Nitric oxide and milrinone: combined effect on pulmonary circulation after Fontan-type procedure: a prospective, randomized study.

Background: Early morbidity and mortality after Fontan operations are related to the elevation of postoperative pulmonary vascular resistance. Inhalation of nitric oxide (iNO) and intravenous milrinone are two options capable of reducing pulmonary vascular resistance. We hypothesized that their combined use could maximally stabilize the pulmonary circulation after Fontan operation.

Clinical outcome of children with newly diagnosed acute lymphoblastic leukemia treated in a single center in Shanghai, China.

Aim of the study is to determine the clinical outcome of 158 cases of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) treated with a risk-directed protocol in Shanghai, China. One hundred fifty eight consecutive newly diagnosed patients were enrolled in the ALL-XH-99 protocol. The Kaplan - Meier method was used to estimate survival rates and comparisons were made by using the 2-sided log-rank test.

Leukemia, an effective model for chemical biology and target therapy.

The rapid rise of chemical biology aimed at studying signaling networks for basic cellular activities using specific, active small molecules as probes has greatly accelerated research on pathological mechanisms and target therapy of diseases. This research is especially important for malignant tumors such as leukemia, a heterogeneous group of hematopoietic malignancies that occurs worldwide. With the use of a chemical approach combined with genetic manipulation, great progress has been achieved over the past few decades on the biological, molecular and cytogenetic aspects of leukemia, and in its diagnosis and therapy.