Clinical significance of incidental FDG PET uptake in the gastrointestinal tract: a retrospective cohort study.

Background: Incidental gastrointestinal tract (GIT) uptake is found in up to 6.3% of patients undergoing positron emission tomography (PET). This may be physiologic or pathologic and requires endoscopic assessment.

Clinical utility of the Glasgow Blatchford Score in patients presenting to the emergency department with upper gastrointestinal bleeding: A retrospective cohort study.

Objective: Upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB) is a common presentation to EDs. Limited Australian data are available. Study aims were to assess mortality and re-bleeding rates in patients presenting with UGIB as risk-stratified by the Glasgow Blatchford Score (GBS).

A Novel Fusion of IL-10 Engineered to Traffic across Intestinal Epithelium to Treat Colitis.

IL-10 is a potent anti-inflammatory cytokine capable of suppressing a number of proinflammatory signals associated with intestinal inflammatory diseases, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Clinical use of human IL-10 (hIL-10) has been limited by anemia and thrombocytopenia following systemic injection, side effects that might be eliminated by a gut-restricted distribution. We have identified a transcytosis pathway used by cholix, an exotoxin secreted by nonpandemic forms of the intestinal pathogen A nontoxic fragment of the first 386 aa of cholix was genetically fused to hIL-10 to produce recombinant AMT-101.

Cholix protein domain I functions as a carrier element for efficient apical to basal epithelial transcytosis.

Cholix (Chx) is expressed by the intestinal pathogen as a single chain of 634 amino acids (~70.7 kDa protein) that folds into three distinct domains, with elements of the second and third domains being involved in accessing the cytoplasm of nonpolarized cells and inciting cell death via ADP-ribosylation of elongation factor 2, respectively. In order to reach nonpolarized cells within the intestinal lamina propria, however, Chx must cross the polarized epithelial barrier in an intact form.

Mutational Consequences of Ciprofloxacin in Escherichia coli.

We examined the mutagenic specificity of the widely used antibiotic ciprofloxacin (CPR), which displays weak to moderate mutagenic activity in several bacteria and generates short in-frame deletions in rpoB in Staphylococcus aureus To determine the spectrum of mutations in a system where any gene knockout would result in a recovered mutant, including frameshifts and both short and long deletions, we examined CPR-induced mutations in the thymidylate synthase-encoding thyA gene. Here, any mutation resulting in loss of thymidylate synthase activity generates trimethoprim (Trm) resistance. We found that deletions and insertions in all three reading frames predominated in the spectrum.

Mutagen Synergy: Hypermutability Generated by Specific Pairs of Base Analogs.

Unlabelled: We tested pairwise combinations of classical base analog mutagens in Escherichia coli to study possible mutagen synergies. We examined the cytidine analogs zebularine (ZEB) and 5-azacytidine (5AZ), the adenine analog 2-aminopurine (2AP), and the uridine/thymidine analog 5-bromodeoxyuridine (5BrdU). We detected a striking synergy with the 2AP plus ZEB combination, resulting in hypermutability, a 35-fold increase in mutation frequency (to 53,000 × 10(-8)) in the rpoB gene over that with either mutagen alone.

Urgent need to improve the quality of case report in traditional Chinese medicine: Assessment on reporting quality of 3,417 cases.

Objective: To survey the reporting quality of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) case reports published in recent years and understand the common problems. The assessment results would lay the foundation for the development of recommendations for case report in Chinese medicine.

Methods: This survey determined the reporting quality of cases with Chinese herbal decoction, Chinese proprietary medicine, acupuncture, moxibustion and other traditional therapies published in 20 core medical journals of China by searching the China Academic Journals Full-text Database from 2006 to 2010.

Exploring Synergy between Classic Mutagens and Antibiotics To Examine Mechanisms of Synergy and Antibiotic Action.

We used classical mutagens in Gram-negative Escherichia coli to study synergies with different classes of antibiotics, test models of antibiotic mechanisms of action, and examine the basis of synergy. We used 4-nitroquinoline 1-oxide (4NQO), zebularine (ZEB), 5-azacytidine (5AZ), 2-aminopurine (2AP), and 5-bromodeoxyuridine (5BrdU) as mutagens (with bactericidal potency of 4NQO > ZEB > 5AZ > 2AP > 5BrdU) and vancomycin (VAN), ciprofloxacin (CPR), trimethoprim (TMP), gentamicin (GEN), tetracycline (TET), erythromycin (ERY), and chloramphenicol (CHL) as antibiotics. We detected the strongest synergies with 4NQO, an agent that oxidizes guanines and ultimately results in double-strand breaks when paired with the bactericidal antibiotics VAN, TMP, CPR, and GEN, but no synergies with the bacteriostatic antibiotics TET, ERY, and CHL.

Evidence-based management of herb-drug interaction in cancer chemotherapy.

The fact that many cancer patients take herbal medicine, including Chinese herbal medicine, together with chemotherapy is well known. The potential for side effects resulting from concurrent use of these two different treatment modalities requires physicians to be aware of the potential risks and benefits that might arise. This study searched available evidence for herb-drug interaction in cancer therapy and identified 168 articles.

Building user research interest profiles through a MeSH indexer.

In the information portal environment, user profiles helps librarians to better understand users' needs and build individualized services. We have used a locally developed UMLS-based MeSH indexer to process and extract MeSH concept terms from the contents of individuals' usage files on our library's portal system (MyWelch). The algorithm was also developed to refine these extracted terms and assign weights to individual terms.

Effectiveness of the Chinese herbal formula TongXieYaoFang for irritable bowel syndrome: a systematic review.

Objective: Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common problem, but treatment is unsatisfactory. Although Chinese herbal medicines have been tried, there are limited data to support their usage. The authors set out to systematically review the effectiveness of the Chinese herbal medicine TongXieYaoFang (TXYF) and TXYF with different Chinese herbal additions (TXYF-A) in the management of IBS in order to make evidence-based recommendations.

Improving the quality of randomized controlled trials in Chinese herbal medicine, part IV: applying a revised CONSORT checklist to measure reporting quality.

Objective: To discuss the quality of reporting in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of Chinese herbal medicine (CHM), and to provide suggestions for improving the reporting of future clinical studies in this therapeutic area.

Methods: A search of the Cochrane Library was conducted to identify RCTs of CHM. A revised CONSORT checklist designed for CHM clinical studies was implemented.

Improving the quality of randomized controlled trials in Chinese herbal medicine, part I: clinical trial design and methodology.

Objective: To discuss the quality of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) with respect to design and methodology, and provide suggestions for further improvement in future clinical trials.

Methods: A search of the Cochrane Library was conducted to identify RCTs of CHM on line in July 2005. Quality of the RCTs was assessed using a 11-item checklist modified from the revised CONSORT statement, with 2 items specific to CHM (i.

Publishing trends in Chinese medicine and related subjects documented in WorldCat.

Background: Chinese medicine (CM) has been the subject of increasing interest in the past 30 years, both as a discipline and in the larger context of alternative medicine. It has steadily been accepted by and integrated into the medical and health-care fields in many countries.

Objective: This study aims to gain an overview of how CM has been interpreted and presented to the world outside China and to identify emerging trends.