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Introduction Stress is a major health issue in adolescents owing to the important transitions experienced during this period. Aromatherapy is an effective method for the reduction of stress in adolescents. Purpose The aims of this study were to examine the effect of aromatherapy on the regulation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) along with stress relief and to explore the effect of aromatherapy on adolescents with different levels of stress. Methods This quasi-experimental study comprised three types of treatments: control (no essential oil), pure essential oil therapy (sandalwood), and blended essential oil therapy (sandalwood-lavender). The heart rate variability (HRV) was calculated to evaluate the post-exercise recovery of the ANS to the baseline level in the recruited adolescents. To examine the efficiency of aromatherapy, Friedman test was used to assess the significance of difference in all parameters (i.e., mean heart rate, SDNN, normalized LF, normalized HF, and LF/HF) between baseline and after exercise among the three treatment conditions. Results The participants comprised 43 junior college students (8 males and 35 females) with a mean age of 18.21 ± 0.99. Significant differences in changes of two HRV parameters (normalized LF and LF/HF) were associated with both essential oil therapies compared to those in the control group (pp Conclusions This study demonstrated that aromatherapy could be used for ANS regulation with stress-relieving effects in adolescents. The participants with a low stress level appeared to respond better to the blended essential oil therapy, whereas those with medium to high levels of stress appeared to respond poorly to aromatherapy compared to the control.

Present acute pancreatitis surgical treatment often uses percutaneous catheter drainage minimally invasive surgery. Physicians generally based on the understanding of the patient's two-dimensional CT images to puncture and guide the catheter into position within the abdominal cavity to perform drainage of the free effusion to develop a surgical plan before surgery. The successful key to the CT-guided puncture and drainage is the accurate positioning of the inflammatory region. It is hard to divide the edges of each region accurately because there are many organs in abdomen CT image and some of the acute pancreatitis CT have free effusion regions. The localization and segmentation of each part in clinical treatment are influenced by the personal experience and ability of the physician. Computed Tomography Severity Index (CTSI) score is a result gotten from the analysis of the image to determine whether the patient has to get the operation or not. We collected 125 cases of CT images with the marked pancreas and free effusion area. Building models through Faster R-CNN object detection, the region growing and Gaussian filter to determine the survival pancreas, normal pancreas or free effusion area in CT images accurately. Reconstruct the three-dimensional structure image and related structure positioning, calculate the percentage of pancreatic necrosis, the number of necrotic areas and the size of the area, and then calculate the CTSI score. The experimental results were evaluated through three indicators of Dice Score, the volume overlap error (VOE) and the relative volume error (RVD). The accuracy rate of the automatic segmentation area compared to the standard area is 92 %, which can provide the physicians with an objective analysis of the surgical plan before surgery to improve the accuracy and safety.

Background. This study was aimed at testing the association between the therapeutic efficacy of CD34+ cell treatment in patients with end-stage diffuse coronary artery disease as reflected in angiographic grading and results of directed in vivo angiogenesis assay (DIVAA) on their isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cell- (PBMC-) derived endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs). Methods. Angiographic grades (0: 75%) which presented the improvement of vessel density pre- and post-CD34+ treatment were given to 30 patients with end-stage diffuse coronary artery disease having received CD34+ cell treatment. The patients were categorized into low-score group (angiographic grade 0 or 1, n=12) and high-score group (angiographic grade 2 or 3, n=18). The percentages of circulating EPCs with KDR+/CD34+/CD45−, CD133+/CD34+/CD45−, and CD34+ were determined in each patient using flow cytometry. PBMC-derived EPCs from all patients were subjected to DIVAA through a 14-day implantation in nude mice. The DIVAA ratio (i.e., mean fluorescent units in angioreactors with EPCs/mean fluorescent units in angioreactors without EPCs) was obtained for each animal with implanted EPCs from each patient. Results and Conclusions. The number of EPCs showed no significant difference among the two groups. The DIVAA ratio in the high-score group was significantly higher than that in the low-score group (p=0.0178). Logistic regression revealed a significant association between the DIVAA ratio and angiographic grading (OR 3.12, 95% CI: 1.14–8.55, p=0.027). The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was 0.8519 (p=0.0013). We proposed that DIVAA may be a reliable tool for assessing coronary vascularization after CD34+ cell treatment.

Alcohol abuse impairs immune defense. To study the effect of chronic-plus-binge alcohol exposure on the granulopoietic response, acute alcohol intoxication (intraperitoneal injection of 5 g alcohol/kg body weight) was introduced to mice chronically fed on the Lieber-DeCarli low-fat liquid alcohol diet for 5 weeks. Bacteremia was induced by intravenous injection of Escherichia coli . Bacteremia caused a remarkable increase in marrow lin − c-kit + Sca-1 + cells. Activation of cell proliferation supported the increase in marrow lin − c-kit + Sca-1 + cells. Alcohol administration inhibited this activation of lin − c-kit + Sca-1 + cells. The bone marrow of pair-fed control mice receiving intraperitoneal saline stored a large number of mature granulocytes expressing a high level of Gr1 (Gr1 hi cells). The proportion of Gr1 hi cells and the total number of Gr1 + cells were markedly reduced in the bone marrow, along with an increase in the ratio of Gr1 + granulocytes in peripheral white blood cells following bacteremia. E. coli infection stimulated proliferation of granulopoietic precursor cells, resulting in a marked increase in the ratio of immature Gr1 lo cells in the bone marrow. Alcohol administration itself triggered marrow release of Gr1 + cells, resulting in reduction of the marrow granulocyte reserve with an elevation of granulocytes in the circulation. Alcohol also impaired activation of granulopoietic precursor proliferation following bacteremia. Alcohol disrupted lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-TLR4-ERK1/2-cyclin D1 signaling and inhibited upregulation of Sca-1 and C/EBPβ expression by lineage-negative marrow cells in response to bacteremia. These results indicate that chronic-plus-binge alcohol exposure inhibits the granulopoietic response by disrupting key cell signaling for hematopoietic precursor cell activation and commitment to granulocyte lineage development.

Background: This investigation tested the hypothesis that preactivated and disaggregated shape-changed platelets (PreD-SCP) and human embryonic stem cell-derived exosomes (hESC-Exo) treatments can reduce brain-infarct area (BIA) in rat with preservation of neurological function following acute ischemic stroke (AIS) induced by left middle-cerebral artery occlusion. Materials and Methods: Adult-male Sprague-Dawley rats (n=24) were randomly divided into group 1 (sham-control), 2 (AIS), 3 [AIS + PreD-SCP (3.0x108 cells)] and 4 (AIS + hESC-Exo, 100 μg). PreD-SCP and hESC-Exo were administered intravenously at 2/6/24 hours after the AIS procedure for animals in group 3 and 4, respectively. All animals were euthanized by day-28 post-AIS. Results: Brain infarct area (BIA) measured by histopathology was significantly larger in group 2 than that in other groups, and significantly larger in group 3 and 4 than that in group 1 (p