Please login to be able to save your searches and receive alerts for new content matching your search criteria.
The particle induced X-ray emission analysis is applied to mark (or to localize) a cancer lesion from its benign environment in animal experiments. As a photosensitiser, we have used hematoporphyrin derivative (HPD) and in order to make HPD visible to PIXE, we synthesize HPD with rare earth metals to form lanthanide-HPD to enhance the localizing efficiency tremendously and PIXE is used as a straightforward detection method to find the successfulness of the synthesis. In theory, this approach can be used to probe carcinogenesis at cell levels. To increase the cure effects of lanthanide-HPD, we add ZYX to enhance the pharmaceutical effectiveness. ZYX, our code name for a group of drugs and chemicals, is mostly of the Chinese herb extraxctions but some has different origin. We explain the present approach with a specific experiment, Dysprosium-HPD (Dy-HPD) as a localizer, and conclude this article with some comments and perspectives.
For many decades, the Chinese have been using herbal medications to treat bone diseases. To examine effects of an extract of ten medicinal herbs on estrogen deficiency bone loss, ten-month-old female rats were randomly divided into three groups: ovariectomized (OVX), OVX treated with herbs (OVX-M) 4 ml/day by gavage, and OVX treated with estrogen (OVX-E) 10 mg subcutaneously (s.c.) twice per week. The bone mineral density (BMD) of the left femur (fBMD), spine (sBMD) and global body (gBMD) were measured at baseline and at 4, 8 and 12 weeks using a Hologic QDR 2000 dual-energy X-ray densitometer. Tibial strength was tested using the Instron Model 5566 electro-mechanical testing machine. The urinary pyridinoline creatinine ratio (Pyd/Cr), deoxypyridinoline creatinine ratio (Dpd/Cr), plasma alkaline phosphatase (ALP), calcium (CA), phosphorus (P) and albumin (ALB) were also determined. Uterine weight was determined at 12 weeks. The results showed that percent changes of fBMD in the OVX (n = 9), OVX-E (n = 8) and OVX-M (n = 8) rats at the 12-week time point were -11.8 ± 4.6c, 1.8 ± 3.1a, -7.6 ± 1.9abc (p < 0.05-0.001, a: vs. OVX, b: vs. OVX-E, c: vs. baseline); sBMD were -10.7 ± 4.6c, -0.3 ± 5.5a, -5.9 ± 3.5abc; and gBMD were -4.8 ± 2.3c, 0.1 ± 2.4a, -2.7 ± 2.6abc, respectively. Further, the tibia maximum breaking stress and flexural modulus of elasticity in OVX-M rats (295 ± 33a, 18194 ± 3264a) were significantly higher (p < 0.005-0.001) than that in OVX rats (189 ± 83, 10309 ± 4930), and similar to OVX-E rats (298 ± 35a, 18766 ± 2620a). Additionally, the herbal extract reduced the urinary Pyd/Cr, Dpd/Cr and plasma ALP increment followed OVX and was not associated with a rise in uterine weight. In conclusion, the herbal extract demonstrated a therapeutic effect to inhibit bone resorption and to reduce estrogen-dependent bone loss without uterine stimulation. It may have potential as a new approach in treating and preventing postmenopausal osteoporosis (PMOP).