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Biomedical subjects

S-H Chang

Publications and source records attributed to S-H Chang.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

Visceral artery aneurysm: risk factor analysis and therapeutic opinion.

OBJECTIVES: To identify independent risk factors for visceral artery aneurysms. METHODS: Retrospective medical record review over 10 years. RESULTS: There were 26 men and 15 women, median age of 54 (range 22 to 85), and median follow-up was 20.6 months (range 0 to 94 months). There were 11 splenic, 17 hepatic, 8 gastroduodenal, 6 pancreatoduodenal, 5 superior mesenteric, and two inferior mesenteric artery aneurysms. Thirteen patients (13/41, 31.7%) were treated surgically without adjuvant endovascular intervention. Nineteen patients (19/41, 46.3%) were treated exclusively using endovascular procedures. Five patients (5/41, 12.2%) received second endovascular or surgical treatment as salvage procedure after the first procedure failed. Concomitant malignancy was positive predictors for in-hospital death. Renal failure, chronic lung disease, liver cirrhosis, previous abdominal surgery and concomitant malignancy were positive predictors of 2-year mortality. With the intention to treat in the whole cohort, less than 10% (2/21) of the endovascular treatments failed, compared to 18.5% (3/16) in the surgical group. Patients treated by surgery without aid of endovascular intervention, have lower 2-year mortality. In hospital-death rate was 9.8%, while overall mortality rate was 21.9%. CONCLUSIONS: The endovascular intervention provides compatible, even better early postoperative outcomes for visceral artery aneurysms to surgery. Concomitant malignancy was the major determinant of visceral artery aneurysms, both in-hospital death and survival.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Aerosol delivery of Akt controls protein translation in the lungs of dual luciferase reporter mice.

Lung cancer has emerged as a leading cause of cancer death in the world; however, most of the current conventional therapies are not sufficiently effective in altering the progression of disease. Therefore, development of novel treatment approaches is needed. Although several genes and methods have been used for cancer gene therapy, a number of problems such as specificity, efficacy and toxicity reduce their application. This has led to re-emergence of aerosol gene delivery as a noninvasive method for lung cancer treatment. In this study, nano-sized glucosylated polyethyleneimine (GPEI) was used as a gene delivery carrier to investigate the effects of Akt wild type (WT) and kinase deficient (KD) on Akt-related signaling pathways and protein translation in the lungs of CMV- LucR-cMyc-IRES-LucF dual reporter mice. These mice are a powerful tool for the discrimination between cap-dependent/-independent protein translation. Aerosols containing self-assembled nano-sized GPEI/Akt WT or GPEI/Akt KD were delivered into the lungs of reporter mice through nose-only-inhalation-chamber with the aid of nebulizer. Aerosol delivery of Akt WT caused the increase of protein expression levels of Akt-related signals, whereas aerosol delivery of Akt KD did not. Furthermore, dual luciferase activity assay showed that aerosol delivery of Akt WT enhanced cap-dependent protein translation, whereas a reduction in cap-dependent protein translation by Akt KD was observed. Our results clearly showed that targeting Akt may be a good strategy for prevention as well as treatment of lung cancer. These studies suggest that our aerosol delivery is compatible for in vivo gene delivery which could be used as a noninvasive gene therapy in the future.

Aerosols↗
PubMed2005

Aortic valve sclerosis is an echocardiographic indicator of significant coronary disease in patients undergoing diagnostic coronary angiography.

Aortic valve sclerosis (AVS) is considered to be a manifestation of generalised atherosclerosis that involves the aortic valve. It has been associated with higher cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in a population-based study. This investigation used transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) to evaluate the prevalence and significance of AVS in 357 Chinese patients with suspected coronary artery disease (CAD). This work reveals that AVS is an independent echocardiographic predictor of significant CAD in such clinical setting (O.R.=3.18; 95% confidence interval 1.52-6.7; p=0.002). Other independent predictors include male gender, diabetes mellitus and hypertriglyceridemia. The predictive value of AVS for the presence of CAD is more prominent in females and in subjects aged <65 years. The recognition of AVS on TTE should alert the physicians to the possibility of underlying significant CAD, and further evaluation with aggressive management is indicated, even though no angiographic documentation is available.

Aged↗
PubMed2004

Modification of the inhibitory amino acid for epitope peptide binding onto major histocompatibility complex class II molecules enhances immunogenicity of the antigen.

Previously, the arginine at hen egg-white lysozyme 61 (HEL 61) was characterized as inhibiting T-lymphocyte stimulation due to the inefficient binding of the arginine-containing epitope peptide to the corresponding major histocompatibility complex class II molecules in C57BL/6 mice. In this study, we produced recombinant HEL, with arginine or alanine at HEL 61, and compared its ability to induce immune responses in mice to see whether modification of an inhibitory amino acid could enhance the immunogenicity of an inefficient antigen. Immunization of the mice with modified HEL induced strong antibody and T-cell immune responses against the native antigen. The enhanced T-cell immune response was due to a more specific elevation of the T-cell responses to the HEL 46-61 epitope region than to other epitope regions, although recognition of the other epitope peptides of HEL was generally increased. Mass spectrometric analyses of the epitope peptides generated by splenic antigen-presenting cells indicated that production of the epitope peptides encompassing HEL 46-61 was efficient using the modified antigen. These results suggest that modification of the critical amino acid residue(s) involved in hampering induction of an efficient immune response is an effective method to improve the immunogenicity of an inefficient antigen.

Amino Acid Sequence↗
PubMedDate not supplied

An experimental design for quantification of cardiovascular responses to music stimuli in humans.

There have been several researches on the relationship between music and human physiological or psychological responses. However, there are cardiovascular index factors that have not been explored quantitatively due to the qualitative nature of acoustic stimuli. This study proposes and demonstrates an experimental design for quantification of cardiovascular responses to music stimuli in humans. The system comprises two components: a unit for generating and monitoring quantitative acoustic stimuli and a portable autonomic nervous system (ANS) analysis unit for quantitative recording and analysis of the cardiovascular responses. The experimental results indicate that the proposed system can exactly achieve the goal of full control and measurement for the music stimuli, and also effectively support many quantitative indices of cardiovascular response in humans. In addition, the analysis results are discussed and predicted in the future clinical research.

Acoustic Stimulation↗