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Chronic kidney disease, transplantation practices and transplantation law in pakistan: opportunity for a global meditation.

Artif Organs. 2009 Jul;33(7):570-6

Authors: Akhtar F

The majority of countries have enacted edicts to regulate organ transplantation due to mounting recognition of its intricacies and increasing level of global disquiet. Frail national economy and status of health care infrastructure restricts access of the local population to both dialysis and transplantation in Pakistan. There is a surge in kidney transplantation activities, however. I have reported the enormity of organ crime in Pakistan. The number of commercial renal transplants range from 3000 to 4500. Foreign nationals share the marketplace. There are current attempts from the government to stop organ trade by strictly enforcing a recently sanctioned law on organ transplantation. Scarcity of comprehensive reliable data has hampered plausible assessments and indispensable modifications to facilitate designs for the future health care. Alternatives to organ transplantation will augment the choice of treatment modalities for a proliferating end-stage renal disease (ESRD) population. The whole array of existing therapeutic modalities for ESRD has to be utilized. Promoting a fresh culture of organ donation by strengthening of the family institution may be another objective.

PMID: 19566737 [PubMed - in process]

Triptolide functions as a potent angiogenesis inhibitor.

Int J Cancer. 2009 Jun 30;

Authors: He MF, Huang YH, Wu LW, Ge W, Shaw PC, But PP

Triptolide is a key anti-inflammatory compound of the Chinese herbal medicine Tripterygium wilfordii Hook. f. (Celastraceae). It also possesses potent anti-tumor activity. In this study, we show that triptolide is an angiogenesis inhibitor based on various angiogenesis assays. The IC(50) in in vitro assays was 45 nM, which was much lower than the plasma concentrations of triptolide in the rat or human administered with T. wilfordii extracts for treating inflammation. When dosed in vivo, triptolide potently inhibited angiogenesis at 100 nM in Matrigel plug assay. Triptolide at 0.75 mg/kg/day significantly blocked tumor angiogenesis and tumor progression in murine tumorigenesis assay. The underlying mechanism of triptolide correlated with down-regulation of proangiogenic Tie2 and VEGFR-2 expression in HUVEC by semi-quantitative RT-PCR and Western blot analysis. Although Tie2 inhibition appeared to be a later event as compared with VEGFR-2, Tie2 over-expression significantly attenuated the inhibitory effect of triptolide on endothelial proliferation and network formation. By contrast, Tie2 knockdown mimicked the inhibitory effect of triptolide on endothelial network formation. Our findings suggest that anti-tumor action of triptolide is partly via inhibition of tumor angiogenesis by blocking two endothelial receptor-mediated signaling pathways, and triptolide can be a promising anti-angiogenic agent. (c) 2009 UICC.

PMID: 19569053 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Effect of Three Herbal Extracts on NO and PGE2 Production by Activated Mouse Macrophage-like Cells.

In Vivo. 2009 Jul-Aug;23(4):537-44

Authors: Chu Q, Hashimoto K, Satoh K, Wang Q, Sakagami H

Three Chinese herbal extracts, Drynaria baronii, Angelica sinensis and Cornus officinalis Sieb. et Zucc (referred to as DB, AS, CO, respectively), were investigated for their possible anti-inflammatory activity. DB, AS and CO inhibited nitric oxide (NO) production by lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-activated mouse macrophage-like RAW264.7 cells. Western blot and RT-PCR analyses demonstrated that this was due to the inhibition of inducible NO synthase (iNOS) expression at both protein and mRNA levels. Electron-spin resonance spectroscopy showed that DB, AS and CO dose-dependently scavenged the NO radical produced by NOC-7 in the presence of carboxy-PTIO. In order to confirm the anti-inflammatory potency, effects on prostaglandin (PG) E(2) production and the expression of enzymes involved in the arachidonic acid pathway were next investigated. DB and CO effectively inhibited the PGE(2) production by LPS-stimulated RAW264.7 cells, although the extent of inhibition of PGE(2) production was slightly lower than that of NO production. AS only marginally inhibited the LPS-stimulated PGE(2) production. DB, AS and CO inhibited cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 expression at both protein and mRNA levels, but to much lesser extents as compared with that for iNOS expression. These data further substantiate the anti-inflammatory potency of DB, AS and CO.

PMID: 19567387 [PubMed - in process]

Traditional Chinese Medicine in treatments to depression.

Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2009 Mar;30(1):17-8

Authors: Yuan TF

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has a long history of more than 5,000 years and it has the earliest medicine book in the world: Yellow Emperor's Canon: Internal Medicine (Huang Ti Nei Jing), by the Yellow Emperor of China (2695-2589 BC) (Lin , 1988; Shampo and Kyle, 1989; Wang, 1999). However the combinational and systemic recipes that bring TCM high efficiency also block the promotion of TCM treatment to various diseases, including depression. In this short comment we firstly give some theoretical basis for TCM treatment to depression, then some clinical reports on efficiency; we also present some possible explanations on TCM treatments to depression.

PMID: 19300379 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Reiki and changes in pattern manifestations.

Nurs Sci Q. 2009 Jul;22(3):250-8

Authors: Ring ME

The purposes of this qualitative research study were to describe the changes in pattern manifestations that individuals experienced associated with receiving Reiki, and to present the theoretical understanding of these changes. The unitary field pattern portrait research method was utilized because it was ontologically, epistemologically, and methodologically consistent with the science of unitary human beings. Reiki was found to be associated with changes in awareness from dissonance and turbulence to harmony and well-being by helping individuals knowingly participate in actualizing their own capacities for healing. Reiki was found to be an appropriate voluntary mutual patterning nursing modality.

PMID: 19567731 [PubMed - in process]

[Study on key problems in the positive control design methods of acupuncture and moxibustion ]

Zhongguo Zhen Jiu. 2009 Apr;29(4):321-4

Authors: Wang YJ, Guo Y

To probe into the design method of the clinical studies with positive control of acupuncture and moxibustion, the several key problems are analyzed, which include the definition of positive control, form of the control, statistical and design types, proper application of positive drugs, and properly use placebo control method to counteract weaknesses of studies, reasonably select observation indexes so as to show characteristics of Chinese medicine. The authors indicate that only fully thinking these key problems, can provide clinical evidence of acupuncture and moxibustion with high quality and convincingness.

PMID: 19565743 [PubMed - in process]