Efficacy of early treatment with infliximab in pediatric Crohn’s disease

AIM: To investigate the effectiveness of early infliximab use for induction and maintenance therapy in pediatric Crohn’s disease. METHODS: We performed a retrospective chart review of 36 patients with Crohn’s disease. Ten patients (group A) were treated with mesalamine after induction therapy with oral prednisolone, and 13 patients (group B) were treated with azathioprine after induction therapy with oral prednisolone. Thirteen patients (group C) received infliximab and azathioprine for induction and maintenance therapy for the first year, and were treated with azathioprine after 1 year. All patients were followed for at least 24 mo. Efficacy was determined by the relapse rate using the pediatric Crohn’s disease activity index score in each group at 12 and 24 mo. RESULTS: At the 1 year follow-up, the relapse ratee, Mi Jin Kim, Hae Jeong Lee, Yon Ho Choe (23.1%, 3 of 13 patients) in group C was lower than that (61.5%, 8 of 13 patients) in group B (P = 0.047). At the 2 years follow-up, the relapse rate (38.5%, 5 of 13 patients) in group C was lower than that (76.9%, 10 of 13 patients) in group B (P = 0.047). Adverse events in group C were fewer than in groups A and B. CONCLUSION: Early induction with infliximab at diagnosis, known as "top-down" therapy, was effective for reducing the relapse rate compared to conventional therapies for at least 2 years.

Positively charged carbon electrocatalyst for enhanced power performance of L-ascorbic acid fuel cells

Carbon surface with large oxygen and carbon ratio(O/C) indicated an outstanding electro-catalytic activity toward L-ascorbic acid oxidation, compared to platinum group metals. However, interrelation of surface functional groups and its electro-catalytic activity is still unclear. In this paper, we prepared different levels of oxidized carbons by a simple acid treatment and investigated the correlation between the surface oxygen functional groups of acid-treated carbon and electro-catalytic activity in an electrooxidation of L-ascorbic acid. Positively charged carbon was demonstrated by lone pair electron of oxygen from valence band spectra study. It was revealed that the positively charged carbon, especially involved in carbonyl, showed enhanced the electro-catalytic activity through both better adsorption of negatively charged reactants and lowered LUMO by electronegativity of oxygen.

Selective conversion of N_(2) to NH_(3) on highly dispersed RuO_(2) using amphiphilic ionic liquid-anchored fibrous carbon structure

Ammonia (NH_(3)) plays a key role in the agricultural fertilizer and commodity chemical industries and is useful for exploring hydrogen storage carriers.The electrochemical nitrogen reduction reaction (NRR) is receiving attention as an environmentally sustainable NH_(3) synthesis replacement for the traditional Haber–Bosch process owing to its near ambient reaction conditions (<100℃ and 1 atm).However,its NH_(3) yield and faradaic efficiency are extremely low because of the sluggish kinetics of N≡N bond dissociation and the hindrance from competitive hydrogen evolution.To overcome these challenges,we herein introduce a dual-functionalized ionic liquid (1-(4-hydroxybutyl)-3-methylimidazolium hydroxide[HOBIM]OH) for a highly dispersed ruthenium oxide electrocatalyst to achieve a biased NRR.The observed uniform distribution of RuO_(2) on the carbon fiber and increase in the surface area for N_(2) adsorption by limiting proton access can be attributed to the presence of imidazolium ions.Moreover,extensive N_(2) adsorption contributes to enhanced NRR selectivity with an NH_(3) yield of 3.0×10^(-10)mol cm^(-2)s^(-1)(91.8μg h^(-1)mg^(-1)) and a faradaic efficiency of 2.2%at-0.20 V_(RHE).We expect our observations to provide new insights into the design of effective electrode structures for electrochemical NH;synthesis.