ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Primary thyroid tuberculosis (PTT) is an uncommon type of extrapulmonary tuberculosis, which is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. It does not have specific clinical manifestations, and most cases are diagnosed through postoperative histopathological examination. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the diagnostic pattern and management strategy among patients with primary thyroid tuberculosis. DESIGN AND SETTING: Retrospective study on patients with primary thyroid tuberculosis in the First Hospital of Jilin University (Changchun, China). METHODS: Between March 2015 and June 2020, nine cases of PTT were diagnosed and treated in the Department of Thyroid Surgery of the First Hospital of Jilin University. Age at diagnosis, primary symptoms, preoperative biopsy, operation method, pathological classification, acid-fast staining test, anti-TB therapy and prognosis were registered in order to explore the appropriate protocol for diagnosis and treatment of this disease. RESULTS: None of the patients was diagnosed with thyroid tuberculosis before surgery. All the patients underwent surgery. Granulomatous changes or caseous necrosis in thyroid tissue were found through postoperative histopathological evaluation. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) results for Mycobacterium tuberculosis were positive in all patients. Most patients had a good prognosis after surgery and anti-tuberculosis drug therapy. CONCLUSION: PTT is a rare disease. It is important to improve the preoperative diagnosis. Preoperative diagnostic accuracy relies on increased awareness of the disease and appropriate use of preoperative diagnostic methods, such as PCR detection, fine-needle aspiration cytology, acid-fast bacillus culture, ultrasound and blood sedimentation. PCR detection of M. tuberculosis is recommended as the gold standard for diagnosis.

Being a biocompatible, biodegradable and bioactive material, chitosan in the form of membranes offers a great potential as a substrate in mineralization processes in vitro. In the present work, chitosan with (without) bovine serum albumin used as templates induced the formation of calcium carbonate. The unusual morphology of calcium carbonate was get from the chitosan /bovine serum albumin system. The CaCO3 crystals obtained in system were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectrography and powder X-ray diffractometry. The possible formation mechanism of CaCO3 was discussed.

The polar amino acid, such as aspartic acid (L-Asp) and arginine(L-Arg) are the primary active molecules of the glycoprotein on the organic/inorganic interface of biomineralized tissue. In this study, aspartic acid and arginine were used as the organic template in inducing the nucleation and growth of calcium carbonate. With the analysis of X-ray diffraction we investigated the relationship between amino acid concentration and the precipitation phase crystal structure of calcium carbonate. SEM was employed in the analysis of the morphological characteristic of the precipitation. To interpret the cause of the hierarchic structure was proposed from the view of the small biomolecules polarity that can control over the growth of the crystals and the aggregation of the micro crystals. The conclusion also provides a new material synthesize strategy.

Molecularly imprinted polymers (MIP's) for quercetin were successfully synthesized by a thermal polymerization method using quercetin as template molecule, acrylamide as functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as cross-linker in the presence of four different porogenic solvents: 1,4-dioxane, tetrahydrofuran (THF), acetone, and acetonitrile. The selective performance of obtained MIP's was evaluated through HPLC analysis. The results indicated that the MIP obtained in THF showed the highest capacity and selectivity. The Scatchard method also supported HPLC results. The results were interpreted by computational quantum chemical analysis through Onsager self-consistent reaction field (SCRF) technique in term of stabilization energy. It was also found that the amount of porogenic solvent used had impact on the adsorption effectiveness of MIP's.