care cost. Some studies have pointed out inflammatory factors concentrations can affect ventilator weaning, but do not indicate changed inflammatory factors related to ventilator weaning during using ventilators.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: In the pathogenesis of asthma, an imbalance between helper T (Th) 1/Th2 and Th17/Treg cells is believed to play a key role in asthmatic inflammatory responses. Some studies indicated that zinc deficiency increases inflammatory factor production and worsens asthma. However, the effects of zinc on T cell profiles to reduce inflammatory response remain unclear.
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