Calcium and phosphate are the principle ions involved in the deposition of mineral in the human body. Inhibitors of mineralisation are essential for the prevention of ectopic mineral precipitation and deposition. In the past decade, through in vitro, in vivo and clinical observation studies, we have come to appreciate the importance of fetuin-A (Fet-A), a circulating glycoprotein, in preventing...

BACKGROUND Fetuin-A, a liver-derived glycoprotein, is correlated with diabetes. The aim of the present investigation was to evaluate serum and vitreous concentrations of fetuin-A in patients with diabetic retinopathy (DR). MATERIAL AND METHODS We randomly selected 224 diabetic patients and 68 control subjects for this study. RESULTS :There were markedly higher serum and vitreous fetuin-A conc...

The Routine Antenatal Diagnostic Imaging With Ultrasound Study (RADIUS) has reported that the adoption of routine screening in the United States would add considerably to health care costs, but stated that a potential benefit may be identification of fetal anomalies. To determine whether the cost per detected malformed fetus using data from the RADIUS study is cost-effective, a comparison is ma...

Femoral bone marrow curettage produced tion. It is suggested that the primitive an intense stimulus on hematopoietic stem mesenchymal cells synthesize a humoral cells (HSC) in sublethally irradiated mice factor that is capable of stimulating HSC 4 days after curettage. A similar but lesser in a marrow microenvironment of depleted stimulation of 59Fe incorporation into cellularity. The observati...

Albright"s hereditary osteodystrophy (AHO) is a complex genetic disorder characterized by brachydactyly, gonadotropin resistance, hypothyroidism, pseudohypoparathyroid syndrome and heterotopic ossification. Heterotopic ossification rarely occurs in the maxillofacial region. In this article, we present such a case, describe the etiology, characteristics and treatment of AHO and suggest a potenti...

Controversies about the combination of des-gamma-carboxyprothrombin (DCP) and alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) for hepatocellular carcinoma diagnosing still exist. Hence, we performed this updated meta-analysis to estimate the diagnostic value of DCP , AFP and DCP + AFP in HCC. In addition, we conducted a validation study to analyze the performance of the candidate makers. After a systematic literature ...

AIMS To save time and labour in mass screening, by detecting two marker proteins on one specimen using only one test. METHODS alpha Fetoprotein and ferritin were chosen to demonstrate the principal of this system. The assay reagents were horseradish peroxidase (HRP)-labelled anti-alpha fetoprotein and HRP-labelled anti-ferritin antibodies. After the serum sample had been incubated with these ...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cell resistance to the effects of paclitaxel has not been adequately addressed. In this study, we found that paclitaxel significantly inhibited the viability of HLE, Bel 7402 and L-02 cells in a dose- and time-dependent manner. HLE cells and L-02 cells resisted the cytotoxicity of paclitaxel when transfected with pcDNA3.1-afp vectors. However, Bel 7402 cell sensit...

International guidelines suggest ultrasound surveillance for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) early diagnosis in liver cirrhosis (LC) patients, but 40% of nodules <2 cm escape detection. We investigated the existence of an ultrasound pattern indicating a higher risk of developing HCC in patients under surveillance. 359 patients with LC (Child-Pugh A-B8) underwent ultrasound screening (median foll...

Changes in maternal plasma proteins during pregnancy are now well documented. These changes may be quantitative, as seen in the electrophoretically separated fractions of serum and in the various binding globulins; or they may be represented by the appearance of a protein which is present only in the serum of pregnant women. These include the placental isoenzyme of alkaline phosphatase, oxytoci...