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Antrodia cinnamomea is a Taiwanese medicinal mushroom with high antioxidant and polysaccharide content. The objective of this study is to investigate developmental toxicity of A. cinnamomea in pregnant Sprague-Dawley rats. Animals were daily gavaged with A. cinnamomea mycelium at dosage levels of 0 (reverse osmosis water), 50, 150, and 500 mg/kg from gestation day (GD) 6 to 15. All dams were sacrificed on GD 20 and were subjected to cesarean section. Fetuses were examined for external, visceral, and skeletal abnormalities. All copulated females survived until the end of the study. No significant differences were recorded in body weight change, food consumption, and maternal gestational parameters. Only two fetal malformations were noted in 970 fetuses from the treatment groups. Some variations, such as enlarged fontanel, split sternebrae, absent sacral, absent caudal vertebral centra, absent thoracic centra, absent 13th-14th ribs, and fused ribs, were found during the skeletal examination, but no treatment-induced abnormalities occurred. No dose dependency was observed in any of the developmental variations. Overall observation of foetal malformations from rats given A. cinnamomea mycelium during pregnancy demonstrates that this material is not teratogenic at doses up to 500 mg/kg. It is concluded that A. cinnamomea BCRC 35398 mycelium has no teratogenic effects in female rats and is safe to be used as a functional food ingredient.

The purpose of the technical note is to introduce the complex coil assisted coil embolization method in the treatment of intracranial small aneurysm, in order to enhance the safety of the procedure. The first microcatheter was navigated into the aneurysm sac and the ultrasoft coil was used as the embolization coil. If the embolizations coil could not stay within the aneurysm sac smoothly, such as coil herniation into parent artery during the delivery process. The second microcatheter would be navigated to the aneurysm level in the parent artery. Another complex coil was delivered within the parent artery via the second microcatheter to provide the neck bridge effect in order to enhance the stability of embolization coil. Besides, the protection coil will not disturb the parent artery flow. While the embolization coil was put into the aneurysm sac smoothly under the help of complex protective coil, the protective coil was then withdrawn gently. We use the most magnified view, dual-plane approach simultaneously to observe the stability of embolization coil. The embolization coil would be detached without any evidence of coil motion or vibration. The new method could provide the physiological protective method, without leaving any protective device such as stent within the parent artery.

Tremella flava Chen, a novel yellow jelly and edible mushroom, was isolated in Taiwan. Our preliminary study have shown the antioxidative, anti-inflammation and anti-infection property of T. flava fermented soymilk (TFS), and the objective of this study is to determine the potential adverse effects and antimutagenic applicability. The Ames test employing histidine mutants of the S. typhimurium tester stains TA97, TA98, TA100, TA102 and TA1535 were used to examine the mutagenicity of TFS. No mutagenic activity was observed for either test strains at all used doses (0.25~20.0 mg/plate), with or without S9 activation. On the other hand, TFS also inhibited 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide (4NQO), mitomycin C and sodium azide-induced mutations in a dose-dependent manner. These results demonstrated that TFS might be a multifunctional and safety dietary supplement with antioxidative, anti-inflammation, anti-infection, and antimutagenic activities in the future. 