Diabetic nephropathy (DN) due to microvascular complication is a serious status characterized by continuously progressive until occurrence of the end stage of renal disease. It is attractive to investigate further mechanisms underlying the entity of DN and new drug discovery. We hypothesized that the entity of DN is inflammatory and is characterized by upregulated inflammatory/pro-inflammatory factors such as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha, NADPH oxidase, endoplasmic reticulum stress (ER stress), and endothelin receptor A (ET(A)) and downregulated connexin 43 (Cx43) in the kidney. Aminoguanidine is a special blocker to advanced glycation end products and argirein, a new compound contains a molecule of rhein linked to L: -arginine by a hydrogen bond. Rhein possesses anti-inflammatory activity and has been chemically modified to produce a new compound diacerein launched in European market for treating osteoarthritis. Argirein with two active molecules rhein and L: -arginine may be effective in suppressing the inflammatory cytokines contributing to the pathogenesis of DN. With a single injection of streptozotocin 65 mg/kg, ip in rats, early diabetic nephropathy was produced and revealed as an increased microalbuminuria, elevated creatinine and urea in serum, associated with upregulation of mRNA and protein of NADPH oxidase p22phox, p47phox, and p67phox and ET(A), upregulated PKR-like eukaryotic initiation factor 2α kinase (PERK), and downregulated Cx43 in the renal tissue. Upregulation of PERK suggested that there is an ER stress involved in the diabetic kidney, along with an increase in inflammatory/pro-inflammatory factors indicating an entity of chronic inflammation. Abnormalities of biomarkers were blunted by either aminoguanidine or argirein significantly. The new compound argirein is potential in alleviating and retarding microvascular complications of diabetes such as DN in clinical settings.

Disseminated Rhizopus microsporus infections are uncommon in children and are resistant to echinocandin and azole antifungal agents. We describe a child with severe aplastic anemia who developed disseminated R. microsporus infection following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. R. microsporus was identified microscopically in the hepatic drain culture and was confirmed on the basis of 18S rRNA and 28S rRNA sequence analyses. The patient was treated successfully with hepatic drainage and amphotericin B deoxycholate.

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patients treated exclusively with DEB-TACE prior to transplant. Validated prediction of recurrence with based on this pretransplant metric performs as well as RETREAT score. Abstract No. 505Comparison of efficacy and safety between drugeluting beads transarterial chemoembolization and conventional transarterial chemoembolization in unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma patients: a retrospective cohort study Purpose: To investigate the efficacy and safety of drug-eluting beads transarterial chemoembolization (DEB-TACE) in patients with unresectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) compared with conventional transarterial chemoembolization (cTACE) and prognostic factors for efficacy. Materials: 64 HCC patients were analyzed in this retrospective cohort study, among which 36 patients received DEB-TACE and 28 received cTACE. Treatment response was assessed by CT/MRI according to mRECIST criteria, and PFS was evaluated. Results: No difference was observed regarding CR, PR, SD, PD, ORR and DCR at 3 months post treatment (all P>0.05) between DEB-TACE and cTACE groups. Although the ORR (P ¼ 0.020) and DCR (P ¼ 0.047) were notably increased in DEB-TACE group compared with cTACE group. And univariate and multivariate logistic regressions revealed that DEB-TACE treatment independently associated with better ORR at 6 months (P ¼ 0.008). Moreover, the PFS in DEB-TACE group was prolonged compared with cTACE group (P ¼ 0.028), and multivariate Cox's regression revealed that DEB-TACE treatment was independently correlated with better PFS. In addition, despite that the levels of all laboratory indexes related to liver function worsened at 3 days post operation in two groups, the levels of AST (P ¼ 0.021) and ALT (P ¼ 0.028) at 3 days were notably lower in the DEB-TACE group when compared with cTACE group. Conclusions: DEB-TACE was superior to cTACE in unresectable HCC patients in terms of increased treatment responses, prolonged PFS and less liver dysfunction.