Association of atopy with disease severity in children with pneumonia.

Background: pneumonia (MPP) is common among children, but the impact of atopy on MPP severity in children is unknown. This study investigated whether atopic vs. nonatopic children had greater MPP severity.

Comparative clinical outcome following individualized follitropin delta dosing in Chinese women undergoing ovarian stimulation for in vitro fertilization /intracytoplasmic sperm injection.

Background: To compare the efficacy and safety of follitropin delta in its individualized fixed-dose regimen with follitropin alfa in a conventional adjustable dosing regimen in Chinese women.  METHODS: This was a subgroup analysis of the randomized, multi-center, assessor-blind, non-inferiority trial (GRAPE) including 759 Chinese women (aged 20-40 years) recruited in 16 reproductive medicine clinics in China. Women were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to be treated with either follitropin delta dose based on anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) and body weight or conventional dosing with follitropin alfa following a gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) antagonist protocol.

Risk factors for hospital death in patients with acute aortic dissection.

Background: To determine the risk factors leading to hospital death with acute aortic dissection (AAD) patients and then to develop a simple risk prediction model to identify patients at increased risk of hospital death.

Methods: A total of 360 patients with AAD were enrolled. Thirty risk factors were used in the statistical analysis for predicting hospital death.

Impact of metformin treatment and swimming exercise on visfatin levels in high-fat-induced obesity rats.

Objective: Visfatin is a recently discovered adipocytokine that contributes to glucose and obesity-related conditions. Until now, its responses to the insulin-sensitizing agent metformin and to exercise are largely unknown. We aim to investigate the impact of metformin treatment and/or swimming exercise on serum visfatin and visfatin levels in subcutaneous adipose tissue (SAT), peri-renal adipose tissue (PAT) and skeletal muscle (SM) of high-fat-induced obesity rats.

[Heel deep tissue defects were repaired by perineal tendofascial flap conjoined with adipofascial flap].

Objective: To explore a new method and estimate its outcome to repair deep heel tissue injuries with local tissue flap.

Methods: At lower cnemis, a fat fascial flap combined with perineal tendofascial flap were designed and elevated between the lateral malleolars blank, the largest area is 6 cm x 13 cm, which were transplanted to cover naked calcaneal tendon and calcaneal bone, full-thickness free skin graft or middle-thickness free skin graft were grafted on flap.

Results: 6 patients suffered from heel tissue defects had been treated from January 2004 to November 2005.