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6,006 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: less than one percent of women living with hiv have perinatally acquired hiv infection ( phiv ) .
according to recent centers for disease control and prevention ( cdc ) hiv surveillance data , approximately 2,388 phiv women are living in the united states . due to lifelong hiv infection , many women with phiv have been exposed to multiple antiretroviral ( arv ) therapy regimens .
these exposures may include inadequate therapy during periods when there were limited arv therapy options , such as mono and dual therapy . as a consequence of suboptimal therapy , inconsistent drug adherence , and/or prolonged intermittent exposure to multiple arv classes
, phiv women may have hiv that has developed significant drug resistance [ 25 ] .
antiretroviral drug resistance can limit options for therapy during pregnancy and potentially complicate obstetrical care for hiv - infected women .
phiv women who have developed arv drug resistance may require arv therapies which are less well studied in pregnancy and may have unknown toxicities [ 6 , 7 ] .
potentially secondary to noncompliance or a suboptimal arv regimen , phiv patients may have poor viral suppression during pregnancy resulting in cesarean delivery and a higher risk of perinatal transmission [ 3 , 4 , 8 , 9 ] .
examples of other risks specific to phiv pregnant women include complex psychosocial issues , unplanned pregnancies , and transmission of hiv to susceptible partners [ 3 , 6 , 10 , 11 ] .
arv resistance rates have been reported as high as 3050% in phiv pregnant women [ 4 , 9 , 12 ] .
arv resistance mutations and drug classes affected are not well described in previous studies of phiv pregnant women [ 4 , 9 , 12 ] .
the primary objective of this study was to determine if phiv pregnant women are more likely than pregnant women with nonperinatal hiv infection ( nphiv ) to have arv drug resistance .
we describe the arv classes affected by hiv genotypic mutations in both phiv and nphiv women .
our secondary objective is to describe and compare potential adverse... | objective . to compare hiv drug resistance in pregnant women with perinatal hiv ( phiv ) and those with nonperinatal hiv ( nphiv ) infection
. methods .
we conducted a multisite cohort study of phiv and nphiv women from 2000 to 2014 .
sample size was calculated to identify a fourfold increase in antiretroviral ( arv ) drug resistance in phiv women .
continuous variables were compared using student 's t - test and wilcoxon rank - sum tests .
categorical variables were compared using 2 and fisher 's exact tests .
univariate analysis was used to determine factors associated with antiretroviral drug resistance .
results .
forty - one phiv and 41 nphiv participants were included . women with phiv
were more likely to have drug resistance than those with nphiv ( ( 55% versus 17% , p = 0.03 ) , or 6.0 ( 95% ci 1.034.8 ) , p = 0.05 ) , including multiclass resistance ( 15% versus 0 , p = 0.03 ) , and they were more likely to receive nonstandard arvs during pregnancy ( 27% versus 5% , p = 0.01 ) .
phiv and nphiv women had similar rates of preterm birth ( 11% versus 28% , p = 0.08 ) and cesarean delivery ( 47% versus 46% , p = 0.9 ) .
two infants born to a single nphiv woman acquired hiv infection .
conclusions .
phiv women have a high frequency of hiv drug resistance mutations , leading to nonstandard arvs use during pregnancy . despite nonstandard arv use during pregnancy , phiv women did not experience increased rates of adverse pregnancy outcomes . |
6,007 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: odontogenic cysts are classifed by the world health organization as infammatory and
developmental according to their epithelial lining .
lateral periodontal cysts ( lpc )
have been regarded as an independent condition [ 1 - 4 ] .
lpcs are defined as nonkeratinized and noninflammatory developmental cysts located
adjacent or lateral to the root of a vital tooth .
this cyst 's most frequent location
is at the level of mandibular premolars but it has been reported occurring in the
other areas .
lpc is one of the cysts of lower incidence among developmental odontogenic cysts .
since pain or other clinical symptoms
have seldom been reported , the lesion is often
discovered on routine radiographic examination .
radiographs of the lateral
periodontal cyst show a well - circumscribed round or ovoid radiolucent area , usually
with a sclerotic margin .
most of them are less than 1 cm in diameter [ 5 - 8 ] .
histologically , the lateral periodontal cyst is a distinct type of developmental cyst
characterized by a thin , nonkeratinized epithelium usually 1 to 5 cell layers thick ,
which resembles the reduced enamel epithelium .
the epithelial lining exhibits focal
thickenings or plaques , in which clear glycogen - containing epithelial cells have
often been found .
it presents unique characteristics and there is an important differential diagnosis
with lesions of endodontic and periodontal origin , and other cysts from the same
group [ 5 - 8 ] .
the pathogenesis of lpc , the gingival cyst of the adult , the
botryoid odontogenic cyst and the glandular odontogenic cyst may be correlated
.
some authors , based on the clinical
and morphological similarities , reinforce that the gingival cyst of the adult and
lpc present a common histogenesis , and these lesions may have the same extra - osseous
and intra - osseous characteristics , respectively .
this paper reports a classic case of lpc which is located in the anterior region of
mandible , and also presents a brief literature review of... | abstractbackgroundthe lateral periodontal cyst is considered a developmental odontogenic cyst
with unusual occurrence . in most cases
it is preliminary diagnosed as a
radiographic finding , presenting as well circumscribed or as a round or
teardrop - shaped radiolucent area . due to its location
it can easily be
misdiagnosed as a lesion of endodontic origin .
final diagnosis should be
based on histopatological examination .
the purpose of this paper is to
report a classic case of lateral periodontal cyst located in the anterior
region of mandible and to review the relevant literature which describes the
clinical , radiological and histopathological features of lateral periodontal
cysts.methodsa 50 years female patient complained of an asymptomatic gingival swelling in
the region between the left mandibular lateral incisor and canine .
radiographic examination revealed a well circumscribed radiolucency with
approximately 0.5 cm diameter with a radiopaque margin between the roots of
the left mandibular lateral incisor and canine .
the adjacent teeth had vital
pulp.resultsa total enucleation of the lesion was performed , and intraoperative
examination showed a single lesion with no communication between the cyst 's
cavity and the oral environment .
histological examination revealed that the
lesion was " lateral periodontal cyst of developmental origin " .
there was no
recurrence or complications for 24 months follow-up.conclusionsthe lateral periodontal cyst can be considered in the differential diagnosis
when a radioloucent lesion appears adjacent to the roots of vital teeth .
the
treatment of choice is surgical removal and subsequent histological
evaluation to confirm the diagnosis .
relapses are infrequent . |
6,008 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: acquired renal displacements , due to enlargement of adjacent viscera , are less frequent than congenital renal ectopia / malrotation , but have been described .
occasionally , these displacements are associated with kidney rotation , more commonly on the right side due to space constraints . here
, we report a case of transient right kidney rotation in a patient with a non - ptotic kidney , due to self - limited hepatic congestion and renal enlargement secondary to acute pulmonary thromboembolism . to the best of our knowledge ,
rapid development and reversibility of acquired kidney rotation secondary to acute pulmonary thromboembolism has not been discussed in the literature .
a 43-year - old woman with a prior history of an enterocutaneous fistula , who had required multiple abdominal surgeries , including bowel resections and prior pulmonary embolism , presented to the emergency department with recurrent enterocutaneous fistula and synchronous acute pulmonary embolism .
ct scan of the abdomen and pelvis on admission demonstrated rotation and mild inferior displacement of the right kidney , with the long axis of the kidney lying in the horizontal plane [ figure 1a and b ] .
this was a new finding compared with multiple prior ct scans available within the last 2 years in which the kidneys were normally oriented parallel to the psoas muscles
ct pulmonary angiography performed synchronously for syncope and pulmonary decompensation demonstrated a segmental pulmonary embolism and right heart strain , including reflux of contrast material into the inferior vena cava , interventricular septal bowing , enlarged main pulmonary artery ( 34 mm ) , and right ventricular dilatation ( rv / lv ratio of 1.8 ) [ figure 1c f ] .
the most recent ct scan done 45 days prior to this admission is shown in figure 1 g and h. 43-year - old woman presented with recurrent enterocutaneous fistula and synchronous acute pulmonary embolism , and was subsequently noted to have acquired , transient , rotated right kidney .
( a ) axial... | we present a case of an acquired , transient , rotated right kidney in a 43-year - old woman with an enterocutaneous fistula who presented with acute pulmonary embolism .
this non - ptotic rotated kidney returned to its normal orientation within 10 days .
we postulate that this transient kidney rotation is due to transient hepatomegaly and passive renal congestion secondary to pulmonary embolism . while in this patient
there were no untoward sequelae , it has been reported that ureteral obstruction or vascular occlusion can occur in patients with ptotic and malrotated kidneys , and radiologists , therefore , should be aware of this unusual occurrence and the potential complications . |
6,009 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study:
the increased application of self - constructed labview - based chemical virtual instruments ( vis ) is due to their flexibility and ability to satisfy all the specific user requirements combined with the simplicity of the construction .
many configurations of labview - based vi have been reported until now corresponding to their specific chemical application defined by the user needs .
described a vi system based on labview 8.0 for ion analyzer which can measure and analyze ion concentrations in solution , comprising a high input impedance voltmeter ( widely used in measuring the em generated by ion selective electrode ) , a homemade conditioning circuit , data acquisition board , and a computer .
when applied to determine the reaction rate constant by px , it achieved live acquiring , real - time displaying , automatic processing of testing data , generating a report of results , and other functions .
this method simplifies the experimental operation , avoids complicated procedures of manual data processing and personal error , and improves veracity and repeatability of the experiment results .
wang et al . reported a labview - based chemical virtual instrument ( vi ) for temperatures and pressures measurement . by selecting hardware modules , such as the pci - daq card or serial port method , and the software modules , different kinds of sensors
can be used for creating different chemical instruments allowing extremely flexible solutions for automatic measurements in the physical chemistry research .
developed a labview - based software for the automation of a sequential injection analysis instrument for the determination of morphine .
the detection is based on chemiluminescence reaction with acidic potassium permanganate in the presence of sodium polyphosphate .
the authors reported excellent analytical characteristics of the developed labview - based software system to be achieved : the precision of the determination was 0.7% measured by the relative standard deviation for five replicate measurements... | a virtual instrumentation ( vi ) system called vi localized corrosion image analyzer ( lcia ) based on labview 2010 was developed allowing rapid automatic and subjective error - free determination of the pits number on large sized corroded specimens .
the vi lcia controls synchronously the digital microscope image taking and its analysis , finally resulting in a map file containing the coordinates of the detected probable pits containing zones on the investigated specimen .
the pits area , traverse length , and density are also determined by the vi using binary large objects ( blobs ) analysis .
the resulting map file can be used further by a scanning vibrating electrode technique ( svet ) system for rapid ( one pass ) true / false svet check of the probable zones only passing through the pit 's centers avoiding thus the entire specimen scan . a complete svet scan over the already proved
true
zones could determine the corrosion rate in any of the zones . |
6,010 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: | abstractthe connection of embryonic stem cell technology and developmental biology provides valuable tools to decipher the mechanisms underlying human brain development and diseases , especially among neuronal populations , that are not readily available in primary cultures .
it is obviously the case of neurons forming the human cerebral cortex . in the images that are presented ,
the neurons were generated in vitro from human embryonic stem cells via forebrain - like progenitors .
maintained in culture for prolonged time , they acquired a mainly glutamatergic phenotype and morphological characteristics of cortical pyramidal neurons , including dendritic spines , and formed spectacular networks . |
6,011 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: paraganglioma is a rare neuroendocrine neoplasm that may develop at various body sites like abdomen , thorax , head and neck .
majority of paragangliomas develop in abdomen while mediastinal paraganglioma is a rare mediastinal tumor.12 posterior mediastinum is the commonest site for mediastinal paraganglioma while anterior mediastinal localization is unusual.13 most paraganglioma are asymptomatic and present as painless mass .
endoscopic ultrasound ( eus ) features of retroperitoneal paraganglioma have been described4 while that of mediastinal paraganglioma have not been described . in this report
we describe the eus features of mediastinal paraganglioma in a patient who presented with cough and chest pain without any neuroendocrinal symptoms .
a fifty - six year old female presented with one month history of chest pain and cough .
the patient was not hypertensive and did not give any history related to neuroendocrinal hormone over secretion .
the mass was inverted triangular shape with bulging peripheries , situated between aorta and left pulmonary artery .
the mass was hypervascular in the center and the interface between the mass and vessels described was intact and there was no lymphadenopathy ( fig . 1 - 3 ) .
eus - guided fine needle aspiration ( eus - fna ) was done using a 22-g needle ( echotip , cook corporation ) .
slides were prepared and the material was air dried as well as alcohol fixed before sending for cytopathological evaluation ( fig . 4 , 5 ) .
good material was obtained on eus - fna , but three experienced cytopathologists gave three different reports ; final diagnosis of paraganglioma was only made on thoracoscopic biopsy and immunohistochemistry .
mediastinal paraganglioma is a rare mediastinal tumor.12 it constituted 0.3% of all mediastinal tumors in the series described by cesar et al.1 while no case of mediastinal paraganglioma was found out of 57 eus - fna done for mediastinal masses by zeppa et al.2 majority of thoracic paragangliomas occur in posterior mediastinum . out of 16... | endoscopic ultrasound ( eus ) features of mediastinal paraganglioma have not been described . in this paper , we report a female patient presented with cough and chest pain without any neuroendocrinal symptoms .
final diagnosis of mediastinal paraganglioma was made on thoracoscopic biopsy and immunohistochemistry after eus - guided fine needle aspiration .
eus features of mediastinal paraganglioma are described . |
6,012 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: diabetes mellitus ( dm ) is a serious public health concern that causes illness , disability , and death throughout the world .
clinical diabetes therapy requires precise monitoring and maintaining of blood glucose levels as close to normal as possible to reduce the risk of emergency complications such as the retinopathy , nephropathy , and hypo- and hyperglycemia [ 13 ] . to date , existing sensing techniques have been demonstrated , such as glucose - based noninvasive glucose sensors and enzyme - based biosensors ; however , impaired responses and unpredictable drift make these unsuitable for long - term therapeutic practice .
therefore , the development of new diagnostic tools for reliable glycemic control with sufficient sensitivity and selectivity is of clinical interest . in order to solve these problems ,
microcantilever - based sensors have been proposed , which have high sensitivity , low detection limits , and broad application in the fields of chemistry , biotechnology , detection , and medical science [ 4 , 5 ] .
this sensing system has significant advantages over other sensor technologies , such as high surface - to - volume ratio , fast response time , and low cost of fabrication , and further , has proven effective in dna hybridization and , biomolecular recognition .
moreover , attogram - level mass detection sensitivities have been achieved using cantilever - based sensing technology .
microcantilevers have been used as force probes in atomic force microscopy ( afm ) and for high - resolution imaging to examine the topography and mechanical properties of biological samples without labels or treatment .
further , the cantilever may be functionalized with various probe molecules ( e.g. , dna , proteins , and antibodies ) and used as a specific biosensor for target molecules ( e.g. , dna and antigens ) .
this sensing system can be further specialized to act as a functional biosensor , whereby the resonance frequency of the cantilever shifts with mass loading when biomolecules absorb onto a... | efficient maintenance of glucose homeostasis is a major challenge in diabetes therapy , where accurate and reliable glucose level detection is required .
though several methods are currently used , these suffer from impaired response and often unpredictable drift , making them unsuitable for long - term therapeutic practice . in this study , we demonstrate a method that uses a functionalized atomic force microscope ( afm ) cantilever as the sensor for reliable glucose detection with sufficient sensitivity and selectivity for clinical use .
we first modified the afm tip with aminopropylsilatrane ( aps ) and then adsorbed glucose - specific lectin concanavalin a ( con a ) onto the surface .
the con a / aps - modified probes were then used to detect glucose by monitoring shifts in the cantilever resonance frequency . to confirm the molecule - specific interaction , afm
topographical images were acquired of identically treated silicon substrates which indicated a specific attachment for glucose - con a and not for galactose - con a. these results demonstrate that by monitoring the frequency shift of the afm cantilever , this sensing system can detect the interaction between con a and glucose , one of the biomolecule recognition processes , and may assist in the detection and mass quantification of glucose for clinical applications with very high sensitivity . |
6,013 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: ticks are considered important carriers of pathogenic microorganisms in the northern hemisphere , and ixodes ricinus ticks are associated with a diverse microbiota .
borrelia spirochetes are one of the pathogens transmitted to humans by i. ricinus ticks , and borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato ( s.l . )
represents a bacterial species complex that comprises several borrelia genospecies associated with lyme borreliosis ( lb ) .
borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto ( s.s . ) , borrelia afzelii , and borrelia garinii are causative agents of human lb in norway , and the prevalence of lb is monitored by the norwegian surveillance system for communicable diseases ( msis ) . a fourth
these four genospecies have been detected in i. ricinus ticks in northwest norway . during the recent years
, several genotyping methods have been established for analysis of borrelia to characterise strains and determine the phylogenetic relationships between strains [ 711 ] .
multilocus sequence typing ( mlst ) is a molecular typing tool that is used to characterise pathogenic microorganisms , and mlst can be used as a tool for the epidemiological surveillance and tracking of infectious diseases .
mlst , as defined by urwin and maiden , is a genotyping tool based on the sequences of housekeeping genes that evolve slowly .
the sequences used for mlst are approximately 400500 bp in size and are located throughout the genome to avoid bias .
multilocus sequence analysis ( mlsa ) applies mlst to characterise closely related species using a distance - based procedure for phylogenetic characterisation , and it includes pairwise genetic similarities .
mlst / mlsa have been applied in population studies and for analysis of borrelia species in geographic areas and for evolutionary studies and characterisation of new borrelia species . while some mlst / mlsa schemes combine housekeeping genes with hypervariable regions and noncoding loci [ 911 ] , the mlst scheme published in 2008 by margos et al .
is based on housekeeping genes that fulfill the... | characterisation of borrelia strains from ixodes ricinus ticks is important in the epidemiological surveillance of vector - borne pathogens .
multilocus sequences analysis ( mlsa ) is a molecular genotyping tool with high discriminatory power that has been applied in evolutionary studies and for the characterisation of borrelia genospecies .
mlsa was used to study genetic variations in borrelia strains isolated from i. ricinus ticks collected from the woodlands in skodje .
the results demonstrate that the 50 borrelia strains were separated into 36 sequence types ( sts ) that were not previously represented in the mlst database .
a distance matrix neighbour - joining tree ( bootstrapped 500 iterations ) showed four deeply branched clusters , and each deeply branched cluster represented one borrelia genospecies .
the mean pairwise genetic differences confirm the genospecies clustering .
the combination of alleles separates the borrelia strains from northwest norway from the strains in the mlst database , thus identifying new sts .
although a highly divergent b. afzelii population could be expected , the heterogeneity among the b. garinii strains is more unusual .
the present study indicates that the circulation of strains between migrating birds and stationary birds in this coastal region may play a role in the evolution of b. garinii strains . |
6,014 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: several catastrophic epidemics resulting from the consumption of food contaminated by mehg have highlighted the potentially disastrous effects of mehg on living organisms .
mehg is a potent neurotoxicant which affects both the developing and mature cns [ 5 , 6 ] . in infants ,
mehg causes widespread and diffuse damage , whereas focal damage is caused in the adult brain . in adults , chronic mehg poisoning results in the degeneration of the sensory cerebral cortex and the cerebellum , thereby leading to severe neurological disturbances , such as cerebellar ataxia and paresthesia , sensory and speech impairment , and the constriction of the visual field [ 4 , 7 , 8 ] .
the pathological changes involve general neuronal degeneration with gliosis in the calcarine , and precentral and postcentral areas of the cerebral cortex , as well as the loss of granular cells in the cerebellar cortex . in biological systems
, mehg exists only at a very low concentration as a free , unbound cation which can bind to sulfhydryl groups ( -sh ) of amino acids with a very high affinity ( log k in the order of 1523 ) .
this affinity of hg for sulphur and -sh groups is a major factor underlying the biochemical properties of mehg , which , consequently , leads to its interference with the enzyme activities of several cellular targets . in the marine ecosphere ,
mehg is sustained [ 11 , 12 ] and , after bioaccumulation , is introduced into the human population through the dietary intake of fish and seafood products .
mehg toxicity due to the consumption of adulterated fish represents a major public health issue .
greater fish consumption in many cases is paralleled by increased mehg intake ; however , conversely , lower maternal seafood intake has also been associated with higher risk for a suboptimal developmental outcome . according to the avon longitudinal study of parents and children ( alspac ) , the authors reported that maternal seafood intake during pregnancy of less than 340 g per week was associated with an increased... | methylmercury ( mehg ) , an environmental toxicant primarily found in fish and seafood , poses a dilemma to both consumers and regulatory authorities , given the nutritional benefits of fish consumption versus the possible adverse neurological damage .
several studies have shown that mehg toxicity is influenced by a number of biochemical factors , such as glutathione ( gsh ) , fatty acids , vitamins , and essential elements , but the cellular mechanisms underlying these complex interactions have not yet been fully elucidated .
the objective of this paper is to outline the cellular response to dietary nutrients , as well as to describe the neurotoxic exposures to mehg . in order to determine the cellular mechanism(s ) of toxicity ,
the effect of pretreatment with biochemical factors ( e.g. , n - acetyl cysteine , ( nac ) ; diethyl maleate , ( dem ) ; docosahexaenoic acid , ( dha ) ; selenomethionine , sem ; trolox ) and mehg treatment on intercellular antioxidant status , mehg content , and other endpoints was evaluated .
this paper emphasizes that the protection against oxidative stress offered by these biochemical factors is among one of the major mechanisms responsible for conferring neuroprotection .
it is therefore critical to ascertain the cellular mechanisms associated with various dietary nutrients as well as to determine the potential effects of neurotoxic exposures for accurately assessing the risks and benefits associated with fish consumption . |
6,015 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: complexity in chemistry ;
reaction networks , coupled equilibria ,
spatiotemporal compartmentalization , or feedback loops often result
in emergent behavior characterized by responsiveness , adaptivity and
nonlinearity ; life being the prime example .
even though our creations can not yet rival those of nature , the
rise of interest in systems chemistry gives hope that the gap will
decrease as we gather understanding and devise new mechanisms to create
and control complexity .
one of
the more successful methods to generate complex ( supra)molecular
systems is dynamic combinatorial chemistry ( dcc ) . in this approach ,
a few small building blocks react reversibly with
each other , giving rise to mixtures of much more complex library members ,
together constituting a dynamic combinatorial library ( dcl ) . in its
relatively short history
, it has led to practical outcomes , such as
discoveries of biologically active compounds or responsive materials , as well as to discoveries of fundamental value , such as emergence
of self - replicating molecules or complex reaction networks and cascades .
addition of a second type of reversible
chemistry not only adds another layer of complexity , but also provides
an additional handle to control it .
however , only a small fraction
of reported work takes advantage of this strategy , and only a handful describe three or more dynamic covalent chemistries
in a single system .
this situation stands in a stark contrast with supramolecular systems , where several different interaction
motifs are often used simultaneously .
combined combinatorial
chemistries can be orthogonal ( scheme 1a ) , when one functional
group can only be involved in formation of one covalent bond type ,
or promiscuous ( scheme 1b ) , which means that some of the functionalities can form more than
one type of dynamic covalent bonds .
disulfide
and hydrazone exchange are a pair of orthogonal chemistries , as in
aqueous solution thiols do not form stable... | the ability to design reaction networks
with high , but addressable
complexity is a necessary prerequisite to make advanced functional
chemical systems .
dynamic combinatorial chemistry has proven to be
a useful tool in achieving complexity , however with some limitations
in controlling it .
herein we introduce the concept of antiparallel
chemistries , in which the same functional group can be channeled into
one of two reversible chemistries depending on a controllable parameter .
such systems allow both for achieving complexity , by combinatorial
chemistry , and addressing it , by switching from one chemistry to another
by controlling an external parameter . in our design
the two antiparallel
chemistries are thiol disulfide exchange and thio - michael addition ,
sharing the thiol as the common building block . by means of oxidation
and reduction
the system can be reversibly switched from predominantly
thio - michael chemistry to predominantly disulfide chemistry , as well
as to any intermediate state .
both chemistries operate in water , at
room temperature , and at mildly basic ph , which makes them a suitable
platform for further development of systems chemistry . |
6,016 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: semm first introduced the laparoscopic method for appendicectomy in the early 1980s . since then laparoscopic appendicectomy ( la )
was made popular by various surgeons and preferred over the open method due to its inherent advantages .
however , this technically demanding procedure requires increased surgical time and general anesthesia with positive pressure ventilation .
also , this is an expensive procedure and requires an advanced surgical set - up and skilled surgeons , which prevent its use as routine practice in developing countries .
the laparoscopic - assisted appendicectomy ( laa ) technique has all the advantages of the laparoscopic method at less expense than the completely laparoscopic technique , with a shorter operating time as an added advantage .
the aim of our study is to evaluate the feasibility of laparoscopic - assisted appendicectomy ( laa ) using the two - port technique under local anesthesia in adults . as a pilot study we included a selected group of patients with low body mass index ( bmi ) and uncomplicated appendicitis .
we conducted a prospective study over a two - month period where laa was performed on 12 patients ( seven female and five male ) of asa grade i or ii , who presented with acute appendicitis .
inclusion criteria included pain in the right iliac fossa , with muscle guarding , tenderness at mcburney 's point , vomiting , fever , leukocytosis , and age more than 18 years .
all the patients had a plain abdominal radiograph , routine blood tests , and a sonographic examination .
patients with generalized peritonitis , appendicular abscess or perforation , and a palpable mass were excluded from the study .
the patients who were found to have gangrenous or perforated appendicitis under laparoscopic view were excluded from this study and converted into the open technique .
all the patients were explained about the procedure and the possible conversion into open technique and written consent was taken . in the operation theater ( ot ) , an intravenous catheter was placed... | aim : nowadays laparoscopic - assisted appendicectomy using the two - port technique is gaining popularity due to its certain benefits over the open version .
general anesthesia with positive pressure ventilation is the preferred mode of anesthesia in this technique .
we conducted a pilot study using the two - port technique in adult patients , with uncomplicated appendicitis under local anesthesia , to evaluate its feasibility.materials and methods : in this prospective study 12 consecutive patients of asa grade i and ii , with a mean age of 22.5 years , suffering from acute appendicitis , were included .
all the patients received ondansetron , diazepam , and pentazocine as premedication .
monitored anesthesia care was given .
the site of trocar insertions were infiltrated with 1% lignocaine with adrenalin .
the pneumoperitoneum was created using carbon - di - oxide .
after exteriorization of the appendix using the trocar , appendicectomy was performed as in the open procedure.resultseleven out of twelve patients were successfully operated using this method without converting it into an open method .
two cases required an extra port to free the appendix from the adhesion .
there were no intra- or post - operative complications present.conclusion:two-port laparoscopic - assisted appendicectomy under local anesthesia is a safe and effective method for uncomplicated appendicitis in adults , and the procedure is suitable where limited set - up for anesthesia is present . |
6,017 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the mouse fasl locus and known restriction sites were used to construct the targeting vector and diagnose homologous recombination in embryonic stem ( es ) cells and gene - targeted ( fasl , fasl ) mice .
targeting knock - in vectors were made with the loxp / pgkneo / loxp cassette cloned into the pac1 site . targeting constructs for the mutant fasl mice ( supplementary fig .
all experiments with mice were performed according to the guidelines of the animal ethics committees of our institutions .
mice were killed at 6 , 12 or 20 weeks for analysis and further cohorts were monitored daily for morbidity and killed when showing signs of illness .
tissues were fixed for microscopic analysis in 80% histochoice ( amresco)/20% ethanol or 10% buffered formalin and embedded in paraffin and conventional histopathology was performed on hematoxylin plus eosin stained sections . for detailed methods for immunohistochemical staining , immunofluorescent staining , confocal microscopy , cell preparation , flow cytometric analysis , elisa , aicd , chromatography , viral infection and target cell killing , t cell proliferation assays and western blotting refer to the online methods version .
statistical analysis was performed using the student 's t - test , log rank ( mantel - cox ) test for survival curves or one - way analysis of variance using turkey 's comparison test to compare multiple groups where appropriate .
the mouse fasl locus and known restriction sites were used to construct the targeting vector and diagnose homologous recombination in embryonic stem ( es ) cells and gene - targeted ( fasl , fasl ) mice .
targeting knock - in vectors were made with the loxp / pgkneo / loxp cassette cloned into the pac1 site . targeting constructs for the mutant fasl mice ( supplementary fig .
all experiments with mice were performed according to the guidelines of the animal ethics committees of our institutions .
mice were killed at 6 , 12 or 20 weeks for analysis and further cohorts were monitored daily for morbidity and killed... | fas ligand ( fasl ) , an apoptosis - inducing member of the tnf cytokine family and its receptor , fas , are critical for shutdown of chronic immune responses1 - 3 and prevention of autoimmunity4,5 .
accordingly , mutations in their genes cause severe lymphadenopathy and autoimmune disease in mice6,7 and humans8,9 . fasl function is regulated by deposition in the plasma membrane and metalloprotease - mediated shedding10,11 .
we generated gene - targeted mice that selectively lack either secreted fasl ( sfasl ) or membrane - bound fasl ( mfasl ) to resolve which of these forms is required for cell killing and to explore their hypothetical non - apoptotic activities .
mice lacking sfasl ( fasls/s ) appeared normal and their t cells readily killed target cells , whereas t cells lacking mfasl ( faslm/m ) could not kill cells through fas activation .
faslm/m mice developed lymphadenopathy and hyper - gammaglobulinaemia , similar to faslgld / gld mice , which express a mutant form of fasl that can not bind fas , but surprisingly , ( on a c57bl/6 background ) faslm/m mice succumbed to sle - like autoimmune kidney destruction and histiocytic sarcoma , diseases that occur only rarely and considerably later in faslgld / gld mice .
these results demonstrate that mfasl is essential for cytotoxic activity and constitutes the guardian against lymphadenopathy , autoimmunity and cancer whereas excess sfasl appears to promote autoimmunity and tumorigenesis through non - apoptotic activities . |
6,018 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: williams campbell syndrome , also known as bronchomalacia , is a rare disorder characterized by a deficiency of cartilage in subsegmental bronchi , leading to distal airway collapse and bronchiectasis .
there have been few reports about patients affected by saccular bronchiectasis , paracicatricial emphysema , and diminished cartilage .
this report presents a 57-year - old woman with progressive dyspnea , cough , sputum production , and fever .
the clinical and laboratory examination revealed that the patient had a respiratory infection due to bronchiectasis caused by williams
although a rare syndrome , when patients signs and symptoms include recurrent respiratory infections , bronchiectasis , productive cough , and dyspnea , williams campbell syndrome should be included in the differential diagnosis .
williams campbell syndrome is a rare disorder characterized by a deficiency of cartilage in subsegmental bronchi , leading to distal airway collapse and bronchiectasis
campbell syndrome results from the absence of cartilage rings beyond the first and second bronchial divisions with resultant bronchiectasis , which typically affects the fourth- to sixth - order bronchi .
the symptoms and prognosis ultimately depend on the extent of cartilage maldevelopment of the bronchi .
although the syndrome has been best described in children with recurrent pneumonia and broncho - obstructive symptoms such as coughing and wheezing , there have been recent descriptions in adults as well.1,2
a 57-year - old woman presented in the emergency department complaining of progressive dyspnea for the previous 5 days . on clinical examination she had productive cough with clear sputum and intermittent fever .
she was a lifelong nonsmoker but with multiple hospitalizations due to respiratory infections and asthma - like episodes from the age of 8 years . during the past 15 years
the patient was treated symptomatically with antibiotics , nebulizer bronchodilators , and long - term oxygen therapy ( 2 l / min/24 hours ) .
her family... | introductionwilliams campbell syndrome , also known as bronchomalacia , is a rare disorder characterized by a deficiency of cartilage in subsegmental bronchi , leading to distal airway collapse and bronchiectasis .
there have been few reports about patients affected by saccular bronchiectasis , paracicatricial emphysema , and diminished cartilage .
these are all characteristic of williams
campbell syndrome.case presentationthis report presents a 57-year - old woman with progressive dyspnea , cough , sputum production , and fever .
the clinical and laboratory examination revealed that the patient had a respiratory infection due to bronchiectasis caused by williams
campbell syndrome , which was undiagnosed in the patient until then.conclusionalthough a rare syndrome , when patients signs and symptoms include recurrent respiratory infections , bronchiectasis , productive cough , and dyspnea , williams campbell syndrome should be included in the differential diagnosis . |
6,019 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study:
alzheimer 's disease ( ad ) is the most common form of dementia in adults .
pathologically , the hallmarks of ad are amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles , associated with widespread neuronal loss .
its fundamental causes and the pathological cascades leading to symptoms , however , remain poorly understood .
extensive evidence supports an important role of cholesterol in the development and possibly progression of ad [ 13 ] .
the role of other lipids , such as ceramides and related - sphingolipids , ( sphingomyelins , sulfatides , and glycosphingolipids ) is also emerging .
they can be produced by hydrolysis of sphingomyelin ( sm ) via sphingomyelinases ( smases ) or synthesized de novo from fatty acyl coa and sphingosine .
conversely , in the golgi , ceramides may be transformed into sm by the addition of phosphorylcholine .
additionally , glycosyltransferases can attach sugar to ceramide , turning it into glucosylceramide or galactosylceramide ( galcer ) , a key step in the generation of complex glycosphingolipids [ 4 , 5 ] .
ceramides are important second messenger molecules that regulate diverse cellular processes including cell growth , differentiation , and apoptosis .
ceramide levels also increase in response to aging and various age - related stress factors and are directly involved in apoptotic signaling in various cell types , including neurons [ 68 ] .
there is evidence linking sphingolipid abnormalities , app processing , and neuronal death in ad . in vitro
, it has been shown that -amyloid added to cultured neurons [ 9 , 10 ] or oligodendrocytes increase smase activity , leading to an increase in ceramide levels .
additional reports have found that ceramide levels increase -amyloid synthesis [ 12 , 13 ] and favor gamma secretase processing of app [ 1416 ] so that inhibition of ceramide synthesis confers protection against -amyloid .
thus , it has been suggested that ceramides and -amyloid may synergize to induce neuronal death .
for example , the total phospholipid and sulfatide... | there is evidence linking sphingolipid abnormalities , app processing , and neuronal death in alzheimer 's disease ( ad ) .
we previously reported a strong elevation of ceramide levels in the brain of the appsl / ps1ki mouse model of ad , preceding the neuronal death . to extend these findings , we analyzed ceramide and related - sphingolipid contents in brain from two other mouse models ( i.e. , appsl and appsl / ps1m146l ) in which the time - course of pathology is closer to that seen in most currently available models .
conversely to our previous work , ceramides did not accumulate in disease - associated brain regions ( cortex and hippocampus ) from both models .
however , the appsl / ps1ki model is unique for its drastic neuronal loss coinciding with strong accumulation of neurotoxic a isoforms , not observed in other animal models of ad .
since there are neither neuronal loss nor toxic a species accumulation in appsl mice , we hypothesized that it might explain the lack of ceramide accumulation , at least in this model . |
6,020 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: cystic lesions of the lungs encompass a wide spectrum of rare lung lesions comprising of congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation ( ccam ) , congenital lobar emphysema ( cle ) , bronchopulmonary sequestration , and bronchogenic cyst .
ccam with an incidence of 1 in 10,000 to 25,000 pregnancies is the most common lung cyst .
an abnormal antenatal ultrasound scan has now become the most common mode of presentation in europe and the united states . in a small proportion of the cases
fetal intervention , like thoracoamniotic shunts , laser ablation , and resectional surgery , is a possibility in some of these conditions .
management of an asymptomatic lesion is controversial ; while some advocate surgical excision , others recommend resection , only when symptoms occur .
this study retrospectively reviews our experience of congenital cystic lung lesions in terms of antenatal diagnosis , etiologies , presentation , management and complications .
the records of all patients managed at our center with a diagnosis of cystic lung lesions from january 2000 to june 2011 were reviewed .
the following data were compiled : antenatal diagnosis , symptomatology , treatment received prior to referral to our center , imaging findings , location , and type of lesions , type of surgery , postoperative ventilation , complications , and outcomes .
for the 10-year study period , 40 symptomatic patients with a diagnosis of congenital cystic lung lesions were managed at our center . only three ( 8% ) patients were diagnosed antenatally . among the remaining
, 34 had no antenatal ultrasound scan performed and it was reported as normal in three patients . out of the three patients with an antenatal diagnosis , two became symptomatic at birth and one at 48 months .
twenty - nine of the 40 ( 73% ) patients were male and 11 ( 27% ) were female and the median age of presentation was 25 months .
all patients were investigated with a standard chest x - ray ( cxr ) and computed tomography ( ct ) scan .
the cxr was accurate in identifying a... | background : a majority of cystic lesions in the western world are detected antenatally , whereas , the diagnosis in our setup occurs once the child becomes symptomatic .
surgical management is primarily dictated by the presence of symptoms , recurrent infection , and rarely by the potential risk of malignant transformation.materials and methods : a retrospective analysis was carried out on all consecutive patients with cystic lung lesions managed at our center from january 2000 through june 2011 for antenatal diagnosis , presentation , diagnostic modalities , treatment , and complications.results:forty cystic lung lesions were identified . only 8% were antenatally detected .
out of 40 , the final diagnosis was congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation in 19 , congenital lobar emphysema in 11 , and bronchogenic cysts and pulmonary sequestration in five each . of these
, 20% had received a course of prior antitubercular therapy and 30% had an intercostal drain inserted prior to referral to our center .
postoperative morbidity in the form of bronchopleural fistula , pneumothorax , and non - expansion of the residual lung was noted in 10% of the patients.conclusion:antenatal diagnosis of these lesions is still uncommon in third world countries .
prior to referral to a pediatric surgical center a large number of patients received antitubercular drugs and an intercostal drain insertion , due to incorrect diagnosis . |
6,021 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: women have an 1111.8% chance of undergoing at least one surgical intervention for pop or incontinence by the age of 79 years , with a re - operation rate of 29.2% [ 4 , 5 ] .
complication rates after surgery in different racial groups were reported to be 19.4% ( white ) , 34.1% ( black ) and 27.4% ( other ) .
although only a relatively small number of women with pop seek treatment , it is expected that this number will increase in the future . at present , the direct cost of pop surgery already exceeds 1 $ billion per year in the united states alone . to estimate the care requirements of women with pop in the future
, it is important to have reliable prevalence data from a general female population . data must be obtained using a questionnaire and vaginal examination because there is only a moderate correlation between the signs of pop ( measured by vaginal examination ) and the symptoms ( measured by a questionnaire ) [ 9 , 10 ] . to obtain reference data on the prevalence and distribution of pop signs and the pop symptom of feeling and/or seeing a vaginal bulge , we conducted a cross - sectional study on a general population of women aged 4585 years .
our first aim was to develop and validate a prediction model that will be helpful to researchers and health care policy makers .
we focussed on three different cut - off points because of a discrepancy between feeling and/or seeing a vaginal bulge ( the cornerstone symptom of pop ) and the presence of pop signs in literature .
a high correlation between signs and symptoms can be present when a different cut - off point is taken regarding the presence of pop .
therefore , we looked at 1 cm above , at the hymen and 1 cm beyond the hymen .
secondly , we created a pop score chart and a prognostic index to estimate the presence of pop in a general population without vaginal examination and the amount of care needed by women .
a cross - sectional study was performed on a general population of women aged 45 to 85 years .
1flowchart of the study flowchart of the... | introduction and hypothesisestimation on prevalence and distribution of pelvic organ prolapse ( pop ) signs in a general female population is difficult .
we therefore developed and validated a prediction model and prognostic instrument.methodsquestionnaires were sent to a general female population ( 4585 years ) .
a random sample underwent vaginal examination for pop ( popq ) .
a prediction model was developed using multivariate analysis and validated in a subgroup of participants.resultspositive questionnaire - response rate was 46.8% ( 1,397 of 2,979 ) . from the questionnaire group ,
649 women were vaginally examined ( 46.5% ) .
prevalence of clinically relevant pop was 21% .
multivariate analysis demonstrated significantly higher odds ratios on the report of vaginal bulging , parity 2 and a mother with pop .
the receiver operating characteristic curve showed areas under the curve of 0.672 and 0.640.conclusionsthe prevalence of pop at or beyond the hymen could be estimated in a general female population using our prediction model with 17 questions and our pop score chart with eight questions . |
6,022 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: ip et al studied 1,448 6-year - old children and found 12.6% asthenopia prevalence.20 asthenopia prevalence of 23.1% and 26.4% was found in two swedish studies , respectively.5,21 with regard to associated factors , two studies detected significant association among decreased visual acuity , myopia , and accommodative dysfunctions,5,21 while another study did not find associated ophthalmological anomalies in 82% of children examined with asthenopia.20 in view of the scarcity of studies on this subject , the aim of this study is to assess asthenopia prevalence and associated factors in schoolchildren aged 616 .
a cross - sectional study was conducted with all children attending the first to eighth grades at two public schools in the urban region of a medium - sized town in southern brazil between april and december 2012 .
the study population was selected based on lists provided by the schools . as inconsistencies were found in the lists
, homes were visited , and contact was made by telephone to identify children who were still on the lists but who were in fact studying at other schools .
taking estimated asthenopia prevalence to be 20% , 3 percentage point accuracy , and a 95% confidence interval ( ci ) , a study population of 970 children was sufficient to study outcome prevalence .
with regard to the analysis of associated factors , the study population was also sufficient to estimate risks of around 2.0 with minimum statistical power of 80% and a 95% ci , considering an exposed / unexposed ratio ranging from 13:1 ( use of glasses ) to 1:2 ( internet at home ) .
asthenopia was considered to be an outcome in situations in which a child reported having had tired and/or heavy eyes during the last week .
one questionnaire related to socioeconomic and cultural issues was answered by parents or legal guardians .
the other questionnaire related to the presence of asthenopia was answered by the children ( figure s1 ) .
the children underwent a complete examination of visual functions , including the measurement of... | objectiveto assess asthenopia prevalence and associated factors in schoolchildren aged 616.methodsthis was a cross - sectional study of all children attending the first to eighth grades at two public schools in the urban region of a medium - sized town in southern brazil between april and december 2012 .
a questionnaire on socioeconomic and cultural matters was answered by parents , while the children answered a questionnaire on asthenopia - related symptoms .
the children underwent a complete visual function examination , including measurement of visual acuity , refraction test , cover test , stereopsis , heterophoria assessment , near point of convergence , and accommodative convergence / accommodation ratio.resultsasthenopia prevalence was 24.7% in a total sample of 964 children . visual acuity of 20/25 or better in both eyes was found in 92.8% of the children .
the stereopsis test was normal in 99.4% of them , and some kind of strabismus was found in 3.5% .
about 37.8% had astigmatism , 71.6% had mild hyperopia , 13.6% had moderate hyperopia , and 6.1% were myopic .
near point of convergence was abnormal in 14.0% of the children , and the accommodative convergence / accommodation ratio was found to be altered in 17.1% of them.conclusionchildren and adolescents have expressive prevalence of asthenopia .
the prevalence of visual function alterations does not differ from the general population , and , therefore , they are not prerequisites .
it is very important that its mechanisms and risk factors be better defined .
health professionals need to be on the lookout for complaints of visual fatigue because of its potential to influence learning and school performance . |
6,023 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the kidney is thought to play an important role in the inactivation of endogenous gastrin .
this is based on the tacts that hypergastrinemia is frequently observed in patients with acute and chronic renal failure and in experimental animals with bilateral nephrectomy , and the fact that the enzyme which deamide the c - terminal tetrapeptide of gastrin can be extracted from mouse kidney homogenates .
we conducted this study to investigate the changes of serum gastrin concentrations in patients with renal failure and to delineate the role of gastrin on the pathogenesis of peptic ulcer that frequently combines in patients with renal failure .
we also investigated not only the changes of fasting serum gastrin concentrations , but also postprandial gastrin concentations in pre- and post dialysis state .
fifteen patients with renal failure who had been admitted to the department of internal medicine of kyung hee university hospital from june , 1983 to october , 1983 , were studied .
the control was 15 normal persons without renal disease , peptic ulcer or atrophic gastritis .
after a 10-hr fasting , venous blood samples were taken and then each subject ate a standard meal .
the meal consisted of two hard boiled eggs , one piece of bread and a cup of milk .
postprandial blood samples were taken at 30 , 60 and 120 minutes after eating the standard meal .
there was no difference in age and sex between controls and the patients with renal failure .
mean concentrations of serum creatinine and bun were 10.6mg% and 70.8mg% respectively in patients with renal failure in contrast to normal values in controls .
of the patients with renal failure , 8 of 15 patients complained of dyspepsia and 4 of 15 had peptic ulcers ( 2 with gastric ulcer and 2 with duodenal ulcer ) .
eight patients had been treated with hemodialysis ( table 2 ) . in patients with renal failure ,
the mean fasting serum gastrin concentration was 258.2pg / ml , a significantly higher value than that in the control ( 85pg / ml ) ( p<0.001 ) ( table 3 ) . the... | fasting and postprandial gastrin levels were measured by radioimmunoassay in serum from 15 patients with renal failure and compared with those in 15 healthy controls .
pre- and posthemodialysis gastrin levels were also measured.the fasting serum gastrin levels and serum gastrin response to a standard meal in the patients with renal failure were significantly higher than those in normal controls.fasting and meal stimulated gastrin levels were not significantly different in renal failure patients with peptic ulcer when compared with those in renal failure patients without peptic ulcer.there were no statistically significant differences in the serum gastrin levels before and after hemodialysis in patients with renal failure . |
6,024 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: caries , fractures , attrition , and endodontic access cavities are the most common reasons of tooth structure loss rendering them susceptible to fracture . according to cavity preparation principles , it is recommended to remove all the undermined enamel to prevent functional fracture . when restoring teeth with large cavities , choosing the most ideal method and material to restore strength and esthetics is a real challenge .
often it is necessary to use full or partial coverage instead of a simple intracoronal restoration .
this fact has been based on clinical studies and indicates the need for special restorative considerations for teeth susceptible to fracture .
effects of amalgam , gold and a variety of composite systems have been evaluated on the resistance of teeth to fracture [ 46 ] .
wendt et al have shown that cast gold restorations providing cuspal protection could result in a significant increase in the resistance of teeth to fracture , compared to unaltered teeth .
salis et al showed that gold on - lays provided good support for the remaining tooth structure .
in addition , it has been revealed that in case of high stress , such teeth suffered only superficial cuspal fractures .
some researchers have claimed that if the teeth are over loaded , composite restorations make the tooth fracture more promising at the tooth - resin interface [ 57 ] . in recent years , there has been an increased acceptance and use of bonding techniques in strengthening tooth structure [ 810 ] . due to the success of bonding techniques
, there is an increasing interest in determining how a restoration bonded to the tooth by different methods can affect its conservation and longevity .
it has been shown that the acid - etch technique might influence the deformation of a cusp under occlusal forces [ 1113 ] .
latino et al found no difference between restorative materials ( amalgam , bonded amalgam , and composite ) regarding the ability to reinforce unsupported enamel ; however , sound dentin was the most reinforcing... | objective : preservation of unsupported occlusal enamel after removal of underlying carious dentin may result in maintenance of aesthetics as well as wear resistance against the opposing enamel .
this study investigates the influence of different restorative materials and bonding agents on reinforcement of unsupported enamel in molars and compares it with sound dentin.materials and methods : in this in vitro study , forty- five extracted human molars were selected and randomly divided into five groups of nine .
all lingual cusps were cut off .
the dentin underlying the buccal cusps was removed in all groups except the positive control .
the negative control group received no restorations .
after application of varnish and panavia f , spherical amalgam ( sina ) and after application of single - bond ( 3 m ) , composite resin ( tetric ceram ) was used to replace missing dentin.all specimens were thermocycled , then mounted in acrylic resin using a surveyor .
lingual inclination of facial cusps was positioned horizontally .
load was applied by an instron machine at a crosshead speed of 10 mm / min until fracture.data were subjected to anova ( one way ) and post hoc test ( duncan).results : statistically significant differences were found between the five groups ( p<0.001 ) ; however , no significant difference was revealed between bonded amalgam and the positive control groups ( p=0.762 ) .
composite and amalgam had the same effect ( p=0.642 ) , while the composite and negative group had no significant difference ( p=0.056).conclusion : bonded amalgam systems ( panavia f ) could reinforce the undermined occlusal enamel effectively . |
6,025 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: a patent foramen ovale ( pfo ) can act as a pathway for a thrombus from the peripheral veins , bypassing the lungs and entering the systemic circulation .
systemic , noncerebral , paradoxical embolisms occur less frequently , accounting for 5%10% of all paradoxical embolisms .
renal infarction secondary to paradoxical embolism has rarely been described , and paradoxical embolism involving kidneys has been reported to commonly involve multiple organs , such as the lung , kidneys , and brain . here , we report a case of a paradoxical embolism caused by pfo involving only kidneys .
a 48-year - old korean man was referred to our hospital with sudden right flank pain that had begun 10 days earlier .
he had been diagnosed with idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura ( itp ) 10 years earlier , but his platelet counts had been stable ( > 50,000/l ) with no significant bleeding , over the past 10 years . he had undergone a hemorrhoidectomy two months earlier . he was a 30-pack - year smoker and an occasional drinker , with no noteworthy family medical history . on admission ,
the patient 's blood pressure was 107/68 mm hg and his pulse rate was 78 beats / minute .
his respiratory rate and body temperature were 18 breaths / minute and 36.3 c , respectively .
his neurologic findings were normal , and neither edema nor bruising was found on the lower extremities .
blood test results showed a low platelet count ( white blood count 6,800/l , hemoglobin 12.4 g / dl , platelet 63,000/l ) , and his serum creatinine was 0.83 mg / dl and blood urea nitrogen 13.0 mg / dl .
urine microscopy revealed mild hematuria ( red blood cell count 35/hpf ) and pyuria ( white blood cell count 1120/hpf ) .
his levels of antithrombin iii activity , plasminogen activity , protein c activity , coagulation factor viii activity , homocysteine , lupus anticoagulant , and anticardiolipin antibody were within the normal ranges , suggesting no abnormality of the coagulation system .
a contrast - enhanced abdominal computed tomography ( ct ) scan was... | a 48-year - old man presented with acute right flank pain . a computed tomography scan revealed right renal infarction .
because he had no thrombosis in the renal vessels and no clear embolic source , a further examination was performed to find the cause of the renal infarction .
on transesophageal echocardiography , a right - to - left shunt during the valsalva maneuver established a diagnosis of patent foramen ovale .
this is a case of paradoxical embolism through a pfo leading to renal infarction . |
6,026 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the concept of total mesorectal excision ( tme ) has been the most important development in rectal cancer surgery during the last two decades . after the introduction of tme the rate of local recurrence could be dramatically reduced . even without curative approach ,
local recurrence was reduced to 6 - 12% and 5-year survival rate improved to 53 - 87% [ 2 - 4 ] . however , it is noteworthy , that the excellent results of a local recurrence rate of less than 5% without neoadjuvant treatment modalities as reported by heald have not been reached by the majority of rectal surgeons .
quality of mesorectal excision according to m.e.r.c.u.r.y . criteria . a recent multicentre trial analysed the benefit of preoperative radiation before tme surgery .
if optimal tme - quality could be achieved in a controlled scientific trial in only 50% of patients , serious concern should arise about the tme quality in the absence of pathological quality control .
although most centres claim performing tme surgery , the literature evaluating tme quality is scarce . to close this gap we present our results of tme surgery after the introduction of quality controls for rectal cancer surgery at our centre in 2004 .
during a period of 36 months , between january 2004 and december 2006 , 103 patients underwent surgical resection for rectal cancer at the department of surgery , st .
josef hospital , ruhr- university bochum , germany . sixty percent ( 62/103 ) were male , 40% ( 41/103 ) were female .
preoperative staging included complete colonoscopy or barium enema , abdominal ct scan and chest x - ray .
the decision about neoadjuvant therapy was based on weekly multidisciplinary tumour board reviews . in 29% ( 30/103 )
neoadjuvant therapy was performed prior to operation , including 22% ( 23/103 ) short term radiation ( 5 5 gy ) and 7% ( 7/103 ) long term chemoradiation ( 50 gy ) . in - hospital death
after anterior resection , reconstruction was achieved via stapled anastomosis ( 29 mm or 31 mm stapler ) or hand sutured coloanal... | backgroundthe concept of total mesorectal excision has revolutionised rectal cancer surgery .
tme reduces the rate of local recurrence and tumour associated mortality . however , in clinical trials only 50% of the removed rectal tumours have an optimal tme quality .
patients : during a period of 36 months we performed 103 rectal resections .
the majority of patients ( 76% ; 78/103 ) received an anterior resection .
the remaining patients underwent either abdominoperineal resection ( 16% ; 17/103 ) , hartmann 's procedure ( 6% ; 6/103 ) or colectomy ( 2% ; 2/103).resultsin 90% ( 93/103 ) tme quality control could be performed .
99% ( 92/93 ) of resected tumours had optimal tme quality . in 1% ( 1/93 )
the mesorectum was nearly complete .
none of the removed tumours had an incomplete mesorectum . in 98% ( 91/93 ) the circumferential resection margin was negative .
major surgical complications occurred in 17% ( 18/103 ) .
5% ( 4/78 ) of patients with anterior resection had anastomotic leakage .
17% ( 17/103 ) developed wound infections .
mortality after elective surgery was 4% ( 4/95).conclusionoptimal tme quality results can be achieved in all stages of rectal cancer with a rate of morbidity and mortality comparable to the results from the literature .
future studies should evaluate outcome and local recurrence in accordance to the degree of tme quality . |
6,027 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: a growing body of literature has provided
robust evidence that
formalin fixed , paraffin - embedded ( ffpe ) tissue can be successfully
analyzed using mass spectrometry - based proteomic methods , enabling
the use of these archival specimens for biomarker discovery through
retrospective analysis .
although qualitative protein identifications can be obtained from
fixed tissue , fixation leads to covalent chemical modification and
cross - linking of proteins , dna and rna , which may be expected to affect
the quantitative reliability of ffpe tissue analyses by targeted proteomic
methods , such as multiple reaction monitoring ( mrm ) .
recently , research
efforts have begun to demonstrate the technical feasibility of targeted
quantitative proteomic analysis in ffpe tissue .
huang et al .
described the shotgun proteomic analysis of laser capture microdissected
ffpe primary and metastatic melanomas and identified 120 proteins
as potential markers of metastasis .
label - free
quantitation was performed with extracted ms1 signal from an ion trap
ms instrument .
analyzed calcyclin peptides by
selected reaction monitoring ( one transition per peptide ) on a triple
quadrupole instrument with sequence analogue peptides as reference
standards .
similarly , nishimura et al .
quantified two potential prognostic markers for lung adenocarcinoma
in ffpe tissue using an endogenous -actin peptide as an internal
standard .
although these reports have
demonstrated the application of targeted protein analyses of ffpe
tissue , the critical issue of how formalin fixation affects the precision
of quantitative analyses in ffpe tissues remains unexplored . because
formaldehyde chemistry significantly affects lysine c - terminal peptides ,
it is not clear whether quantitative strategies must be adjusted to
avoid these . to assess the impact of fixation on the reproducibility
of peptide
quantitation
, we compared the mrm signals for tryptic peptides derived
from paired fixed... | we compared the reproducibility of multiple reaction
monitoring
( mrm ) mass spectrometry - based peptide quantitation in tryptic digests
from formalin - fixed , paraffin - embedded ( ffpe ) and frozen clear cell
renal cell carcinoma tissues .
the analyses targeted a candidate set
of 114 peptides previously identified in shotgun proteomic analyses ,
of which 104 were detectable in ffpe and frozen tissue . although signal
intensities for mrm of peptides from ffpe tissue were on average 66%
of those in frozen tissue , median coefficients of variation ( cv ) for
measurements in ffpe and frozen tissues were nearly identical ( 1820% ) .
measurements of lysine c - terminal peptides and arginine c - terminal
peptides from ffpe tissue were similarly reproducible ( 19.5% and 18.3%
median cv , respectively ) .
we further evaluated the precision of mrm - based
quantitation by analysis of peptides from the her2 receptor in ffpe
and frozen tissues from a her2 overexpressing mouse xenograft model
of breast cancer and in human ffpe breast cancer specimens .
we obtained
equivalent mrm measurements of her2 receptor levels in ffpe and frozen
mouse xenografts derived from her2-overexpressing bt474 cells and
her2-negative sum159 cells .
mrm analyses of 5 her2-positive and 5
her - negative human ffpe breast tumors confirmed the results of immunohistochemical
analyses , thus demonstrating the feasibility of her2 protein quantification
in ffpe tissue specimens .
the data demonstrate that mrm analyses can
be performed with equal precision on ffpe and frozen tissues and that
lysine - containing peptides can be selected for quantitative comparisons ,
despite the greater impact of formalin fixation on lysine residues .
the data further illustrate the feasibility of applying mrm to quantify
clinically important tissue biomarkers in ffpe specimens . |
6,028 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: ,
calcium is a regulator of intracellular processes , activates proteases , and is essential for photosystem ii ( psii ) maturation and catalytic activity . in industrial
processes ,
calcium oxide plays a role as a heterogeneous catalyst
in transesterification reactions , offering the promise of environmentally
sustainable exploitation of biofuels .
calcium also plays an
important role as a promoter in transition metal - mediated heterogeneous
processes .
additionally , the use of calcium
compounds in homogeneous catalysis has received increasing attention ,
with applications in polymerization catalysis , hydroamination , and
hydrosilylation .
the earth abundance of calcium , as well as its biocompatibility ,
provides motivation for further development of ca - based catalysts . in order to understand the transformations that occur at the calcium
site , in both chemical and biological processes
, one would like to
selectively probe the calcium coordination environment . in this sense ,
ca k - edge x - ray absorption spectroscopy ( xas ) is an ideal tool .
ca
k - edge xas results from the excitation of ca 1s electrons to empty
molecular orbitals localized on the calcium atom . as such
, ca xas
should provide a sensitive probe of the ca coordination environment .
however , to our knowledge , a thorough investigation of ca k - edge xas
has not yet been made .
previous ca k - edge xas studies have generally
used a fingerprinting approach , and only limited studies exist in
which ca k - edge data have been correlated to theory .
the majority of the quantitative information that has been obtained
from ca xas data has largely relied on the extraction of metal
however , due to the large inherent error in establishing coordination
numbers from exafs ( 25% ) , the ability to determine accurate
coordination numbers from exafs alone is limited .
however , previous
studies have successfully coupled k - edge analysis with exafs analysis
to describe previously... | herein , ca k - edge x - ray absorption
spectroscopy ( xas ) is developed as a means to characterize the local
environment of calcium centers .
the spectra for six , seven , and eight
coordinate inorganic and molecular calcium complexes were analyzed
and determined to be primarily influenced by the coordination environment
and site symmetry at the calcium center .
the experimental results
are closely correlated to time - dependent density functional theory
( td - dft ) calculations of the xas spectra .
the applicability of this
methodology to complex systems was investigated using structural mimics
of the oxygen - evolving complex ( oec ) of psii .
it was found that ca
k - edge xas is a sensitive probe for structural changes occurring in
the cubane heterometallic cluster due to mn oxidation .
future applications
to the oec are discussed . |
6,029 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: cancer presently is the second most common cause of morbidity and mortality in the world after cardiovascular problems .
cancers are heterogeneous cellular entities whose growth is dependent on reciprocal interactions between genetically altered cells and the microenvironment in which they reside .
the microenvironment or more commonly referred as the tumor stroma is required for nutritional support and for the removal of waste products .
it comprises of connective tissue , blood vessels , innate and adaptive immune cells , etc .
innate immune cells include granulocytes , dendritic cells , macrophages , natural killer ( nk ) cells and mast cells .
nk cells play a critical role both in innate immunity and adaptive immunity through cytokine secretion or by direct interaction with dendritic cells .
nk cells provide resistance to pathogens and facilitate tumor immunosurveillance by two mechanisms which involve cytokine release interferon gamma ( ifn- ) and perforin - dependent target cell elimination .
thus , this study was an attempt to analyze the presence of nk cells which is an integral part of tumor stroma and its effect on tumor progression .
one hundred histologically diagnosed samples of oral squamous cell carcinoma ( oscc ) of various grades were retrieved for a period of year 20072010 from the archives of department of oral pathology and microbiology .
all the samples were subdivided into two groups , those who were dead : group i and those who were alive : group ii .
each patient 's relative was called every 6 month and was asked about the status of the patient . at the last follow - up ,
taken after approximately 3 years after surgery , 56 of 100 ( 56% ) patients were alive and disease free , 5 ( 5% ) patients were alive with recurrence of disease and 39 ( 39% ) patients died of the disease .
the paraffin - embedded tissue section of 4 m was obtained from archival tissues which were stained for routine hematoxylin and eosin and for the expression of cd57 by immunohistochemistry ( ihc ) .
sections were... | objectives : natural killer ( nk ) cells are important effector lymphocytes .
nk cells are considered to represent innate immune system .
nk cells target and kill aberrant cells such as virally infected and tumorigenic cells .
the purpose of this study was to assess the expression of cd57 in oral squamous cell carcinoma ( oscc ) and to correlate the expression of cd57 with 3 years survival in patients with oscc.materials and methods : about 100 histopathologically diagnosed cases of oscc of various grades were divided into two groups , i.e. , group i ( dead patients ) and group ii ( live patients ) from the archives of department of oral pathology and microbiology .
cd57 was detected in these tissues by immunohistochemistry.result:the results were analyzed using spearman 's correlation coefficient and students unpaired t - test .
the mean cd57 labeling index in group ii was significantly higher than that found in group i ( p = 0.000 ) .
there was a significant correlation ( p = 0.00 ) in the mean cd57 levels between groups i and ii and prognosis of patient.conclusion:cd57 could be a good prognostic marker for oscc patients . |
6,030 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: male c57bl6jolahsd mice were purchased from harlan netherlands ( harlan , horst , the netherlands ) , and male il-6 ko mice and respective wild - type mice were purchased from charles river laboratories ( wilmington , ma ) .
all mice were housed in a pathogen - free environment on a 12-h light - dark cycle , with free access to standard rodent diet ( provimi kliba , kaiseraugst , switzerland ) .
all protocols conformed to the swiss animal protection laws and were approved by the cantonal veterinary office in zurich , switzerland .
mice were anesthetized with isoflurane ( abbott , baar , switzerland ) . both epididymal fat pads ( average size per pad 75 mg [ range 6590 mg ] )
were removed from the donor mouse , rinsed with 0.9% saline , and thereafter stitched to the visceral side of the peritoneum ( caval transplantation ) or to the mesenterium of the recipient mouse ( portal transplantation ) using monocryl 6.0 ( johnson - johnson , spreitenbach , switzerland ) .
sham - operated control mice underwent the same surgical procedure without receiving a fat transplant .
subcutaneous injection of buprenorphine every 12 h for 2 days was used for analgesia . to prevent transplant rejection ,
glucose ( 2 g / kg body wt ) was injected intraperitoneally and blood was collected from the tail vein at different time points , as indicated ( 5 ) .
plasma glucose was measured using a glucose meter ( ascensia contour ; bayer , zurich , switzerland ) .
sections were obtained at the time of death and stained with hematoxylin and eosin . for each fat pad of a mouse , at least 100 adipocytes were analyzed .
images were analyzed using imagej software for quantification ( national institutes of health , bethesda , md ) .
mac2-positive cells were counted per nuclei of seven randomly selected fields per section containing at least 90 cells .
clamps were performed in freely moving mice 5 weeks after transplantation as described previously ( 7 ) .
glucose infusion rate was calculated once glucose infusion reached a more or less... | objectivethe portal hypothesis proposes that the liver is directly exposed to free fatty acids and cytokines increasingly released from visceral fat tissue into the portal vein of obese subjects , thus rendering visceral fat accumulation particularly hazardous for the development of hepatic insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes . in the present study
, we used a fat transplantation paradigm to ( artificially ) increase intra - abdominal fat mass to test the hypothesis that venous drainage of fat tissue determines its impact on glucose homeostasis.research design and methodsepididymal fat pads of c57bl6/j donor mice were transplanted into littermates , either to the parietal peritoneum ( caval / systemic venous drainage ) or , by using a novel approach , to the mesenterium , which confers portal venous drainage.resultsonly mice receiving the portal drained fat transplant developed impaired glucose tolerance and hepatic insulin resistance .
mrna expression of proinflammatory cytokines was increased in both portally and systemically transplanted fat pads .
however , portal vein ( but not systemic ) plasma levels of interleukin ( il)-6 were elevated only in mice receiving a portal fat transplant .
intriguingly , mice receiving portal drained transplants from il-6 knockout mice showed normal glucose tolerance.conclusionsthese results demonstrate that the metabolic fate of intra - abdominal fat tissue transplantation is determined by the delivery of inflammatory cytokines to the liver specifically via the portal system , providing direct evidence in support of the portal hypothesis . |
6,031 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: in this article , we draw on national social survey data to identify and report on the social determinants of wellbeing in the uk and we consider some of the challenges the findings present for social policy . in the first section , we review some of the latest developments in subjective wellbeing ( swb ) research , and we consider how swb is now being measured by the office for national statistics ( ons ) in the uk . in our empirical section ,
we develop bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models , as well as testing for interaction effects , in order to assess the socio - economic and demographic characteristics that help to predict wellbeing in the national population . we do so using four global measures of swb . finally ,
in the last section , we consider some of the potential social policy implications raised by the findings . before
describing the study methods and results , and discussing their implications , we review the uk 's new measuring national wellbeing ( mnw ) programme.
it is now widely accepted that traditional economic measures are necessary , but not sufficient , to reflect national wellbeing ( stiglitz et al . , 2010 ) . in recent years ,
measures of swb have been refined to help monitor social progress and policy ( taylor , 2011 ) .
governments around the world including the british government are increasingly concerned about the quality of life and the environment in which we live , as well as the traditional measures of gdp and economic growth that help to define living standards in society ( stratton , 2010 ) .
the measurement of swb has advanced rapidly over the last two decades ( diener , 2009a ) .
researchers usually draw a basic distinction between self - reported wellbeing , i.e. swb , and the more objective non - self - reported assessments and measures ( diener , 2009b ) . in this article , we are only interested in subjective measures . broadly speaking , as dolan and metcalfe ( 2012 ) maintain , there are three main theoretical strands underpinning the... | the idea that the happiness and wellbeing of individuals should shape government policy has been around since the enlightenment ; today such thinking has growing practical policy relevance as governments around the world survey their populations in an effort to design social policies that promote wellbeing . in this article , we consider the social determinants of subjective wellbeing in the uk and draw lessons for social policy .
survey data are taken from the measuring national wellbeing programme launched by the uk 's office for national statistics in 2010 .
for the empirical strategy , we develop bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models , as well as testing for interaction effects in the data .
the findings show that wellbeing is not evenly distributed within the uk .
socio - demographic characteristics such as age , gender , ethnicity , employment , household composition and tenure all matter , as does health status .
influencing population wellbeing is inherently complex , though , that said , there is a clear need to place greater emphasis on the social , given the direction of current policy . |
6,032 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: comorbidities are defined as diseases that are concomitant to the disease under study.1 when survival in medical and epidemiological research is studied , it is important to consider the effect of comorbidity , as it could be a potential confounder or an effect modifier for other prognostic factors.26 the charlson comorbidity index ( cci ) and the elixhauser method are the most commonly used methods to assess comorbidity.7,8 the cci is used more often , is less complex than the elixhauser method , and was therefore chosen as the reference index in the present study .
the cci was originally developed based on data from all patients admitted to the new york hospital cornell medical center during a 1-month period in 1984 , with the objective of predicting 1-year mortality .
the risk of death associated with each of the 19 predefined diseases included in the cci was expressed as weights with values of 1 , 2 , 3 , or 6 . summing the weights for all contributing diseases gives the cci score for each patient .
the cci was validated using an external cohort consisting of 685 breast cancer patients receiving their first treatment in 19621969 at yale new haven hospital.7 the original cci has been modified and evaluated by many authors.913 quan et al developed coding algorithms for constructing the cci based on the codes of the tenth revision of the international classification of diseases ( icd-10).14 sundararajan et al assessed that the version of the cci created by quan et al outperformed all the other versions they considered , though all of the icd-10 versions of the charlson algorithm performed satisfactorily.15 however , a persistent challenge for researchers who wish to use the cci is that the data set of interest may not contain sufficient medical information to assess all the diseases included in the index .
these are based on hospital administrative databases , from which data are often readily available . due to better treatment and technological improvements ,
a patient s risk of death has reduced since... | objectiveto construct an updated comorbidity index ( patient register index [ pri ] ) using national data collections from norway and compare its predictive ability of 1-year mortality with the charlson comorbidity index ( cci).materials and methodsdata regarding over 1.11 million patients registered in the norwegian patient register in 2010 and 2011 were used to construct the pri .
the pri was evaluated by comparing its model fit and discrimination with the cci.resultscompared with the cci , the pri weights decreased for six , increased for four , and were unchanged for seven diseases .
when the pri was added to the model including age and sex , the age effects were reduced by up to 38% for patients
older than 50 years
. all measures of model fit improved for the pri model.conclusionadjustment for comorbidity is especially important for patients 50 years of age or older , and its effect on 1-year mortality is almost comparable to the age effect . the pri is based on more recent data than the cci , and is more representative of the general population due to its construction . |
6,033 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the use of dietary supplements , including multivitamins has increased substantially in the past few decades . on an average 20 - 30% of the population in developed countries use such vitamin supplements .
industries involved in their manufacture are reported to be one of the world 's fastest growing industries .
although , the use of multivitamin supplementation may provide benefits in terms of increased nutrient intake , there are potential adverse effects also due to high intake .
although certain benefits , like that of folic acid supplementation and protection against neural tube defects in specific populations is well - established , but results of some large scale randomized trials have shown that for the majority of the population multivitamin supplements are ineffective .
sesso et al . in a randomized controlled trial conducted in 14,641 participants in usa revealed that daily multivitamin supplement did not reduce cardiovascular events , myocardial infarction or stroke in men . in today 's scenario with
more literate and health conscious patients who are capable of making their own decisions regarding their health care coupled with wide availability of such supplements , present study was conducted to explore pattern of use , public knowledge and attitude toward consumption of these multivitamin supplements .
a descriptive cross - sectional population based study was conducted from january to june 2013 among the general public .
subjects included were patients and other hospital attendees like patients ' family members / relatives or friends , of either sex aged 18 years or older while they were waiting in the outpatient department .
study participants were assured of confidentiality and anonymity of the information and written informed consent was obtained from them .
a total of 120 participants were interviewed and information was collected in a structured questionnaire .
the questionnaire was based on previous studies undertaken among adults about their attitude toward multivitamin... | background and objective : the use of supplements has increased substantially in the past few decades .
the present study is an effort to explore pattern of use , knowledge and attitude toward consumption of multivitamin supplements among the general public.materials and methods : a descriptive cross - sectional study on 120 adult participants from the general public was conducted .
the participants were interviewed and information was collected in a predesigned structured questionnaire .
the data was analyzed and expressed as counts and percentages.results:of the 120 study participants , 66 were males and 54 were females .
results revealed that 68.33% ( 82 ) of the participants were users of multivitamin supplements .
out of the users , 69.5% ( 57 ) participants consumed on the advice of doctors , 18.2% ( 15 ) were self - prescribers while 12.1% ( 10 ) relied on advice of family or friends . among the users , 70.96% considered such supplements to be helpful .
reasons quoted for self - medication use of multivitamins were multiple such as maintenance of general health ( 55% ) , to allay weakness or fatigue ( 20% ) , to improve appetite ( 15% ) etc . majority of the participants were unaware regarding the correct indications for multivitamin supplementation .
regarding knowledge about the natural sources of these vitamins , as many as 76% showed ignorance.conclusion:finding from this study suggests that multivitamin use is highly prevalent and the majority of the participants were ignorant of any possible harm or drug interactions . in light of this , there is a need to adopt certain educational interventions to minimize self - directed supplement use and increase awareness regarding their correct usage . |
6,034 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: approval from our institutional review board was obtained for this retrospective study . at our institution , the patients with a history of acl reconstruction surgery undergo mri when they have persistent , recurrent or new symptoms or they have re - injured their knee . after clinical examination and reviewing the mr images , follow - up arthroscopic examinations were performed for patients suspected of having a torn acl graft or other internal derangement of the knee .
a computer search of the mri examinations that were done at our hospital from june 2000 to march 2007 yielded 120 consecutive patients who underwent mri of the knee after acl reconstruction surgery .
finally , 51 consecutive mr examinations in 48 patients ( 40 men and 8 women , age range : 18 - 60 years , mean age : 32 years ) were included in this study .
the mr examinations were performed at a mean of 31 months ( range : 4 - 192 months ) after the initial acl reconstruction surgery .
the mean time interval between the postoperative mr examinations and the follow - up arthroscopy was 50 days ( range : 0 day-9 months ) .
the arthroscopic records revealed 26 cases with intact acl grafts , 12 with partially torn acl grafts and 13 with completely torn acl grafts .
the graft materials we used were autogenous quadriceps tendon ( n = 39 ) , autogenous bone - patellar tendon - bone ( n = 9 ) and allogenous achilles tendon ( n = 3 ) .
mr examinations were performed on 1.0-t or 1.5-t mr scanners ( siemens , erlangen , germany ) .
the mri protocols included the sagittal spin echo t1- , the turbo spin echo t2- and the proton density - weighted images , the coronal turbo spin echo t2- and the proton density weighted images and the oblique coronal turbo spin echo t2-weighted images .
the oblique coronal t2-weighted images were obtained in the plane parallel to the course of the femoral intercondylar roof on the sagittal scout images ( fig .
the parameters of the routine knee mri were as follows : tr / te = 500/12 ( t1-weighted image ) , 3500/15 or... | objectivethe purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of using additional oblique coronal mri of the knee for grading anterior cruciate ligament ( acl ) graft injury after ligament reconstruction surgery.materials and methodswe retrospectively reviewed 51 consecutive mr knee examinations of 48 patients who underwent both acl reconstruction and follow - up arthroscopy .
the mr examinations included the orthogonal axial , sagittal , coronal images and the oblique coronal t2-weighted images , which were oriented in parallel with the course of the femoral intercondylar roof .
two radiologists independently evaluated the status of the acl grafts with using the routine knee mri and then with adding the oblique coronal imaging .
the severity of acl graft injury was graded using a 3-point system from mr images as intact , partial tear or complete tear , and the results were compared with the arthroscopic results .
weighted kappa statistics were used to analyze the diagnostic accuracies of the knee mri with and without the additional oblique coronal imaging . for each evaluation , the observers reported a confidence level for grading the acl graft injuries in the two imaging groups.resultsthe weighted kappa values according to the routine knee mri were 0.555 ( reader 1 ) and 0.515 ( reader 2 ) .
the inclusion of additional oblique coronal imaging increased the weighted kappa values to 0.666 ( reader 1 ) and 0.611 ( reader 2 ) .
the mean confidence levels by each reader were significantly higher ( p < 0.01 , paired t - test ) with the additional oblique coronal imaging than by using the routine knee mri alone.conclusionthe additional use of oblique coronal mri of the knee improves both the diagnostic accuracy and confidence for grading acl graft injury . |
6,035 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: head and neck cancer is the sixth most common cancer and is responsible for almost 200,000 deaths around the world each year [ 13 ] . in the united states ,
head and neck squamous cell carcinoma ( hnscc ) accounts for more deaths annually than cervical cancer , melanoma , or lymphoma .
although recent molecular studies have advanced our understanding of the disease and provided a rationale for the development of novel therapeutic strategies , hnscc is still associated with severe mortality .
in addition , the 5-year survival rate is even lower for hnscc patients with a single homolateral lymph node metastasis ( lnm ) and is less than 25% for patients with bilateral lnm .
understanding the biology of hnscc , progression will greatly assist in treatment decisions and in the development of new strategies for prevention and control of this disease .
currently , the progression of hnscc is considered to result from evolution through stepwise alterations in multiple molecular and cellular pathways [ 8 , 9 ] .
however , this evolution concept has limitations in explaining the heterogeneity observed in a single tumor nest .
it has been known for a long time that there are subpopulations of cells within solid tumors that contain different biological behaviors , such as metastatic potential [ 10 , 11 ] .
accumulating evidence supports the subpopulation observation , particularly , the existence of so - called cancer stem cells ( cscs ) [ 1217 ] .
although cscs in solid tumors including hnscc have not been precisely identified , the csc hypothesis opens a new era in understanding the initiation and progression of cancers .
this short review will briefly introduce the csc concept , summarize the current progress of csc studies in hnscc , and discuss the potential application of the csc concept to the clinical management of hnscc .
cscs are defined as a small subset of cancer cells that constitute a pool of self - sustaining cells with the exclusive ability to maintain the tumor . currently , there are two hypothetical... | human head and neck cancer ( hnc ) is a highly heterogeneous disease .
understanding the biology of hnc progression is necessary for the development of novel approaches to its prevention , early detection , and treatment .
a current evolutional progression model has limitations in explaining the heterogeneity observed in a single tumor nest .
accumulating evidence supports the existence of cancer stem cells ( cscs ) as small subpopulations in solid tumors , including hnc .
these cscs can be selected by appropriate cell surface markers , which are cancer type specific and have been confirmed by unique in vitro and in vivo assays .
selected csc populations maintain a self - renewal capability and show aggressive behaviors , such as chemoresistance and metastasis .
in addition to introducing the csc concept in solid tumors , this short review summarizes current publications in hnc csc and the prospective development and application of the csc concept to hnc in the clinic . |
6,036 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: breast cancer is the most common female malignancy and the second most common cause of death from cancer among white and black women .
it is a worldwide main health problem linked with high levels of morbidity and mortality in developing countries due to delayed presentation .
breast cancer affects more than one million females annually , the incidence increases with adoption of western life styles .
the american cancer society in 2015 reported an estimated number of new cases of breast cancer in women in the united states to be 231,840 with an estimated death of 40,290 . in nigeria ,
lack of public awareness of breast cancer and screening in the environment , absence of organized screening programs , lack of accessible and effective treatment options , and more importantly the cultural belief had made women to have late detection and presentations .
early detection involves two major components which are education ( to encourage early diagnosis ) and screening .
a wide range of modern procedures available for the screening includes mammography , sonography and magnetic resonance imaging of the breast . self breast examination ( sbe ) and clinical breast examination ( cbe ) are other methods that can be used to detect any changes in the breast .
sbe involves the woman herself looking at and feeling the breasts for lumps , shape , texture , size and contour .
the purpose of this is for any woman to be taught the topography of her breasts , know how her normal breasts feel and be able to identify changes in them should they occur in the future .
it has been reported that the sensitivity and specificity values of sbe are difficult to determine , but it has a positive effect on the early detection of breast cancer .
sbe has the advantages that it is a simple , inexpensive , non - invasive procedure which helps a woman to know her breast and allows her to detect any changes .
recent studies no longer recommend the use of sbe for breast cancer screening as it did in the past because of the disadvantages of breast... | breast cancer is the most common female malignancy linked with high levels of morbidity and mortality in developing countries due to delayed diagnosis .
this research assessed the knowledge of signs and risk factors of breast cancer and practice of self breast examination ( sbe ) among female nurses in a rural tertiary hospital .
eighty - five nurses ages 20 to 60 years were sampled by simple randomization over a period of eight weeks through a self - administered semi - structured questionnaire .
the analysis was done using statistical package for social science version 17 . sixteen ( 15.3% )
nurses had adequate knowledge of breast cancer , having a relative with breast cancer ( 51.8% ) and a woman of any age ( 56.5% ) were recognized by majority as risk factors for breast cancer .
majority ( 68.2% ) were not practicing monthly sbe and not confident on how to do it .
this study pointed out the gaps in the knowledge and awareness of breast cancer and practice of sbe among the nurses .
opportunity should therefore be sought in various health facilities to educate nurses who are supposed to be closer to the patients . |
6,037 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the epstein - barr virus ( ebv ) is a member of the herpesviridae virus family .
it is estimated that the incidence of ebv infection among adults is between 90% and 95% .
however , it is evident that ebv may cause infectious mononucleosis ( i m ) in the lytic phase of ebv s life cycle .
past ebv infection is associated with burkitt lymphoma , hodgkin disease , and nasopharyngeal or stomach cancer .
in addition , there is a hypothesis that past ebv infection can also lead to certain allergic and autoimmune diseases .
once a person has been infected with ebv , she or he will carry ebv latent infection of b - lymphocytes .
viral load remains relatively constant over time in circulating b - cells with a non - activated phenotype .
although potential mechanisms of autoimmune diseases have not been clearly elucidated , both genetic and environmental factors , such as infectious agents , are considered to be responsible for their development .
also , five possible mechanisms for the pathogenesis of autoimmune diseases have been distinguished : molecular mimicry activation of autoreactive t cells by microbial peptides with structural similarity to self - peptides ; viral and bacterial superantigens activation of autoreactive t cells that express particular v segments ; enhanced processing and presentation of auto - antigens by antigen - presenting cells recruited to an inflammatory site and followed by autoreactive lymphocyte priming ; bystander activation
enhanced cytokine production that induces the expansion of autoreactive t cells ; activation of lymphocytes by lymphotropic viruses an infection of b cells resulting in b cell proliferation , excess antibody production , and formation of circulating immune complexes [ 6 , 7 ] .
epstein - barr virus is considered to be an aetiological factor of autoimmune diseases because of the following : the virus is a common pathogen responsible for the worldwide prevalence of autoimmune diseases ; ebv stays in the body throughout life , which explains the chronic course of... | the epstein - barr virus ( ebv ) , also known as human herpesvirus 4 , is a member of the herpesviridae virus family .
ebv infection can cause infectious mononucleosis ( i m ) in the lytic phase of ebv s life cycle .
past ebv infection is associated with lymphomas , and may also result in certain allergic and autoimmune diseases .
although potential mechanisms of autoimmune diseases have not been clearly elucidated , both genetic and environmental factors , such as infectious agents , are considered to be responsible for their development .
in addition , ebv modifies the host immune response .
the worldwide prevalence of autoimmune diseases shows how common this pathogen is .
normally , the virus stays in the body and remains dormant throughout life .
however , this is not always the case , and a serious ebv - related illness may develop later in life .
this explains the chronic course of autoimmune diseases that is often accompanied by exacerbations of symptoms .
based on the present studies , ebv infection can cause autoimmune diseases , such as systemic lupus erythematosus ( sle ) , multiple sclerosis ( ms ) , rheumatoid arthritis ( ra ) , sjgren s syndrome , and autoimmune hepatitis .
the ebv has also been reported in patients with autoimmune thyroid disorders .
although ebv is not the only agent responsible for the development of autoimmune thyroid diseases , it can be considered a contributory factor . |
6,038 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: | noble
metals , especially gold , have been widely used in plasmon
resonance applications .
although silver has a larger optical cross
section and lower cost than gold , it has attracted much less attention
because of its easy corrosion , thereby degrading plasmonic signals
and limiting its applications . to circumvent this problem ,
we report
the facile synthesis of superstable agcu@graphene ( acg ) nanoparticles
( nps ) .
the growth of several layers of graphene onto the surface of
agcu alloy nps effectively protects the ag surface from contamination ,
even in the presence of hydrogen peroxide , hydrogen sulfide , and nitric
acid .
the acg nps have been utilized to enhance the unique raman signals
from the graphitic shell , making acg an ideal candidate for cell labeling ,
rapid raman imaging , and sers detection .
acg is further functionalized
with alkyne - polyethylene glycol , which has strong raman vibrations
in the raman - silent region of the cell , leading to more accurate colocalization
inside cells . in sum
, this work provides a simple approach to fabricate
corrosion - resistant , water - soluble , and graphene - protected agcu nps
having a strong surface plasmon resonance effect suitable for sensing
and imaging . |
6,039 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the disease caused by autoantibodies with specificity for the nc1 domain of the 3-chain of type iv collagen , often referred to as anti - glomerular basement membrane disease ( anti - gbm disease ) or goodpasture 's disease , is characterized by rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis ( gn ) often accompanied by lung haemorrhage .
disease progression is usually dramatic , and a substantial proportion of patients in recently published series present with oliguric or anuric acute renal failure [ 24 ] .
detectable amounts of anti - gbm antibodies usually do not remain in the circulation for > 612 months , even without the use of cytotoxic drugs .
after that time , the recurrence of anti - gbm antibodies as well as relapse of glomerulonephritis ( gn ) is rare [ 35 ] . here
, we report a case of a clinically and histologically mild form of gn , associated with low levels of anti - gbm antibodies but complicated by a protracted relapsing course .
a 71-year - old woman with a medical history that included a peripheral facial paresis and an irritable colon sought medical attention in august 2000 after a 6-month period of general malaise , intermittent subfebrility and myalgia .
blood tests indicated a mild renal failure with a serum creatinine of 100 mol / l and an erythrocyte sedimentation rate of 80 mm / h . a week later
her creatinine had risen to 130 mol / l and serology was positive for anti - gbm with 61 and myeloperoxidase - antineutrophil cytoplasmic anitbody ( mpo - anca ) > 320 elisa units ( above 10 is considered as positive in both the assays ) .
she was transferred to the lund university hospital , where she received apheresis with protein a adsorption columns .
a renal biopsy showed focal necrotizing glomerulonephritis with crescents in 6 of 16 glomeruli and a typical linear immunofluorescence pattern for igg , kappa and lambda .
after 5 months , the medication was switched to azathioprine 50 mg daily , which was continued for 12 months .
serum creatinine remained stable at a level of 90 mol / l and anti... | anti - glomerular basement membrane disease ( anti - gbm ) is usually characterized by rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis , and when autoantibody production has ceased , relapses are rare . here , we report a 71-year - old women diagnosed at a stage of mild renal insufficiency . over a period of 10 years , she experienced three mild relapses with return of anti - gbm antibodies , haematuria and slight elevations in serum creatinine level .
all three relapses responded to immunosuppressive therapy , and all were preceded by peaks of myeloperoxidase - antineutrophil cytoplasm antibodies ( mpo - anca ) .
this case shows that long - term follow - up is warranted in patients treated for anti - gbm - mediated disease , but urinary dipsticks may be sufficient for early detection of relapses . |
6,040 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the porphyrias comprise a heterogeneous group of rare , mainly hereditary , diseases caused by partial deficiencies in one of the eight enzymes involved in the heme biosynthesis ( puy et al .
symptoms of disease can present as acute attacks of abdominal pain and neuropsychiatric symptoms [ delta aminolevulinic acid dehydratase ( alad ) deficiency and acute intermittent porphyria ( aip ) ] , cutaneous symptoms [ congenital erythropoietic porphyria ( cep ) , porphyria cutanea tarda ( pct ) , and erythropoietic protoporphyria ( epp ) ] or both ( hereditary coproporphyria ( hcp ) and variegate porphyria ( vp ) ) .
acute attacks are triggered by various factors , such as endocrine changes , physical or emotional stress , alcohol consumption , smoking , and a wide array of drugs .
cutaneous symptoms consist of blistering and fragile skin on sun - exposed areas ( cep , pct , hcp , vp ) and photosensitization ( epp ) . with the exception of pct , which also occurs in a sporadic , nonhereditary form ,
most porphyrias are inherited in an autosomal dominant fashion with low clinical penetrance . as with many other rare diseases , little
pregnancy has been reported to exacerbate or improve cutaneous symptoms in women with pct ( baxi et al .
1983 ; loret de mola et al . 1996 ; aziz ibrahim and esen 2004 ) and epp ( bewley et al . 1998 ; jacquemyn 2003 ; madu and whittaker 2006 ) , and women with aip sometimes have their first acute attack during pregnancy ( engelhardt et al .
however , how porphyria can affect pregnancy outcomes has seldom been investigated , and the body of evidence only consists of case reports and small case series .
acute porphyrias have been implied to be risk factors for low birth weight , growth retardation , premature delivery , spontaneous abortion , and perinatal death ( brodie et al . 1977 ; olund 1988 ; kanaan et al .
1998 ; aggarwal et al . 2002 ; andersson et al . 2003 ; muralidhar et al . 2006 ; cappell 2008 ) , whereas pct has been suggested to increase the risk of preeclampsia ( loret de... | the porphyrias comprise a heterogeneous group of rare , primarily hereditary , metabolic diseases caused by a partial deficiency in one of the eight enzymes involved in the heme biosynthesis .
our aim was to assess whether acute or cutaneous porphyria has been associated with excess risks of adverse pregnancy outcomes .
a population - based cohort study was designed by record linkage between the norwegian porphyria register , covering 70% of all known porphyria patients in norway , and the medical birth registry of norway , based on all births in norway during 19672006 .
the risks of the adverse pregnancy outcomes preeclampsia , delivery by caesarean section , low birth weight , premature delivery , small for gestational age ( sga ) , perinatal death , and congenital malformations were compared between porphyric mothers and the rest of the population .
the 200 mothers with porphyria had 398 singletons during the study period , whereas the 1,100,391 mothers without porphyria had 2,275,317 singletons .
first - time mothers with active acute porphyria had an excess risk of perinatal death [ adjusted odds ratio ( or ) 4.9 , 95% confidence interval ( ci ) 1.516.0 ] , as did mothers with the hereditable form of porphyria cutanea tarda ( pct ) ( 3.0 , 1.27.7 ) .
sporadic pct was associated with an excess risk of sga [ adjusted relative risk ( rr ) 2.0 , 1.23.4 ] , and for first - time mothers , low birth weight ( adjusted or 3.4 , 1.210.0 ) and premature delivery ( 3.5 , 1.210.5 ) in addition .
the findings suggest women with porphyria should be monitored closely during pregnancy . |
6,041 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: twenty - three consecutive , previously untreated patients with acute unilateral on were recruited from the ophthalmology outpatient clinics of isfahan university of medical sciences , iran between october 2009 and february 2010 . these included four men and 19 women , with a mean ( standard deviation [ sd ] ) age of 27.2 ( 7.0 ) years , ranging from 19 to 47 years .
the inclusion criterion was typical clinical presentation of acute unilateral on before the age of 50 years and exclusion criteria were bilateral on , recurrent on and any disease or anomaly of the contralateral eye .
no patient had a history of any major systemic diseases , including cardiovascular disease , arterial hypertension , hyperlipidemia or diabetes mellitus .
all patients underwent neurologic and ophthalmologic examinations including visual acuity assessment , direct ophthalmoscopy and measurement of visual evoked potentials ( vep ) .
the tenets of the declaration of helsinki were followed , institutional ethical committee approval was granted , patients were informed about the doppler method ; and an informed consent form was signed by each participant . on was diagnosed by an expert ophthalmologist ( ad ) .
cases of acute unilateral on were identified according to the degree of decrease in visual acuity , impaired perimetry findings , slight swelling of the optic disc and facultative retro- or parabulbar pain , afferent papillary defect and delayed vep responses .
the contralateral eye in all patients was un - affected by clinical signs of on before the study began .
however , we could not exclude the possibility that subclinical damage to the contralateral optic nerve may have occurred , although the veps in these eyes were normal .
multiple sclerosis ( ms ) was presumed to be the cause of on in 18 patients , with no obvious cause in the remaining five .
the best corrected visual acuity of the affected eyes varied from counting fingers to 20 / 20 ; the best corrected visual acuity of unaffected eyes was at least 20 / 20 in all cases... | purposeto evaluate orbital blood flow velocities and optic nerve diameter with doppler and gray - scale sonography in patients with acute unilateral optic neuritis ( on).methodsorbital doppler and gray - scale sonography was performed in 46 eyes of 23 patients aged 19- to 47-years with acute unilateral on . on was diagnosed by an ophthalmologist on the basis of clinical presentation , presence of decreased visual acuity and assessment of visual evoked potentials .
the peak systolic velocity ( psv ) and end - diastolic velocity ( edv ) , as well as the resistance index ( ri ) and pulsatile index ( pi ) of the ophthalmic artery ( oa ) , central retinal artery ( cra ) , posterior ciliary arteries ( pcas ) and optic nerve diameter were measured in both eyes .
we compared results from affected and unaffected eyes using the paired t - test .
the area under the receiver operating characteristic ( roc ) curves was used to assess the diagnosis of on based on measured blood flow parameters of the oa , cra and pcas and optic nerve diameter.resultsthe mean ( standard deviation ) optic nerve diameter in eyes with on was 4.1 ( 0.8 ) mm , which was significantly larger than the 3.0 ( 0.4 ) mm diameter measured in unaffected control eyes ( p < 0.001 ) .
there were no differences in average psv , edv , ri , or pi of the oa and cra between affected and unaffected eyes ( p > 0.05 ) .
the mean ri in the pcas was slightly lower in the eyes with on than in the contralateral eyes ( 0.60 vs. 0.64 , p < 0.05 ) .
the area under the roc curves indicated that optic nerve diameter was the best parameter for the diagnosis of on.conclusionsoptic nerve diameter was related to on , but orbital blood flow parameters were not . |
6,042 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the diagnosis is based on high blood tyrosine level and abnormal urinary excretion of succinylacetone ( sa ) ( 1 ) . according to onset of symptoms ht1
is classified in acute ( < 2 months ) , subacute ( 2 to 6 months ) and chronic ( > 6 months ) forms ( 2 ) .
most common causes of death are liver failure and bleeding , hepatocellular carcinoma ( hcc ) and pseudo porphyric crisis with respiratory failure ( 3 ) .
since 1992 , the 2- ( 2-nitro-4trifluoro - methyl benzoyl)-1 , 3-cyclohexanedione ( ntbc ) has offered as a new promising tool for the treatment ( 4 , 5 ) .
, there are few reports of the long - term prognosis ( 5 , 7 ) .
this study reports beside its clinical and biochemical presentation , the outcome of ntbc [ 2- ( 2-nitro-4-trifloro - methylbenzoyl)-1 , 3-cyclohexanedion ] treatment of the disease and evaluates its biochemical markers in 16 pediatric libyan patients .
a retrospective clinical study was undertaken on 16 libyan patients with hereditary tyrosinemia type i ( hti ) who were diagnosed or referred to a single center at elkhadra hospital , one of the main referral hospitals in western libya , which provides medical services to pediatric age groups up to 16 years old .
our orientation was based on the presence of rickets with hepatomegaly or liver disease with high alpha fetoprotein ( afp ) .
two patients were detected by screening at the age of one week and 1.5 months because of older affected siblings .
the diagnosis of hti was confirmed by high tyrosine level in blood and sa urinary excretion by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry ( lc - ms / ms ) .
the investigation ( blood for amino acids , urine for organic acids and sa or dried blood spots for the same tests ) were sent to laboratories and were done either in tunisia , germany , france or lebanon .
x - ray of bones , echocardiography , abdominal ultrasonography and when indicated , abdominal ct scan were monitored .
follow up visits were done iat least monthly in the first 6 months , then every 3 months thereafter .
one... | background : hereditary tyrosinemia type i ( hti ) is a metabolic disease caused by deficiency of fumarylacetoacetate hydrolase enzyme.objectives:this study reports beside its clinical and biochemical presentation , the outcome of ntbc [ 2- ( 2-nitro-4-trifloro - methylbenzoyl)-1 , 3-cyclohexanedion ] treatment of the disease and evaluates its biochemical markers in 16 pediatric libyan patients.patients and methods : the diagnosis was based on presence of high tyrosine levels in blood and succinylacetone in urine.results:the consanguinity rate was 81.2% , the median age at onset , at diagnosis and at starting treatment were 4.5 , 8 , and 9.5 months respectively . at presentation hepatomegaly , jaundice , rickets and high gamma glutamyl transferase ( ggt ) were observed in 87.5% of patients .
all patients had extremely high alpha fetoprotein ( afp ) and high alkaline phosphatase ( alp ) levels .
fifteen patients were treated with ntbc , normalization of pt ( prothrombine time ) was achieved in average in 14 days .
the other biochemical parameters of liver function ( transaminases , ggt , alp , bilirubin and albumin ) took longer to improve and several months to be normalized .
survival rate with ntbc was 86.6% .
patients who started treatment in a median of 3 months post onset observed a fast drop of afp in 90.6% of patients ( p = 0.003 ) .
abnormal liver function and rickets were the common presentations , ggt was an early cholestatic sensitive test .
alp was constantly high even in asymptomatic patients.conclusions:in ht1 a faster dropping of afp is a marker of good prognosis . |
6,043 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: prostate cancer is the most prevalent cancer and the third most common cause of mortality in men in western countries .
transrectal ultrasonography - guided prostate biopsy ( trus - bx ) is an essential procedure for diagnosing prostate cancer but may cause variable complications , including pain , hematuria , hemospermia , urethral injury , and urinary tract infection . among the complications , infective complications are clinically important because these can cause prostatitis or urosepsis , which are sometimes fatal to patients .
the incidence rate of infective complications after trus - bx was reported to range from 0.1% to 7% and has increased during the past 10 years .
for example , the american urological association ( aua ) guideline recommends antibiotic prophylaxis with fluoroquinolone for less than 24 hours as the first - line therapy and aminoglycoside combined with metronidazole or clindamycin for less than 24 hours as the second - line therapy .
the european association of urology ( eau ) guideline also recommends oral or intravenous antibiotic prophylaxis before biopsy , and quinolone is recommended as the drug of choice .
however , these recommendations would not be appropriate in a region where the prevalence of quinolone - resistant escherichia coli is high .
the recent increase in infective complications is possibly due to an increase in quinolone - resistant e. coli prevalence in the community . because overuse of antibiotics has not been strictly controlled in korea ,
a recent epidemiology study reported that the resistance rate to ciprofloxacin was over 24% in cystitis patients .
for this reason , korean urologists hardly follow the aua or eau guideline and instead use various combinations of antibiotics to prevent infective complications . considering the increase in quinolone - resistant pathogens worldwide , it is clinically significant to know the pattern of antibiotic prophylaxis in korea , where the prevalence of quinolone - resistant e. coli is already high
. such data would give... | purposetransrectal ultrasonography - guided prostate biopsy ( trus - bx ) is an essential procedure for diagnosing prostate cancer .
the american urological association ( aua ) guideline recommends fluoroquinolone alone for 1 day during trus - bx .
however , this recommendation may not be appropriate in regions where the prevalence of quinolone - resistant escherichia coli is high .
we investigated the real practice of antibiotic prophylaxis for trus - bx in korea.materials and methodsa total of 77 hospitals performing trus - bx were identified and an e - mail was sent to the urology department of those hospitals .
the questions in the e - mail included the choice of antibiotics before and after the procedure and the duration of antibiotic therapy after trus-bx.resultsa total of 54 hospitals ( 70.0% ) responded to the e - mail . before trus - bx , all hospitals administered intravenous antibiotic prophylaxis .
the percentage of hospitals that used quinolone , cephalosporin , and aminoglycoside alone was 48.1% , 20.4% , and 9.3% , respectively .
the percentage of hospitals that used two or more antibiotics was 22.2% .
after biopsy , all 54 hospitals prescribed oral antibiotics .
the percentage of hospitals that prescribed quinolone alone , cephalosporin alone , or a combination of two or more antibiotics was 77.8% , 20.4% , and 1.8% , respectively .
the duration of antibiotic use was more than 3 days in most hospitals ( 79.6% ) .
only four hospitals ( 7.4% ) followed the aua recommendation of a 1-day regimen.conclusionsthe aua recommendation was not followed by most hospitals in korea .
this clinical behavior might reflect the high quinolone resistance rate in korea , and further studies on the most efficient prophylactic antibiotics after trus - bx in korea are warranted . |
6,044 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: preservation of the remaining vital portion of curiously exposed pulpal tissue in primary teeth , where the demand is to keep a functioning tooth in site , was one of the most frequent problems in pediatric dentistry.1 to solve this problem pulpotomy therapy was introduced , developed and classified according to treatment objectives.2 pulpotomy involves amputation of the coronal portion of affected or infected dental pulp , treatment of the remaining vital radicular pulp tissue surface should preserve the vitality and function of all or part of the remaining radicular portion of the pulp.3 furthermore , it is an accepted procedure for treating both primary and permanent teeth with carious pulp exposures , several materials have been using for capping the radicular pulp after pulpotomy , these included formocresol , glutaraldehyde,4 ferric sulfate,5 the collagen material,6 and mineral trioxide aggregate.7 however , none of them had met the same degree of effectiveness and success rate as formocresol , possible hazards of formocresol ( cytotoxicity , carcinogenicity , immunologic , biochemical , mutagenic , and teratogenic changes ) in the host have been reported.8 moreover , it produced enamel defects in the permanent successors.9 in this regard , the demand for natural medicament to replace formocresol as a pulp dressing material became imperative .
the antibacterial activity of a. sativum is mediated by allicin through enzymatic activity of allinase ( a cysteine sulfoxidelyase ) .
a wide range of therapeutic effects reported for garlic is mainly from allicin and other thiosulfinates .
the antibacterial effects of fresh garlic extract10 have been thoroughly researched via literature and have been found that the extract will inhibit growth of various gram - positive and gram - negative bacteria.11 it is also reported that the garlic extract has inhibitory potential on isolated multi drug resistant strains of streptococcus
mutans from human caries teeth.12 the aim of this study was to compare between the... | background : the objective of this study was to compare between the clinical and radiographic effects of allium sativum oil and those of formocresol in vital pulpotomy in primary teeth.materials and methods : a total of 20 children age ranged from 4 to 8 years were included in the study . in every one of those children , the primary molars indicated for pulpotomy .
pulpotomy procedure was performed , and the radicular pulp tissue of one molar capped with a. sativum oil in a cotton pellet , whereas the other molar capped with formocresol , the teeth evaluated clinically and radiographically before and after 6 months , using standard clinical and radiographical criteria . statistically , these results revealed no significant difference between the radiographic findings of vital pulpotomy in primary molars with the two medicaments was found.results:a .
sativum oil offers a good healing potential , leaving the remaining pulp tissue healthy and functioning .
vital pulpotomy with allium sativa oil was given raise 90% success rate while that with formocresol was 85%.conclusion : a .
sativum oil is a biocompatible material that is compatible with vital human pulp tissue .
it offers a good healing potential , leaving the remaining pulp tissue healthy and functioning . |
6,045 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: briefly , the study was conducted at four clinical centers . centers in oakland and los angeles ,
california , recruited non - hispanic whites and african americans from kaiser permanente , a nonprofit hmo .
two other centers in san antonio , texas , and san luis valley , colorado , recruited non - hispanic whites and hispanics from two ongoing population based studies , the san antonio heart study and the san luis valley diabetes study .
a total of 1,625 individuals were enrolled ( 56% women ) between october 1992 and april 1994 .
a follow - up examination was performed 5 years after the baseline examination ( range 4.56.6 years ) .
the present report includes information on 826 ( 79.2% ) participants ( 332 non - hispanic whites , 206 african americans , and 288 hispanics ) after excluding 153 individuals who failed to return to the follow - up visit and 64 individuals with missing information on relevant variables .
baseline characteristics were similar in the participants included in this analysis and those who were excluded ( e.g. , age , ethnicity , sex , glucose tolerance status , bmi , waist circumference , and si [ all comparisons , p 0.2 ] ) except for air ( higher in eligible participants , p = 0.005 ) .
each examination required two visits , one week apart , of 4 h each . during the first visit
, a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test was administered to assess glucose tolerance status . during the second visit , insulin sensitivity and first - phase insulin secretion
first , an injection of regular insulin was used to ensure adequate plasma insulin levels for the accurate computation of insulin sensitivity across a broad range of glucose tolerance ( 20 ) .
second , the reduced sampling protocol ( 12 samples ) was used because of the large number of subjects .
si and sg were calculated using mathematical modeling methods ( minmod , version 3.0 , los angeles , california , courtesy of richard bergman , phd ) ( 21 ) .
air was calculated as the mean of 2- and 4-min insulin concentrations after glucose... | objectivedisposition index ( di ) and glucose effectiveness ( sg ) are risk factors for diabetes .
however , the effect of di and sg on future diabetes has not been examined in large epidemiological studies using direct measures.research design and methodsinsulin sensitivity index ( si ) , acute insulin response ( air ) , and sg were measured in 826 participants ( aged 4069 years ) in the insulin resistance atherosclerosis study ( iras ) by the frequently sampled intravenous glucose tolerance test .
di was expressed as si air . at the 5-year follow - up examination , 128 individuals ( 15.5% )
had developed diabetes.resultsthe area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of a model with si and air was similar to that of di ( 0.767 vs. 0.774 , p = 0.543 ) . in a multivariate logistic regression model that included both di and sg , conversion to diabetes was predicted by both sg ( odds ratio 1 sd , 0.61 [ 0.470.80 ] ) and di ( 0.68 [ 0.540.85 ] ) after adjusting for demographic variables , fasting and 2-h glucose concentrations , family history of diabetes , and measures of obesity .
age , sex , race / ethnicity , glucose tolerance status , obesity , and family history of diabetes did not have a significant modifying impact on the relation of sg and di to incident diabetes.conclusionsthe predictive power of di is comparable to that of its components , si and air .
sg and di independently predict conversion to diabetes similarly across race / ethnic groups , varying states of glucose tolerance , family history of diabetes , and obesity . |
6,046 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the diagnosis of diffuse interstitial lung disease is performed by a multidisciplinary team that involves pulmonologists , radiologists and pathologists .
close collaboration between these different areas of expertise is required to define which patients will need a biopsy and those in whom biopsy is not necessary .
surgical pulmonary biopsy continues to be considered the gold standard for recognising histological patterns and aiding the pulmonologist in considering possible causes of disease [ 2 , 3 ] .
conventional transbronchial biopsy using forceps ( tbb ) serves to diagnose sarcoidosis , neoplasias , some infections and cryptogenic organising pneumonia ( cop ) .
however , the small size of the samples obtained and the artefacts produced by the forceps on the tissue makes this insufficient in a large number of patients [ 14 ] .
recently , studies have been published that confirm the efficacy of new treatments , such as pirfenidone , in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis ( ipf ) .
the early diagnosis of disease is thus important . with transbronchial cryobiopsies carried out using cryoprobes , the quality of samples obtained and the diagnostic yield are improved compared with transbronchial biopsies with forceps [ 6 , 7 ] .
however , the requirement to perform it in an operating room with general anaesthesia and tracheal intubation [ 810 ] makes it closer to being a surgical technique than conventional tbb performed by a pulmonologist .
a prospective study was conducted in the central university hospital of asturias ( hospital universitario central de asturias huca ) from june 2013 to december 2015 and was approved by the ethics committee of the hospital .
patients were referred to the unit of interventional bronchoscopy and pleura of the hospital after being assessed by the multidisciplinary committee on diffuse interstitial lung diseases , which is composed of pulmonologists , radiologists , pathologists and rheumatologists who are experts on autoimmune diseases .
we enrolled patients who had... | transbronchial biopsy using forceps ( tbb ) is the first diagnostic technique performed on patients with interstitial lung disease ( ild ) .
however , the small size of the samples and the presence of artefacts in the tissue obtained make the yield variable.our objectives were 1 ) to attempt to reproduce transbronchial cryobiopsy under the same conditions with which we performed conventional tbb , that is , in the bronchoscopy unit without intubating the patient and without fluoroscopy or general anaesthesia ; 2 ) to describe the method used for its execution ; and 3 ) to analyse the diagnostic yield and its complications.we carried out a prospective study that included 106 patients with clinical and radiological features suggestive of ild who underwent cryo - transbronchial lung biopsy ( cryo - tbb ) under moderate sedation without endotracheal intubation , general anaesthesia or use of fluoroscopy .
we performed the procedure using two flexible bronchoscopes connected to two video processors , which we alternated until obtaining the number of desired samples.a definitive diagnosis was obtained in 91 patients ( 86% ) . as for complications , there were five pneumothoraces ( 4.7% ) and in no case was there severe haemorrhage or exacerbation of the underlying interstitial disease .
cryo - tbb following our method is a minimally invasive , rapid , safe and economic technique that can be performed in a bronchoscopy suite under moderate sedation without the need for intubating the patient or using fluoroscopy and without requiring general anaesthesia . |
6,047 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: mangroves are coastal ecosystems that have been seriously threatened by anthropogenic activities . worldwide , mangrove areas have been used for urban development , tourism , oil exploitation , agriculture , and shrimp farming . between 1980 and 2005 , about 3.6 million hectares of mangrove was lost . competition for land is the major cause of devastation and losses over time .
brazil , the second largest mangrove area in the world , has lost approximately 50,000 ha of mangroves in the last 25 years .
although these ecosystems are well known for their typical flora and associated fauna , comparatively , only a few studies deal with their microbial diversity [ 38 ] . on the other hand , studies on cultivable microorganisms have advanced in the isolation and identification of organisms capable of degrading xenobiotics , including oil hydrocarbons [ 3 , 5 , 911 ] . in the environment microorganisms
fulfill various niches and are fundamental for the functioning of mangroves , being particularly important in controlling the geochemistry of these habitats [ 12 , 13 ] . recently , using metagenomics and pyrosequencing andreote et al .
retrieved a large volume of information on the microbial composition and function in tropical mangroves .
although these studies represent a valuable contribution to our understanding of microbial life , more studies are necessary to access the microbial ecology of mangrove sediments from distinct zones inside the mangrove , as well as those submitted to different anthropogenic threats .
genetic fingerprinting techniques provide a pattern or profile of the genetic diversity in a microbial community , which are important in distinguishing pcr products that have different nucleotide sequences .
terminal - restriction fragment length polymorphism ( t - rflp ) has proven to be a valuable tool to study bacterial community structure in complex environments such as sediments and soils [ 3 , 18 , 19 ] .
also , tools for web - based phylogenetic alignment exist that allow the retrieval of... | we investigated the relationship among environmental variables , composition , and structure of bacterial communities in different habitats in a mangrove located nearby to an oil exploitation area , aiming to retrieve the natural pattern of bacterial communities in this ecosystem .
the t - rflp analysis showed a high diversity of bacterial populations and an increase in the bacterial richness from habitats closer to the sea and without vegetation ( s1 ) to habitats covered by avicennia schaueriana ( s2 ) and rhizophora mangle ( s3 ) .
environmental variables in s1 and s2 were more similar than in s3 ; however , when comparing the bacterial compositions , s2 and s3 shared more otus between them , suggesting that the presence of vegetation is an important factor in shaping these bacterial communities . in silico analyses of the fragments revealed a high diversity of the class gammaproteobacteria in the 3 sites , although in general they presented quite different bacterial composition , which is probably shaped by the specificities of each habitat .
this study shows that microhabitats inside of a mangrove ecosystem harbor diverse and distinct microbiota , reinforcing the need to conserve these ecosystems as a whole . |
6,048 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: basal metabolic rate ( bmr ) quantifies the minimum rate of energy expenditure necessary to maintain energy balance of resting , post - absorptive endotherms at thermoneutral conditions ( schmidt - nielsen 1997 ) .
although conceived with biomedical research in mind , bmr has quickly become the most widely used benchmark metric of metabolic rate ( white and kearney 2012 ) .
it has also become clear that the composition and variation in bmr convey extremely important biological information ( for an extensive review see mcnab 2002 ) .
consequently , disentangling the factors and mechanisms that underlie differences in bmr at inter- and intra - specific level has become the key component of major questions at the interface between evolution , ecology , and physiology of endotherms , including the evolution of endothermy itself ( hayes 2010 ; nespolo et al .
historically , studies on variation in bmr were guided by the krogh principle ( 1916 ) , taking advantage of the several - fold inter - specific variation in bmr ( mcnab 2002 ) .
although inter - specific studies have greatly contributed to our understanding of the general patterns of bmr variation , they are limited by two important factors .
first , studies at inter - specific level must take into account the potentially confounding effect of phylogeny on the inference ( garland et al .
second , inter - specific analyses are based on the assumption that a species - specific average bmr value used in those analyses adequately characterizes bmr at the intra - specific level .
this assumption is legitimate , when inter - specific variation widely exceeds intra - specific variation ( ives et al .
it must be borne in mind , however , that it is intra - specific variation that is a substrate of natural selection , and therefore , inter - specific studies on bmr can only partially inform the inference on adaptation and can not unambiguously identify factors influencing its variation .
for this reason , patterns derived from inter - specific analyses can not be... | basal metabolic rate ( bmr ) provides a widely accepted benchmark of metabolic expenditure for endotherms under laboratory and natural conditions .
while most studies examining bmr have concentrated on inter - specific variation , relatively less attention has been paid to the determinants of within - species variation .
even fewer studies have analysed the determinants of within - species bmr variation corrected for the strong influence of body mass by appropriate means ( e.g. ancova ) . here , we review recent advancements in studies on the quantitative genetics of bmr and organ mass variation , along with their molecular genetics .
next , we decompose bmr variation at the organ , tissue and molecular level .
we conclude that within - species variation in bmr and its components have a clear genetic signature , and are functionally linked to key metabolic process at all levels of biological organization .
we highlight the need to integrate molecular genetics with conventional metabolic field studies to reveal the adaptive significance of metabolic variation .
since comparing gene expressions inter - specifically is problematic , within - species studies are more likely to inform us about the genetic underpinnings of bmr .
we also urge for better integration of animal and medical research on bmr ; the latter is quickly advancing thanks to the application of imaging technologies and omics studies .
we also suggest that much insight on the biochemical and molecular underpinnings of bmr variation can be gained from integrating studies on the mammalian target of rapamycin ( mtor ) , which appears to be the major regulatory pathway influencing the key molecular components of bmr . |
6,049 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: behcet 's disease is a systemic vasculitis characterized by recurrent oral and genital ulcers and ocular inflammation , and may involve the joint , skin , central nervous system and gastrointestinal tract .
there is no specific test for behcet 's disease , and the diagnosis is based upon clinical criteria . although multiple diagnostic criteria have been established , there is no universally accepted definition of behcet 's disease .
the prevalence of intestinal behcet 's disease has been variable in several reports and accounts for about 1 - 2% of behcet 's disease ( 1 , 2 ) .
the clinical symptoms are wide and include anorexia , vomiting , dyspepsia , diarrhea , and abdominal pain .
the typical endoscopic findings are segmental mucosal inflammation , punch - out , fissuring or aphthoid ulcers in the ileocecal area ( 3 , 4 ) .
although strictures are unusual , transmural inflammation and fistulae are frequently observed ( 5 ) .
these findings are similar to those of crohn 's disease . however , longitudinal ulcers , cobblestone appearance , and granuloma formation are very rare findings in intestinal behcet 's disease .
we experienced a rare case of systemic behcet 's disease with intestinal involvement similar to crohn 's colitis .
a 39-yr - old female presented with recurrent oro - genital ulcers , erythema nodosum , and arthralgia .
two years later , she was admitted to our hospital because of oral and genital ulcer , lower abdominal pain , and frequent diarrhea for 15 days .
she had suffered from intermittent hematochezia and cramping abdominal pain for the previous two years .
further history taking revealed she had a post - traumatic epilepsy by traffic accident 13 yr before and had taken anti - epilepsy drugs , carbamazepine and sodium valproate . on admission ,
her blood pressure was 90/60 mmhg , her pulse rate was 70/min , body temperature was 36.5 , and respiration rate was 20/min . her abdominal pain was located in the bilateral lower quadrants without rebound tenderness .
she appeared chronically... | behcet 's disease is a multi - systemic vasculitis and characterized by systemic organ involvement . although the gastrointestinal and systemic features of behcet 's disease and inflammatory bowel disease overlap to a considerable extent , they are generally viewed as two distinct diseases .
a 39-yr - old female was diagnosed as having behcet 's disease .
she was admitted to our hospital because of oral and genital ulcer , lower abdominal pain , and frequent diarrhea .
colonosopy showed diffuse involvement of multiple longitudinal ulcers with inflammatory pseudopolyps with a cobblestone appearance and ano - rectal fistula was suspected .
these findings are extremely rare in behcet 's disease .
however , there were no granulomas , the hallmark of crohn 's colitis .
microscopically , perivasculitis and multiple lymph follicles compatible with behcet 's disease were seen .
although being rarely encountered , multiple longitudinal ulcers , cobblestone appearance , and ano - rectal fistula can develop in behcet 's disease , as in crohn 's colitis .
therefore , behcet 's disease and crohn 's disease may be closely related and part of a spectrum of disease . |
6,050 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: global incidence of diabetes mellitus ( dm ) estimates more than 171 million for 2000 and 366 million for 2030 .
the mortality and morbidity of dm are determined by various complications , such as diabetic vasculopathy , retinopathy , nephropathy , and peripheral neuropathy .
recently , many studies have indicated that dm also implicated the central nervous system ( cns ) and induced the brain pathological changes , named the diabetic encephalopathy , which is a complication of dm in the cns characterized by mild cognitive deficits and neuropathology [ 35 ] .
diabetic encephalopathy presents many symptoms , which can be described as the features of brain aging including brain atrophy , reactive oxygen species ( ros ) accumulation , cerebral vasculopathy , and impairment of cognition [ 6 , 7 ] .
clinical observation has shown that brain atrophy is more remarkable in diabetic patients than in age - matched controls .
animal experimental data have suggested that learning deficiency is associated with the distinct changes in synaptic plasticity in hippocampal slices in streptozotocin- ( stz- ) induced diabetic rats .
the affinity of glutamate for ampa but not for nmda receptors decreases in sprague - dawley ( sd ) rats at 6 to 8 weeks after stz injection .
the levels of malondialdehyde , xanthine oxidase , and nitric oxide in the hippocampus , cortex , cerebellum , brain stem , and spinal cord significantly increase in stz - induced diabetic - untreated rats , suggesting remarkable generation of ros in the brain .
hyperglycemia resulting from defective insulin secretion , resistance to insulin action , or both is a critical pathogenesis of dm .
willem hendrik gispen and geert - jan biessels have recently suggested that acute hyperglycemia is associated with mild cognitive dysfunction in population with type 1 or type 2 dm . another recent study has suggested that insulin is implicated in the pathogenesis of age - related memory decline and diabetic encephalopathy [ 13 , 14 ] .
insulin may act as a neuromodulator... | objective .
numerous epidemiological studies have linked diabetes mellitus ( dm ) with an increased risk of developing alzheimer 's disease ( ad ) . however
, whether or not diabetic encephalopathy shows ad - like pathology remains unclear .
research design and methods .
forebrain and hippocampal volumes were measured using stereology in serial coronal sections of the brain in streptozotocin- ( stz- ) induced rats .
neurodegeneration in the frontal cortex , hypothalamus , and hippocampus was evaluated using fluoro - jade c ( fjc ) .
a aggregation in the frontal cortex and hippocampus was tested using immunohistochemistry and elisa .
dendritic spine density in the frontal cortex and hippocampus was measured using golgi staining , and western blot was conducted to detect the levels of synaptophysin .
cognitive ability was evaluated through the morris water maze and inhibitory avoidant box .
results .
rats are characterized by insulin deficiency accompanied with polydipsia , polyphagia , polyuria , and weight loss after stz injection .
the number of fjc - positive cells significantly increased in discrete brain regions of the diabetic rats compared with the age - matched control rats .
hippocampal atrophy , a aggregation , and synapse loss were observed in the diabetic rats compared with the control rats .
the learning and memory of the diabetic rats decreased compared with those of the age - matched control rats .
conclusions .
our results suggested that aberrant metabolism induced brain aging as characterized by ad - like pathologies . |
6,051 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: from november 26 to december 28 , 2010 , 6 cases of subtype h5n1 infection were identified in carcasses , feces , and cloacal swab specimens of migratory birds collected throughout south korea .
subtype h5n1 viruses were found in various bird species ( mallard , baikal teal , mandarin duck , whooper swan , and eurasian eagle owl ) in places such as migratory bird habitats and nearby hills ( figure 1 , panel a ) . despite the repeated predictions from animal health authorities of poultry outbreaks and the emphasis on protection against contamination , on december 30 , 2010 , hpai was confirmed on 2 poultry farms .
these farms are located in the middle region of south korea and are close ( distances of 1.3 km and 0.4 km , respectively ) to the migratory habitats of birds that have been positive for subtype h5n1 virus ( figure 1 , panel b ) . during the next 2 weeks
, the percentage of hpai - positive birds increased rapidly among clustered poultry farms located in the southern region , and poultry on 23 farms and 13 wild birds were confirmed to be infected with hpai virus ( figure 1 , panel c ) .
the hpai outbreak spread more slowly until may 16 , 2011 , and an additional 30 poultry farms and 7 wild birds were confirmed to be infected with subtype h5n1 virus ( figure 1 , panel d ) .
progress of highly pathogenic avian influenza ( hpai ) outbreak by time , south korea , 20102011 .
a ) hpai - positive cases identified from samples collected november 26december 28 , 2010 ( wild birds , 6 cases ) .
b ) cases identified by january 4 , 2011 ( wild birds , 10 cases ; poultry , 2 cases ) .
c ) cases identified by january 11 , 2011 ( wild birds , 13 cases ; poultry , 23 cases ) .
d ) cases identified by may 16 , 2011 ( wild birds , 20 cases ; poultry , 53 cases ) .
blue circles indicate locations where hpai viruses were isolated from wild birds ; red circles indicate locations where hpai viruses were isolated from poultry .
fourteen bird species were found to be positive for subtype h5n1 ( table ) . the affected poultry... | highly pathogenic avian influenza ( h5n1 ) among wild birds emerged simultaneously with outbreaks in domestic poultry in south korea during november 2010may 2011 .
phylogenetic analysis showed that these viruses belonged to clade 2.3.2 , as did viruses found in mongolia , the people s republic of china , and russia in 2009 and 2010 . |
6,052 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: traffic injuries are a leading cause of death and disability in many countries , and they are major public health problems ( 14 ) . it is anticipated that the traffic accident rate could increase by 50% by the end of 2020 if appropriate actions are not taken to reduce global deaths due to traffic accidents ( 1 ) .
some epidemiological studies have reported that the incidence rates of fatal traffic injuries are about 26.4 , 17.4 , and 19 per 100,000 people in the eastern mediterranean region , in the european region , and worldwide , respectively ( 5 ) . in 2007 ,
27,567 deaths and 276,762 injuries as the result of traffic accidents were reported in iran ( 1 ) .
the knowledge , attitudes , and practice of drivers towards traffic regulations have been thought to be key factors in decreasing traffic injuries and deaths .
the issue of human factors , such as drivers errors , seems to be a significant contributor to the rate of traffic injuries and deaths .
the results of a study that was conducted in saudi arabia indicated that speed and non - compliance with rules were the main reasons for the high rate of injuries and deaths ( 6 ) .
a study of the knowledge , attitudes , and practices of 2200 drivers toward traffic regulations in tehran and zahedan indicated that the rate of road traffic crashes can be decreased by increasing the levels of knowledge of drivers and by changing their attitudes and practices .
a significant association was found between safer attitudes and decreases in the rate of traffic crashes ( or = 0.76 , p = 0.007 ) ( 7 ) .
many observers have mentioned the importance of determining the relationships between personality and demographic variables ( such as age , gender , and education levels ) and drivers behaviors . in low - income countries , driving attitudes and behaviors
intention to commit driving violations , high - speed driving , and poor decision making are important risk factors for traffic accidents ( 9 ) .
some previous studies have reported a weak association between knowledge ,... | introductiontraffic injuries are among the leading causes of death and disability in many countries .
the knowledge , attitudes , and practice of drivers towards traffic regulations are key factors in decreasing traffic injuries and deaths .
the objectives of this research were to study the knowledge , attitudes , and practice of taxi drivers towards traffic regulations in bandar - abbas , iran , and to determine the relationships between demographic features and knowledge , attitudes , and practice of taxi drivers towards traffic regulations.methodsthis cross - sectional study was done in 2014 in bandar - abbas , iran ( hormozgan province ) .
to study the knowledge , attitudes , and practice of 241 intra - city taxi drivers towards traffic regulations , researchers developed questionnaires and a checklist .
the chi - squared test was performed to determine the relationships between knowledge , attitude , and practice of drivers towards traffic regulations and demographic features.resultsamong the 241 drivers , 50 of them ( 20.7% ) thought that the seat belt could cause discomfort while driving , and 107 ( 44.4% ) did not wear a seat belt while driving .
the study determined that there was a significant difference between the knowledge and work experience of the drivers ( p = 0.014 ) .
the 94 drivers ( 43.5% ) in the 3140 year age group had positive attitudes towards traffic regulations ( among 216 drivers expressed positive attitudes ) and 92 ( 44.4% ) of the drivers in this age group had safe practices towards traffic regulations ( among 207 drivers with safe practice).conclusionmany of the taxi drivers in bandar - abbas had inadequate knowledge , less positive attitudes , and risky practices towards traffic regulations .
implementation of effective intervention programs may increase the taxi drivers knowledge , attitudes , and practices towards traffic regulations . |
6,053 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: human metcam ( humetcam ) , a cam in the immunoglobulin - like gene superfamily , is an integral membrane glycoprotein .
alternative names for metcam are muc18 , cd146 , mcam , melcam , a32 , and s - endo 1 . to avoid confusion with mucins and to reflect its biological functions ,
we have renamed muc18 as metcam ( metastasis cam ) , which means an immunoglobulin - like cam that affects or regulates metastasis , .
the humetcam has 646 aminoacids that include a n - terminal extracellular domain of 558 aminoacids , which has 28 aminoacids characteristics of a signal peptide sequence at its n - terminus , a transmembrane domain of 24 aminoacids ( amino acid number 559583 ) , and a cytoplasmic domain of 64 aminoacids at the c - terminus .
humetcam has eight putative n - glycosylation sites ( asn - x - ser / thr ) , of which six are conserved , and are heavily glycosylated and sialylated resulting in an apparent molecular weight of 113,000150,000 .
the extracellular domain of the protein comprises five immunoglobulin - like domains ( v - v - c2-c2-c2 ) [ 1 , 7 ] and an x domain .
the cytoplasmic tail contains peptide sequences that will potentially be phosphorylated by protein kinase a ( pka ) , protein kinase c ( pkc ) , and casein kinase 2 ( ck 2 ) [ 1 , 7 , 8 ] . my lab has also cloned and sequenced the mouse metcam ( mometcam ) cdna , which contains 648 aminoacids with a 76.2% identity with humetcam , suggesting that mometcam is likely to have biochemical properties and biological functions similar to the human counterpart .
the structure of the humetcam protein is depicted in figure 1 , suggesting that metcam , similar to most cams , plays an active role in mediating cell - cell and cell - extracellular interactions , crosstalk with many intracellular signaling pathways , and modulating the social behaviors of cells .
humetcam is expressed in a limited number of normal tissues , such as hair follicular cells , smooth muscle cells , endothelial cells , cerebellum , normal mammary epithelial cells , basal... | metcam , an integral membrane cell adhesion molecule ( cam ) in the ig - like gene superfamily , is capable of performing typical functions of cams , such as mediating cell - cell and cell - extracellular interactions , crosstalk with intracellular signaling pathways , and modulating social behaviors of cells .
metcam is expressed in about nine normal cells / tissues .
aberrant expression of metcam has been associated with the progression of several epithelial tumors .
further in vitro and in vivo studies show that metcam plays a dual role in the progression of different tumors .
it can promote the malignant progression of several tumors . on the other hand
, it can suppress the malignant progression of other tumors .
we suggest that the role of metcam in the progression of different cancer types may be modulated by different intrinsic factors present in different cancer cells and also in different stromal microenvironment .
many possible mechanisms mediated by this cam during early tumor development and metastasis are suggested . |
6,054 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: cutaneous leishmaniasis ( cl ) which is associated with considerable morbidity is still a major health problem in the world especially in developing countries . over the years
evidence - based studies are few and it is difficult to determine what the best treatments are.1 for many decades , pentavalent antimonials have remained the gold standard of treatment . in a recent study ,
a meta - analysis of treatment of new world cutaneous leishmaniasis showed a 76.5% cure rate in 1150 patients treated with pentavalent antimonials and concluded that the pentavalent antimonials were as effective as pentamidine.2 in the most recent studies , cure rates have not gone beyond 80%.3 several factors , most important of which are the strain of leishmania and host 's immune system , determine the biologic behaviour of the disease . in assessing the efficacy of treatment , the natural course of the disease has to be taken into consideration as well as the fact that cl often heals spontaneously within one week to three years , usually within one year . to be considered also when the best mode of treatment is being determined
are the cost , availability of drugs , adverse effects and the local experience . over the last 50 years ,
though only a few drugs for cutaneous leishmaniasis have emerged , drug resistance has increased . in this review , the newly introduced medications and those being developed will be discussed .
newly introduced medications / procedures for treatment of cl amphotericin b is the standard drug for the treatment of systemic fungal infections .
it has also been used as the second line of treatment for visceral leishmaniasis ( vl ) resistant to pentavalent antimonials .
amphotericin b , however , has a low therapeutic index , high acute toxicity and necessitates parenteral administration . to avoid these drawbacks , a new lipid - associated formulation of the original polyene amphotericin b , liposomal amphotericin b has been introduced .
this formulation is better tolerated and has less infusion - related... | background : cutaneous leishmaniasis ( cl ) is still a major health problem in many countries including saudi arabia . patients with cl are seen , not only by dermatologists , but also by pediatricians and community physicians .
knowledge of available treatment options is essential.design:a literature review utilizing pubmed and cochrane evidence - based library was undertaken in the last five years.results:several medications and therapeutic modalities are currently in use , though the gold standard remains systemic antimonials .
drug resistance and serious side effects preclude the use of available medications .
newer therapies like liposomal amphotericin b , miltefosine and pentamidine are being used ; while it is hoped that other drugs like imiquimod , tamoxifen , pdt and pentamidine structural analogs being tested would offer better efficacy , easier administration and lower toxicity.conclusion:after decades of little advance in the treatment of leishmaniasis , there are now several options with newer compounds and combinations of these . |
6,055 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: aerobic fitness is essential for soccer athletes to perform at an optimal level ( 15 , 17 ) .
in addition to aerobic fitness , repeated sprint performance is also a critical component of game performance in soccer .
the ability to reproduce sprints without significant reductions in sprint speed is known as repeated sprint ability ( rsa ) .
athletic performance at a high level requires soccer athletes to train both their oxidative phosphorylation ( aerobic ) system and their phosphocreatine - adenosine triphosphate ( pcr - atp ) ( anaerobic ) system ( 7 , 16 ) .
while the pcr - atp system is the primary system to fuel athletes during the anaerobic ( i.e. , burst of sprints lasting less than 6 seconds ) portions of a game , the aerobic system also plays an important role to assist with pcr replenishment ( 7 , 9 , 21 ) .
the relationship between the aerobic and anaerobic variables on an athlete s ability to reproduce sprints is debatable and the current research is discordant due to the varying forms of a repeated sprint test ( 1 , 2 , 5 , 16 )
. a better understanding about the relationship between aerobic fitness and brief anaerobic work in the form of repeated sprints that are less than 40 meters is needed to improve strength and conditioning recommendations for soccer athletes .
prior research has yet to show a relationship between aerobic fitness ( e.g. , vo2max ) and rsa when the repeated sprint distances were less than 40 meters and when the work - to - rest ratios are 1:4 to 1:5 ( 6 , 21 ) .
a study by aziz et al . ( 1 ) concluded that aerobic fitness measured via vo2max was not associated with rsa sprint performance in young elite soccer athletes .
the rsa test implemented used a rsa running test that consisted of six , 20 meter sprints with a 20 second recovery between each sprint ( ~1:5 work - to - rest ratio ) .
another rsa study increased the distance by 10 meters with the same recovery time and also suggested that rsa is not related to aerobic fitness ( 14 ) .
( 14 ) was that vo2max was not... | research is inconclusive regarding the association between aerobic fitness ( objectively measured vo2max ) and repeated sprint performance when the sprints are less than 40 meters .
soccer athletes must be able to repeat sprints without significant decreases in speed and strength and conditioning coaches need to better understand if aerobic fitness is related to repeated sprint ability ( rsa ) .
twenty ( 10 male , 10 female ) division i soccer athletes first completed a graded maximal treadmill test to measure vo2max . then on a separate day
, athletes completed the rsa test .
the rsa test consisted of 10 , 30-meter sprints which athletes repeated every 30 seconds .
there were significant negative correlations ( r 0.69 , p < 0.001 ) between vo2max and all 10-sprint times and average sprint time .
more aerobically fit division i soccer athletes were faster at all time points during the rsa test .
aerobic fitness is associated with faster sprint times during a more anaerobic rsa test when sprint distances are less than 40 meters . |
6,056 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: for many years , the diagnosis of lung metastasis was considered the end stage of the
disease course in patients with malignant neoplasms .
initially , the treatment
proposed consisted of chemotherapy and hormone therapy , and unsatisfactory responses
were seen in more than 70% of cases in 1882 , weinlechner incidentally performed the
first lung metastasis resection during the resection of a primary tumor , a procedure
in which the metastasis was removed en bloc with the surgical
specimen .
( ) since then ,
various other cases of metastasectomy have been reported , many with positive
results . in 1951 , ehrenhaft started selecting candidates for lung metastasis resection , ( ) and , subsequently , it was
possible to establish well - defined criteria .
surgical treatment evolved over the 20th century because of greater knowledge about
tumors that gave rise to lung metastases only .
surgical treatment of lung metastases
has been given a boost in the last 15 years , as has been shown in the literature ,
and some of the major prognostic factors for this condition , such as disease - free
interval and type of resection performed , have been identified , .
( , ) however , in comparison with major centers worldwide ,
there have been few studies of brazilian patients and this treatment modality in
brazil .
therefore , the objective of the present study was to evaluate the results of surgical
treatment of lung metastases at a university hospital in the city of campinas ,
brazil .
this was a retrospective study using surgical records of the department of thoracic
surgery of the state university at campinas hospital de clnicas ,
located in the city of campinas , brazil .
we reviewed all records of resection of
lung lesions performed in patients with a previous diagnosis of primary cancer in
other organs , as well as all records of complete resection of all lesions and
pathological confirmation of metastatic disease , between january 1 , 1997 and
december 31 , 2011 .
we... | objective : to describe demographic characteristics , surgical results , postoperative
complications , and overall survival rates in surgically treated patients
with lung metastases . methods : this was a retrospective analysis of 119 patients who underwent a total of
154 lung metastasis resections between 1997 and 2011
. results : among the 119 patients , 68 ( 57.1% ) were male and 108 ( 90.8% ) were white .
the
median age was 52 years ( range , 15 - 75 years ) . in this sample ,
63 patients
( 52.9% ) presented with comorbidities , the most common being systemic
arterial hypertension ( 69.8% ) and diabetes ( 19.0% ) . primary colorectal
tumors ( 47.9% ) and musculoskeletal tumors ( 21.8% ) were the main sites of
origin of the metastases .
approximately 24% of the patients underwent more
than one resection of the lesions , and 71% had adjuvant treatment prior to
metastasectomy .
the rate of lung metastasis recurrence was 19.3% , and the
median disease - free interval was 23 months .
the main surgical access used
was thoracotomy ( 78% ) , and the most common approach was wedge resection with
segmentectomy ( 51% ) .
the rate of postoperative complications was 22% , and
perioperative mortality was 1.9% .
the overall survival rates at 12 , 36 , 60 ,
and 120 months were 96% , 77% , 56% , and 39% , respectively .
a cox analysis
confirmed that complications within the first 30 postoperative days were
associated with poor prognosis ( hazard ratio = 1.81 ; 95% ci : 1.09 - 3.06 ; p =
0.02 ) .
conclusions : surgical treatment of lung metastases is safe and effective , with good
overall survival , especially in patients with fewer metastases . |
6,057 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: despite of an insignificant track record of quasi market models in sweden , new models of this kind have recently been introduced in health care ; commonly referred to as choice of care. this time citizens act as purchasers ; choosing the primary care centre or family physician they want to be treated by , which , in turn , generates a capitation payment to the chosen unit .
policy makers believe that such systems will be self - remedial , that is , as a result of competition the strong providers survive while unprofitable ones will be eliminated . because of negative consequences of the fragmented health care delivery , policy makers at the same time also promote different forms of integrated health care arrangements .
one example is local health care , which could be described as an upgraded community - oriented primary care , supported by adaptable hospital services , fitting the needs of a local population .
this paper reviews if it is possible to combine this kind of integrated care system with a competition driven model of governance , or if they are incompatible .
the findings indicate that some choice of care schemes could hamper the development of integration in local health care .
however , geographical monopolies like local health care , enclosed in a non - competitive context , lack the stimulus of competition that possibly improves performance .
thus , it could be argued that if choice of care and local health care should be combined , patients ought to choose between integrated health care arrangements and not among individual health professionals . | purposedespite of an insignificant track record of quasi market models in sweden , new models of this kind have recently been introduced in health care ; commonly referred to as choice of care. this time citizens act as purchasers ; choosing the primary care centre or family physician they want to be treated by , which , in turn , generates a capitation payment to the chosen unit .
policy makers believe that such systems will be self - remedial , that is , as a result of competition the strong providers survive while unprofitable ones will be eliminated . because of negative consequences of the fragmented health care delivery , policy makers at the same time also promote different forms of integrated health care arrangements .
one example is local health care , which could be described as an upgraded community - oriented primary care , supported by adaptable hospital services , fitting the needs of a local population .
this paper reviews if it is possible to combine this kind of integrated care system with a competition driven model of governance , or if they are incompatible.theoryinter-organisational and interprofessional collaboration , accessibility of services , and provider continuity.methodliterature-based review.results and conclusionsthe findings indicate that some choice of care schemes could hamper the development of integration in local health care .
however , geographical monopolies like local health care , enclosed in a non - competitive context , lack the stimulus of competition that possibly improves performance .
thus , it could be argued that if choice of care and local health care should be combined , patients ought to choose between integrated health care arrangements and not among individual health professionals . |
6,058 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: increasingly , it is hypothesized that schizophrenia reflects subtle connectivity dysfunction ( pettersson - yeo et al . , 2011 ) .
converging neurophysiological and neuroimaging data have documented widely distributed abnormalities in brain activity and functional connectivity ( buckholtz and meyer - lindenberg , 2012 ; friston and frith , 1995 ; pettersson - yeo et al . , 2011 ; stephan et al . , 2006 ) ,
validating the overarching disconnection hypothesis of schizophrenia ( andreasen et al . , 1998 ) .
in terms of the structural aspects , a qualitative review ( kubicki et al . , 2005 ) and a quantitative meta - analysis ( ellison - wright and bullmore , 2009 ) have documented widespread reductions in white matter fractional anisotropy in chronic schizophrenia , which have also been observed in first - episode patients ( friedman et al . , 2008 ) .
an abnormal white matter ultrastructure likely underlies abnormal cooperation among brain networks ( calhoun et al . , 2009 ) . after finding abnormal functional connectivity between the frontal and temporal regions , friston and frith ( 1995 ) proposed fronto - temporal disconnection as a key neurobiological feature of schizophrenia
dysconnectivity has been introduced to refer to abnormal integration between anatomically distinct brain regions ( stephan et al . , 2006 , 2009 ) .
( 1998 ) suggested that disruption of the cortico - cerebellar thalamic cortical ( cctc ) circuits underlies the deterioration in neural synchrony , with improper coordination of the mental processes leading to cognitive dysmetria .
abnormal neural synchrony ( ford et al . , 2007 ) is hypothesized to be one of the main causes of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia . a recent review ( uhlhaas and singer , 2010 ) concluded that altered neural oscillations and synchrony are crucial elements in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia .
this conclusion was based on aberrant connectivity and synchrony findings in patients with schizophrenia ( friston and frith , 1995 ; garrity et al .
,... | auditory hallucinations ( ah ) are the most frequent positive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia .
hallucinations have been related to emotional processing disturbances , altered functional connectivity and effective connectivity deficits .
previously , we observed that , compared to healthy controls , the limbic network responses of patients with auditory hallucinations differed when the subjects were listening to emotionally charged words .
we aimed to compare the synchrony patterns and effective connectivity of task - related networks between schizophrenia patients with and without ah and healthy controls.schizophrenia patients with ah ( n = 27 ) and without ah ( n = 14 ) were compared with healthy participants ( n = 31 ) .
we examined functional connectivity by analyzing correlations and cross - correlations among previously detected independent component analysis time courses .
granger causality was used to infer the information flow direction in the brain regions.the results demonstrate that the patterns of cortico - cortical functional synchrony differentiated the patients with ah from the patients without ah and from the healthy participants .
additionally , granger - causal relationships between the networks clearly differentiated the groups . in the patients with ah , the principal causal source was an occipital
cerebellar component , versus a temporal component in the patients without ah and the healthy controls.these data indicate that an anomalous process of neural connectivity exists when patients with ah process emotional auditory stimuli . additionally , a central role is suggested for the cerebellum in processing emotional stimuli in patients with persistent ah . |
6,059 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: esophageal cancer is one of the least common and most deadly gastrointestinal tract neoplasms . in 2010 in poland , the standardized incidence ratio for esophageal cancer was 3.3/100,000 for men and 0.6/100,000 for women .
patient survival is short , and the incidence / mortality ratio for both sexes was 0.8 in 2010 . for many years
, the primary method of treating patients with advanced esophageal cancer ( ec ) has been surgical treatment , which is associated with significant injury .
the surgery is burdened with the highest perioperative mortality rate among all gastrointestinal tract procedures , reaching 18 - 20% according to some reports [ 35 ] .
technological development as well as improved preoperative assessment , surgical technique , and postoperative care play a significant role in the improvement of surgical treatment outcomes .
the premise of minimally invasive techniques in esophageal surgery is to maintain the therapy effectiveness and quality of traditional operations while reducing perioperative injury .
the techniques are based on the principle of delicate dissection in order to minimize the damage .
moreover , minimally invasive techniques are widely accepted by patients and medical personnel . reducing the negative psychological impact of open surgery leads to the improvement of patient satisfaction from the employed treatment .
the first reports of thoracoscopic esophagus removal were published over 20 years ago [ 7 , 8 ] . the premises of thoraco - laparoscopic minimally invasive esophagectomy ( mie ) remain identical as those of open surgery ( oncological radicality r0 , 2- or 3-field lymphadenectomy ) .
however , certain reservations remain concerning the oncological value of mie as well as the risks and costs related to these technically demanding and time - consuming surgical procedures .
the key factor of mie is the proper qualification of patients , which should be based on the precise evaluation of the stage of the neoplastic disease .
the patients undergo diagnostic... | open esophagectomy ( oe ) requires extensive surgery and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality .
furthermore , the long - term results of esophageal cancer surgery are not satisfactory ; hence , the best surgical approach is constantly under debate . during the last twenty years , minimally invasive esophagectomy ( mie ) employing
laparoscopy and/or thoracoscopy has been introduced in a growing number of centers worldwide . to date , several studies have demonstrated that mie has better outcomes than oe , as it results in shorter hospital stay and decreased overall morbidity .
however , the length of operating time in mie is increased in comparison to oe .
the survival benefit has been demonstrated to be similar in oe and mie .
highly advanced laparo - thoracoscopic skills are required to perform mie ; along with the relatively long learning curve , this makes mie feasible only in high - volume , experienced university surgical centers .
there is a need for further large - scale comparative studies to prove the superiority of mie over open surgery . |
6,060 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: obesity - related comorbidities seem to be more closely related to body fat distribution ( e.g. , upper versus lower , visceral versus subcutaneous , and truncal versus peripheral ) rather than the total amount per se .
abdominal obesity is a relevant predictor of a higher metabolic risk , assuming that insulin resistance ( ir ) is the common link between visceral adiposity and dyslipidemia [ 24 ] , type 2 diabetes mellitus ( dm ) [ 5 , 6 ] , liver fat storage , hypertension , and other cardiovascular diseases ( cvd ) [ 810 ] .
two major pathophysiological hypotheses have been proposed to explain the dysmetabolic milieu observed in abdominal obese individuals .
it has been proposed that neuroendocrine perturbations , mediated by hypothalamic - pituitary - adrenal ( hpa ) axis stimulation , are responsible for ir and abdominal obesity [ 11 , 12 ] .
alterations in cortisol secretion , inhibition of steroid and growth hormones production , and stimulation of sympathetic nervous centers are some of the dysfunctions which may precipitate metabolic disturbances .
conversely , according to the portal hypothesis , the increased lipolytic activity in visceral adipocytes leads to an augmented release of free fatty acids ( ffa ) into portal circulation , promoting liver fat storage that is accompanied by hepatic metabolism disturbances and ir [ 6 , 13 , 14 ] . in this context
, abdominal obesity has been associated with ectopic fat storage , defined as fat accumulation outside classical depots such as heart , skeletal muscle , pancreas , and liver .
liver fat is associated with obesity , increased concentrations of plasma ffa , as well as with the ir degree , both in obese and type 2 dm patients [ 14 , 16 , 17 ] .
furthermore , a lower liver - to - spleen ratio ( lsr ) , a reliable index of liver fat , has been independently associated with visceral adiposity [ 7 , 19 , 20 ] , hepatic ir [ 6 , 17 , 19 , 21 ] , dyslipidemia , and several other metabolic syndrome features [ 6 , 7 , 19 , 22 ] .
additionally , hepatic... | abdominal obesity has been associated with liver fat storage . however , the relationships between other body composition depots and metabolic syndrome features with hepatic fat are still unclear .
we examined abdominal and thigh adipose tissue ( at ) compartments associations with liver fat in 140 overweight and obese premenopausal caucasian women .
blood lipids and , proinflammatory and atherothrombotic markers associations with hepatic fat were also analyzed .
a larger visceral at ( vat ) was related with liver fat ( p < 0.05 ) .
contrarily , thigh subfascial at was inversely related to liver fat ( p < 0.05 ) .
increased fasting insulin , triglycerides , pai-1 concentrations , and a higher total - cholesterol / hdl - cholesterol ratio were also associated with hepatic fat , even after adjustment for vat ( p < 0.05 ) .
thigh subfascial adiposity was inversely associated with liver fat , suggesting a potential preventive role against ectopic fat storage in overweight and obese women .
these results reinforce the contribution of an abdominal obesity phenotype associated with a diabetogenic and atherothrombotic profile to liver lipotoxicity . |
6,061 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: rheumatoid arthritis ( ra ) is a chronic systemic autoimmune disease that about 0.5%-1% of world population are affected by its complaints .
the ra affects blood vessels , heart , lungs , muscles , and joints , resulting in bone deformity and osteoporosis .
several studies have reported that oxidative stress and production of oxygen - free radicals have important role in ra development and epidemiologic studies have revealed a reverse relationship between dietary intake of antioxidants and ra incidence and due to reduction of intake and absorption of dietary antioxidants in ra patients , the levels of blood antioxidants are decreased too .
the antioxidants supplements such as vitamin e , vitamin c , and selenium may control the disturbance of lipid peroxidation and loss of antioxidants markers in patients with ra .
vitamin e can interact with nitric oxide and may trigger the gene expression of catalase ( cat ) , glutathione peroxidase ( gpx ) , and superoxide dismutase ( sod ) enzymes , vitamin c may demolish the peroxides of macrophage activities , zinc may strengthen the immune system , and selenium has an important role as a cofactor of gpx enzyme in reduction of oxidative stress . in past 30 years
, controlled trials have conducted to compare the effect of dietary antioxidants and antioxidant - rich diets in controlling of ra clinical outcomes ; however , they could not find a clear statement about antioxidants in ra prevention and treatment due to difference in study period , dose , and different types of antioxidants .
regarding to integrity of antioxidant defense system and few clinical studies on combined antioxidant supplements in ra , the aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of combined antioxidant supplements as daily oral capsule on clinical outcomes and antioxidant parameters in female patients with ra for 3 months .
a pre - post clinical trial was conducted on female patients with ra for 12 weeks .
the study group was selected from 400 registered ra patients in sheikh - al - rais and sina... | background : this study aims to investigate the effect of antioxidants supplement on clinical outcomes and antioxidant parameters in rheumatoid arthritis ( ra).methods : the pre - post study was conducted on 40 female patients with ra in 12 weeks that taken daily one selenplus capsule contained 50 g selenium , 8 mg zinc , 400 g vitamin a , 125 mg vitamin c , and 40 mg vitamin e. about 5 ml venous blood sample was taken from all participants and disease activity score ( das ) was determined by das-28 formula and high - sensitive c - reactive protein ( hs - crp ) .
glutathione peroxidase ( gpx ) and superoxide dismutase ( sod ) were measured by spectrophotometric kit and catalase ( cat ) was measured by abei method . total antioxidant capacity ( tac )
was determined by spectrophotometric kit .
distribution of the variables was assessed using histogram with normal curve as well as kolmogorov - smirnov test and data were analyzed with paired t - test for differences between pre - post data using spss software version 13.5.conclusions:our findings showed that antioxidants may improve disease activity significantly , but it did not affect the number of painful and swollen joints and increased erythrocyte antioxidant levels .
antioxidants may be useful for controlling of clinical outcomes and oxidative stress in ra . |
6,062 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: it is an aggressive neoplasm that arises from the remnants of the dental lamina and dental organ ( odontogenic epithelium ) and patients usually present late in life after the tumor has achieved considerable size , to cause facial disfigurement .
70% of ameloblastomas develop in the molar - ramus region of the mandible and are occasionally associated with an unerupted third molar teeth .
radiographically an ameloblastoma can be a unilocular or multilocular radiolucent lesion with a honeycomb or soap bubble appearance .
there are three forms of ameloblastomas , namely peripheral , unicystic , and multicystic tumors .
multicystic ameloblastoma is common and represents 86% of all the cases . our patient was a 42-year - old female with a history of swelling in the left mandibular region that had been present for the four - and - a - half years . physical examination demonstrated a non - tender , left mandibular lesion measuring approximately 15 17 12 cm with normal overlying skin [ figures 1 and 2 ] .
panoramic and posterior - anterior ( pa ) skull radiographs revealed a well - defined , large , expansile , multilocular radiolucent lesion , involving the entire hemimandible with medial displacement of the teeth [ figures 3 and 4 ] . an axial computed tomography ( ct ) scan of the mandible showed a well - defined , large , multilocular , expansile radiolucent lesion with erosion , cortical destruction , and thinning of the posterior border of the left ramus of the mandible [ figure 5 ] .
fine needle aspiration cytology ( fnac ) of the lesion was performed , which yielded straw - colored fluid .
subsequently , the patient underwent incisional biopsy of the left mandibular mass confirming the diagnosis of plexiform ameloblastoma .
it was predominantly composed of epithelium arranged as a tangled network of anastomosing strands , enclosing cysts of various sizes , suggestive of plexiform ameloblastoma .
after confirmation of the diagnosis , the patient underwent left hemimandibulectomy [ figures 6 and 7 ] . the... | ameloblastoma is a common and aggressive odontogenic epithelial tumor .
it has an aggressive behavior and recurrent course , and is rarely metastatic .
ameloblastoma represents 1% of all tumors and cysts that involve the maxillomandibular area and about 10% of the odontogenic tumors .
it is primarily seen in adults in the third to fifth decade of life , with equal sex predilection .
radiographically , it appears as an expansile radiolucent , with thinned and perforated cortices , and is known to cause root resorption .
as it shares common radiographic features with other lesions such as the giant cell tumor , aneurismal bone cyst , and renal cell carcinoma metastasis , a definitive diagnosis can only be made with histopathology .
we present an extensive case of plexiform ameloblastoma of the mandible in a 42-year - old female patient . |
6,063 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: guillain - barr syndrome ( gbs ) is an acute immune - mediated polyneuropathy , typically presenting with rapid ascending paralysis caused by an antecedent infection .
sarcoidosis is a multi - system noncaseating granulomatous disorder of unknown etiology presenting with bilateral hilar lymphadenopathy , pulmonary reticulonodular opacities , and skin , joint , or ocular lesions .
a minority of patients with known sarcoidosis develop neurological complications , making neurosarcoidosis a diagnostic consideration .
a 43-year - old australian presented with an acute progressive distal limb weakness and sensory alteration of both hands and feet .
this information was subsequently unearthed during his readmission to the intensive care unit ( icu ) .
inpatient investigations revealed elevated serum corrected calcium of 2.36 mmol / l ( n : 1.10 - 1.30 mmol / l ) and an angiotensin - converting enzyme ( ace ) level of 108 u / l ( n : 8 - 52
chest x - rays and high - resolution computed tomography scan of the chest showed extensive fine nodular patterns on both lungs .
the patient 's symptoms , apart from the blurred vision , improved with 50 mg of daily oral prednisolone .
two weeks postdischarge , he re - presented to the hospital with acute progressive limb weakness which started distally with gradual proximal involvement over 2 days .
differential diagnoses for acute flaccid paralysis relevant to an intensive care unit patient neurological examination of the upper and lower limbs showed global areflexia . magnetic resonance imaging ( mri ) of the brain and spine demonstrated abnormal enhancement of the cauda equina nerve roots and patchy white matter signal change representing inflammatory demyelination extending up to the t3 level of the thoracic cord , preferentially involving the ventral nerve roots [ figures 1 and 2 ] .
cerebrospinal fluid ( csf ) findings showed acellular fluid with a mildly elevated protein level of 0.67
magnetic resonance imaging of the spine showing high signal and linear contrast... | guillain barr syndrome ( gbs ) is an acute demyelinating polyneuropathy , usually evoked by antecedent infection .
sarcoidosis is a multisystem chronic granulomatous disorder with neurological involvement occurring in a minority .
we present a case of a 43-year - old caucasian man who presented with acute ascending polyradiculoneuropathy with a recent diagnosis of pulmonary sarcoidosis .
the absence of acute flaccid paralysis excluded a clinical diagnosis of gbs in the first instance .
subsequently , a rapid onset of proximal weakness with multi - organ failure led to the diagnosis of gbs , which necessitated intravenous immunoglobulin and plasmapheresis to which the patient responded adequately , and he was subsequently discharged home .
neurosarcoidosis often masquerades as other disorders , leading to a diagnostic dilemma ; also , the occurrence of a gbs - like clinical phenotype secondary to neurosarcoidosis may make diagnosing coexisting gbs a therapeutic challenge .
this article not only serves to exemplify the rare association of neurosarcoidosis with gbs but also highlights the need for a high index of clinical suspicion for gbs and accurate history taking in any patient who may present with rapidly progressing weakness to an intensive care unit . |
6,064 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: human endometrium undergoes regular cycles of growth and breakdown and has long been recognized as one of a few tissues where significant angiogenesis occurs on a physiological basis ( 1 ) .
these vascular changes are thought to be mediated by the vascular endothelial growth factor ( vegf ) and its specific receptors ( 2 , 3 ) .
six members of the vegf family , vegf - a , vegf - b , vegf - c , vegf - d , vegf - e and placental growth factor ( plgf ) have been identified to date .
these growth factors exert their activity through activation of three types of receptors : vegfr-1 ( flt-1 ) , vegfr-2 ( flk-1/kdr ) , and vegfr-3 ( flt-4 ) ( 1 , 4 , 5 ) . of those , vegfr-2 ( flk-1 )
seems to be mainly involved in the formation of primitive endothelial tubular structures after binding with vegf - a and vegf - c ( 6 ) .
human endometrium expresses all of the splice variants of vegf ( 7 ) . as an estrogen - responsive angiogenic factor that varies throughout the menstrual cycle
, vegf may be important in both physiological and pathological angiogenesis of human endometrium ( 8) .
vegf is involved in several functions of the female reproductive system , such as ovulation , periodical changes of the endometrium , embryo implantation and development .
in addition , dysregulation of vegf seems to play a key role in conditions such as preeclampsia and fetal intrauterine growth restriction ( 9 ) .
previous studies have shown that vegf and its receptors are expressed in the mouse and rabbit endometrium and probably participate in the increased angiogenesis and vascular permeability necessary for implantation ( 10 , 11 ) .
deficient expression of vegf and its receptors in mice result in poor development of vascular network in the endometrium leading to implantation failures and abortions ( 12 ) .
expression of vegf and its receptors is significantly increased during the post - ovulation and around the peri - implantation period .
it appears that the expression of vegf is highly regulated in a temporal and spatial manner at... | backgroundthe vegf is essential in the process of tissue remodeling and angiogenesis .
limited data is available on the expression and regulation of vegf and its receptors in the human endometrium .
the aim of this study was evaluation of expression patterns of vegf and flk-1 in human endometrium during the menstrual cycle.methodssixty paraffin - embedded blocks of endometrial tissues from the patients with normal menstrual cycles were obtained .
tissue samples were assembled into tissue microarray slides and classified by histological dating into five phases : the proliferative ( n = 14 ) , peri - ovulatory ( n = 9 ) , early - secretory ( n = 12 ) , mid - secretory ( n = 11 ) and late - secretory ( n = 14 ) phases .
immunohistochemical staining was performed using vegf or flk-1 monoclonal antibodies .
the intensity of immunostaining was evaluated by the semi - quantitative scoring method ( hscore ) .
kruskal - wallis one - way analysis of variance and scheff 's post - hoc test were used for statistical analysis .
a p - value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.resultsvegf and flk-1 were expressed in the three components of the endometrium at various phases of the menstrual cycle . in the stroma ,
the expression of vegf varied among the phases ( p < 0.05 ) .
the expression of flk-1 in the luminal and glandular epithelium revealed stronger intensity of immunostaining as compared with the stroma at the different phases ( p < 0.05 ) .
the level of flk-1 expression also showed significant differences among the phases in the glandular epithelium with greatest expression at late - secretory phase ( p < 0.05).conclusiontemporal and spatial distribution of vegf and flk-1 expression in the three components of human endometrium during menstrual cycle suggests the functional role of angiogenesis in the remodeling process of endometrial tissue . |
6,065 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: dermatophytes comprise a highly specialized group of pathogenic fungi that infect keratinized tissues ( skin , hair , and nails ) of humans and animals , resulting in dermatophytoses , also referred to as tinea infections .
taxonomically , dermatophytes are classified into three genera : epidermophyton , microsporum , and trichophyton , with the latter being the most complex , containing more than 15 species and several different variants within the species t. mentagrophytes . the most frequently observed dermatophyte species worldwide is t. rubrum , whose infections usually manifest as tinea pedis and tinea unguium ( onychomycosis ) .
the prevalence of t. rubrum as a causative agent of onychomycosis is particularly high and exceeds 90% in europe .
the identification of t. rubrum by means of conventional laboratory methods may not always be easy or straightforward , since t. rubrum exhibits substantial phenotypic variability .
contrastingly , a high degree of homogeneity of the t. rubrum genome , as revealed by using several anonymous molecular markers , significantly impedes discrimination at the strain level [ 3 , 4 ] . yet , as new molecular typing methods are becoming increasingly available , species determination and strain typing are still being improved .
the aim of this study was to apply some of the recently devised dna fingerprinting methods to the identification and strain differentiation of t. rubrum .
the study included 57 isolates of t. rubrum recovered from as many dermatological patients from lower silesia , poland ( 40 ) , krakw , poland ( 8) , and tbingen , germany ( 9 ) .
clinically , onychomycosis showed the highest number of cases ( 40 patients ; 70.2% of all patients ) , followed by tinea pedis ( 12 ; 21% ) , tinea corporis ( 2 ; 3.5% ) , tinea cruris ( 2 ; 3.5% ) , and tinea manuum ( 1 ; 1.8% ) .
the isolates were primarily identified as t. rubrum on the basis of their phenotypic characteristics , such as colony surface texture , reverse pigmentation , the ability of micro- and... | trichophyton rubrum represents the most frequently isolated causative agent of superficial dermatophyte infections .
several genotyping methods have recently been introduced to improve the delineation between pathogenic fungi at both the species and the strain levels .
the purpose of this study was to apply selected dna fingerprinting methods to the identification and strain discrimination of t. rubrum clinical isolates .
fifty - seven isolates from as many tinea patients were subjected to species identification by polymerase chain reaction restriction fragment length polymorphism ( pcr - rflp ) analysis and strain differentiation using a randomly amplified polymorphic dna ( rapd ) method , with two primers designated 1 and 6 . using pcr - rflp , 55 of the isolates studied were confirmed to be t. rubrum . among those ,
a total of 40 and five distinct profiles were obtained by rapd with primers 1 and 6 , respectively .
the combination of profiles from both rapd assays resulted in 47 genotypes and an overall genotypic diversity rate of 85.4% . a dendrogram analysis performed on the profiles generated by rapd with primer 1 showed most of the isolates ( 87.3% ) to be genetically related .
pcr - rflp serves as a rapid and reliable method for the identification of t. rubrum species , while the rapd analysis is rather a disadvantageous tool for t. rubrum strain typing . |
6,066 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: pulmonary arterial hypertension ( pah ) is a progressive , debilitating disease characterized by elevated arterial blood pressure in the pulmonary circulation that left untreated , results in right ventricular failure and death .
its prevalence has been estimated to be between 15 and 50 cases per million and even with modern treatment , the prognosis remains guarded.1 in fact , data from the us registry to evaluate early and long - term pah disease management ( reveal ) showed 1- and 5-year survival of 87% and 57% , respectively , therefore , new and more effective therapeutic options are necessary to treat this severe and unrelenting disease.2 pah is pathologically defined by a mean pulmonary arterial pressure 25 mmhg at rest and pulmonary vascular resistance of > 3 woods units , in the absence of either an elevated wedge pressure or cardiac output .
it is distinguished as group 1 according to the updated clinical classification of pulmonary hypertension and comprises a group of conditions and diseases with similar pathological findings , hemodynamic characteristics and in some cases treatment options ( table 1).3 for the purpose of this review we will focus our discussion on the clinical utility and evidence on macitentan in pah .
the development of effective treatment for pah has necessitated a clearer understanding of the pathophysiology of the disease .
while the complete mechanism is still incompletely understood , it is clear that the development and maintenance of pah is secondary to a dysregulation of vascular tone . due to poiseuille s law
these changes are mediated by vascular smooth muscle , which is influenced by three vasoactive molecules released by endothelial cells : nitric oxide ( no ) and prostacyclins , which induce vasodilation , and endothelins , which induce vasoconstriction . in healthy subjects , these mediators are in a dynamic balance to preserve an optimal pulmonary vascular tone.4 several experiments in both animal models and humans have demonstrated that pah is associated with... | pulmonary arterial hypertension is a progressive , debilitating disease caused by a dysregulation of the pulmonary vascular tone that inevitably leads to right heart failure and death without treatment . until relatively recently
, the treatment options for those afflicted by pulmonary arterial hypertension were limited ; today , a greater understanding of the pathophysiology behind this disease has led to several evidence - based therapies that can improve pulmonary function and quality of life for these patients .
one of the primary mediators of pulmonary vascular tone is endothelin-1 , which is a potent and long - lasting vasoconstrictor .
macitentan is a second - generation endothelin receptor antagonist that acts selectively as a pulmonary vasodilator without the significant side effects noted with previous endothelin receptor antagonists .
this review focuses on the mechanism of action and pharmacokinetics of macitentan , as well as the adverse effects , efficacy , and clinical uses of macitentan in the clinical trials to date .
in addition , the authors briefly review clinical trials currently underway to illustrate possible future directions for the use of macitentan . |
6,067 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: hepatitis c virus ( hcv ) infection is a major cause of chronic hepatitis , liver cirrhosis , and hepatocellular carcinoma .
hcv is primarily transmitted by blood - borne routes , including shared needles and transfused blood products .
the who estimates that a minimum of 23% of the world s population is chronically infected with hcv ( wasley and alter , 2000 ) . despite the fact that hcv is targeted by innate , cellular , and humoral immune mechanisms , it establishes long - standing persistent infection in a majority of the people that it infects ( pawlotsky , 2006 ) .
the virus forms small round - shaped particles ranging from 50 to 80 nm in diameter .
the mature hcv virion is thought to consist of a nucleocapsid , an outer envelope composed of e1 and e2 viral proteins , and a lipid membrane .
density gradient analyses have shown that viral rna exists within both low- and high - density fractions ( andre et al . , 2005 ) , and that the low - density fractions contain lipoproteins that associate with apolipoprotein b ( apob ) , apolipoprotein e ( apoe ) , triglycerides , and cholesterol , as well as viral structural proteins ( thomssen et al .
, 1992 ; andre et al . , 2002 ; maillard et al . , 2006 ; nielsen et al . ,
only the low - density fraction derived from hcv - positive human serum exhibits high infectivity in chimpanzees ( bradley et al .
, 1991 ; beach et al . , 1992 ) . since the establishment of a robust tissue culture infection system using strain hcv jfh-1 ( lindenbach et al . , 2005 ; wakita et al . , 2005
, the entire hcv lifecycle has been studied and the biophysical properties of the viral particles produced using the hcvcc cell culture system have been characterized .
most viral rna - containing particles secreted from hcv - infected cells are poorly infectious and fractionate at high densities such as 1.14 g / ml , while highly infectious hcvcc are found within low - density fractions of 1.10 g / ml ( lindenbach et al . ,
, we provide a general account of our current understanding of... | more than 170 million individuals are currently infected with hepatitis c virus ( hcv ) worldwide and are at continuous risk of developing chronic liver disease .
since a cell culture system enabling relatively efficient propagation of hcv has become available , an increasing number of viral and host factors involved in hcv particle formation have been identified .
association of the viral core , which forms the capsid with lipid droplets appears to be prerequisite for early hcv morphogenesis .
maturation and release of hcv particles is tightly linked to very - low - density lipoprotein biogenesis .
although expression of core as well as e1 and e2 envelope proteins produces virus - like particles in heterologous expression systems , there is increasing evidence that non - structural viral proteins and p7 are also required for the production of infectious particles , suggesting that hcv genome replication and virion assembly are closely linked .
advances in our understanding of the various molecular mechanisms by which infectious hcv particles are formed are summarized . |
6,068 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: precise , flexible , and specialized regulation of membrane trafficking is key to tissue patterning and differentiation during the development of multicellular organisms .
it underlies the development of cell and tissue polarity ( apodaca et al . , 2012 ; farr et al . , 2009 ; winter et al . ,
2012 ) and allows cells to specialize in the secretion or absorption of specific cargo in response to different signals or functional demands ( cao et al . , 2012 ;
, it is essential to be able to visualize and manipulate specific membrane trafficking pathways .
the rab protein family provides a unique entry point to study membrane trafficking pathways and their function in development and differentiation .
rabs comprise a large family of lipid - modified gtpases that localize to specific subcellular membrane compartments .
they cycle through gtp- and gdp - bound states , acting as molecular switches to recruit effector proteins that control compartment biogenesis ( seabra and wasmeier , 2004 ; zeigerer et al . , 2012 ) , functional properties ( liu and storrie , 2012 ) and composition ( behnia and munro , 2005 ; zerial and mcbride , 2001 ) , and direct vesicle motility ( horgan and mccaffrey , 2011 ) , tethering ( sinka et al . , 2008 ) , and fusion ( schimmller et al . , 1998 ) .
a set of five rabs ( 1 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 11 ) , which we denote the core rabs , has been maintained in almost all eukaryotes from unicellular organisms to metazoans , fungi , and plants ( pereira - leal , 2008 ; pereira - leal and seabra , 2001 ) .
functional studies in yeast and in tissue culture cells have revealed their key functions in regulating the core secretory and endocytic pathways common to all cells .
interestingly , recent genomic phylogeny studies have suggested that the putative last eukaryotic common ancestor ( leca ) had a much larger repertoire between 1523 rab proteins .
this group includes the core rabs , but also many others that are lost in different eukaryotic lineages .
in contrast , the rab family underwent a... | summarymembrane trafficking is key to the cell biological mechanisms underlying development .
rab gtpases control specific membrane compartments , from core secretory and endocytic machinery to less - well - understood compartments .
we tagged all 27 drosophila rabs with yfpmyc at their endogenous chromosomal loci , determined their expression and subcellular localization in six tissues comprising 23 cell types , and provide this data in an annotated , searchable image database .
we demonstrate the utility of these lines for controlled knockdown and show that similar subcellular localization can predict redundant functions .
we exploit this comprehensive resource to ask whether a common rab compartment architecture underlies epithelial polarity .
strikingly , no single arrangement of rabs characterizes the five epithelia we examine .
rather , epithelia flexibly polarize rab distribution , producing membrane trafficking architectures that are tissue- and stage - specific .
thus , the core machinery responsible for epithelial polarization is unlikely to rely on polarized positioning of specific rab compartments . |
6,069 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the picornavirus 5 untranslated region ( 5 utr ) has proven the most suitable genomic target for molecular detection ( 8,9 ) . at the time of this study ,
only 5 aiv complete genomes were available in genbank , complicating selection of reliable oligonucleotides for universal detection .
a nested rt - pcr encompassing the aiv 5 utr was developed ( table 1 ) and used for screening of stool samples collected in northern germany from outpatients with gastroenteritis .
the first subcohort of this collection consisted of 499 patients with gastroenteritis ; samples were collected evenly from january through december 2004 in a prospective study on acute community - acquired diarrhea by 47 general practitioners in bremen , northern germany ( 10 ) .
the second subcohort consisted of 39 control patients without symptoms of gastroenteritis seen by the same physicians .
the third subcohort consisted of 118 patients with diarrhea linked to outbreak scenarios involving canteen food ( n = 36 ) , kindergartens ( n = 54 ) , or retirement homes ( n = 28 ) .
* aiv , aichi virus ; i d , identification ; rt - pcr , reverse transcription pcr ; utr , untranslated region .
25-l qiagen onestep rt - pcr reactions as described by the manufacturer ( qiagen , hilden , germany ) used 400 nmol / l each of 1st - round primers , 1 g bovine serum albumin , and 5 l rna extract .
amplification involved 30 min at 50c ; 15 min at 95c ; 10 cycles of 20 s at 94c , 30 s starting at 60c with a decrease of 1c per cycle , and 50 s at 72c ; and 40 cycles of 20 s at 95c , 30 s at 54c , and 50 s at 72c ; and a final elongation step of 5 min at 72c .
50-l platinum taq reactions as described by the manufacturer ( invitrogen , karlsruhe , germany ) used 1 l of 1st - round pcr product , 2.5 mmol / l mgcl2 , and 400 nmol / l each of 2nd - round primers . amplification involved 3 min at 94c and 45 cycles of 20 s at 94c , 30 s at 60c , and 40 s at 72c .
25-l qiagen onestep rt - pcr reactions used 3 l of rna extract , 600 nmol / l of each primer , and 320... | we assessed aichi virus shedding in patients with gastroenteritis and negative test results for other viral and bacterial infections .
high concentrations of up to 1.32 1012 rna copies / g stool were found in 10 ( 2.0% ) of 499 outpatients sampled in northern germany , 2004 .
these data substantiate aichi virus pathogenicity in humans . |
6,070 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: some 1,303,100 americans are in 18,900 nursing homes nationwide . over 86 percent of these residents are elderly ( nchs , 1977 ) .
although this figure represents only 5 percent of the total population age 65 and over , some 20 percent of the aged will enter a nursing home before dying ( lavor , 1979 ) . in 1977 ,
nursing home expenditures amounted to $ 12.8 billion , an estimate that excludes many medical services ( such as most physician , services ) provided to nursing home residents .
( tables 1 and 2 present expenditure data through 1979 . however , because the 1978 and 1979 data are preliminary , this presentation focuses on 1977 . ) government expenditures accounted for 57.2 percent of total nursing home outlays in 1977 ; private payment accounted for the remaining 45.6 percent .
medicaid is the predominant public source of financing , accounting for 86 percent of the $ 7.3 billion in public expenditures .
other public sources , such as the veterans administration and various state and local programs , compose the remaining 9 percent .
the predominant source of private funding consists of direct out - of - pocket payments by nursing home residents and their families .
third - party payments account for only 1.6 percent , and other private payments , such as charitable contributions , account for another 1.4 percent .
the public - private split is essentially the same ( 54.6 percent public and 45.4 percent private ) .
however , whereas private insurance pays for only 1.6 percent of private nursing home expenditures , it pays for 33.8 percent of private hospital expenditures .
the private insurance sector has decided that nursing home services , except for some short - stay , acute patients , are not an insurable risk , at least at present .
these estimates actually understate the dependence of the nursing home population on public sources of financing , for two reasons .
first , because of various limitations on reimbursement , payment levels under medicaid and other public programs tend to be below the... | nursing home care has become a major governmental responsibility .
public expenditures for nursing home care amounted to $ 7.3 billion in 1977 .
they represented 57.2 percent of the $ 12.8 billion nursing home bill nationally and 12 percent of public spending on all personal health care .
nursing home care absorbs more than one - third of all medicaid expenditures.this paper explores expenditure patterns in recent years and discusses some of the factors that will influence these patterns in the future .
first we analyze recent trends over the five - year period ending 1977 .
then we project future utilization based on current age - specific use rates .
finally , we review recent studies on the potential cost savings of noninstitutional alternatives to nursing home care . |
6,071 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the first us case associated with the epidemic in hispaniola was laboratory confirmed on november 15 , 2010 , in a us resident who had traveled to haiti and returned to florida .
the first case in a patient with history of travel to dominican republic was laboratory confirmed on january 29 , 2011 .
as of april 4 , 2011 , a total of 23 cholera cases associated with the hispaniola epidemic had been confirmed ( figure 1 ) .
patients resided in florida ( 10 ) , massachusetts ( 4 ) , new york city ( 4 ) , kansas ( 1 ) , michigan ( 1 ) , north carolina ( 1 ) , virginia ( 1 ) , and texas ( 1 ) ( figure 2 ) .
illness onset dates ranged from october 23 , 2010 , to february 2 , 2011 .
median age was 38 years ( range 984 years ) , and 43% were female patients
. confirmed cholera cases ( n = 23 ) , by onset date and travel history , united states , october 21 , 2010february 4 , 2011 .
geographic distribution of cholera cases in the united states associated with hispaniola , october 21 , 2010april 4 , 2011 .
all patients were treated with antimicrobial agents , rehydration , or both ; 9 ( 39% ) were hospitalized , 6 ( 30% ) sought care at an emergency department , and none died .
six patients had illness onset before returning to the united states , 5 had illness onset on the day of return , and 12 had illness onset 111 days after return ( typical incubation period for cholera is 18 hours5 days ) ( 5 ) .
all 20 isolates matched the haiti isolate outbreak pattern by pulsed - field gel electrophoresis .
susceptibility results for antimicrobial drug tested showed that all isolates were resistant to trimethoprim / sulfamethoxazole , furazolidone , nalidixic acid , sulfisoxazole , and streptomycin , and 18 isolates showed intermediate resistance to chloramphenicol , ampicillin , or amoxicillin / clavulanic acid .
thirteen patients reported recent travel to haiti ( median length of stay 7 days , range 254 days ) and 9 to dominican republic ( median length of stay 4 days , range 29 days ) .
one patient reported no recent travel... | cholera is rare in the united states ( annual average 6 cases ) .
since epidemic cholera began in hispaniola in 2010 , a total of 23 cholera cases caused by toxigenic vibrio cholerae o1 have been confirmed in the united states .
twenty - two case - patients reported travel to hispaniola and 1 reported consumption of seafood from haiti . |
6,072 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: morgagni foramen is a para - retrosternal defect resulting from an incomplete fusion of the septum transversum and sternum with the anterior ribs .
surgical treatment consists of direct closure of the diaphragmatic defect , suturing by transabdominal or transthoracic access .
we report a patient with hernia of morgagni who underwent a laparoscopic reduction and diaphragmatic defect closure .
a formerly healthy , 69-year - old woman was seen at our department in february 1995 because of epigastric pain and subocclusive symptoms for nine months .
a computed tomography showed a gross diaphragmatic anterior hernia with partial right and transverse colon migration ( figure 1 ) .
the diagnosis of hernia of morgagni was made , and the patient was considered for repair of the diaphragmatic defect by the laparoscopic approach .
the herniated bowel was gently pulled down with grasping forceps and placed entirely into the abdominal cavity ( figures 2 , 3 and 4 ) .
the defect was ovoid and was closed with interrupted polyester stitches ( ethibond - ethicon ) using the external knot - tying technique .
trocars were retrieved under direct endoscopic vision , and the fascial incision was closed with glycolic acid ( vicryl - ethicon ) . a chest xray showed the successful laparoscopic closure of the diaphragmatic defect ( figure 6 ) .
laparoscopic view of hernia of the foramen of morgagni containing colon and omentum . colon and omentum
chest x - ray done after operation , showing no evidence of morgagni 's hernia .
after 12 , 24 , 36 and 48 months follow - up , the patient was symptom - free , without recurrence of her morgagni 's hernia ( figure 7 ) .
chest x - ray done four years after the laparoscopic repair , showing no evidence of hernial recurrence .
a formerly healthy , 69-year - old woman was seen at our department in february 1995 because of epigastric pain and subocclusive symptoms for nine months .
a computed tomography showed a gross diaphragmatic anterior hernia with partial right and transverse colon migration... | the videolaparoscopic repair of a diaphragmatic hernia of morgagni by external knot tying technique is described . a 69-year - old woman with subocclusive symptoms by intrathoracic migration of abdominal viscera
had an immediate and complete postoperative recovery .
the hernial sac was not excised .
a four - year follow - up shows no hernia recurrence .
this case indicated that the laparoscopic approach can be considered a suitable and safe procedure for treatment of morgagni 's hernia . |
6,073 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: concern over the rising cost of health care services in the united states has encouraged an extensive examination of every sector of the nation 's health care system .
expenditures on drugs and drug sundries reached $ 22.4 billion in 1982 ( gibson et al . , 1983 ) .
although this is a sizeable amount , it is nonetheless small when compared with expenditures for hospital or physician services .
however , these expenditures are seen as more amenable to control than some of the larger sectors , and several regulatory and competition - stimulating programs have been instituted at the federal and state levels of government to reduce drug costs . an important effort to contain the cost of prescription drugs has concentrated on encouraging the substitution of less expensive brands or generic drugs for more expensive brand name drugs . to allow a wider range of substitution to take place , most states have enacted some form of legislation modifying antisubstitution laws which now permit pharmacists to dispense drug products other than those prescribed .
california is one of the states that has amended its antisubstitution law and has actively promoted drug substitution .
the purposes of this article are to examine the extent of substitution , the resulting effect on the retail price of drugs , and the degree to which cost savings on less expensive brands or generics are passed on to consumers . in the first section , the origin of prescription drugs and state antisubstitution laws are briefly discussed . in the next section ,
the california substitution law requires pharmacists who dispense a different brand or generic drug rather than the brand name version prescribed , to pass on to consumers the resulting cost savings . to evaluate the compliance of pharmacists with the law , econometric models of drug retailing are developed and estimated in the third section of the paper .
in the first 20 years after passage of the pure food and drug act in 1906 , sales of medicinal drugs increased 600 percent .
unlike the... | one of the major directions of health policy is the attempt to contain expenditures on pharmaceuticals by encouraging substitution of generic for brand name drug products . yet ,
a major marketing survey of prescribing and dispensing patterns in california in 1977 found relatively little drug substitution occurring , and in fact substitution of more expensive products occurred more frequently than did substitution of less expensive products.this article tests alternative models of pharmacy dispensing behavior to better explain substitution patterns and it estimates price functions to measure the extent to which cost savings on generic products are passed on to consumers . |
6,074 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: a 65-year - old male patient who presented with right arm weakness revealed an acute focal cortical ischemic change in the borderzone type on the diffusion - weighted image ( not shown ) .
driver ( medtronic ireland , minneapolis , mn ) with 2.25 mm diameter and 8 mm length were deployed to 2.35 mm diameter at 12 atmosphere of balloon pressure .
our institutional review board approved this study , and we obtained written informed consent from the patient .
three - dimensional ( 3d ) rotational angiography was obtained in axiom artis zee ( siemens , erlangen , germany ) and then the images were transferred to syngo workstation ( version vb 15d ) to generate 3d angiography with reducing fov and adjusting the target vessel .
the final image was transformed to stl format in 256 256 pixels . after smoothing of vessel surface and trimming of branch vessels in magics rp ( materialise , belgium ) ,
, we carried out cfd and fully coupled fsi simulations with an assumption of rigid wall and compliant wall , respectively .
blood flow was assumed to be newtonian , homogeneous flow with density 1050 kg / m , viscosity of 3.5 10 pas .
the si physical unit of dynamic viscosity is the pascalsecond ( pas ) , ( equivalent to ns / m , or kg/(ms ) ) . to achieve true boundary conditions corresponding with patient - specific , flow velocity before and after installed stent
were obtained by transcranial doppler ultrasounds method from gated phase contrast mr angiography in an age - matched male .
pulsatile flow rates waveform based on in vivo measurement data was specified at the posterior communicating artery , the anterior cerebral artery and the middle cerebral artery for pre- and post - stent simulations respectively and time - varying pressure condition according to perktold et al .
was imposed in the internal carotid artery inlet . in simulations with compliant wall model ,
intracranial arterial wall and plaque components were assumed to be isotropic , linear , elastic with a constant young modulus e = 2.6 10 pa ,... | purposeimage - based computational models with fluid - structure interaction ( fsi ) can be used to perform plaque mechanical analysis in intracranial artery stenosis .
we described a process in fsi study applied to symptomatic severe intracranial ( m1 ) stenosis before and after stenting.materials and methodsreconstructed 3d angiography in stl format was transferred to magics for smoothing of vessel surface and trimming of branch vessels and to hypermesh for generating tetra volume mesh from triangular surface - meshed 3d angiogram . computational analysis of blood flow in the blood vessels was performed using the commercial finite element software adina ver 8.5 .
the distribution of wall shear stress ( wss ) , peak velocity and pressure was analyzed before and after intracranial stenting.resultsthe wall shear stress distributions from computational fluid dynamics ( cfd ) simulation with rigid wall assumption as well as fsi simulation before and after stenting could be compared .
the difference of wss between rigid wall and compliant wall model both in pre- and post - stent case is only minor except at the stenosis region .
these wss values were greatly reduced after stenting to 15~20 pa at systole and 3~5 pa at end - diastole in cfd simulation , which are similar in fsi simulations.conclusionour study revealed that fsi simulation before and after intracranial stenting was feasible despite of limited vessel wall dimension and could reveal change of wss as well as flow velocity and wall pressure . |
6,075 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: a thorough knowledge of the external and internal anatomy of teeth is a very important factor in root canal treatment . in many cases , dentists have to deal with various morphological variations .
if the dentist fails to detect the morphological variations , it would be a major cause of failure .
when a preoperative radiograph shows an atypical tooth shape , further radiographic examinations should be considered in order to detect unusual anatomical differences . in maxillary
first molars , morphological variations , such as abnormal numbers of roots , canals , fusion and germination and the existence of c - shaped root canals have been widely known .
a few cases of c - shaped root canals in maxillary molars have been reported , though c - shaped canals are most frequently found in mandibular second molars .
some authors have reported that c - shaped canals result from the fusion of mesiobuccal ( mb ) and palatal ( p ) roots of maxillary molars , while others have reported that the distobuccal ( db ) and p roots of maxillary molars were fused , and even a case of fusion of the mb and db roots of maxillary molars was reported . the incidence of c - shaped canals in maxillary first
molar has been reported to be as low as 0.091% based on radiographic examination . in case of anatomical abnormalities , periapical surgery , intentional replantation and even extraction
intentional replantation has been performed for more than a thousand years and this technique consists of intentional tooth extraction , cleaning of the apical part of the tooth and reinsertion of the extracted tooth into its own socket immediately .
many authors agree that this technique should be the last option ' after all the other procedures have failed or when endodontic periradicular surgery can not be performed .
the purpose of this report is to present a morphological variation of c - shaped canal in a maxillary first molar in which the mb , db and p roots were fused to mimic the letter o ' .
a 39-year - old male was referred by a private... | this case report is to present a maxillary first molar with one o - shaped root , which is an extended c - shaped canal system .
patient with chronic apical periodontitis in maxillary left first molar underwent replantation because of difficulty in negotiating all canals .
periapical radiographs and cone - beam computed tomography ( cbct ) were taken .
all roots were connected and fused to one root , and all canals seemed to be connected to form an o - shape .
the apical 3 mm of the root were resected and retrograde filled with resin - modified glass ionomer .
intentional replantation as an alternative treatment could be considered in a maxillary first molar having an unusual o - shaped root . |
6,076 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: severe acute respiratory syndrome : temporal stability and geographic variation in case - fatality rates and doubling times | we analyzed temporal stability and geographic trends in cumulative case - fatality rates and average doubling times of severe acute respiratory syndrome ( sars ) . in part
, we account for correlations between case - fatality rates and doubling times through differences in control measures .
factors that may alter future estimates of case - fatality rates , reasons for heterogeneity in doubling times among countries , and implications for the control of sars are discussed . |
6,077 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: respiratory distress in a neonate is more commonly caused by pulmonary , cardiac , or neurological etiologies .
the obstructive lesions of the upper airway are rare , unsuspected , and potentially treatable causes of neonatal respiratory distress .
an oropharyngeal mass presenting as a cause of neonatal respiratory distress is rare and may include bronchogenic cyst , epidermoid cyst , congenital cysts of third and fourth pharyngeal pouches , and the least common basal meningoencephalocele .
they originate from a congenital hiatus in the midline region of the skull base , which permits meninges , neural tissue , or both to herniate from the intracranial space .
basal encephaloceles occur with an estimated incidence of 1 in 35,000 live births and have been further subdivided , depending on the location of the bone defect , into transethmoidal , sphenomaxillary , sphenoorbital , and transsphenoidal .
our patient had presented with respiratory distress and an oropharyngeal mass in the neonatal period and was eventually diagnosed to have transalar transsphenoidal meningoencephalocele .
a 30-day - old male infant weighing 2.6 kg presented with difficulty in breathing and feeding noticed since 4 day of life .
the infant was observed to have tachypnea with a respiratory rate of 70 breaths per minute along with marked suprasternal retractions and stridor , though cyanosis was absent .
arterial blood gas analysis revealed normal oxygenation , and chest x - ray did not show any significant abnormality .
the patency of all natural orifices was checked , and choanal atresia , tracheo - esophageal fistula , and anorectal malformation were ruled out .
examination of the oropharyngeal cavity showed presence of a cystic swelling protruding through the soft palate .
aspiration of the cyst with a 26-gauze needle produced a small quantity of clear fluid with no cells and a protein content of 80 mg% which was compatible with a transudate .
subsequently , after 48 hours of aspiration , the child had recurrence of symptoms and... | respiratory distress in an infant is a common cause of admission in neonatal intensive care facility .
obstructive lesions of the airway constitute a minority of problems in the new born but present a diagnostic challenge .
we present a 30-day - old male infant admitted with respiratory distress who was diagnosed to have an oropharyngeal cystic mass which on further evaluation by computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging revealed a transalar transsphenoidal meningoencephalocele herniating into the oral cavity through a congenital split palate .
the patient was operated successfully using a transpalatal approach leading to complete resolution of respiratory distress . |
6,078 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: life in a slum environment can have detrimental effects on residents health status , including manifesting as diminished nutritional status .
sedentary lifestyles are common in urban centers , and unfortunately , this trend does not exclude slum dwellers.1 although undernutrition had been the main focus of interventions in slum dwellings in the past , a major global shift toward lifestyles conducive to obesity has caused overnutrition to become an issue , as well.2 this phenomenon of having both undernourished and overnourished people living side - by - side is sometimes called the double burden of malnutrition , and much attention is being paid in particular to slum dwelling women s vulnerability to this phenomenon .
women are thought to be more economically and nutritionally insecure , and their physical health as mothers is a predictor of the health of offspring . defining population nutritional status epidemiologically is innately problematic .
but body mass index ( bmi ) is a useful first step and is commonly collected in many government - sponsored national health surveys .
the threshold of obesity has been internationally accepted as a bmi of 30 kg / m.3 while body adiposity index ( bai ) and waist circumference are arguably better indices of actual adiposity,4 bmi is still the most commonly used easily applied indices .
indeed , with a large population , bmi is both a noninvasive and time efficient measure.5 several studies68 have already attempted to determine the factors that have the greatest impact on south asian women s bmi .
pregnant women in assam were found to have a lower bmi if the household consisted of five or more individuals or if income was low.6 according to the national family household survey from 1998 to 1999 ( nfhs-2 ) , different administrative states report different average bmis,7 with more developed states , such as punjab , having higher rates of obesity , while less developed states , such as bihar , having higher levels of chronic energy deficiency.7 as well , yadav and... | backgroundurbanization is increasing around the world , and in india , this trend has translated into an increase in the size of slum dwellings whose environments are suspected of being associated with poor health outcomes , particularly those relating to women s nutritional status . with this study , we sought to determine the factors associated with indian women s body mass index ( bmi ) in slum environments , with special attention paid to women with tribal status.methodsa multiple linear regression analysis was performed on data from the indian national family health survey ( 20052006 ) , modeling demographic and behavioral factors suspected of being associated with bmi , with additional focus on the measures of social class , specifically caste and tribal status.resultsincreasing bmi is significantly and positively associated with frequency of watching television , having diabetes , age , wealth index , and residency status in the areas of new delhi , andhra pradesh , or tamil nadu.conclusionalthough belonging to a scheduled tribe was not associated with changes in bmi , unadjusted rates suggest that tribal status may be worthy of deeper investigation . among slum dwellers , there is a double burden of undernutrition and overnutrition .
therefore , a diverse set of interventions may be required to improve the health outcomes of these women . |
6,079 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: bernstein ( 1967 ) identified the degrees of freedom problem the notion that the large number of independently controllable movement system df poses a computational burden to the cns ( turvey et al .
bernstein 's solution ( see also gelfand and tsetlin , 1966 ; turvey et al . , 1978 ; tuller et al . , 1982 ) was that rather than controlling each df separately , the df are coupled to form a synergy , enabling the df to regulate each other .
this reduces the need to control each df , and allows compensation for variability in one component of the synergy by another .
is expressed in figure 1 ( kay , 1988 ; riley and turvey , 2002 ) .
df that potentially are independent are coupled so that the synergy has fewer df ( possesses a lower dimensionality ) than the set of components from which it arises .
the behavior of the synergy has even fewer df , a second level of dimensional compression as one moves from structural components to the behavior enacted by the interactions among the df .
dimensional compression at both stages results from imposing constraints , which couple components so they change together rather than independently .
dynamical systems approaches have emphasized dimensional compression ( kugler et al . , 1980 ; kugler and turvey , 1987 ; kay , 1988 ; turvey , 1990 ; turvey and carello , 1996 ) .
dimensional compression occurs in self - organization ( nicolis and prigogine , 1977 ) and features prominently in synergetics ( haken , 1983 ) , a theory of self - organization that describes how systems of many non - linearly interacting , micro - scale components exhibit low - dimensional spatio - temporal patterns .
interactions among micro - components give rise to the macroscopic pattern , which then constrains the behavior of the micro - components to sustain the pattern .
coordination dynamics ( kelso , 1995 ) applies synergetics to describe how micro - scale neuromuscular processes give rise to macroscopic movement patterns . in interlimb rhythmic coordination ( synchronized oscillations of body... | we present the perspective that interpersonal movement coordination results from establishing interpersonal synergies . interpersonal synergies
are higher - order control systems formed by coupling movement system degrees of freedom of two ( or more ) actors .
characteristic features of synergies identified in studies of intrapersonal coordination dimensional compression and reciprocal compensation are revealed in studies of interpersonal coordination that applied the uncontrolled manifold approach and principal component analysis to interpersonal movement tasks .
broader implications of the interpersonal synergy approach for movement science include an expanded notion of mechanism and an emphasis on interaction - dominant dynamics . |
6,080 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: nephritis is one of the most severe complications of systematic lupus erythematosus ( sle).1 up to 60% of adults and 80% of children with sle develop lupus nephritis ( ln).2 the clinical presentation of kidney involvement is highly variable , ranging from mild asymptomatic proteinuria to rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis .
biological features generally include varying degrees of glomerular involvement with proteinuria that is nephrotic in up to 65% of cases , as well as hematuria with red - cell casts and/or acute renal failure.1 diffuse proliferative ln is the most common histological variant .
furthermore , it has the worst prognosis , with a reported 17% 5-year survival without treatment.3 progress in immunosuppressive therapy has improved renal and global survival .
five - year patient survival was approximately 55% in 1970 versus up to 80% a decade later,4 and currently the 5-year survival rate reaches about 90%.3 prognostic factors of renal involvement include demographic ( age , sex , race ) , genetic and immunological features ( anti double - stranded dna [ dsdna ] , anti - c1q , antiphospholipid antibodies ) , histopathological findings , clinical and laboratory signs ( high serum creatinine , nephrotic syndrome , hypertension ) , and are affected also by treatment regimens and patient compliance.5 in morocco , no data describing ln have been published previously . in order to make a clear picture
, we reviewed retrospectively 114 cases of ln followed in our unit between 2001 and 2010 .
the aim of our study was to analyze the clinical and histological features of patients with ln and to evaluate the outcome of ln with special regards to proliferative and membranous forms .
between january 2001 and december 2010 , 114 cases of ln were diagnosed treated and followed up by the department of nephrology , dialysis , and renal transplantation , ibn sina university hospital , rabat , morocco .
all patients included in this single - center retrospective analysis fulfilled at least four of the revised... | backgroundthere is wide variation in clinical presentation and outcome of lupus nephritis ( ln ) among different ethnic groups .
few data for ln exist on north africans , especially those from morocco .
the aim of our study was to review retrospectively the features and outcome of ln in moroccan patients.patients and methodswe performed a single - center retrospective study .
a total of 114 patients with ln were included .
all patients met american rheumatism association criteria .
ln was classified according to the international society of nephrology / renal pathology society classification .
we adopted previously defined outcome criteria for ln.resultsthere were 101 females and 13 males , with a mean age of 29.9 years . at first presentation , we noted hypertension in 33% , hematuria in 76% , nephrotic syndrome in 53% , and renal failure in 60% of cases .
renal biopsy revealed predominant proliferative classes in more than 80% of patients .
patients received different regimens mainly based on intravenous cyclophosphamide .
after a mean follow - up of 22 months , remission occurred in 45.5% , relapses in 82% , end - stage renal failure in 21% , and death in 16% of cases .
infection and neurological and cardiovascular diseases were the most frequent causes of death.conclusionln seems to be severe in our study , with a predominance of proliferative forms , severe renal manifestations , and poor renal and overall survival . |
6,081 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the following online material is available for this article : expression abundance of 69 dna repair genes during rat liver regeneration .
comparison of relative mrna levels in regenerating liver detected by real - time rt - pcr and affy - metrix rat genome 230 2.0 microarray . | rapidly proliferating tissue may require enhanced dna repair capacity in order to avoid fixation of promutagenic dna lesions to mutations .
partial hepatectomy ( ph ) triggers cell proliferation during liver regeneration ( lr ) .
however , little is known on how dna repair genes change and how they are regulated at the transcriptional level during lr . in the present study ,
the rat genome 230 2.0 array was used to detect the expression profiles of dna repair genes during lr , and differential expression of selected genes was confirmed by real - time rt - pcr .
69 dna repair genes were found to be associated with lr , more than half of which distributed in a cluster characterized by a gradual increase at 2472h and then returning to normal .
the expression of base excision repair- and transcription - coupled repair - related genes was enhanced in the early and intermediate phases of lr , whereas the expression of genes related to hr , nhej and dna cross - link repair , as well as dna polymerases and related accessory factors , and editing or processing nucleases , were mainly enhanced in the intermediate phase .
the expression changes of genes in dna damage response were complicated throughout the whole lr .
our data also suggest that the expression of most dna repair genes may be regulated by the cell cycle during lr . |
6,082 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the typical patient presenting with myxedema coma is a woman in her 70s and the cardinal manifestation is deterioration of mental status .
physical findings often include hypothermia without shivering , bradycardia , hypoventilation , macroglossia , hoarseness , dry skin , and delayed tendon reflexes ; if hypothyroidism is long standing , there will also be accumulation of fluid rich in mucopolysaccharides in extracellular space manifesting as peripheral nonpitting edema , ascites , pleural and pericardial effusion .
routine laboratory evaluation may indicate anemia , hyponatremia , hypercholesterolemia , increased serum lactate dehydrogenase and creatine kinase .
typical electrocardiogram findings are varying degrees of blocks , low voltage , prolonged qt interval , and flattened or inverted t waves .
finally , the eeg may show a pattern typical to metabolic coma , including triphasic waves.1 hepatic encephalopathy is a metabolic coma , the hallmark of which is hyperammonemia .
although not all patients with hepatic encephalopathy present with hyperammonemia , and hyperammonemia is not pathognomonic for hepatic encephalopathy , the common practice is to consider patients with a liver disease , hyperammonemia , and coma as suffering from hepatic encephalopathy .
the differentiation between myxedema coma and hepatic encephalopathy , conditions which share many similarities , is of utmost importance and carries therapeutic implication .
an 82-year - old woman was admitted to the hospital in a state of coma .
she had been alert and functioning until 1 week before admission , when she gradually became lethargic and unresponsive .
the patient had a history of hypothyroidism , vitiligo , essential hypertension , depressive disorder , and mild impairment of liver function , which had not been investigated in the past .
her chronic medication included amlodipine , sertraline , furosemide , ramipril , atenolol , and levothyroxine .
on physical examination she was in a state of coma with a glasgow coma score of 5... | hepatic encephalopathy and myxedema coma share clinical features : coma , ascites , anemia , impaired liver functions , and a metabolic electroencephalogram ( eeg ) .
hyperammonemia , a hallmark of hepatic encephalopathy , has also been described in hypothyroidism .
differentiation between the 2 conditions , recognition of their possible coexistence , and the consequent therapeutic implications are of utmost importance .
we describe a case of an 82-year - old woman with a history of mild chronic liver disease who presented with hyperammonemic coma unresponsive to conventional therapy .
further investigation disclosed severe hypothyroidism .
thyroid hormone replacement resulted in gain of consciousness and normalization of hyperammonemia . in patients with an elevated ammonia level , altered mental status , and liver disease , who do not have a clear inciting event for liver disease decompensation , overwhelming evidence of hepatic decompensation , or who do not respond to appropriate therapy for hepatic encephalopathy , hypothyroidism should be considered and evaluated . |
6,083 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: acinar cell carcinoma , also known as acinic cell carcinoma , is a malignant epithelial neoplasm composed of cells with morphological resemblance to acinar cells and with evidence of exocrine enzyme production by the neoplastic cells .
these carcinomas of the pancreas are rarely diagnosed pre - operatively , and surgical resection is the best treatment modality .
median overall survival after successful resection is 36 months in reported studies . a brief review of clinical presentation , diagnosis and management is discussed .
a 35-year old male patient presented in out patient department , with complaints of diarrhea for last 2 years and pain upper abdomen for last 15 days .
there were no other associated symptoms , co - morbidities and he was nonalcoholic and non - smoker .
general physical examination revealed no abnormality , and on abdomen examination there was a firm , nontender , 88 cm retroperitoneal lump , with well - defined margins , in epigastrc region and also occupying part of left hypochondrial and umbilical region , with no organomegaly and no free fluid .
ultrasonography of the abdomen showed a large 7.76.48.4 cm size heterogeneously hypoechoic mass , involving the body of pancreas , while the head of the pancreas , liver , spleen and other organs were normal .
contrast enhanced computed tomography showed a large , heterogeneously enhancing , well defined intrapancreatic lesion , of size 127.5 cm in body and tail region , with few small non - enhancing areas , indentation on posterior wall stomach , and loss of intervening fat plane ( figure 1 ) .
there were no evidence of ascites , liver and peritoneal metastasis , and peripancreatic and retroperitoneal lymphadenopathy .
oesopha - gogastroduodenoscopy showed the presence of extrinsic impression on the posterior wall of gastric body .
colonoscopy and tumor marker ca 19 - 9 were normal . in view of a large mass involving the body of the pancreas and no evidence of metastasis , after adequate preoperative preparation
intra - operatively ,... | acinar cell carcinoma of the pancreas is a rare pancreatic malignancy , constituting only 1 - 2% of all the pancreatic tumors .
a young adult male presented with chronic diarrhea and upper abdominal pain , on investigations was found to have a large pancreatic tumor of size 127.5 cm involving the body of the pancreas .
pancreatic body and tail resection with splenectomy was done and final histopathological examination showed acinar cell carcinoma of the pancreas .
prognosis of acinar cell carcinoma is better than adenocarcinoma of the pancreas . |
6,084 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: | we performed a cross - sectional study that included 100 hiv - infected japanese men without hemophilia to examine the influence of smoking on hiv infection .
history of smoking was obtained using a questionnaire .
the percentage of current smokers was 40 % and was the highest ( 50 % ) among men in their forties .
the mean brinkman index ( bi , number of cigarettes smoked per day multiplied by years of smoking ) was 450 .
the percentage of patients with a bi 600 was significantly higher in patients with an aids - defining event than in those without an aids - defining event .
a bi 600 was associated with an aids - defining event .
reducing smoking appears to be critical to enhancing disease management efforts in japanese men with hiv . |
6,085 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the basal forebrain cholinergic neurons ( bfcn ) provide the major cholinergic innervation to the hippocampus and neocortex , playing a role in cognition and attention behaviors through the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine .
bfcn are located in the medial septum , diagonal band of broca , nucleus basalis of meynert and striatum .
they are found to be massively degenerated in late stages of sporadic alzheimer 's disease ( ad ) , one of the most diffuse and lethal disease of the elderly .
however , in contrast with the so called cholinergic hypothesis , ad can not be considered as a generalized brain cholinergic disease ( mesulam , 2004 ) .
indeed , the cholinergic system undergoes only a mild reduction of synaptic density and a partial atrophy at the ad onset , while frank bfcn degeneration and death require more than a decade to appear ( mesulam , 2004 ) .
functional bfcn synapses relay on continuous and activity - dependent release of nerve growth factor ( ngf ) by cortical and hippocampal neurons ( iulita and cuello , 2014 ) .
ngf binds to two classes of cell surface receptors localized at the bfcn terminals : the specific ngf receptor tyrosine kinase a ( trka ) and the common neurotrophic receptor p75 . the ngf signal is retrogradely conveyed from axons and dendrites toward the nucleus of bfcn , where it modulates cholinergic gene expression .
the requirement of an active ngf / trka pathway in forebrain - related cognition is confirmed by the positive correlation between trka levels and mini - mental status examination scores . as mentioned above ,
a number of experimental results prompt the perturbation of the ngf pathway as an early event in ad pathology .
in fact , alterations of the ngf / trka signaling system correlate well , and even more robustly than the amyloid load , with cognitive deficits in mci and in its progression toward ad .
moreover , single bfcn expression analysis indicates that trka mrna is reduced in mci , and suggests that decreased neurotrophin responsiveness may be... | the current idea behind brain pathology is that disease is initiated by mild disturbances of common physiological processes .
overtime , the disruption of the neuronal homeostasis will determine irreversible degeneration and neuronal apoptosis .
this could be also true in the case of nerve growth factor ( ngf ) alterations in sporadic alzheimer 's disease ( ad ) , an age - related pathology characterized by cholinergic loss , amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles .
in fact , the pathway activated by ngf , a key neurotrophin for the metabolism of basal forebrain cholinergic neurons ( bfcn ) , is one of the first homeostatic systems affected in prodromal ad .
ngf signaling dysfunctions have been thought for decades to occur in ad late stages , as a mere consequence of amyloid - driven disruption of the retrograde axonal transport of neurotrophins to bfcn . nowadays , a wealth of knowledge is potentially opening a new scenario : ngf signaling impairment occurs at the onset of ad and correlates better than amyloid load with cognitive decline .
the recent acceleration in the characterization of anatomical , functional and molecular profiles of early ad is aimed at maximizing the efficacy of existing treatments and setting novel therapies .
accordingly , the elucidation of the molecular events underlying app metabolism regulation by the ngf pathway in the septo - hippocampal system is crucial for the identification of new target molecules to slow and eventually halt mild cognitive impairment ( mci ) and its progression toward ad . |
6,086 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: renal autotransplantation is a method of removing kidney from its place of origin , repairing it and transplanting it in another location of the body ( most commonly , the iliac fossa ) of the same patient .
this procedure was first performed by hardy in 1963 . since hardy 's landmark surgery for management of a high ureteral injury ,
renal autotransplantation has been described in the treatment of renal arterial disease , renal cell carcinoma , nephrolithiasis etc .
it has been demonstrated that tumour size ( > 4 cm ) identified on computerised tomography ( ct ) scan , is the most reliable predictor of rupture .
here we describe the anaesthetic challenges in a bilateral ex - vivo nephron sparing surgery with autotransplantation for giant angiomyolipoma .
a 28-year - old unmarried female weighing 55 kg presented with lower abdominal discomfort and vague lump in the abdomen of 5 years duration .
blood investigations were normal and contrast enhanced abdominal ct with angiogram showed bilateral highly vascular huge renal masses suggestive of angiomyolipoma [ figure 1 ] .
she was taken up for right radical nephrectomy , bench surgery and autotransplantation after adequate pre - operative preparation .
pre - operative computed tomography angiogram - highly vascular angiomyolipoma we instituted general anaesthesia supplemented with low thoracic epidural at t11 - 12 interspace and epidural analgesia was maintained with 0.2% ropivacaine and fentanyl 2 mcg / ml at the rate of 4 - 6 ml / h .
anaesthesia was induced with glycopyrrolate 0.2 mg , midazolam 1 mg , ramosetron 0.3 mg , fentanyl 100 mcg and propofol 100 mg .
intubation was facilitated with 100 mg succinylcholine and anaesthesia was maintained with n2o , o2 , isoflurane and atracurium .
electrocardiogram , pulse oximetry , invasive blood pressure , end - tidal carbon dioxide , central venous pressure ( cvp ) , core temperature and hourly urine output were monitored .
abdomen was entered through a right thoracoabdominal incision [ figure 2 ] , excising the... | extracorporeal work bench surgery with subsequent autotransplantation is a challenge from both anaesthetic and surgical point of view when performed bilaterally or in a solitary kidney .
a 28-year - old female with bilateral giant angiomyolipoma of kidneys was taken up for renal autotransplantation .
patient had a huge tumour , which was the largest reported exophytic tumour to be excised by this technique .
both kidneys were operated at an interval of 1 month , under combined general and epidural anaesthesia .
anaesthetic challenges faced during the procedure were maintenance of adequate perfusion of the grafted kidneys , containment of massive blood loss and coagulopathy during the perioperative period .
patient recovered in due course with functioning autotransplanted kidney .
a careful pre - operative preparation with intraoperative maintenance of adequate blood volume and blood pressure is the key for graft survival . |
6,087 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: although current cross - sectional data suggest that most americans , including children and adolescents , consume a significant portion of their daily energy as snacks , snacking remains a poorly understood behavior .
there is little information on how and why individuals and families select snacks , and no consistent definition of snacks or snacking used by most consumers or even the research community .
many studies , including the national health and nutrition examination surveys , rely on participants to define snacks themselves .
while some individuals define snacks as an eating occasion between meals , others define snacks based on the type of food consumed , location of food consumption , or time of day of consumption . unlike other eating occasion labels like breakfast , lunch , or dinner , snacks commonly describes a type of food as well as an eating occasion .
the 2015 dietary guidelines for americans , for instance , caution against excessive consumption of snacks , with regard to the type of food , because they add sugars and saturated fat to the american diet , but they recommend snacks as an eating occasion , suggesting carrots with hummus as a sample snack meal . based on consumer definitions , however , americans receive a quarter of their daily energy from snacks .
the 2015 scientific report of the dietary guidelines committee states that 96% of the us population over the age of 2 years eats at least one snack every day and that daily consumption of 2 to 3 snacks is even more common .
the results of 2 recent studies suggest that the type of snack , rather than the frequency of consuming snacks , is the most important determinant of whether snack consumption is associated with adiposity , diet quality , or body mass index .
however , the term snacking is still often associated with the consumption of foods high in saturated fat , sugar , and sodium , commonly referred to as snack foods . while snack foods are often associated with nutrients to limit , like most foods , ... | background : although americans receive almost a quarter of their daily energy from snacks , snacking remains a poorly defined and understood eating occasion . however , there is little dietary guidance about choosing snacks .
families , clinicians , and researchers need a comprehensive approach to assessing their nutritional value .
objective : to quantify and compare the nutrient density of commonly consumed snacks by their overall nutrient profiles using the nutrient - rich foods ( nrf ) index 10.3 .
methods : nrf index scores were calculated for the top 3 selling products ( based on 2014 market research data ) in different snack categories . these nrf scores were averaged to provide an overall nutrient - density score for each category .
results : based on nrf scores , yogurt ( 55.3 ) , milk ( 52.5 ) , and fruit ( 30.1 ) emerged as the most nutrient - dense snacks .
ice cream ( 4.4 ) , pies and cakes ( 11.1 ) , and carbonated soft drinks ( 17.2 ) emerged as the most nutrient - poor snacks .
conclusions : the nrf index is a useful tool for assessing the overall nutritional value of snacks based on nutrients to limit and nutrients to encourage . |
6,088 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: colonic diverticulosis is a very frequent disease in the west . in 40- to 50-year - old persons , its incidence increases with age , reaching over 50% in persons > 70 . in most cases ( 80% ) ,
the disease is asymptomatic ( diverticulosis ) and has a mild functional clinical scenario of dyscinesia .
a few patients , about 10% to 20% , have simplex acute or complicated diverticulitis ( perforation , abscess , fistula , hemorrhage , circumscribed or generalized peritonitis ) .
laparoscopy has been used to treat diverticular disease , and currently it is a widely accepted and used procedure .
the laparoscopic approach is not commonly used to treat neoplastic pathology of the colon - rectus ; however , its use is not restricted in treating phlogistic diseases .
in fact , data about the feasibility and advantages of the laparoscopic approach for treating diverticular disease are reported in the literature . greater postoperative comfort , with a reduction in pain and lower need for analgesics , a more rapid resumption of intestinal function , a shorter hospital stay , and a more rapid return to social activity
between january 1999 and january 2001 , 5 patients underwent elective treatment with the laparoscopic approach for uncomplicated diverticulitis .
the phases of the procedure were the usual : mobilization of the left colon , isolation and section of the inferior mesenteric artery , sovrapubic incision for operative specimen removal , preparation of the proximal stump , closure of the distal stump with endo - gia , and end - to - end intracorporeal coloproctostomy with a circular stapler . in the preceding period ( september 1997 through december 1998 ) ,
the surgical indication , always elective , was determined on the second admission for acute and obviously uncomplicated diverticulitis .
the classifications of diverticular disease according to hinchey and wexner are shown in table 1 .
classification of diverticular disease according to hinchey and wexner the symptomatology is characterized by fever ,... | objectives : the aim of this study was to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of laparoscopic - assisted sigmoid colectomy for diverticulitis and to assess its postoperative advantages.methods:from 1999 to 2001 , 5 patients were selectively operated on with a laparoscopic - assisted procedure for uncomplicated sigmoid diverticulitis . in the preceding period ( september 1997 through december 1998 ) ,
4 patients underwent open procedures for the same pathology . the surgical indication with the same criteria was restrictive : at least 2 acute episodes had occurred that were treated with hospital admission and that were separated by an adequate period ( 2 months ) of medical therapy.results:no conversions of laparoscopy to an open procedure were necessary .
age , sex , weight , morbidity , and mortality were similar between the 2 groups .
operative time was 180 minutes for laparoscopy and 120 minutes for laparotomy .
postoperative resumption of peristalsis was 24 hours versus 4 days , resumption of alimentation was on the second postoperative day versus the fifth postoperative day , and hospital stay was 7 days versus 12 days for laparoscopy and laparotomy , respectively.conclusion:this study shows the feasibility and the advantages of elective laparoscopic - assisted colonic re - section for uncomplicated sigmoid diverticulitis .
the advantages of the laparoscopic approach are the lower need for analgesics and the more precocious ambulation , canalization , resumption of alimentation , and the shorter hospital stay . |
6,089 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: cardiac myxoma represents approximately 50% of all benign cardiac tumors in adults , with left atrial myxomas constituting 75% of all myxomas . usually , myxoma is a solitary mass .
multicentric cardiac myxomas are very rare and usually , biatrial . the incidence is < 2.5% of all cardiac myxomas .
familial multicentric cardiac myxomas may present as a case of left atrial ( la ) and left ventricular ( lv ) mass simultaneously .
we report a 26-year - old female patient who presented to our emergency department with acute onset of dyspnea and was diagnosed as multicentric right atrium ( ra ) and right ventricle ( rv ) myxoma with embolization of tumor fragments to the pulmonary artery ( pa ) during evaluation with transthoracic echocardiogram and high - resolution computed tomography ( hrct ) of the thorax .
a 26-year - old female presented to the emergency department with sudden onset of dyspnea and left precordial pain of 6 hr duration .
she had no history of exertional dyspnea , fever , weight loss , prolonged immobilization , syncope , focal neurological deficits , substance abuse , endocrine disorders and dermatological ailments in the past .
the patient 's physical examination revealed blood pressure of 94/60 mmhg , heart rate of 120 beats / min , respiratory rate of 40/min , elevated jugular venous pressure with prominent v wave . on cardiovascular system examination , s1 was normal , s2 was narrowly split with loud p2 ; a pan - systolic murmur of grade iii / vi intensity was present along left sternal border .
pulse oximetry revealed a saturation of 85% at room air increasing to 90% with 100% oxygen at 6 l / min .
laboratory examination revealed hemoglobin - 12.6 g / dl , total leukocytes count - 12.600/l and platelet count of 1,00,000/l .
transthoracic echocardiogram showed a large pedunculated mobile mass in ra with heterogenous echotexture attached to ra free wall and another mass attached to interatrial septum near fossa ovalis [ figure 1a ] .
another mass was seen in rv measuring 11 mm 11 mm just... | multicentric cardiac myxoma is a rare syndrome ; usually it is familial .
we report a rare case of sporadic right atrium ( ra ) and right ventricle ( rv ) myxoma in a 26-year - old female presenting to our hospital for the evaluation of sudden onset of dyspnea and left precordial pain attributed to the embolization of degenerating tumor fragments to the pulmonary artery ( pa ) .
the exact incidence of sporadic multicentric ra and rv myxoma presenting as acute pulmonary embolism is unknown as multicentric ra and rv myxoma are very rare .
myxomas presenting as pulmonary embolism is < 10% .
majority of cardiac myxomas present as exertional dyspnea , chest pain , positional syncope , fever , weight loss and other constitutional symptoms .
any young patient presenting with acute onset dyspnea with multiple cardiac masses may have tumor embolization to the pa diagnosis with transthoracic echocardiography and high - resolution computed tomography of thorax , fast - tracks patient transfer for urgent cardiac surgery to prevent further embolization . |
6,090 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the uremic syndrome is attributable to the progressive retention of a large number of compounds called uremic retention solutes or uremic toxins .
they include not only small plasma solutes , but also protein - bound solutes and middle molecules ( mm)(molecular weight between 500 and 60,000 da ) . the conventional low flux ( lf ) dialyzer permits effective small solute clearance , but its clearance of mm is relatively lower .
high flux ( hf ) dialyzer allows more efficient removal of small water - soluble uremic compounds as well as mm and ensures improved dialysis quality and reduces the short- and long - term hemodialysis - related complications .
dialysis with hf membranes result in a reduction in erythropoietin resistance , delay in loss of residual renal function , improved lipid profiles , specifically increased high - density lipoproteins cholesterol , lowered triglyceride levels and removal of advanced glycosylation end products , which have been implicated in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and dialysis - related amyloidosis .
serum creatinine is the most commonly used marker for assessing kidney function in patients with chronic kidney disease ( ckd ) .
the use of serum urea is recommended by the kidney disease outcome quality improvement clinical practice guideline to assess dialysis clearance .
the urea and creatinine reduction ratios ( crr ) that are commonly used can assess the removal of only small solutes by conventional hemodialysis .
cystatin c is a single nonglycosylated polypeptide chain consisting of 120 amino acid residues with a molecular mass of 13 kd , which is in the mm range .
it is produced by all nucleated cells , freely filtered at the glomerulus and virtually fully reabsorbed and metabolized by proximal tubular cells .
several studies have suggested that cystatin c is useful as a marker of hemodialysis toxin removal , since it has the attractive features as a representative mm .
though hf dialyzers with improved mm clearance are widely used , urea and crr are used to assess... | the conventional , low flux ( lf ) dialyzer allows the removal of small molecular solutes like urea and creatinine .
high flux ( hf ) dialyzers allow the effective removal of middle molecules ( mm ) as well , and are associated with reduced hemodialysis - related morbidity and mortality .
cystatin c has attractive characteristics as a representative mm . the aim of this study was to determine cystatin c reduction ratio ( cyscrr ) in both lf and hf groups and to compare it with other markers of dialysis adequacy .
thirty - seven patients were subjected to both lf and hf hemodialysis 2 weeks apart .
serum urea , creatinine and cystatin c were measured pre- and post - dialysis .
cystatin c was measured by latex - enhanced immunoturbidimetry .
urea and creatinine reduction ratios were 72.3 14.7% and 62.5 13% , respectively in the lf group .
the cyscrr was 9.7 6.7% and 29.2 11% in lf and hf hemodialysis , respectively .
the statistically significant decrease in cyscrr in the hf group shows the effective clearance of mm by hf dialyzers .
hence , cyscrr could be applied to measure the mm clearance in hf hemodialysis .
this study highlights the significance of cystatin c as an important dialysis adequacy marker replacing the conventional markers such as urea and creatinine in hf hemodialysis . among the middle molecules cystatin c scores over beta-2 microglobulin
. |
6,091 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: during badminton games , it is necessary for players to use high - level stroke skills in
various situations1 .
players need to be
able to select and execute a large number of stroke , in different situations , after
selecting highly strategic shots to disrupt their opponent s readiness , rather than simply
returning the shuttlecock2 .
for example ,
when an opponent takes up the ready position in front of the net , it is appropriate to
return the shuttlecock by placing a clear shot behind the opponent , and an opponent takes up
the ready position in the back section of the court , a drop shot falling near the net is
appropriate . during a rally , a player needs to select the most appropriate shot to disrupt
an opponent s readiness , and as soon the opponent s readiness disrupted , deliver the most
offensive shot to earn a point3 , 4 .
reports about strokes have been made in some previous studies of badminton games , which
focused on the development of skills for delivering effective services and overhead
strokes5 , 6 , or the characteristics of upper - limb muscle activities of skilled
badminton players when hitting a smash7 .
furthermore , in badminton rallies , quick movements are essential for returning the
shuttlecocks at various speeds in all directions . to win a rally , increased leg strength
enabling rapidly movement to the spots where the shuttlecock falls8 , and endurance to continue moving without decreasing the
speed of movement9 , 10 , are crucial . in addition , in order to effectively return a
shuttlecock ( to disrupt an opponent s readiness ) , it is necessary to deliver a stroke in a
stable stance . in these situations ,
players need to instantaneously predict the spot where
the shuttlecock will fall , and immediately begin to move to it .
however , no studies have
examined the mechanisms by which badminton players instantaneously react to shuttlecocks ,
and move . in which demands , instantaneous lower - limb muscle movements are particularly
... | [ purpose ] this study aimed to clarify the characteristics of motor neuron excitability by
examining the soleus h - reflex in the ready position adopted immediately before making a
return during badminton games .
[ subjects ] sixteen individuals with ( badminton group ) and
16 without ( control group ) experience of playing badminton were studied .
[ methods ] each
subject was instructed to take up various stances for returning a shuttlecock to measure
the h- and m - waves in the soleus .
[ results ] the h - wave was significantly decreased when
gripping a racket was held in the dominant hand than compared to just standing in the
badminton group . in contrast , in the control group , no significant differences were
observed between when standing and the other stances .
[ conclusion ] based on these results ,
the excitability of spinal motor neurons may have been reduced ( h - wave suppression ) by
badminton training to increase the instantaneous force ( power training ) . |
6,092 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the hantavirus cross - sectional survey was carried out april through may 2006 in the municipality of uberlndia , minas gerais , at an average altitude of 863 m ( 1855s,4816w ) ( figure ) . a randomized and stratified ( sex and age ) sample
was collected from the entire rural area and from the south sector of the municipality s periurban area .
the term periurban refers to a residential area on the outskirts of the city that is in close contact with the rural area .
the participants answered a questionnaire that included demographic information ( sex , age , place of birth , and address ) and questions relating to hps risk factors ( type of dwelling , exposure to rodents at home or work , labor activity , risk activities , history of severe pneumonia , and direct contact with hps patients ) .
blood samples were collected by venipuncture , centrifuged , and sent to the laboratory of hantaviruses and rickettsioses at the oswaldo cruz foundation , rio de janeiro , brazil , for analysis .
we screened serum samples by elisa for hantavirus - specific immunoglobulin g using a recombinant antigen of the nucleocapsid protein of araraquara virus , produced in escherichia coli and supplied by the virus research unit of the university of so paulo , brazil , according to the procedure previously described ( 2 ) .
all positive serum samples were retested ; only those that had 3 elisa - positive results at > 1:400 dilutions were considered positive .
the mann - whitney u and fisher exact / binomial tests for 2 proportions were applied for comparison among medians and proportions , respectively , using epi info 3.3.2 ( www.cdc.gov/epiinfo ) and biostat 5.0 ( www.biostat.org ) software .
the 400 study participants comprised 200 rural and 200 periurban residents ranging in age from 12 to 76 years ( mean = 41 years ) .
the 8 rural area antibody - positive samples were from male farmers ( table 1 ) .
presence of antibody was significantly associated with male sex , older age class , and potential risk activities ( table 1 ) .... | a cross - sectional serosurvey was conducted to assess the proportion of persons exposed to hantaviruses in a virus - endemic area of the state of minas gerais , brazil .
findings of this study suggested the presence of > 1 hantaviruses circulating in this region causing hantavirus pulmonary syndrome , mild disease , or asymptomatic infection . |
6,093 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: most coronary artery origin abnormalities are incidentally determined during coronary angiography . in the adult population ,
its prevalence is reported to be approximately 0.3 to 1.3% in the largest registry.1 ) these abnormalities are usually asymptomatic and have no clinical significance
. however , some cases of coronary artery abnormalities are related to severe life - threatening events such as myocardial ischemia , arrhythmia and acute myocardial infarction.2 ) we report an uncommon case of an anomalous origin of the left coronary artery ( lca ) , a single coronary artery , arising from the right sinus , with angina pectoris and palpitations .
a 48-year - old woman presented with exertional angina and palpitations for a long time .
she a had medical history of hypertension and dyslipidemia , and a family history of coronary artery disease .
the exercise electrocardiogram showed dynamic changes with st - segment depression in the v 1 - 4 leads .
the coronary angiography procedure was started with a lca cannulation attempt , but left anterior descending coronary artery and cx imaging was unsuccessful even though contrast was injected into the left coronary sinus .
the right coronary artery was cannulated and visualized with a right judkins catheter . at this time
the right judkins catheter was gently pull back and the left coronary arteries were clearly visualized ( figs . 1 and 2 ) .
coronary ct angiography confirmed that the left coronary arteries arose from the right sinus of valsalva and that all three coronary arteries originated from the single sinus ( fig .
the patient was managed with conservative treatment and has had no symptoms on clinical follow - up .
coronary anomalies affect less than 1% of the general population . anomalous origin of lca from the right sinus of valsalva is the rarest anomaly , with a reported prevalence of 0.02 - 0.03% according to studies .
the isolated origin of a single coronary artery is very rare , with an incidence of 0.04% to 0.23%.3 ) most of these coronary artery... | anomalous origin of coronary arteries is generally asymptomatic and a rare disease .
however , some cases can cause severe life - threatening events such as myocardial ischemia , arrhythmia , and acute myocardial infarction .
we describe a case of a single coronary artery arising from the right sinus of valsalva in a 48-year - old female patient with a complaint of stable angina pectoris and palpitations .
coronary angiography revealed that all three coronary arteries arose from the right sinus .
coronary ct angiography confirmed that there was an anomalous origin of the left coronary artery arising from the right sinus of valsalva .
the patient was managed with conservative treatment . |
6,094 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the line listing of ha patients included persons with laboratory evidence of recent hav infection ( anti - hav immunoglobulin m [ igm ] ) who stayed at hotel x after june 1 , 2004 . also listed were hotel guests with ha disease ( jaundice , elevated liver enzyme levels ) , without laboratory confirmation , who had traveled with persons with laboratory - confirmed cases .
a case - control study was performed among hotel x guests > 17 years of age residing in 3 german states .
the time span between the earliest arriving case - patient 's last day at hotel x and the latest arriving case - patient 's first day there was defined as the " minimum period of transmission " ( mpt ) .
healthy hotel guests who stayed at the hotel during the mpt who had neither been vaccinated against hav nor previously infected with hav were eligible as controls .
telephone interviews were conducted with a standardized questionnaire that elicited information on demographic factors , foods and drink consumption , and participation in recreational activities such as swimming , day trips , etc . for statistical analysis
, exposures were dichotomized into " ever " versus " never , " and the " number of days exposed " was calculated .
univariate analysis ( tests ) and multiple logistic regression were performed ( spss version 12.0.2 , spss inc . , chicago , il , usa ) ;
the egyptian authorities ' investigation included testing all hotel employees for hav antibodies ( igm , igg ) , and scrutiny of food suppliers .
serum samples were obtained from german case - patients for testing by reverse transcription pcr ( rt - pcr ) in the vp12a junction and sequencing of a 160-bp - long pcr fragment of the vp1 region .
the outbreak lasted from july 10 to september 8 , 2004 ( figure 1 ) .
a total of 351 case - patients made up this outbreak : 271 primary and 7 secondary infections in germany , plus 60 primary infections reported to the national public health institutes in 8 other european countries .
austria recorded a secondary outbreak with 13 cases... | in 2004 , a major outbreak of hepatitis a among tourists returning from egypt involved 351 case - patients from 9 european countries who were infected with a single strain ( genotype 1b ) .
the case - control study identified orange juice as the most likely infection vehicle .
vaccination against hepatitis a virus is strongly recommended before travel to disease - endemic areas . |
6,095 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: a 61-year - old man complaining of syncope and chest pain came to our hospital .
ten days prior to hospitalization , he had had a fever , chills , and body ache .
he had taken some medication from a local clinic for these symptoms , which were supposedly caused by a simple upper respiratory infection . despite the medication ,
the patient had developed another symptom of syncope 7 days earlier and was transferred to the neurology department for evaluation . on arrival , he had mild fever ( 37.5c ) with chills , sweating , and dyspnea .
the blood pressure was 110/40 mmhg , pulse rate 90/min , and respiratory rate 20/min . on the chest auscultation ,
the chest x - ray revealed cardiomegaly , and the electrocardiogram demonstrated a complete av block . in the brain magnetic resonance imaging
, there were multiple infarcts , which were thought to be caused by septic emboli .
cardiopulmonary bypass was initiated , and the ascending aorta was then cross - clamped . after infusing the histidine - tryptophan - ketoglutarate solution through the retrograde cardioplegic catheter and local cooling with ice slush , transverse aortotomy was performed .
the aortic valve was thickened and retracted ; this was consistent with a rheumatic aortic stenosis .
there was a commissural fusion between the noncoronary cusp and the right coronary cusp , which also had fibrous thickening with calcification and abscess ( fig .
1 ) . the periannular abscess involved the aortic root of the base of noncoronary sinus ( fig .
2 ) and invaded down to the central fibrous body , whole membranous septum , and mitral and tricuspid valves ( tvs ) ( fig .
the aortic valve was excised carefully , and then , the infected tissue and the pus were removed meticulously from the abscess pocket down to the membranous septum , central fibrous body , annulus of the mitral valve ( mv ) , and anteroseptal commissure of the tv .
we also made an extended transseptal incision extending from the right atrial auricle to the tv to expose the lesion and achieve... | a 61-year - old man was diagnosed with aortic stenoinsufficiency with periannular abscess , which involved the aortic root of noncoronary sinus ( ncs ) that invaded down to the central fibrous body , whole membranous septum , mitral valve ( mv ) , and tricuspid valve ( tv ) .
the open complete debridement was executed from the aortic annulus at ncs down to the central fibrous body and annulus of the mv and the tv , followed by the left ventricular outflow tract reconstruction with implantation of a mechanical aortic valve by using a leaflet of the half - folded elliptical bovine pericardial patch .
another leaflet of this patch was used for the repair of the right atrial wall with a defect and the tv . |
6,096 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the ectodermal dysplasia represents a group of inherited conditions in which two or more ectodermally derived anatomic structures fail to develop .
ectodermal dysplasias represent a large and complex group of diseases comprising of more than 170 clinical conditions .
depending upon the presence or absence of sweat glands , it is divided into the hidrotic ( clouston syndrome ) and anhidrotic types .
( cst - syndrome i.e. christ- siemen - touraine syndrome and anhidrotic / hypohidrotic , ectodermal dysplasia being synonymous . ) in most cases , this disorder seems to show an x - linked pattern , with gene mapping to xq12-q13.1 ; therefore , a male predominance is usually seen .
individuals affected by it show the triad comprising anhydrosis / hypohydrosis , hypotrichosis , and dental hypoplasia .
hypodontia has been considered to be a multifactorial condition with genetic and environmental influences , and published opinions differ on the importance of each factor .
larmour et al . , state that recent developments in molecular genetics are revealing the roles of the homeobox genes in the control of the complex epithelial / mesenchymal interactions that occur during dental development .
those of particular interest for dental development are the muscle - specific homeobox genes , msx1 and msx2 .
here is the case report of a 8-year - old male child with ectodermal dysplasia .
the chief complaint of the patient was difficulty in mastication due to absence of maxillary and mandibular teeth .
the patient experienced episodes of high fever , was intolerant to heat , and did not sweat .
his i.q . , level was low , and it was evident when asked about schooling .
other characteristics of ectodermal dysplasia , such as frontal bossing , saddle nose , reduced vertical dimension of face due to total anodontia were also noticed .
child showing dry skin , sparse eyebrows , eyelashes , and scalp hair hands showing dystrophic ( thin and brittle ) nails feet showing dry skin and dystrophic nails intraoral examination revealed... | the hereditary condition known as ectodermal dysplasia is characterized by the absence or defect of two or more ectodermally derived structures .
the most commonly observed forms of ectodermal dysplasia are the hidrotic and hypohidrotic types ; discrimination is based on the absence or presence of sweat glands .
a case of 8-year - old male child with hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia with complete anodontia of primary as well as secondary dentitions is presented .
the child had a short stature , low intelligent quotient ( i.q .
, ) , and was underweight .
the patient experienced episodes of high fever , was intolerant to heat , and did not sweat .
he exhibited smooth and dry skin , sparse light - colored eyebrows .
dental clinicians can be the first to diagnose ectodermal dysplasia due to the absence of teeth . |
6,097 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: mutations were introduced into has by megaprimer mutagenesis ( sarkar and sommer 1990 ; thomas and roth , 1994 ) . the pcr product was digested with xbai and bamhi and used to replace an xbai to bamhi fragment in an expression vector pcb6-ha - y543 xba that encoded the 133 carboxyl - terminal amino acids of japan ha .
each pcr fragment was sequenced to confirm the identity of the mutation and that second - site mutations had not occurred .
mdck subline d5 cells ( brewer and roth , 1995 ) were transfected with ha mutants in the expression vector pcb6 ( brewer , 1994 ) and selected for survival in g418 .
the uncloned , drug- resistant cell population was used for experiments to avoid any effects from clonal variation .
mdck cell monolayers were grown , treated with 10 mm sodium butyrate , and then labeled with 1.14 ci / ml transslabel ( icn biomedicals , inc . , irvine , ca ) as described ( lin et al . , 1997 ) .
to measure rates of entry to the golgi complex , monolayers expressing each mutant ha that had been labeled with radioactive amino acids were chased with prewarmed nonradioactive medium at 37c for either 0 , 10 , 20 , 30 , or 60 min .
the immunoprecipitates were analyzed by page and quantified by scanning with a phosphorimager ( molecular dynamics , inc . ,
the proportion of each immunoprecipitated protein that had shifted to the slower migrating , golgi - modified form was measured as a fraction of the total labeled ha in the immunoprecipitate . to measure rates of arrival at the cell surface ,
cells were pulse - labeled as described above and chased at 37c in dme containing 10 g / ml of trypsin for 0 , 30 , 60 , 120 , or 180 min .
trypsin cleaves ha arriving at the cell surface into two disulfide - bonded fragments , ha1 and ha2 .
the cells were shifted to ice and treated with 100g / ml of soybean trypsin inhibitor ( sti ) for 15 min , and then has were immunoprecipitated , separated by page , and the amount of ha0 , ha1 , and ha2 was quantified .
for each sample ,... | the composition of the plasma membrane domains of epithelial cells is maintained by biosynthetic pathways that can sort both proteins and lipids into transport vesicles destined for either the apical or basolateral surface . in mdck cells ,
the influenza virus hemagglutinin is sorted in the trans - golgi network into detergent - insoluble , glycosphingolipid - enriched membrane domains that are proposed to be necessary for sorting hemagglutinin to the apical cell surface .
site- directed mutagenesis of the hemagglutinin transmembrane domain was used to test this proposal .
the region of the transmembrane domain required for apical transport included the residues most conserved among hemagglutinin subtypes .
several mutants were found to enter detergent - insoluble membranes but were not properly sorted .
replacement of transmembrane residues 520 and 521 with alanines converted the 2a520 mutant hemagglutinin into a basolateral protein . depleting cell cholesterol reduced the ability of wild - type hemagglutinin to partition into detergent - insoluble membranes but had no effect on apical or basolateral sorting .
in contrast , cholesterol depletion allowed random transport of the 2a520 mutant .
the mutant appeared to lack sorting information but was prevented from reaching the apical surface when detergent - insoluble membranes were present .
apical sorting of hemagglutinin may require binding of either protein or lipids at the middle of the transmembrane domain and this normally occurs in detergent - insoluble membrane domains .
entry into these domains appears necessary , but not sufficient , for apical sorting . |
6,098 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: dens invaginatus ( di ) is referred to as a developmental anomaly that results from an infolding within the crown prior to calcification . according to the 0.04 to 10% frequency of dens invagination in the currently available literature ,
several hypotheses have been proposed concerning the etiology of invaginated teeth , including constriction of the dental arch on the enamel organ , decreased or increased growth rate of the internal enamel epithelium , distortion of the enamel organ during dental development or insufficient nutrition of a portion of a single tooth germ .
the epithelium forms a lining of enamel in a channel inside the dentin of the affected tooth .
following calcification of the enamel , it radiographically appears as parallel radiopaque lines within the less radiopaque dentin .
the enamel lining is sometimes imperfect and develops caries , which can lead to dentin or pulpal exposure and eventual pulpal pathosis .
maxillary lateral incisors are most commonly affected and bilateral occurrence is not uncommon , involving 43% of all cases [ 6 , 7 ] .
dens evagination ( de ) ( also known as talon cusp ) is a relatively infrequent developmental abnormality characterized by the existence of an accessory cusp - like structure projecting from the cingulum area or cemento - enamel junction ( cej ) of the maxillary or mandibular anterior teeth both in the primary and permanent dentition [ 810 ] .
de can occur in both sexes and the most commonly affected teeth are the permanent maxillary incisors , particularly the lateral .
although both di and de have been reported frequently in the literature , simultaneous occurrence of these two entities within a single tooth has been noticed only limitedly [ 1315 ] . to the best of our knowledge ,
co - existence of a de with two dis within a single tooth is considered a rarity and has not been encountered in the literature .
a 21-year - old girl came to the school of dentistry , kerman university of medical sciences for her regular dental follow - up visits and... | a case with two simultaneous dens invaginations ( dis ) and one dens evagination ( de ) in a permanent maxillary lateral incisor is reported for the first time in a 21-year - old girl.de known as talon cusp of the anterior teeth is a rare entity and its co - existence with di has been reported scarcely in the literature .
simultaneous occurrence of two dis with one de has not been reported elsewhere .
undoubtedly , familiarity with the internal anatomy of such a rare condition can help prevent pulpal disease while performing restorative procedures . |
6,099 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: a 60-year - old man was referred to our outpatient clinic because of persistent air leakage lasting 17 days from his chest tube , which had been inserted for empyema at another hospital .
he had a past history of diabetes mellitus and tuberculous pleuritis treated with antituberculous medicine 30 years ago .
he had not been treated previously for empyema by drainage procedures such as closed thoracostomy , percutaneous catheter aspiration , or drainage .
a chest computed tomography ( ct ) scan showed loculated pleural fluid collection with air density and pleural wall thickening with enhancement and calcification .
further , a 2.2-cm mass - like lesion adjacent to the margin of an empyema cavity was identified retrospectively ( fig .
laboratory tests revealed a slightly elevated c - reactive protein level of 1.0 mg / dl , while other parameters were within the normal range .
seven days after admission , we planned decortication because of prolonged air leakage and the patient s desire for surgery .
the fibrinous contents of the empyema cavity were removed , and the lung was decorticated without difficulty .
therefore , the operation was completed after the confirmation of the full expansion of the lung .
contrary to our expectations , however , the histopathological diagnosis after the operation was malignant lymphoma .
immunohistochemically , the tumor cells were positive for leukocyte common antigen , cd79a , ki-67 ( range , 7080% ) , and cd3 , and negative for cd20 .
2 ) . after the identification of a monoclonal proliferation of b - cells by an immunoglobulin heavy- chain gene rearrangement
, the final diagnosis of diffuse large b - cell lymphoma with an aberrant expression of a t - cell marker was made .
the postoperative period was uneventful , and the chest tube was removed on postoperative day 12 .
we considered the possibility of incomplete resection , and the patient was referred to the hematology department for adjuvant chemotherapy .
pyothorax - associated lymphoma ( pal ) is a rare malignant... | pyothorax - associated lymphoma is a relatively rare type of lymphoma that occurs in patients who have long histories of tuberculous pleuritis or induced pneumothorax .
it is a type of non - hodgkin s lymphoma of mainly the b - cell phenotype and is strongly associated with epstein barr virus infection .
a majority of these cases have been reported in japan , although some cases have occurred in western countries . here
, we describe a case of pyothorax - associated lymphoma in a patient with a 30-year history of chronic tuberculous empyema .
the patient underwent decortication under the impression of chronic empyema with fistula .
the histopathologic diagnosis was a diffuse large b - cell lymphoma associated chronic inflammation . |
6,100 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: overweight and obesity accompanied by low levels of physical activity are a widespread and growing global problem .
worldwide , the proportion of overweight and obese adults has increased in the last 20 years and continues to increase in children and adolescents in developed and developing countries . in a large us survey ,
the prevalence of obesity was reported to be 36% in adults . in the uk ,
childhood obesity is increasing in the world health organization ( who ) european region , and in slovenia 's capital of ljubljana overweight and obesity in children have become an epidemic in 20 years spanning from 1991 to 2011 . in canada ,
one - quarter of children and youth is overweight or obese , with only 7% attaining the 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity every day recommended by canadian guidelines .
similarly , only 15% of canadian adults attain their recommended level of physical activity , and 61% of canadian men and 44% of canadian women are overweight or obese .
lack of physical activity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease , type 2 diabetes , osteoporosis , depression , anxiety , and some cancers , all chronic diseases that are routinely managed by family physicians .
sedentary lifestyle leads to morbidity and mortality for individuals and economic and resource cost for society .
although substantial attention has been paid to promoting healthy lifestyles through individual clinical counselling and mass education programs , activity levels have remained low .
one of the most effective means of encouraging physical activity is through urban planning and transportation policies .
urban planning , such as higher residential density , mixed - use zoning , street connectivity , and increased green space , have all been shown to increase physical activity and decrease body mass index [ 12 , 13 ] .
transportation policies , such as increased public transportation usage , reduced car use , and more infrastructure for walking and cycling , can achieve the same results .
family physicians... | purpose . to determine family medicine residents ' perceived knowledge and attitudes towards the built environment and their responsibility for health advocacy and to identify their perceived educational needs and barriers to patient education and advocacy
. methods .
a web - based survey was conducted in canada with university of toronto family medicine residents .
data were analyzed descriptively .
results .
93% agreed or strongly agreed that built environment significantly impacts health .
64% thought educating patients on built environment is effective disease prevention ; 52% considered this a role of family physicians .
78% reported that advocacy for built environment is effective disease prevention ; 56% perceived this to be the family physician 's role .
59% reported being knowledgeable to discuss how a patient 's environment may affect his / her health ; 35% reported being knowledgeable to participate in community discussions on built environment .
78% thought education would help with integration into practice .
inadequate time ( 92% ) , knowledge ( 73% ) , and remuneration ( 54% ) were barriers . conclusions . while residents perceived value in education and advocacy as disease prevention strategies and acknowledged the importance of a healthy built environment , they did not consider advocacy towards this the family physician 's role .
barrier reduction and medical education may contribute to improved advocacy , ultimately improving physical activity levels and patient health outcomes . |
6,101 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: situated between the neuroretina and choroid , it performs several functions that are crucial for supporting sight . among the most important
are phagocytosis of shed photoreceptor ( pr ) outer segments , regeneration of the visual cycle pigment rhodopsin , transportation of glucose and nutrients from the choroid to the distal part of the neuroretina , and transportation of excess fluid in the opposite direction [ 1 , 2 ] .
malfunction of the rpe , implying a disrupted ability to perform these tasks , is a direct cause of prevalent retinal diseases like age - related macular degeneration ( amd ) [ 3 , 4 ] and a consequence of inherited disorders like stargardt disease .
a promising approach for treatment of these diseases is the transplantation of tissue engineered rpe [ 610 ] .
however , for the prospect of tissue engineering to become a widespread treatment option , it is necessary to ensure cell availability during short - term storage and transportation of rpe cells . in the process of establishing such a protocol
, our research group has demonstrated that storage temperature has a crucial impact on the viability and morphology of cultured rpe cells .
arpe-19 cultures stored at 16c displayed the greatest number of viable cells compared to cells stored at eight other temperatures ( 4c , 8c , 12c , 20c , 24c , 28c , 32c , and 37c ) after seven days of storage .
having established the potential effect of storage temperature on cell viability , we herein aim to investigate the effect of storage temperature on the gene expression associated with many highly specialized functions of the rpe , using microarray technology .
increased knowledge of the effects of storage on cultured arpe-19 cells is imperative for future use of rpe transplantation in treatment of eye diseases affecting millions of people worldwide .
adult retinal pigment epithelial cells ( arpe-19 ) were purchased from the american type culture collection ( atcc ) ( manassas , va ) .
dulbecco 's modified eagle 's medium ( dmem ) , nutrient mixture... | purpose .
replacement of the diseased retinal pigment epithelium ( rpe ) with cells capable of performing the specialized functions of the rpe is the aim of cell replacement therapy for treatment of macular degenerative diseases .
a storage method for rpe is likely to become a prerequisite for the establishment of such treatment .
herein , we analyze the effect of storage temperature on key functions of cultured rpe cells . methods .
cultured arpe-19 cells were stored in minimum essential medium at 4c , 16c , and 37c for seven days .
total rna was isolated and the gene expression profile was determined using dna microarrays .
comparison of the microarray expression values with qrt - pcr analysis of selected genes validated the results .
results .
expression levels of several key genes involved in phagocytosis , pigment synthesis , the visual cycle , adherens , and tight junctions , and glucose and ion transport were maintained close to control levels in cultures stored at 4c and 16c .
cultures stored at 37c displayed regulational changes in a larger subset of genes related to phagocytosis , adherens , and tight junctions . conclusion .
rpe cultures stored at 4c and 16c for one week are capable of maintaining the expression levels of genes important for key rpe functions close to control levels . |
6,102 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: ewing 's sarcoma ( es ) is a rare malignant small round cell tumor that primarily affects the skeletal system .
it accounts for 4 to 10% of all types of bone cancer , with long bones and pelvis being the most common locations .
it affects mainly adolescents and young adults and is rarely seen before the age of 5 and after the age of 30 .
clinically , this tumor has an aggressive behavior characterized by rapid growth and high probability of micrometastasis at diagnosis .
an 11-year - old girl presented to department of oral and maxillofacial surgery , yenepoya dental college and hospital , deralakatte , mangalore , with the complaint of swelling on the left side of the face [ figure 1 ] .
the swelling started 6 months back which gradually enlarged to present size . on examination ,
extra orally a diffuse swelling was seen on left side of face which extended superiorly up to ala tragus line , anteriorly from about 2 cm posterior to commisure of mouth to angle of the mandible .
intra oral examination revealed mixed dentition and swelling extending from left mandibular canine to left mandibular second molar [ figure 2 ] . on palpation ,
bi - digital palpation revealed expansion of the buccal plate , no perforation of buccal / lingual cortex and no paresthesia of mucosa or lower lip were seen .
grade iii mobility was seen on all the teeth from left mandibular canine to left mandibular second molar , which were non tender on percussion .
the intra oral periapical radiograph shows radiolucency near the mandibular teeth [ figure 3 ] .
intra oral periapical radiograph showing radiolucency near the mandibular teeth the ct scan findings revealed the following : an ill - defined expansile cystic lesion was seen in the body of the mandible on left side and also thinning and erosion of buccal cortex was also noticed [ figure 4 ] .
the results of hematological and biochemical investigations were within normal limits . under local anesthesia , extraction of the mobile teeth left mandibular first molar was performed and the... | ewing 's sarcoma is a malignant tumor of bones that primarily affects children and young adults .
the true origin of this small round cell lesion still remains controversial .
it was originally described by james ewing in 1921 as arising from undifferentiated osseous mesenchymal cells ; however , recent studies suggest that ewing 's tumor might be neuroectodermally derived from various degrees of differentiation of the primitive neural tissues
. this paper reports a rare case of es of the mandible in an 11-year - old girl , which had been previously misdiagnosed and treated as a dental abscess . in the clinical examination , a hard immobile expansive mass of 2 cm diameter
was observed on the left side of the mandible .
radiographic examination revealed a diffuse radiolucent lesion with ill - defined borders and wide vestibular bone plate destruction .
microscopically , the tumor was composed by monotonous small round cells that exhibited immunoreactivity for cd99 , vimentin and desmin .
surgical resection of mandible followed by mandibular reconstruction was adopted .
the patient was subjected to multiagent chemotherapy with vincristine [ vc ] , dactinomycin [ ac ] , cyclophosphamide [ cp ] and doxorubicin [ ad ] ) . |
6,103 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: true metastases from solid tumors in lung , skin ( melanoma ) , gastrointestinal tract , kidney , testes , and endocrine glands are reported only in 0.2% of all surgical prostatic specimens and 2.9% of all male postmortems .
lung is the most common primary site of metastases to the prostate . in all series direct spread of bladder carcinoma
clinical context , morphological features , and immunohistochemical localization of prostate specific antigen ( psa ) are supposed to clarify the differential diagnosis between a secondary and a primary tumor .
we report an unusual and rare case of secondary signet ring cell carcinoma ( srcc ) of prostate in which the clinical data pointed toward the diagnosis of a primary srcc .
signet ring cell morphology was also not helpful as incidence of primary srcc was more than that of secondary srcc in prostate .
immunohistochemistry ( ihc ) for psa not only proved the case to be a secondary srcc but also initiated the process for diagnosis of the occult primary malignancy in the patients stomach .
a 74-year - old male patient presented with frequency of micturition , dysuria , and features of urinary outlet obstruction developing progressively over a period of last 3 months .
he was a smoker , occasional drinker , and complained of no other features of clinical interest except infrequent dyspepsia .
transrectal ultrasonography showed grade iii prostatomegaly measuring 5.54.24.8 cm ( 58 g ) , with suspicious hypoechoic areas in the peripheral zone and residual urine of 80 ml .
serum total psa level was 9.71 ng / ml and free - to - total psa ratio was 10.8 . on digital rectal examination
the prostate was elastic , slightly hard , painless , and with prominent retroprostatic sulci .
cystoscopic examination found no primary abnormality of the bladder and extensive transurethral resection of prostate ( turp ) was performed under anesthesia with resultant specimen measuring 45 g. histopathology revealed nests and singly infiltrating poorly differentiated , hyperchromatic , pleomorphic... | true metastases to prostate from solid tumors are reported only in 0.2% of all surgical prostatic specimens and 2.9% of all male postmortems .
clinical context , morphological features , and immunohistochemical localization of prostate specific antigen ( psa ) are supposed to clarify the differential diagnosis between a secondary and a primary tumor .
we report an unusual and rare case of secondary signet ring cell carcinoma ( srcc ) of prostate in which the clinical data and signet ring cell morphology pointed toward the diagnosis of a primary srcc .
immunohistochemistry ( ihc ) for psa not only proved the case to be a secondary srcc but also initiated the process for diagnosis of the occult primary malignancy in the patients stomach . |
6,104 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: spasm of esophagus is often suggested as the cause of unexplained chest pain or dysphagia .
once cardiovascular disease and structural disease have been excluded , esophageal manometry should be performed to detect motility disorders as the cause of symptoms.1 diffuse esophageal spasm ( des ) is an uncommon motility disorder of unknown etiology in which has been offered as a possible cause for the patient 's dysphagia or chest pain .
manometric evaluation of the esophagus is considered to be the gold standard in patients suspected with des.1 the most accepted diagnostic criteria for des is the presence of simultaneous contractions in at least 20% of wet swallows , intermixed with normal peristaltic sequences.2 recently , the development of high - resolution manometry ( hrm ) and topographical displays has yielded new perspectives and insights into esophageal motor functions.3 - 5 hrm helps to differentiate true esophageal spasm from rapid elevation of the intra - bolus pressure due to focal dysmotility or obstruction . applying this distinction makes the diagnosis of des very rare.4,5 we diagnosed a female patient with dysphagia and chest pain which were triggered by swallowing a large amount of water as des on multiple rapid swallowing testing during hrm .
a 52-year old female patient was admitted to our hospital with complaints of intermittent dysphagia and chest pain for 1 year .
she had symptoms on the lower substernal area when swallowing a large amount of water , which were accompanied by chest pain .
chest pain was a sharp and non - radiating and was relieved by transports of swallowed water to the stomach .
these symptoms only occurred when guzzling water and not by taking a sip of water or eating .
she was of normal body weight and had no abnormalities on chest and abdominal physical examination .
endoscopy of the upper digestive tract was performed in other hospitals , but there were no abnormal mucosal lesions .
then she was referred to our hospital for further investigation on dysphagia and chest... | diffuse esophageal spasm ( des ) is an uncommon motility disorder of unknown etiology in which the abnormal motility has been offered as a possible cause for the patient 's dysphagia or chest pain .
esophageal manometry is the gold standard for the diagnosis of des and the diagnostic hallmark is identification of simultaneous contractions in at least 20% of wet swallows , alternating with normal peristalsis .
recently , a new diagnostic technique , high - resolution manometry has been reported to improve the accuracy and detail in describing esophageal function .
we report a female patient with intermittent dysphagia and chest pain occurring only when swallowing a large amount of water .
on hrm , this patient had esophageal spasms , increased pressurization front velocity attributable to rapid contractile wave front , associated with symptoms , which were provoked by a multiple rapid swallowing test , and thereby was diagnosed with des . |
6,105 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: for the 53 selected cases , 28 right and left bone marrow samples were allocated to the edta ( sigma - aldrich , st .
louis , mo , usa ) protocol and hcl ( calci - clear rapid , national diagnostics , atlanta , ga , usa ) protocol , respectively .
samples from the 25 remaining cases were assigned to the rdo gold ( rdo ) group ( apex engineering products corporation , aurora , il , usa ) protocol and hcl protocol .
concentration , processing time , and temperature are summarized in table 1 . to test dna quality ,
five cases were randomly selected from each of the three groups ( edta , hcl , and rdo ) .
dna was extracted , and the quantity and quality were confirmed using nanodrop nd-2000 spectrophotometer ( thermo fisher scientific inc . , waltham , ma , usa ) .
the braf pna clamping method ( panagene , daejeon , korea ) and comparison with ct values of internal controls were used to evaluate the efficacy of polymerase chain reaction ( pcr ) dna amplification . to evaluate the efficacy of dna in situ hybridization , her2 dual color silver in situ hybridization ( ventana , tucson , az , usa )
rna in situ hybridization and immunohistochemical studies were performed prospectively . according to the potential differential diagnoses for suspicious lesions observed within bone marrow , appropriate rna probes or protein antibodies were applied . for immunohistochemistry ,
the following primary antibodies were used and the details are summarized in table 2 : cyclin d1 , ki67 , bcl2 , bcl6 , tdt , cd138 , cd20 , cd79a , cd3 , cd5 , cd23 , cd10 , cd30 , and myeloperoxidase . to state the process , after deparaffinization and rehydration
, the sections were incubated in benchmark xt automated slide stainer ( ventana ) for 16 minutes at 37c and then counterstained with hematoxylin reagent .
two pathologists reviewed the hematoxylin and eosin ( h&e ) , immunohistochemistry , and in situ hybridization slides .
the quality of immunohistochemistry and rna in situ hybridization were assessed using a 3-tiered grading scale :... | background : the conventional method for decalcification of bone specimens uses hydrochloric acid ( hcl ) and is notorious for damaging cellular rna , dna , and proteins , thus complicating molecular and immunohistochemical analyses . a method that can effectively decalcify while preserving genetic material
is necessary.methods:pairs of bilateral bone marrow biopsies sampled from 53 patients were decalcified according to protocols of two comparison groups : edta versus hcl and rdo gold ( rdo ) versus hcl .
pairs of right and left bone marrow biopsy samples harvested from 28 cases were allocated into the edta versus hcl comparison group , and 25 cases to the rdo versus hcl comparison group .
the decalcification protocols were compared with regards to histomorphology , immunohistochemistry , and molecular analysis . for molecular analysis
, we randomly selected 5 cases from the edta versus hcl and rdo versus hcl groups.results:the decalcification time for appropriate histomorphologic analysis was the longest in the edta method and the shortest in the rdo method .
edta was superior to rdo or hcl in dna yield and integrity , assessed via dna extraction , polymerase chain reaction , and silver in situ hybridization using dna probes .
the edta method maintained intact nuclear protein staining on immunohistochemistry , while the hcl method produced poor quality images .
staining after the rdo method had equivocal results .
rna in situ hybridization using kappa and lambda rna probes measured rna integrity ; the edta and rdo method had the best quality , followed by hcl.conclusions:the edta protocol would be the best in preserving genetic material .
rdo may be an acceptable alternative when rapid decalcification is necessary . |
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