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6,106 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the presence and modulation of neuronal responses within specific time and frequency bands has been implicated in the implementation of perception and cognition within the brain .
there is also increasing evidence that the most plausible mechanism for the generation of temporally organized network activity is in reciprocally connected neuronal networks containing mixtures of interconnected glutamatergic ( excitatory ) pyramidal and stellate cells , and gabaergic ( inhibitory ) interneurons ( bartos et al , 2007 ; traub et al , 1996 ) .
however , the neuropharmacological bases of the spatially summated , population - level , neurophysiological responses ( both evoked and induced ) that are recorded non - invasively in humans with magnetoencephalographic / electroencephalographic ( meg / eeg ) are largely unknown . in a recent observational study we found that , across individuals , the frequency of stimulus - induced network gamma oscillations in primary visual cortex was positively correlated with the concentration of gaba measured with edited magnetic resonance spectroscopy ( mrs ) ( muthukumaraswamy et al , 2009 ) .
however , mrs is an indirect measure of synaptic gaba function and could be influenced by a number of anatomical , biochemical / metabolic , or even genetic factors . in this experiment
, we wished to test the hypothesis that modulation of endogenous gaba levels would modify either the amplitude or frequency of stimulus - related gamma oscillations in human visual cortex . to do this
, we manipulated endogenous gaba levels using the drug tiagabine in a set of healthy control participants in a single - blind crossover design .
tiagabine , used in the treatment of epilepsy , binds with high affinity and selectivity to gaba transporter 1 ( gat-1 ; borden et al , 1994 ) , the primary gaba reuptake transporter in the human cerebral cortex ( conti et al , 2004 ) .
gat-1 transporters are located on both neurons and glia ( minelli et al , 1995 ) and their presence at fast - inhibitory gabaa synapses... | the electroencephalographic / magnetoencephalographic ( eeg / meg ) signal is generated primarily by the summation of the postsynaptic currents of cortical principal cells . at a microcircuit level , these glutamatergic principal cells are reciprocally connected to gabaergic interneurons .
here we investigated the relative sensitivity of visual evoked and induced responses to altered levels of endogenous gabaergic inhibition . to do this , we pharmacologically manipulated the gaba system using tiagabine , which blocks the synaptic gaba transporter 1 , and so increases endogenous gaba levels . in a single - blinded and placebo - controlled crossover study of 15 healthy participants , we administered either 15 mg of tiagabine or a placebo .
we recorded whole - head meg , while participants viewed a visual grating stimulus , before , 1 , 3 and 5 h post tiagabine ingestion . using beamformer source localization , we reconstructed responses from early visual cortices .
our results showed no change in either stimulus - induced gamma - band amplitude increases or stimulus - induced alpha amplitude decreases .
however , the same data showed a 45% reduction in the evoked response component at 80 ms .
these data demonstrate that , in early visual cortex the evoked response shows a greater sensitivity compared with induced oscillations to pharmacologically increased endogenous gaba levels .
we suggest that previous studies correlating gaba concentrations as measured by magnetic resonance spectroscopy to gamma oscillation frequency may reflect underlying variations such as interneuron / inhibitory synapse density rather than functional synaptic gaba concentrations . |
6,107 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: through the process
of natural selection , nature has evolved well - adapted
macromolecular structures that interact with biological small molecules .
oxidoreductases , for example , rely on the nicotinamide coenzymes to
supply them with the redox equivalents required to sustain their catalytic
cycles .
two forms of natural coenzymes exist : the phosphorylated ( nadp / nadph ) and nonphosphorylated ( nad / nadh ) forms
( figure 1a ) .
nicotinamide
coenzymes essentially contain two structural motifs , the nicotinamide
moiety conferring their electrochemical function ( i.e. , serving as
an electron source or sink in the form of a hydride ) and the adenosine
dinucleotide moiety conferring the separation between anabolic and
catabolic pathways .
nadp is involved in anabolic redox processes ,
whereas nad is mostly found in processes dealing with energy metabolism .
while this separation between different metabolic pathways is essential
for cellular survival , it is irrelevant in chemical applications of
redox enzymes . therefore , there is a renewed interest in the design
of simple synthetic analogues of the natural nicotinamide coenzymes .
the laboratory - based design and synthesis of small molecule biomimetics
that can functionally substitute ( or even outperform ) those available
in nature is a major challenge .
the development of biomimetics that
can be synthesized easily and exploited widely would be a game changer
in establishing new manufacturing technologies that would be too expensive
using natural biological molecules .
the natural coenzymes nad(p)h
are prohibitively expensive and chemically too unstable for stoichiometric
use in fine and specialty chemicals manufacture .
this has prevented
their general uptake as a source of reducing equivalents in biocatalytic
oxidoreductase - catalyzed reactions and has led to the development
of in situ regeneration systems to replenish nad(p)h ( e.g. , using
enzymatic , photochemical , and electrochemical... | the search for affordable , green
biocatalytic processes is a challenge
for chemicals manufacture .
redox biotransformations are potentially
attractive , but they rely on unstable and expensive nicotinamide coenzymes
that have prevented their widespread exploitation .
stoichiometric
use of natural coenzymes is not viable economically , and the instability
of these molecules hinders catalytic processes that employ coenzyme
recycling . here
, we investigate the efficiency of man - made synthetic
biomimetics of the natural coenzymes nad(p)h in redox biocatalysis .
extensive studies with a range of oxidoreductases belonging to the
ene reductase family show that these biomimetics are
excellent analogues of the natural coenzymes , revealed also in crystal
structures of the ene reductase xena with selected biomimetics .
in
selected cases , these biomimetics outperform the natural coenzymes .
better - than - nature
biomimetics should find widespread
application in fine and specialty chemicals production by harnessing
the power of high stereo- , regio- , and chemoselective redox biocatalysts
and enabling reactions under mild conditions at low cost . |
6,108 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: when upgrading a material from a low value to a higher value , two main issues need to be considered : the type of potential end - product(s ) and the required properties .
this study focuses on the extrusion of protein - based plastics for potential use in packaging for two reasons .
the present variety of packages is extensive , but the request for renewable and biodegradable low - cost packaging material has increased rapidly in the last decade . this trend seems to be continuing , as most brand owners and legislators are searching for options to create plastics from petroleum .
the required material properties for packaging are , in many cases , more demanding than for other plastic products . however
the exact criteria differ depending on the type of package , filling / sealing systems , transport , storage , content , appearance , product design , etc .
all these parameters should be considered by a packaging developer , but all can not be of the highest priority at once when initiating the development of a new and unexplored material . the properties in focus for this study were the mechanical and barrier performances .
extrusion is the processing method of choice for two reasons : extrusion is a common and efficient method for making packaging plastics , and it generally does not involve a solvent , as in solution casting . thus , no drying step is needed at the end of the process .
it has shown potential as a packaging plastic in a number of studies . despite this , some challenges remain .
crambe abyssinica is an interesting oilseed plant in that it is not a food resource and can be grown in many different agronomic conditions . as with wheat gluten ,
it is obtained as a defatted crambe meal , with protein as the largest component .
it also contains a sizeable amount of nitrogen - free extracts , such as carbohydrates and fiber .
the meal has relatively poor cohesive properties and needs to be blended with a material of higher cohesion . in this study ,
wheat gluten is used as a supportive additive... | crambe abyssinica is a plant with potential for use in industrial ( non - food ) plant oil production .
the side stream from this oil production is a high - protein crambe meal that has limited value , as it is not fit for food or feed use .
however , it contains proteins that could potentially make it a suitable raw material for higher - value products .
the purpose of this study was to find methods of making this side stream into extruded films , showing that products with a higher value can be produced .
the study mainly considered the development of material compositions and methods of preparing and extruding the material .
wheat gluten was added as a supportive protein matrix material , together with glycerol as a plasticizer and urea as a denaturant .
the extrudate was evaluated with respect to mechanical ( tensile testing ) and oxygen barrier properties , and the extrudate structure was revealed visually and by scanning electron microscopy . a denser , more homogeneous material had a lower oxygen transmission rate , higher strength , and higher extensibility .
the most homogeneous films were made at an extruder die temperature of 125 - 130 c .
it is shown here that a film can be extruded with promising mechanical and oxygen barrier properties , the latter especially after a final compression molding step . |
6,109 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the presentation of nb can range from localized tumors to disseminated forms , which have different prognoses and require different treatment .
therefore , determining the disease extent and stage at the time of diagnosis is important .
a number of genetic and biological markers have been investigated for detection of minimal levels of nb cells .
tyrosine hydroxylase ( th ) , which is mainly expressed in sympathetic nervous tissues , has been suggested as a candidate marker for detecting minimal levels of neuroblastoma cells in bone marrow ( bm ) and peripheral blood ( pb )
. molecular detection of th mrna using reverse transcription quantitative real - time polymerase chain reaction ( rt - qpcr ) has been proposed as a specific and sensitive method for detection of minimal disease in nb [ 5 - 8 ] . according to our preliminary reports
however , the number of patients was small and the follow - up duration was short . in the current study , we evaluated the significance of th expression in a larger cohort of patients with a longer follow - up period as well as the clinical implications of the level of th expression among th - positive patients .
written informed consent for th analysis was obtained at diagnosis from all patients or guardians .
this retrospective study was approved by the institutional review board ( irb ) of samsung medical center and the requirement for informed consent was waived ( irb 2014 - 12 - 090 ) .
medical records of all patients who were newly diagnosed with nb over a 10-year period from july 2005 to june 2015 were reviewed retrospectively .
patients were staged according to the international neuroblastoma staging system and disease extent was evaluated using computerized tomography ( ct ) , magnetic resonance imaging ( mri ) , technetium-99 bone scans , bilateral bm aspirates and biopsy specimens , and i- or i - metaiodobenzylguanidine ( mibg ) scanning .
mycn amplification was determined using competitive polymerase chain reaction ( pcr ) , rt - qpcr , or fluorescence in situ... | purposethe purpose of this study is to investigate the clinical significance of tyrosine hydroxylase ( th ) expression in peripheral blood ( pb ) at diagnosis in patients with neuroblastoma.materials and methodsth mrna expression in pb was measured by reverse transcription quantitative real - time polymerase chain reaction in 210 patients who were newly diagnosed with neuroblastoma from july 2005 to june 2015 and the clinical significance of th expression in pb at diagnosis was evaluated.resultsth expression was positive in 60 patients ( 28.6% ) .
fifty of 60 th - positive patients had metastatic tumors and the remaining 10 had localized tumors .
th expression was associated with high - risk features ( i.e. , advanced stage , older age , unfavorable pathology , and mycn amplification ) at diagnosis . among th - positive patients , higher th expression level
was observed in high - risk patients than in low- or intermediate - risk patients ( p=0.035 ) .
the probability of 5-year progression - free survival ( pfs ) was lower in th - positive patients than in th - negative patients ( 63.86.9% vs. 94.72.1% , p < 0.001 ) .
in analysis confined to high - risk patients , the 5-year probability of pfs remained lower in th - positive patients ( 55.78.2% vs. 89.65.8% , p < 0.001 ) . among th - positive patients , a higher expression level of th was associated with a worse outcome . in multivariate analyses ,
positive th expression in pb at diagnosis was an independent poor prognostic factor for pfs.conclusionthe treatment intensity should be tailored according to th expression in pb at diagnosis . |
6,110 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: in recent years , the increasing prevalence of infectious diseases resistant to chemotherapy has caused an urgent need to discover and develop new antibiotics . in this context ,
strain hhs.015 , isolated from roots of cucumber plants , belongs to saccharothrix actinomycete [ 1 , 2 ] .
the isolate showed a broad antimicrobial spectrum in vitro against plant pathogenic ( e.g. , valsa ceratosperma and phytophthora capsici ) and nonplant pathogenic fungi , for example , candida vulgaris . in field experiments ,
fermentation supernatant of hhs.015 showed effective biocontrol to tomato leaf mould caused by fulvia fulva and apple tree valsa canker caused by valsa ceratosperma .
up to date , many bioactive secondary metabolites have been reported from cultures of saccharothrix .
these metabolites are characterised by diverse chemical structures and may be suitable because of their wide range of activity in agriculture to control fungal diseases in cultivated plants and domestic animals .
production of secondary metabolites by microorganisms differs qualitatively and quantitatively depending on the strains and species of microorganisms used as well as on their nutritional and cultural conditions . and
as fermentation moves into lower - value , higher - volume substrates , it becomes necessary to maximize the efficiency and minimize costs by using waste by - products to complete effectively with traditional high - value , low - volume compounds . in recent years , more and more attention was paid to agricultural pomaces such as apple pomace , wheat / rice bran , corn steep liquor , and peanut meal , for their use as raw materials in the production of high value products [ 1113 ] .
but utilization of these pomaces was limited due to low protein content and poor digestibility .
studies on optimization of the production of antimicrobial active compounds using agricultural pomaces have been reported comparatively seldom .
the objective of the present study was to produce an alternate culture medium using... | strain hhs.015 t ( saccharothrix yanglingensis sp . nov . ) , an antagonistic endophytic saccharothrix actinomycete isolated from roots of cucumber plants , exhibited a broad antimicrobial spectrum in vitro and was active as a biocontrol against plant diseases in field trials .
the ssy medium was used for production of antimicrobial metabolites by strain hhs.015 t . however
, this
medium is too expensive for large - scale production . in this study , an alternative culture medium , based on agricultural waste
products ( e.g. , apple pomace ) , was optimized .
the results showed that the alternative medium contained 15 g apple pomace , 4 g rapeseed meal , 0.1 g kh2po4 , and 0.6 g mgso47h2o in 1 l distilled water .
this medium reduced the material costs by 91.5% compared to ssy medium .
response surface methodology ( rsm ) was used to investigate the influence of environmental variables on production of compounds of antimicrobial metabolites .
the optimal conditions achieved were initial ph 7.0 , medium volume of 90 ml in 250 ml flasks , rotary speed of 100 rpm , temperature 25c , and
inoculation volume of 15.8% .
the antimicrobial activity was increased by 20% by optimizing the environmental parameters .
the results obtained allow an efficient production of components with antimicrobial activity by strain hhs.015 t on a large scale at low costs . |
6,111 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: it is also known as drumstick tree or horseradish tree ; the leaves are very beneficial and offer important source of beta - carotene , vitamin c , protein , iron , and potassium .
the m. oleifera plant is native to the indian subcontinent and has been used by the indians for almost 5000 years .
m. oleifera tree can grow well in the humid tropic or hot dry land and it can survive in harsh climatic condition including destitute soil [ 2 , 3 ] . the root , bark , gum , leaf , pods , flowers , seed , and seed oil are used in traditional medicine for treatment of various ailments .
the leaves , flowers , roots , gums , fruits , and seeds of m. oleifera are extensively used in the treatment of inflammation , cardiovascular dysfunction , liver disease , and hematological and renal malfunction [ 57 ] .
the leaves of m. oleifera ( g / g ) have the calcium four times that of milk , vitamin c seven times that of oranges , and potassium three times that of bananas , three times the iron of spinach , four times the vitamin a in carrots , and two times the protein in milk [ 8 , 9 ] .
studies have attributed the medicinal benefits of m. oleifera to its anti - inflammatory , antioxidant , and antipathogenic constituents [ 10 , 11 ] .
also , the strong antioxidant and scavenging ability of m. oleifera has been linked to chemoprevention of diseases like cancer .
research efforts have continued to unearth the medicinal and nutritional potential of m. oleifera in several significant ways .
the m. oleifera plant has been used as antispasmodic , stimulant , cough expectorant , and diuretic agent .
the use of m. oleifera as diuretic agent is applicable in the treatment of prostatitis , kidney stones , bladder ache , scalding urine , water retention , and obesity . in a separate study , the extract of m. oleifera showed antinephrotoxic effect against dmba - induced renal cancer . in a similar work by owolabi et al .
, , m. oleifera extracts reduced the severity of lead - induced nephrotoxicity . in furtherance of exploring and... | background . the moringa oleifera plant has been implicated for several therapeutic potentials . objective . to evaluate whether addition of m. oleifera to diet has protective effect against nickel - induced nephrotoxicity in rats
. methodology .
male wistar rats were assigned into six groups of five .
the rats were given oral exposure to 20 mg / kg nickel sulphate ( niso4 ) in normal saline and sustained on either normal diet or diets supplemented with moringa oleifera at different concentrations for 21 days .
24 hours after cessation of treatments , all animals were sacrificed under slight anesthesia .
the blood and kidney samples were collected for biochemical and histopathology analyses , respectively .
results .
niso4 exposure reduced the kidney - to - body weight ratio in rats and caused significant elevation in the levels of plasma creatinine , urea , and potassium .
also , the plasma level of sodium was decreased by niso4 exposure .
however , addition of m. oleifera to diets averted the nickel - induced alteration to the level of creatinine and urea .
the histopathology revealed damaged renal tubules and glomerular walls caused by niso4 exposure .
in contrast , the damages were ameliorated by the m. oleifera supplemented diets .
conclusion .
the addition of m. oleifera to diet afforded significant protection against nickel - induced nephrotoxicity . |
6,112 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: glycated hemoglobin ( hba1c ) has been considered as an important marker of long - term glycemic control . in the recent past ,
the american diabetes association has suggested the use of hba1c as diagnostic tool for prediabetes and diabetes .
a value between 5.7% and 6.5% represents prediabetes while a value 6.5% is considered as diabetes mellitus .
several factors other than glycemic status can influence hba1c levels , including altered red blood cell ( rbc ) turnover .
we hypothesize that hba1c levels may change due to altered thyroid status , possibly due to changes in rbc turnover .
therefore , we measured hba1c levels in hypothyroid and thyrotoxic individuals who do not have diabetes or prediabetes based on fasting and 2 h postglucose plasma glucose criteria .
we also followed up some of the patients and measured hba1c again after euthyroidism was achieved .
the objective of our study was to determine the effects of altered thyroid status on hba1c levels in individuals without diabetes , and with overt hyper - and hypo - thyroidism .
we would , thereafter , follow up the patients and see if such changes in hba1c are reversed after achieving euthyroid state .
the objective of our study was to determine the effects of altered thyroid status on hba1c levels in individuals without diabetes , and with overt hyper - and hypo - thyroidism .
we would , thereafter , follow up the patients and see if such changes in hba1c are reversed after achieving euthyroid state .
the study was carried out in department of endocrinology and metabolism , ipgme and r and sskm hospital , kolkata ; and was approved by the institutional ethics committee .
patients from both genders , between 18 and 60 years of age , who were diagnosed to have overt primary hypo- or hyper - thyroidism and were treatment naive , were recruited as cases .
overt primary hypothyroidism was defined as free t4 below the lower limit of normal range and thyroid stimulating hormone ( tsh ) more than 15 /ml .
hyperthyroidism was defined as free t4 and/or t3... | introduction : glycated hemoglobin ( hba1c ) can be altered in different conditions .
we hypothesize that hba1c levels may change due to altered thyroid status , possibly due to changes in red blood cell ( rbc ) turnover.objectives:the objective of this study was to determine the effects of altered thyroid status on hba1c levels in individuals without diabetes , with overt hyper- and hypo - thyroidism , and if present , whether such changes in hba1c are reversed after achieving euthyroid state.methods:euglycemic individuals with overt hypo- or hyper - thyroidism were selected .
age- and sex - matched controls were recruited .
baseline hba1c and reticulocyte counts ( for estimation of rbc turnover ) were estimated in all the patients and compared .
thereafter , stable euthyroidism was achieved in a randomly selected subgroup and hba1c and reticulocyte count was reassessed .
hba1c
values and reticulocyte counts were compared with baseline in both the groups.results:hb a1c in patients initially selected was found to be significantly higher in hypothyroid group .
hba1c values in hyperthyroid patients were not significantly different from controls .
hba1c reduction and rise in reticulocyte count were significant in hypothyroid group following treatment without significant change in glucose level .
hb a1c did not change significantly following treatment in hyperthyroid group .
the reticulocyte count , however , decreased significantly.conclusion:baseline hba1c levels were found to be significantly higher in hypothyroid patients , which reduced significantly after achievement of euthyroidism without any change in glucose levels .
significant baseline or posttreatment change was not observed in hyperthyroid patients .
our study suggests that we should be cautious while interpreting hba1c data in patients with hypothyroidism . |
6,113 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: zinc is an essential trace element required for the growth of humans and other animals.13 prasad et al1 described a syndrome characterized by dwarfism , hypogonadism , hepatosplenomegaly and zinc - deficiency . in later years , besides iran , it has been reported from egypt , turkey , portugal , morocco , yugoslavia , and other developing countries.46 these reports represent awareness only in diagnosing overt cases , rather than the actual worldwide incidence of zinc deficiency.7 zinc - deficiency in humans and animals causes a wide variety of symptoms , including impaired growth , alopecia , anemia , dwarfism , impaired sexual development , geophagia , dermatitis , loss of hair , poor appetite , abnormal dark adaptation , delayed wound healing and mental lethargy.17 to our knowledge , although a few of the general symptoms of zinc - deficiency have been reported in the studies published so far,19 its effects on the craniofacial structures have not been thoroughly described.10,11 in this study we attempted to investigate the effects of low levels of zinc intake on the dental , mandibular , maxillary and cranial dimensions of the rats , and to review the related literature .
this investigation was carried out at the physiology animal laboratory of medical school ( ataturk university , erzurum , turkey ) .
the study protocol was approved by the ethics committee of ataturk university faculty of dentistry . in the study , 14 sprague - dawley rats with cessation of lactation on the 24 day of birth were used .
rats were randomly divided into two groups : group i rats were fed with a zinc - deficient diet , and group ii rats ( controls ) with a zinc - containing diet ( table 1).12 the zinc - deficient diet was stored at 4.50.5c in plastic containers and handled with plastic containers , plastic gloves , and appropriate utensils to avoid contamination . the diet was placed in shallow glass food cups with stainless steel follow - through disks to reduce food spills .
the rats were kept individually in stainless steel... | objectivesthe aim of this study was to investigate the effects of low levels of zinc intake on the rat mandible and maxilla during growth and to compare these results with those of zinc - containing rats.methodsthe study was carried out on 14 sprague - dawley rats .
the rats were randomly divided into two groups .
group i rats were fed with a zn - deficient diet , and group ii rats with a zn - containing diet . at the end of the fourth week on the experimental diet ,
all the rats were killed and blood samples were taken .
serum zn levels were measured by atomic absorption spectrophotometry .
then , the skulls and mandibles were freed from soft tissues and measurements were made on the dry skulls , the mandibles , and teeth in both of the two groups.resultsthe zinc - deficient group showed a significantly lower value in dry skull , mandible , and teeth measurements when compared with those of the group ii.conclusionschanges in zinc intake might exert an effect on the growth of craniofacial structures . a low - zinc diet during adolescence might slow bone and teeth growth and enhance the risk of oral , periodontal , and orthodontic problems in later years . |
6,114 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: a longstanding computational theory attributes successful memory to a balance between two complementary functions mediated by the hippocampal dentate gyrus and ca3 regions , which receive input from layer ii neurons of the entorhinal cortex .
the model proposes that pattern separation , a function ascribed to the granule cells of the dentate gyrus , reduces mnemonic interference by encoding distinctive representations for similar input patterns , while pattern completion refers to the recovery of a prior representation from partial or degraded input , a function ascribed to the extensive recurrent collaterals of ca3 neurons ( mcclelland et al . , 1995 ; norman and o'reilly , 2003 ; o'reilly and mcclelland , 1994 ; treves and rolls , 1994 ) ; for a review see yassa and stark ( 2011 ) .
it has been proposed that such competing , yet complementary processes would minimize interference while maximizing storage capacity for episodic memories . empirical evidence consistent with this model
is supported by studies of the encoding properties of neurons in these brain regions in laboratory animals ( alme et al . , 2014 ; lee et al . ,
2004 ; leutgeb et al . , 2004 ; neunuebel and knierim , 2014 ) .
high - resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging ( fmri ) has also demonstrated alterations in fmri activation in the dg / ca3 regions consistent with such computational functions in the human brain ( bakker et al . , 2008 ; yassa et al . , 2010 , 2011a ) . in elderly human subjects ( compared to young adults ) and in patients with amci ( compared to age - matched controls ) , increased fmri bold activation was localized to the dg / ca3 region ( yassa et al .
, 2010 , 2011a ) , using a three - judgment memory task designed to tax pattern separation . in both cases ,
moreover , this condition was associated with reduced pattern separation and a shift to errors indicative of pattern completion . based on these findings
, we conducted a randomized controlled trial ( rct ) of the functional significance of excess fmri... | studies of individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment ( amci ) have detected hyperactivity in the hippocampus during task - related functional magnetic resonance imaging ( fmri ) .
such elevated activation has been localized to the hippocampal dentate gyrus / ca3 ( dg / ca3 ) during performance of a task designed to detect the computational contributions of those hippocampal circuits to episodic memory .
the current investigation was conducted to test the hypothesis that greater hippocampal activation in amci represents a dysfunctional shift in the normal computational balance of the dg / ca3 regions , augmenting ca3-driven pattern completion at the expense of pattern separation mediated by the dentate gyrus .
we tested this hypothesis using an intervention based on animal research demonstrating a beneficial effect on cognition by reducing excess hippocampal neural activity with low doses of the atypical anti - epileptic levetiracetam . in a within - subject design
we assessed the effects of levetiracetam in three cohorts of amci participants , each receiving a different dose of levetiracetam .
elevated activation in the dg / ca3 region , together with impaired task performance , was detected in each amci cohort relative to an aged control group .
we observed significant improvement in memory task performance under drug treatment relative to placebo in the amci cohorts at the 62.5 and 125 mg bid doses of levetiracetam .
drug treatment in those cohorts increased accuracy dependent on pattern separation processes and reduced errors attributable to an over - riding effect of pattern completion while normalizing fmri activation in the dg / ca3 and entorhinal cortex .
similar to findings in animal studies , higher dosing at 250 mg bid had no significant benefit on either task performance or fmri activation .
consistent with predictions based on the computational functions of the dg / ca3 elucidated in basic animal research , these data support a dysfunctional encoding mechanism... |
6,115 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: . they control gene expression by targeting the cleavage of cognate mrnas or by inhibiting their translation ( 13 ) .
therefore , when studying the biology of any organism , it is of utmost importance to quantify precisely the expression level of each particular microrna gene during organ development .
northern hybridization , microarray analysis , deep sequencing approaches and real - time quantitative pcr ( rt qpcr ) are standard techniques used to accomplish this task as described previously ( 47 ) .
the rt qpcr is considered a gold standard method in precise quantification of gene transcript levels ( 8) .
microrna genes that encode transcripts which are processed to the same or similar mature microrna species are grouped in families . in arabidopsis thaliana ,
the number of such family members varies between 1 ( e.g. mir163 , mir173 ) and 14 ( mir169 ) [ mirbase release 17 ( 9 ) ] .
microrna genes from the same family , although represented by identical or almost identical mature micrornas , differ considerably in gene organization and sequence . in many cases
it is only possible to observe the expression of all family members as a group , rather than the individual members due to the large sequence conservation when using northern hybridization or deep sequencing approaches .
however , individual members of a given microrna family may be expressed in different developmental stages or in response to various biotic / abiotic stimuli ( 1012 ) .
our resource contains information regarding the expression of 190 a. thaliana microrna genes at the level of primary microrna ( pri - mirna ) in different developmental stages obtained using a rt qpcr high - throughput platform .
many databases that store and allow access to microrna gene expression profiles from variety of organisms already exist [ e.g. ( 1318 ) ] , however , they have various limitations and restrictions .
one of the limitations includes the lack of tools and/or data for comparisons between developmental stages and various genes at the same time... | mirex is a comprehensive platform for comparative analysis of primary microrna expression data .
rt
qpcr - based gene expression profiles are stored in a universal and expandable database scheme and wrapped by an intuitive user - friendly interface .
a new way of accessing gene expression data in mirex includes a simple mouse operated querying system and dynamic graphs for data mining analyses .
in contrast to other publicly available databases , the mirex interface allows a simultaneous comparison of expression levels between various microrna genes in diverse organs and developmental stages .
currently , mirex integrates information about the expression profile of 190 arabidopsis thaliana pri - mirnas in seven different developmental stages : seeds , seedlings and various organs of mature plants . additionally , by providing rna structural models , publicly available deep sequencing results , experimental procedure details and careful selection of auxiliary data in the form of web links , mirex can function as a one - stop solution for arabidopsis microrna information .
a web - based mirex interface can be accessed at http://bioinfo.amu.edu.pl/mirex . |
6,116 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: [ 12 , 13 ] originally defined sarcopenia as being two standard deviations below the normal appendicular muscle mass divided by height squared , numerous groups have examined the prevalence of low muscle mass .
multiple techniques have been used to measure muscle mass , e.g. , dual - energy x - ray absorptiometry ( dexa ) , computed tomography , mri , ultrasound , bioelectrical impedance , and anthropometry . on the average ,
513 % of older persons over 60 years of age have low muscle mass , with the prevalence increasing to as high as 50 % in persons over the age of 80 years [ 11 , 14 ] .
normal aging is associated with approximately a 1 % loss of muscle from 30 years of age , and this loss tends to accelerate after the age of 70 years . in a recent study ,
. found that about 20 % of community - dwelling persons in italy had low muscle mass .
in korea , the prevalence of sarcopenia using the baumgartner criteria was 0.8 % in women and 1.3 % in men over 60 years of age . in barcelona ,
low lean mass was present in 33 % of elderly women and 10 % of males .
in taiwan , low muscle mass was present in 2.5 % of community - dwelling women and 5.4 % of males .
two medical conditions , stroke and hip fracture , rapidly lead to an increase in muscle loss [ 22 , 23 ] .
this appears to be due to disuse and inflammation , and in the case of stroke , denervation .
in addition , persons with diabetes mellitus have accelerated muscle loss [ 24 , 25 ] .
persons with muscle loss in combination with excess fat are considered to have obese sarcopenia [ 2628 ] .
using the european working group on sarcopenia in older people ( ewgsop ) definition , 4.6 % of males and 7.9 % of women in hertfordshire had sarcopenia . in japan ,
21.8 % of men and 22.9 % of women aged 65 to 89 years had sarcopenia . in a population of persons
80 years and older , 12.5 % had sarcopenia by the ewgsop definition . in nursing home residents ,
sarcopenic individuals had a greater than threefold increase in falls [ 21 , 37 ]... | sarcopenia is now defined as a decline in walking speed or grip strength associated with low muscle mass .
sarcopenia leads to loss of mobility and function , falls , and mortality .
sarcopenia is a major cause of frailty , but either condition can occur without the other being present .
sarcopenia is present in about 5 to 10 % of persons over 65 years of age .
it has multiple causes including disease , decreased caloric intake , poor blood flow to muscle , mitochondrial dysfunction , a decline in anabolic hormones , and an increase in proinflammatory cytokines .
basic therapy includes resistance exercise and protein and vitamin d supplementation .
there is now a simple screening test available for sarcopenia sarc - f .
all persons 60 years and older should be screened for sarcopenia and treated when appropriate . |
6,117 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: these herbs are relatively cheap and available , and their use depends on ancestral experience [ 1 - 3 ] .
medicinal plants represent a great deal of untapped reservoirs of drugs , and the structural diversity of their components make a valuable source of novel compounds [ 3 , 4 ] .
thus , there is a growing interest in the utilization of phytoceuticals and natural product scientists are intensifying efforts towards evaluation of these valuable medicinal plants .
one of the various families of herbs that has long been used worldwide in traditional medicine is loranthaceae [ 5 , 6 ] , which is formed by three distinct families : loranthaceae ( sensu strictu ) , viscaceae , and eremolepidaceae [ 7 , 8 ] . the members of loranthaceae are about 75 genera , and most of them are globally known as mistletoes [ 9 , 10 ] .
historically , the mistletoe , whose name is believed to be derived from the celtic word for all - heal , was used for a variety of treatments . among the recognized therapeutic properties of loranthaceae members
include antitumor actions [ 11 , 12 ] , cough treatment , headache treatment , uterus tightening following childbirth , and immunomodulatory [ 15 , 16 ] , antioxidant [ 16 - 19 ] , antiinflammatory [ 20 , 21 ] , antimicrobial [ 22 - 24 ] , antiviral , antidiarrhoeal [ 16 , 26 ] , anticancer [ 23 , 27 ] , antinociceptive , antipyretic , antihyperglycemic , and antidiabetic [ 16 , 18 , 28 , 29 ] activities and antihypertensive effects [ 30 - 32 ] .
however , despite its wide applicability , mistletoe is mainly used for its blood pressure ( bp ) lowering and gastrointestinal treatment properties .
chemical and pharmacological studies of some species of the loranthaceae family have identified different kinds of constituents , such as flavonoids [ 15 , 16 , 21 , 28 - 30 , 33 - 35 ] , alkaloids , lectins , and polypeptides [ 11 , 12 , 16 , 36 , 37 ] , arginine , histamine , polysaccharides [ 40 , 41 ] , tannins [ 16 , 28 , 29 ] , terpenoids and/or steroids [ 28 , 29 ] , acidic compounds [ 16 ,... | objectives : loranthus ferrugineus ( l. ferrugineus ) from loranthaceae , a mistletoe , is a medicinal herb used for a variety of human ailments . traditionally , decoctions of this parasitic shrub have been mainly used to treat high blood pressure ( bp ) and gastrointestinal complaints ; usage which is supported by experimental based pharmacological investigations . nonetheless , there is still limited data available evaluating this plant s traditions , and few studies have been scientifically translated toward evidence based phytomedicine .
we therefore provide a concise review of the currently available l. ferrugineus literature and discuss potential directions for future areas of investigation.methods:we surveyed available literature covering ethnopharmacological usage of l. ferrugineus and discussed relevant findings , including important future directions and shortcomings for the medicinal values of this parasitic shrub.results:evidence based pharmacological approaches significantly covered the medicinal application of l. ferrugineus for hypertension and gastrointestinal complaint management , with a particular focus on the active hydrophilic extract of this herb.conclusion:understanding the sites of action of this plant and its beneficial effects will provide justification for its use in old traditional treatments , and potentially lead to the development of therapies .
other medicinal applicative areas of this parasitic shrub , such as wound healing , gerontological effects , and antiviral and anticancer activities , are yet to be researched . |
6,118 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the flexion - relaxation phenomenon ( frp ) is the myoelectric silencing of a muscle during a
full - flexion maneuver1 .
the frp of the
erector spinae ( es ) muscles shows silencing during upright to full - flexion lumbar movement
in asymptomatic subjects .
the phenomenon involves the transfer of the role of the extension
moment producer to the deep back muscles to achieve spinal stability2 .
patients with low back pain ( lbp ) exhibit laxity of passive
structures and an altered neuromuscular activation pattern in the back muscles , in which the
frp of the es muscles is not present .
thus , the frp of es muscles has been used to evaluate
lbp and to monitor intervention - related factors after treatment3 .
previous studies have shown that frp occurs with full lumbar flexion in the sagittal plane .
however , asymptomatic and symptomatic subjects can produce asymmetric lumbar flexion by
lumbar flexion combined with lateral bending and axial rotation .
although most healthy
people do not have lbp , they have the potential for asymmetry in the frp in the right and
left es muscles due to repetitive movement and poor posture in their work environments or
daily activities .
ning et al.4 reported
that asymmetric lumbar flexion elicits a loss of the frp in the ipsilateral muscle in
asymptomatic subjects .
although 90% of non - lbp subjects show frp5 , many of them were at risk of lbp , because of asymmetry in
the frp of the es muscles .
currently , lbp patients perform various deep muscle strengthening exercises for lumbar
tissue , with pilates , sling exercises , and lumbar stabilization exercises being the most
common6 . lumbar stabilization exercises ,
especially the back bridge and hand - knee position , are the most effective at strengthening
the multifidus muscle7 .
marshall and
murphy et al.3 reported that a 12-week
exercise program ( side bridge , supine bridge , partial curl - up , bird - dog exercise , swiss ball
push - up , single leg hold , and rollouts )... | [ purpose ] this study evaluated the differences in the flexion - relaxation phenomenon ( frp )
of the right and left erector spinae muscles in asymptomatic subjects and the effect of
lumbar stabilization exercises on these differences . [ subjects and methods ] twenty - six
participants ( 12 in the exercise group and 14 in the control group ) with a difference in
the frp in the right and left erector spinae muscles were recruited from among healthy
students attending silla university .
the exercise group performed two lumbar stabilization
exercises ( back bridge exercise and hand - knee exercise ) for 4 weeks .
the control group did
not exercise .
[ results ] no significant group - by - exercise interaction was found .
the right
and left erector spinae muscles did show a difference in frp between the control and
exercise groups ( 119.2 69.2 and 131.1 85.2 ms , respectively ) .
in addition , the
exercise group showed a significant decrease in post - exercise ( 50.0 27.0 ms ) compared to
pre - exercise ( 112.3 41.5 ms ) differences in the right and left frp .
[ conclusion ] these
results suggest that lumbar stabilization exercises may counter asymmetry of the frp in
the erector spinae muscles , possibly preventing low back pain in the general
population . |
6,119 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: it is commonly reported in
( 1422% ) of population studies3 , however a
recent study found that 25% of employees report fatigue at work4 , 5 .
fatigue is characterized by progressive withdrawal of attention from the environment and
demands due to tiredness , dislike of the present activity , and unwillingness to continue , or
perform the task at hand6 , 7 .
also , physical resources and the depletion of emotional
resources are considered the basic parameters of feelings of being overextended and
emotionally exhausted8 .
it has been
reported that fatigued persons show decrements in vigilance when performing a particular
task via changes in vigilance , alertness , motivation , and subjective states that occur
during this transition9 .
previous studies have reported that both the sympathetic nervous system ( sns ) and the
hypothalamic - pituitary adrenocortical ( hpa ) axis are the most vital centers linking stressor
exposure to disease10 , 11 .
thus , significant increases in these hormones in line
with cortisol are associated with stressful situations , such as caregiving and work strain ,
which may be diagnosed as adrenal fatigue12,13,14 .
some studies have reported that the improvement of physical and psychological health is
related to physical activity which is considered an effective preventive measure and
treatment for stress - related diseases15,16,17 .
physically active people show higher resistance to physical stressors and nullifying
susceptibility to various influences of life stress18 , 19 , and physical activity has
protective effects on non physical stress , such as mental stress20 .
although the findings are not uniform21 ,
psychological stress protocols show lower responses of the sympathetic nervous system and
the hypothalamic - pituitary - adrenal ( hpa ) axis towards physical activity .
a lower cortisol
increase was reported in physically active subjects19 , as well as lower cardiovascular reactivity19 , 22 , and more rapid
cardiovascular recovery20... | [ purpose ] this research work was performed to examine whether different levels of
physical activity and environmental and social factors are associated with changes in
adrenal hormones as markers of adrenal fatigue in saudi adult volunteers .
[ subjects and
methods ] a total of 160 saudi adults aged 1522 years were included in this study . the
adrenal fatigue score , sociodemographic attributes , and the level of physical activity
were evaluated via pre - validated internet - based questionnaire surveys .
adrenal hormones
such as acth and cortisol were measured using immunoassay techniques .
[ results ]
significant increases in the levels of acth and cortisol biomarkers were found in the
participants with moderate to severe fatigue scores , poor environmental factors , and low
physical activity .
however , in physically active participants , significant decreases in
acth and cortisol levels were found with remarkable improvement in adrenal fatigue status .
the decrement in adrenal hormonal levels positively correlated ( r= 0.976 ) with the
improvement in adrenal fatigue status in the physically active participants .
[ conclusion ]
our results suggest that the level of physical activity and environmental and social
factors differentially influence the adrenal fatigue status via changes in the levels of
adrenal hormones
. also , acth and cortisol biomarkers may be useful as markers measuring
the severity of adrenal fatigue . |
6,120 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: bendamustine is an anticancer drug , which has recently evolved as an important agent for a number of lymphoid malignancies in europe and the usa .
the drug consists of an alkylating nitrogen mustard group bound to a purine - like benzimidazole ring , and because of this unique bifunctional structure the bendamustine activity profile is significantly different from classical alkylators .
although the precise mechanism of action has not been elucidated yet , it is known that bendamustine induces dna cross - linking and dna breaks and induces cell death by apoptosis through intrinsic and extrinsic pathways , which in turn may deregulate the cell cycle and lead to a
preclinical studies and clinical observations suggest that bendamustine has limited cross - resistance with other alkylating agents and demonstrates significant synergism with anti - cd20 monoclonal antibody rituximab and purine analogues [ 2 , 3 ] .
based on two multicentre randomised studies , bendamustine has received approval for second - line therapy in relapsed / refractory indolent non - hodgkin lymphoma ( nhl ) [ 4 , 5 ] .
a growing body of evidence suggests good efficacy and acceptable tolerability of bendamustine as the first - line option for indolent lymphoma , mantle cell lymphoma ( mcl ) and selected patients with aggressive lymphoma .
this review presents data for bendamustine use in first - line therapy of nhl , taken from all available relevant articles published in the years 20062013 , supplemented with abstracts from recent haematology and oncology scientific meetings .
a summary of available data , source publications and conference abstracts is presented in tables 1 and 2.table 1bendamustine in first - line treatment for indolent or mantle cell lymphoma prospective studiesstudypatients ( n)diagnosisorr % cr % pfsrefbop versus cop prospective phase iiiherold 2006164fl , lpl , mcl66 versus 7622 versus 205 yrs : 59 % versus 46 %
8
br versus chopr prospective phase iiirummel 2013 stil study549fl , mcl , lpl , mzl , sll93... | recently , bendamustine has become an important agent in the treatment for patients with lymphoid malignancies .
although the drug has received approval for second - line therapy in indolent lymphoma , a growing body of evidence suggests its efficacy and safety in first - line use .
the results of randomised and observational studies with bendamustine as front - line therapy in non - hodgkin lymphoma ( nhl ) with emphasis on efficacy and toxicity are presented .
furthermore , completed and ongoing clinical trials evaluating upfront bendamustine effectiveness in combination with other agents are discussed .
the review refers mainly to indolent lymphoma , mantle cell lymphoma and aggressive lymphoma , as the most commonly diagnosed nhl types .
finally , we elaborated on the safety profile of bendamustine and the perspectives of using the drug as a first - line therapy . |
6,121 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: tpx2 ( targeting protein for the xenopus kinesin xklp2 ) is a protein essential for spindle assembly and chromosome interaction with microtubules .
tpx2 level of expression is critical for spindle function , and altered expression is associated with aneuploidy and cancer . in agreement with a previous report
, we show that tpx2 is undetectable in oocytes in prophase and accumulates during maturation to mii ( fig .
it has been proposed that the absence of tpx2 accumulation in prophase is due to protein degradation through apc / cdh1 .
indeed , little change in tpx2 mrna translation occurs during the early phases of oocyte maturation , but the late tpx2 accumulation is associated with an increased translation .
surprisingly , we found that tpx2 protein accumulation is not only dependent on the stage of the meiotic cell cycle .
significant differences in tpx2 protein levels were observed when comparing mii oocytes matured in vivo with those matured in vitro in association with somatic cells , or those matured in vitro after being denuded .
this initial finding suggests that tpx2 accumulation is sensitive to the environment in which the oocyte matures .
to investigate whether cumulus cells , the somatic cells surrounding the oocyte , play a role in the translation of maternal mrnas and protein synthesis , we developed an in vitro model that preserves the somatic environment in which the oocyte matures .
translational reporters were constructed and injected into oocytes still surrounded by cumulus cells ( cumulus cell - enclosed oocyte , ceo ) ( fig .
this model enables monitoring translation of selected maternal mrna in oocytes that maintain contact with cumulus cells .
furthermore , translation rates in ceos can be compared to those measured in denuded oocytes ( dos ) , which are no longer exposed to somatic signals .
reporter constructs with luciferase orfs under the control of 3utrs of tpx2 or dazl , an rna binding protein essential for gametogenesis , were injected into ceos .
translation rates of these... | germ cells divide and differentiate in a unique local microenvironment under the control of somatic cells .
signals released in this niche instruct oocyte reentry into the meiotic cell cycle . once initiated , the progression through meiosis and the associated program of maternal mrna translation are thought to be cell - autonomous .
here we show that translation of a subset of maternal mrnas critical for embryo development is under the control of somatic cell inputs .
translation of specific maternal transcripts increases in oocytes cultured in association with somatic cells and is sensitive to egf - like growth factors that act only on the somatic compartment . in mice deficient in amphiregulin ,
decreased fecundity and oocyte developmental competence is associated with defective translation of a subset of maternal mrnas .
these somatic cell signals that affect translation require activation of the pi3k / akt / mtor pathway .
thus , mrna translation depends on somatic cell cues that are essential to reprogram the oocyte for embryo development . |
6,122 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: tethered cord syndrome ( tcs ) is a well - known clinical entity and is characterized by motor and sensorial changes in the legs , back pain , foot deformities , urinary dysfunction and spinal deformity .
scoliosis can be a unique and leading sign of tcs.1 in the classic description of tcs by hoffman et al.,2 scoliosis was a prominent manifestation in 10 of 31 patients .
recent reports have suggested that scoliosis is more frequent than thought in tcs and additionally mclone et al . demonstrated that scoliosis may be the first sign of tcs.1234 pathological entities of the neural tube like meningoceles , lipomyelomeningoceles , myelomeningoceles , split cord malformation , dermal sinus tract , thickened filum and others may be the cause of tethering.5 yamada et al
. showed that longitudinal stretching of the spinal cord interferes with the mitochondrial oxidative metabolism and can result in motor and sensory changes in the lower limbs , incontinence and musculoskeletal deformities including neuromuscular scoliosis.6 in the simplest form , the spinal cord can be tethered by a thickened filum ( > 2 mm ) with a low conus medullaris ( at or below l2l3 level ) without other forms of spinal dysraphism .
however , the spinal cord can even be tethered by a filum terminale with normal appearance and a normal level conus medullaris.789 it is known that the majority of patients with scoliosis ( 8090% ) are idiopathic because an underlying clinical or radiological cause has not been determined . according to the scoliosis research society , the prevalence of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is 2% to 3% in the general population.10 tethered cord may be the most important and relatively easily treatable primary disease for associated scoliosis .
releasing the tethered spinal cord in these patients may stabilize or even reverse the progression of scoliosis .
in addition , untethering aims to improve neuromuscular function even in patients that need surgical correction of scoliosis.11121314 the aim of this study is to... | background : tethered cord syndrome ( tcs ) is a progressive clinical entity that arises from abnormal spinal cord tension .
scoliosis may be a unique symptom in tcs .
the aim of this study is to investigate prognosis after releasing the filum terminale in scoliosis due to tcs with / without findings in magnetic resonance imaging ( mri ) and to draw attention to the importance of somatosensorial evoked potentials ( ssep ) on the differential diagnosis of idiopathic scoliosis versus scoliosis due to tcs with normal appearance of filum terminale and conus medullaris.materials and methods : eleven female and seven male patients with progressive scoliosis were included in the study .
they were evaluated radiologically , ssep and urodynamical studies .
preoperative and postoperative anteroposterior full spine x - rays were obtained for measuring the cobb 's angle .
mri was performed in all cases for probable additional spinal abnormalities .
all patients underwent filum terminale sectioning through a l5 hemilaminectomy .
the resected filum terminale were subjected to histopathological examination.results:the mean cobb angle was 31.6 ( range 1845 ) .
eight patients ( 44.45% ) had a normal appearance of filum terminale and normal level conus medullaris in mri , but conduction delay and/or block was seen on ssep . in the histopathological examination of filum terminale dense collagen fibers , hyaline degeneration and loss of elastic fibers were observed .
postoperatively none of the patients showed worsening of the cobb angle .
three patients showed improvement of scoliosis.conclusion:in tcs presented with scoliosis , untethering must be performed prior to the corrective spinal surgery .
absence of mri findings does not definitely exclude tcs .
ssep is an important additional guidance in the diagnosis of tcs .
after untethering , a followup period of 6 months is essential to show it untethering helps in stopping the progress of the scoliotic curve . in spite of non progression ( curve... |
6,123 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: medical archives is the oldest medical journal in bosnia and herzegovina ( b&h ) ( founded in 1947 . ) .
a total of 104 articles were published in medical archives during 2015 . analyzing the type of articles , original articles are present in majority during 201580.7% ( in last seven years , 561 ( 76% ) were original out of 738 ) .
in last seven years , 651 ( 88.2% ) articles were from the field of clinical medicine ( preclinical disciplines , in the last three years are more represented than in previous years ) .
articles written in collaboration of five authors ( 21.1 % ) are found to be predominant . from year to year , most often required time for a decision on acceptance or on the revision prior acceptance is between 50 and 60 days ( 30% of cases in 2015 ) . during 2015 , 47.1% of articles were originally from b&h ( eleven countries were represented ) .
h index of medical archive for 2014 was 12 , and does not vary during the last decade .
in 2015 in b&h about twenty - five journals are issued in the field of biomedical and life sciences in general ( six are indexed on medline / pubmed , one is indexed in the science citation index expanded ( scie)/web of science base ) . according to googlescholar the biggest h5 index has bosnian journal of basic medical sciences ( bjbms ) and medical archives , while the biggest h5 median has bjbms i acta informatica medica . the highest h - index ( 13 ) in b&h has izet masic md , phd , enver zerem md , phd and semir vranic md , phd , while highest g - index ( 22 ) has enver zerem md , phd ( analyzed by software package publish or perish ) .
by comparing the state of medical publishing in b&h with neighboring countries ( croatia , serbia , montenegro ) , we have concluded that b&h is behind croatia and serbia by following parameters : total documents , total cites and h index but in front of montenegro .
the oldest medical journal in bosnia and herzegovina ( b&h ) was jahrbuch des bosnisch - herzegowinischen landesspitales in sarajevo
( annual of the national... | introduction : medical archives is the oldest medical journal in bosnia and herzegovina ( b&h ) ( founded in 1947 . ) .
a total of 104 articles were published in medical archives during 2015 . analyzing the type of articles , original articles are present in majority during 201580.7% ( in last seven years , 561 ( 76% ) were original out of 738 ) .
in last seven years , 651 ( 88.2% ) articles were from the field of clinical medicine ( preclinical disciplines , in the last three years are more represented than in previous years ) .
collaboration rate in 2015 was 0,92 .
articles written in collaboration of five authors ( 21.1 % ) are found to be predominant . from year to year , most often required time for a decision on acceptance or on the revision prior acceptance is between 50 and 60 days ( 30% of cases in 2015 ) . during 2015 , 47.1% of articles were originally from b&h ( eleven countries were represented ) .
h index of medical archive for 2014 was 12 , and does not vary during the last decade.findings:in 2015 in b&h about twenty - five journals are issued in the field of biomedical and life sciences in general ( six are indexed on medline / pubmed , one is indexed in the science citation index expanded ( scie)/web of science base ) . according to googlescholar the biggest h5 index has bosnian journal of basic medical sciences ( bjbms ) and medical archives , while the biggest h5 median has bjbms i acta informatica medica . the highest h - index ( 13 ) in b&h has izet masic md , phd , enver zerem md , phd and semir vranic md , phd , while highest g - index ( 22 ) has enver zerem md , phd ( analyzed by software package publish or perish).conclusion : by comparing the state of medical publishing in b&h with neighboring countries ( croatia , serbia , montenegro ) , we have concluded that b&h is behind croatia and serbia by following parameters : total documents , total cites and h index but in front of montenegro . |
6,124 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: cancer of the eyelid accounts for 5 - 10% of all skin cancers with 90% being basal cell carcinoma ( bcc ) .
post - operative radiotherapy is usually indicated depending upon the presence of high - risk features for recurrence .
positive surgical margins in primary bcc excisions in the head and neck region were reported to be 3 - 20% in the literature and recurrence rates in incompletely excised patients were reported at 26 - 67% as well . among the indian population , squamous and adenocarcinoma involving tarsal glands are more common , incidence ranging between 2.4% to 30.2% of all malignant eyelid tumours in various literatures .
they are more aggressive and invasive than basal cell carcinoma , and have a definite metastatic potential .
if treatment is delayed , they can invade the orbital and intracranial structures , and hence have a considerable potential for mortality and morbidity .
sebaceous carcinoma tends to affect patients at older age , mostly around fifth decade , with a female preponderance .
they arise from the meibomian glands of the eyelid and have a local recurrence rate around 30% including invasion of orbital contents and distant metastasis in 20% cases .
traditionally , surgical excision has been the mainstay of treatment in this group of patients .
moh 's micrographic surgery , cryosurgery , laser excision have been used with 5 year control rates in the range of 90% .
radiotherapy , mostly as external beam radiation is added in cases having high chances of local recurrence such as lymph nodal involvement , positive or close margin , perineural invasion , and poorly differentiated tumours [ 6 , 7 ] .
the major hindrance in application of post - operative external beam radiotherapy ( ebrt ) is the close association of vital structures of the globe and the thin skin around the eyelid .
radiation - induced ocular morbidity encompasses a spectrum from transient eyelid erythema to complete loss of vision , with or without loss of the globe [ 810 ] .
post - operative adjuvant interstitial... | purposeto analyse feasibility and safety of postoperative interstitial brachytherapy ( ibrt ) in patients of eyelid cancer treated primarily by surgical excision.material and methodsin this series , 8 patients with eyelid cancer were treated using postoperative interstitial brachytherapy .
patients were followed up for local control , cosmetic outcome , and acute and late toxicities .
cosmetic outcome was measured using a 6 point indigenous cosmesis after interstitial brachytherapy ( caib ) scale.resultsthe patients were between 23 - 82 years ( median : 71 years ) .
there were 3 females and 5 males , and 3 patients had lesions in upper eyelid .
postoperative high - dose - rate brachytherapy was used in all with 2 catheters implanted in most of them ( 6 out of 8) .
local control was calculated from end of treatment to last follow - up .
at last follow - up , all patients remained locally controlled .
two patients had nodal recurrence 6 months after interstitial brachytherapy and were salvaged effectively by external beam radiotherapy . at last follow - up , 7 patients were loco - regionally controlled and one was lost to follow up .
all patients had radiation therapy oncology group ( rtog ) grade 1 acute toxicity and 2 had grade 1 common terminology criteria for adverse events ( ctcae ) version.3 late toxicities .
the cosmesis score for the whole group ranged between 0 - 1 indicating excellent to very good cosmesis.conclusionspostoperative high - dose - rate brachytherapy resulted in excellent disease control and cosmesis without significant acute or late toxicities .
it is an effective modality for treatment of eyelid cancers in selected patients .
future prospective studies with the validation of caib scale would give us more insight to this effective yet often ignored modality of ibrt . |
6,125 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the way in which individuals respond to daily stressors is a determinant of reactivity of the sympathetic - adrenal - medullary ( sam ) and hypothalamic - pituitary - adrenal ( hpa ) axes and contributes to allostatic load . in order to fully understand the reactivity of these axes it is necessary to observe individuals while they are experiencing stress .
naturalistic stressors provide ecologically valid measurement opportunities ; however they can be expensive and lack control and standardisation . alternatively
, laboratory stressors allow for the controlled manipulation of stimuli and more specific assessment of the causal factors involved in psychobiological stress responding . a variety of laboratory stressors comprising cognitive challenge , public speaking
, emotion induction and interpersonal stress are used for this purpose ; however , these tasks typically serve no function outside of the laboratory ( chida and hamer , 2008 ) . to obtain a comprehensive snapshot of how an individual would respond to a stressor encountered in a real - life setting , laboratory stressors should have ecological validity and be representative of experiences in natural settings . such settings rarely involve exposure to a single stressor as modelled in the laboratory , but instead individuals typically deal with multiple sources of stress ( chida and hamer , 2008 ) .
ecologically valid stressors should therefore comprise multiple stimuli and be representative of the types of situations encountered in everyday life .
the multitasking framework ( wetherell and sidgreaves , 2005 ) comprises eight individual cognitive tasks and elicits stress via the manipulation of workload intensity by increasing the difficulty and number of tasks ( up to a maximum of four during one presentation ) that a user must attend and respond to .
although the multitasking framework does not simulate a specific environment , it comprises tasks that are required in many working environments , such as calculations , continuous visual and auditory... | in order to understand psychobiological responses to stress it is necessary to observe how people react to controlled stressors . a range of stressors exist for this purpose ; however , laboratory stressors that are representative of real life situations provide more ecologically valid opportunities for assessing stress responding .
the current study assessed psychobiological responses to an ecologically valid laboratory stressor involving multitasking and critical evaluation .
the stressor elicited significant increases in psychological and cardiovascular stress reactivity ; however , no cortisol reactivity was observed .
other socially evaluative laboratory stressors that lead to cortisol reactivity typically require a participant to perform tasks that involve verbal responses , whilst standing in front of evaluative others .
the current protocol contained critical evaluation of cognitive performance ; however , this was delivered from behind a seated participant .
the salience of social evaluation may therefore be related to the response format of the task and the method of evaluation .
that is , the current protocol did not involve the additional vulnerability associated with in person , face - to - face contact , and verbal delivery . critical evaluation of multitasking provides an ecologically valid technique for inducing laboratory stress and provides an alternative tool for assessing psychological and cardiovascular reactivity .
future studies could additionally use this paradigm to investigate those components of social evaluation necessary for eliciting a cortisol response . |
6,126 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: infectious adverse events after transrectal prostate biopsy ( tpbx ) have been increasing , and even septic and fatal cases have been reported .
fluoroquinolones have long been used for prophylactic administration owing to their good efficacy and high concentration in the prostate after dosing . however , especially in urinary tract infections ( utis ) , fluoroquinolone - resistant escherichia coli ( fqre ) has been rapidly increasing .
resistance ratios to levofloxacin ( lvfx ) have jumped up to 5% to 20% . because tpbx is increasingly used to detect prostate cancer , adverse events are a growing concern .
another resistant strain , extended - spectrum beta - lactamase ( esbl)-producing e. coli , also poses difficulties for treatment .
some kinds of carbapenems are available for this resistant strain , but it has the potential to be an intractable infection . some authors previously reported a case of prostatitis caused by esbl - producing e. coli and it could be treated by imipenem and tazobactam / piperacillin ( taz / pipc ) .
beta - lactamase inhibitors have generally been combined with penicillins partly because this combination can bring out the antibiotic activity fully and prevent the emergence of antibiotic - resistant strains .
taz / pipc ( zosin ) is an intravenous antibiotic agent consisting of 4 g of piperacillin and 0.5 g of tazobactam at an 8:1 ratio and is a modification of tazosin , which was used before and consisted of 2 g of piperacillin and 0.5 g of tazobactam .
penicillins combined with beta - lactamase inhibitors such as taz / pipc are widely used to treat utis and show good efficacy for e. coli , including fqre and esbl - producing e. coli , and are recommended for tpbx in the japanese uti association guidelines especially in high risk group . in this study , we examined whether taz / pipc plus lvfx could suppress infectious adverse events after tpbx .
we performed a study of 201 consecutive men scheduled for tpbx because of an elevated prostate - specific antigen ( psa ) level , an... | purposeto investigate the efficacy of tazobactam / piperacillin ( taz / pipc ) plus levofloxacin ( lvfx ) as a prophylactic administration in transrectal prostate biopsy ( tpbx).materials and methodswe investigated 201 consecutive patients who underwent tpbx in one japanese hospital during the period of 2009 - 2010 .
the patients received taz / pipc 4.5 g i.v . once just before and 3 hours after tpbx , plus oral lvfx 300 mg or 500 mg daily for 3 days .
we examined the infectious adverse events and laboratory data ( serum white blood cell [ wbc ] count and c - reactive protein [ crp ] ) before and 1 day after tpbx.resultsonly one patient ( 0.50% ) in 201 cases had febrile complications after tpbx .
serum wbc and crp did not rise significantly on the day after tpbx compared with before tpbx ( p>0.05 ) .
there was no significant difference in the rise of serum wbc and crp before and after tpbx in the comparison of lvfx 500 mg with lvfx 300 mg in the taz / pipc plus lvfx regimen.conclusionstaz/pipc plus lvfx can be considered as a prophylactic regimen for preventing infectious complications in tpbx . |
6,127 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: type 1 diabetes mellitus ( t1 dm ) is characterized by a loss of beta cell mass due to an autoimmune process . in a phase prior to the onset , immune cells infiltrate the islets creating an inflammatory microenvironment responsible for the -cell - specific toxicity .
proinflammatory cytokines , such as interleukin-1 beta ( il-1 ) , tumor necrosis factor alpha ( tnf- ) , and interferon gamma ( ifn- ) , secreted by activated lymphocytes and macrophages during insulitis , induce nfkb mediated inos expression which has a key role in -cell apoptosis in the early t1 dm stage .
it is produced in tissues by the enzyme nitric oxide synthase ( nos ) by oxidation of the amino acid l - arginine .
there are three different tissue - specific nos isoforms : ca / calmodulin - independent and inducible nos ( inos ) , neuronal nos ( nnos ) , and endothelial nos ( enos ) .
these last two isoforms also exhibit constitutive expression and ca / calmodulin - dependent activity .
expression of nos isoforms has been studied in pancreatic islets , and the nnos form has been observed in -cell cells , located , mainly , in insulin secretory granules .
it exhibits cytochrome c reductase activity in addition to no production activity , and a balance between both functions is essential for a normal insulin secretion in response to glucose stimulation . in contrast , enos expression has not been found in rat islets under basal conditions [ 2 , 3 ] .
prooxidant agents formed from no induce damages in dna which activate p53 which induces proapoptotic expression of genes such as bax , fas , noxa , and puma .
a p53-independent mechanism has been described in which no acts by inhibiting the sarcoendoplasmic reticulum pump ca atpase 2b ( serca2b ) protein and , subsequently , by inducing the endoplasmic reticulum stress mechanisms [ 4 , 5 ] .
the importance of the mitochondrial pathway has also been highlighted in no - mediated -cell cell apoptosis [ 6 , 7 ] .
paradoxically , an antiapoptotic effect of low concentration of no has been... | nitric oxide ( no ) is involved in several biological processes . in type 1 diabetes mellitus ( t1 dm )
, proinflammatory cytokines activate an inducible isoform of nos ( inos ) in cells , thus increasing no levels and inducing apoptosis .
the aim of the current study is to determine the role of no ( 1 ) in the antiproliferative effect of proinflammatory cytokines il-1 , ifn- , and tnf- on cultured islet cells and ( 2 ) during the insulitis stage prior to diabetes onset using the biobreeding ( bb ) rat strain as t1 dm model .
our results indicate that no donors exert an antiproliferative effect on cell obtained from cultured pancreatic islets , similar to that induced by proinflammatory cytokines .
this cytokine - induced antiproliferative effect can be reversed by l - nmma , a general nos inhibitor , and is independent of guanylate cyclase pathway .
assays using nos isoform specific inhibitors suggest that the no implicated in the antiproliferative effect of proinflammatory cytokines is produced by inducible nos , although not in an exclusive way . in bb rats , early treatment with l - nmma improves the initial stage of insulitis .
we conclude that no is an important mediator of antiproliferative effect induced by proinflammatory cytokines on cultured cell and is implicated in -cell proliferation impairment observed early from initial stage of insulitis . |
6,128 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: recognition of the importance of ion channel regulation by phosphoinositides ( pips ) ,
especially phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate ( ptdins(4,5)p2 ) , continues to
grow . in earlier studies ,
the effects of
ptdins(4,5)p2 application were examined directly , or a ptdins(4,5)p2
antibody , ptdins(4,5)p2 scavenger ( poly - l - lysine ) or a pharmacological
inhibitor ( wortmannin or quercetin ) was used to reduce the membrane ptdins(4,5)p2
content .
these methods remain solid and are well established , but their utility is limited
to assessing steady - state ptdins(4,5)p2 levels . by contrast , methods for using a
chemically inducible pip control system and voltage - sensing phosphatase ( vsp ) are becoming a
standardized means of surveying dynamic pip regulation .
chemical induction of pips is well
described in a recent review article . in
this addendum , therefore , we have focused on the advantages of using vsp to study channel
regulation .
so far vsps from two aquatic species , ciona intestinalis ( ci ) and
danio rerio ( dr ) , have been identified .
ci- and drvsp exhibit only small
differences , mainly in their voltage - sensitivities and expression levels , and their
catalytic activities ( pi5-phosphatase ) and substrate phosphoinositide ( pi ) specificities are
nearly identical .
nonetheless , we think
that drvsp may be somewhat better suited for studying pi - mediated regulation of ion
channels .
this is because gating currents indicate the level of drvsp expression in hek
cells to be two to three times higher than that of civsp , and because the
voltage - sensitivity of drvsp is shifted rightward by about 50 mv
( v12 values from the q - v
curves are 94 and 44 mv for drvsp and civsp , respectively ) .
considering that the resting membrane potential is around 40 to
10 mv in hek cells , the enzymatic phosphatase activity driven by
the resting potential is more negligible with drvsp .
in addition , the rather steep
q - v curve for drvsp would be expected... | trpc3/c6/c7 channels , a subgroup of classical / canonical trp channels , are activated by
diacylglycerol produced via activation of phospholipase c ( plc)-coupled receptors .
recognition of the physiological importance of these channels has been steadily growing ,
but the mechanism by which they are regulated remains largely unknown .
we recently used a
membrane - resident danio rerio voltage - sensing phosphatase ( drvsp ) to
study trpc3/c6/c7 regulation and found that the channel activity was controlled by
ptdins(4,5)p2-dag signaling in a self - limiting manner ( imai y et al . , the
journal of physiology , 2012 ) . in this addendum , we present the advantages of using drvsp
as a molecular tool to study ptdins(4,5)p2 regulation .
drvsp should be readily
applicable for studying phosphoinositide metabolism - linked channel regulation as well as
lipid dynamics .
furthermore , in comparison to other modes of self - limiting ion channel
regulation , the regulation of trpc3/c6/c7 channels seems highly susceptible to activation
signal strength , which could potentially affect both open duration and the time to peak
activation and inactivation .
dysfunction of such self - limiting regulation may contribute
to the pathology of the cardiovascular system , gastrointestinal tract and brain , as these
channels are broadly distributed and affected by numerous neurohormonal agonists . |
6,129 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: during a 10-month period , 30 non - consecutive patients ( 6 males and 24 females [ age range ; 32 - 80 years , mean age ; 53.7 years ] ) with 30 rccs that were detected on ct scan were referred to us for performing us before the masses were histologically confirmed .
all of the patients underwent a gray - scale us and an adi scan that were performed by one radiologist ( b.k.p . ) .
all the patients gave us an informed written consent for the adi , and this study was approved by the institutional review board of the seoul national university hospital , korea .
the rccs measured from 1.5 cm to 10 cm in size ( meanstandard deviation ; 4.92.7 cm ) and they consisted of 27 clear cell , two papillary and one chromophobe type masses .
partial ( n=1 ) or total nephrectomies ( n=29 ) were performed on all the patients . on the pathologic exams , pseudocapsule and intratumoral cyst or necrosis
were found in 93% ( 28/30 ) and 90% ( 27/30 ) of all the rccs .
the us contrast agent used in this study was sh u 508a ( levovist ; schering ag , berlin , germany ) ; it consists of galactose microparticles ( 99.9% ) and palmitic acid ( 0.1% ) .
four grams of sh u 508 a at a concentration of 300 mg / ml were intravenously administered by a manual bolus injection via an 18-gauge cannula inserted into an antecubital vein .
the us exams were performed with a high - resolution us unit ( sequoia ; siemens medical solutions , mountainview , ca , usa ) that was equipped with adi software .
the acoustic power of the adi was adjusted to the default maximal setting ( mechanical index , 1.9 ) .
a 4c1 convex - array probe only was used for the adi scan . before the adi scan ,
the gray - scale exam was conducted ( a ) in order to determine the optimal imaging plane to display the renal masses because the shorter the distance between the probe and the renal masses , the stronger the signal , ( b ) to compare the diagnostic accuracy between the gray - scale us and the adi .
real - time scanning commenced immediately after the intravenous... | objectivewe wanted to compare the imaging features of renal cell carcinoma ( rcc ) and their diagnostic accuracy on agent detection imaging ( adi ) and gray - scale ultrasonography ( us).materials and methodsthirty non - consecutive patients ( age range ; 32 - 80 years , mean age ; 53.7 years ) with 30 rccs were examined with gray - scale us and with adi in conjunction with using sh u 508a .
we described the imaging features of the renal tumors obtained from adi according to their enhancement pattern , the intratumoral anechoic areas and the presence of any pseudocapsule .
the imaging features and diagnostic accuracy of adi and gray - scale us were then compared.resultson the adi exam , the rccs were shown as being heterogeneous in 87% of the cases ( 26/30 ) , homogeneous in 7% of the cases ( 2/30 ) , and there was peripheral irregular enhancement in 7% of the cases ( 2/30 ) . intratumoral anechoic areas and pseudocapsule were seen in 87% and 77% of the rccs on the adi exam , whereas these features were seen in 53% and 17% of the cases on the gray - scale us , respectively .
the diagnostic sensitivity , specificity , and accuracy for rcc with adi were 97% , 93% , and 95% , respectively .
however , those for rcc with using gray - scale us were 70% , 86% , and 78% , respectively .
there was a significant difference for the diagnostic accuracy of rcc between adi and gray - scale us ( p < 0.05).conclusionagent detection imaging can help visualize the enhancement pattern of rcc and improve the diagnostic accuracy of this tumor by better displaying the intratumoral anechoic areas and the pseudocapsule than does the gray - scale us . |
6,130 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: behavioral neuroscience , with the backing of the national institutes of health ( nih ) , has made tremendous progress in establishing powerful tools and techniques that have been used primarily in a small number of model organisms .
the nervous system of c. elegans has been poked and prodded in ways previously unimaginable .
reproducible and simple rodent behavioral assays have been used to dissect the regional contributions of the brain in behavior . as a result
, we now have a tremendous depth of insight in a few , key model systems .
in contrast , we have invested relatively few resources toward understanding behavior in other organisms , which has led to two problems .
first , in some instances , researchers have tried to force a square block through a round hole by attempting to study specific behaviors in inadequate or inappropriate models .
the temptation to do so is understandable given the tremendous wealth of tools available to manipulate these few species .
fortunately , though , the diverse animal models of neuroethology provide the solutions to both of these problems . likewise ,
newer , more broadly applicable technologies that have arisen in behavioral neuroscience will expand the types of questions that can be answered in neuroethological models .
adapting cutting edge technologies to dissect the behavioral diversity of lesser studied species represents a novel opportunity to shed new light on human - relevant behaviors and physiologies . for example , it has been proposed that we try to understand facets of human social behavior by applying such tools to model social species , such as songbirds , cichlid fish , social insects , and monogamous and eusocial mammals ( robinson et al . , 2008 ; holmes et al . , 2009 ) .
neither the tool - rich but organismically limited approach of behavioral neuroscience nor the tool - limited but behaviorally diverse neuroethological approach is right or wrong .
a number of examples now exist that demonstrate the power of working at the intersection between... | how the brain mediates behavior is a question relevant to a broad range of disciplines including evolutionary biology , basic neuroscience , psychiatry , and population health .
experiments in animals have traditionally used two distinct approaches to explore brain
behavior relationships ; one uses naturally existing behavioral models while the other focuses on the creation and investigation of medically oriented models using existing laboratory - amenable organisms .
scientists using the first approach are often referred to and self identify as neuroethologists , while the second category spans a variety of other sub - disciplines but is often referred to broadly as behavioral neuroscience . despite an overall common scientific goal the elucidation of the neural basis of behavior members of these two groups often come from different scientific lineages , seek different sources of funding , and make their homes in different departments or colleges .
the separation of these groups is also fostered by their attendance at different scientific conferences and publication records that reflect different journal preferences .
bridging this divide represents an opportunity to explore previously unanswerable questions and foster rapid scientific advances .
this article explores the reasons for this divide and proposes measures that could help increase technology transfer and communication between these groups , potentially overcoming both physical and ideological gaps . |
6,131 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: recently , all - ceramic fixed partial dentures ( fpds ) were introduced ; these are currently in use in clinical dental treatment . due to their superior aesthetics ,
all - ceramic restorations provide a more desirable approach compared with metal - ceramic combinations for the restoration of natural dentition.1 the application of veneering porcelain over a high - strength core ceramic has resulted in the creation of an aesthetically more acceptable laminate composite system , which has been employed in the construction of all - ceramic crowns.2 however , ceramics are brittle and susceptible to failure beyond a critical stress , which is dependent on the internal and surface flaw distributions,3,4 and their fracture problems have not been solved completely.5 manufacturers have adopted novel engineering processing routes to produce all - ceramic dental core materials with strengths in excess of those achieved using metallic frameworks for metal - ceramic restorations.6 the finite element method ( fem ) has been shown to be a useful tool when investigating complex systems.7,8 knowledge of stress distribution is important in the understanding of fatigue yielding.9 overall stress distribution within the tooth / restoration complex is determined by geometry and hard tissue / restorative material arrangement.10 it has also been reported that the majority of failures of all - ceramic fpds originate at the gingival side of the connectors , at the interface of the framework and veneer porcelain.11 thus , the framework design of all - ceramic restorations may have an important effect on stress distribution .
furthermore , the distribution of stress influences the success of the treatment.1214 in recent years , alternative materials and designs have been developed to suit different clinical situations,15 and fpds must have a design type that satisfies certain structural requirements .
an fpd must provide enough strength to resist the forces of occlusion that cause flexure of the framework , producing stress in the... | objectives : the biomechanical behavior of the superstructure plays an important role in the functional longevity of dental implants . however , information about the influence of framework design on stresses transmitted to the implants and supporting tissues is limited .
the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of framework designs on stress distribution at the supporting bone and supporting implants.methods:in this study , the three - dimensional ( 3d ) finite element stress analysis method was used .
three types of 3d mathematical models simulating three different framework designs for implant - supported 3-unit posterior fixed partial dentures were prepared with supporting structures .
convex ( 1 ) , concave ( 2 ) , and conventional ( 3 ) pontic framework designs were simulated .
a 300-n static vertical occlusal load was applied on the node at the center of occlusal surface of the pontic to calculate the stress distributions . as a second condition
, frameworks were directly loaded to evaluate the effect of the framework design clearly .
the solidworks / cosmosworks structural analysis programs were used for finite element modeling / analysis.results : the analysis of the von mises stress values revealed that maximum stress concentrations were located at the loading areas for all models .
the pontic side marginal edges of restorations and the necks of implants were other stress concentration regions .
there was no clear difference among models when the restorations were loaded at occlusal surfaces .
when the veneering porcelain was removed , and load was applied directly to the framework , there was a clear increase in stress concentration with a concave design on supporting implants and bone structure.conclusions:the present study showed that the use of a concave design in the pontic frameworks of fixed partial dentures increases the von mises stress levels on implant abutments and supporting bone structure .
however , the veneering porcelain element reduces the effect... |
6,132 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: time - dependent density
functional theory ( td - dft ) has been in the limelight
of quantum chemistry during the past decade .
indeed , paralleling the success of dft for the ground - state ( gs )
,
td - dft has now become the most widely applied method to explore the
excited - state ( es ) properties of medium and large compounds , with applications appearing in many applied fields
of chemical science . besides the choice of a basis set
, two approximations
are generally made while running td - dft calculations : the adiabatic
formalism is used , inducing the loss of
memory effects , and a specific exchange - correlation functional ( xcf )
is selected to describe the nonclassical component of the electron
though these two approximations are certainly not independent
of each other , it remains in practice easier to change the xcf than
to go beyond the adiabatic approximation , and the vast majority of
the benchmarks of td - dft have therefore considered this latter aspect .
these benchmarks have been mainly focused on both vertical and 00
transition energies , and to a lesser extended es geometries , and have
much less considered the determination of other properties as illustrated
by ref ( 5 ) reviewing
td - dft benchmarks . in this framework ,
the present investigation is
devoted to the es dipole ( ) and traceless quadrupole ( q ) moments with a focus on medium and large -conjugated
molecules . to the best of our knowledge
, there are no previous
work devoted
to the benchmarking of td - dft for es quadrupole calculations , while
the previous investigations devoted to the assessment of xcfs in the
framework of calculations of the excited - state dipole moments ( ) and/or the excess dipole moment ( , the difference
between es and gs dipoles ) have mainly considered small compounds .
the first comparisons probably appeared in 2002 when furche and ahlrichs
used experimental values to assess the performances of three generalized
gradient approximations... | the accuracies of
the excited - state dipole and quadrupole moments
obtained by td - dft are assessed by considering 16 different exchange - correlation
functionals and more than 30 medium and large molecules . except for
excited - state presenting a significant charge - transfer character ,
a relatively limited dependency on the nature of the functional is
found .
it also turns out that while dft ground - state dipole moments
tend to be too large , the reverse trend is obtained for their excited - state
counterparts , at least when hybrid functionals are used .
consequently ,
the td - dft excess dipole moments are often too small , an error that
can be fortuitously corrected for charge - transfer transition by selecting
a pure or a hybrid functional containing a small share of exact exchange .
this error - cancelation phenomena explains the contradictory conclusions
obtained in previous investigations .
overall , the largest correlation
between cc2 and td - dft excess dipoles is obtained with m06 - 2x , but
at the price of a nearly systematic underestimation of this property
by ca .
1 d. for the excess quadrupole moments , the average errors
are of the order of 0.20.6 d for the set of small
aromatic systems treated . |
6,133 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: a number of respiratory viruses including influenza viruses , respiratory syncytial virus ( rsv ) , parainfluenza viruses , adenovirus and the recently described human metapneumovirus ( hmpv ) play an important role in acute respiratory tract infections ( ari ) in children .
however , in a substantial portion of respiratory infections the aetiological agent is not known .
there has been renewed interest in human coronaviruses ( hcov ) as a cause of some of these infections .
coronaviruses are large enveloped singlestranded rna viruses that can infect both humans and a variety of domestic animals causing respiratory and enteric illness . until recently human coronavirus ( hcov )
229e and oc43 , identified in the 1960s ,
were the only known coronaviruses to infect humans .
although primarily responsible for mild infections including the common cold
reports of more severe upper and lower respiratory tract infections associated with hcov229e and hcovoc43 have been documented .
,
the identification of a coronavirus , sarscov , as the causative agent of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003
has resulted in an increased interest in this group of viruses .
subsequently two new human coronaviruses , hcovnl63
,
and hcovhku1 ,
have been described .
both infect young children , the elderly and immunocompromised and can lead to severe respiratory tract infections requiring hospitalisation .
the prevalence and clinical importance of hcovnl63 in the south african hospital setting is not known .
in this retrospective study 1055 nasopharyngeal , tracheal aspirate and bronchoalveoloar lavage samples were taken from children ( age 13 days to 5 years ) hospitalised with respiratory tract infections in 2003 and 2004 in the red cross war memorial children s hospital in cape town .
samples had previously been screened by using an indirect immunofluorecence assay ( light diagnostics , chemicon international , temecula , ca , usa ) for the common respiratory viruses including rsv , influenza viruses a and... | background human coronavirus nl63 ( hcovnl63 ) is a novel respiratory virus which is associated with respiratory tract infections in children .
objective to determine the role of hcovnl63 in infants and young children hospitalised with acute respiratory tract infections ( ari ) in cape town , south africa .
methods respiratory specimens were collected from 1055 infants and young children hospitalised with ari in 20032004 .
samples were screened by rtpcr to detect hcovnl63 and human metapneumovirus ( hmpv ) .
standard shell vial culture and immunofluoresence was used to detect the common respiratory viruses including rsv , influenza a and b viruses , parainfluenza viruses 1 , 2 , 3 , adenovirus and cmv .
results a respiratory virus was found in 401/1055 ( 380% ) samples .
hcovnl63 was detected in 9/1055 ( 085% ) with peak activity during autumn ( 67% ) .
most patients had a diagnosis of pneumonia or lower respiratory tract infection ( 6/9 ; 67% ) .
conclusions this is the first report of hcovnl63 infections in hospitalised children in africa . during the 2year period hcovnl63 played a minor role in ari in children . |
6,134 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: laparoscopy in patients with poor cardiac function has been the subject of controversy and is considered by many surgeons a relative contraindication .
we report the case of a patient who presented with acute cholecystitis and choledocholithiasis concurrent with unstable angina . our experience in laparoscopic management of patients with calculous biliary disease and severe coronary artery disease is examined .
the patient was managed by coronary angioplasty and stenting immediately followed by laparoscopic cholecystectomy and common bile duct exploration under close invasive hemodynamic monitoring and low - pressure pneumoperitoneum . between 1996 and 2001 , 39 patients with coronary artery disease and an asa class of iii or iv underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy .
eight of these patients ( 20.5% ) had common bile duct stones necessitating laparoscopic common bile duct exploration .
laparoscopic cholecystectomy and common bile duct exploration can be safely performed in patients with severe ischemic cardiac disease under close hemodynamic monitoring and a low - pressure pneumoperitoneum ( 10 to 12 mm hg ) .
laparoscopy in patients with poor cardiac function has been the subject of controversy and is considered by many surgeons a relative contraindication . the management of patients developing acute cholecystitis following or concurrent with myocardial infarction or unstable angina is particularly challenging .
we report here the case of a patient who presented with this scenario and briefly review our experience and management strategies in patients with severe ischemic cardiomyopathy presenting with biliary calculous disease .
the patient is a 72-year - old man who presented with right upper quadrant pain radiating to his back .
he had experienced multiple similar episodes in the past , but had no fever , chills , nausea , or vomiting .
he has a history of systemic hypertension and coronary artery disease with prior coronary angioplasty and stenting . on further questioning
, we noted a current... | background and objectives : laparoscopy in patients with poor cardiac function has been the subject of controversy and is considered by many surgeons a relative contraindication.methods:we report the case of a patient who presented with acute cholecystitis and choledocholithiasis concurrent with unstable angina .
our experience in laparoscopic management of patients with calculous biliary disease and severe coronary artery disease is examined.results:the patient was managed by coronary angioplasty and stenting immediately followed by laparoscopic cholecystectomy and common bile duct exploration under close invasive hemodynamic monitoring and low - pressure pneumoperitoneum . between 1996 and 2001 , 39 patients with coronary artery disease and an asa class of iii or iv underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy .
eight of these patients ( 20.5% ) had common bile duct stones necessitating laparoscopic common bile duct exploration .
no conversions were necessary , and no major morbidity or mortalities occurred.conclusions:laparoscopic cholecystectomy and common bile duct exploration can be safely performed in patients with severe ischemic cardiac disease under close hemodynamic monitoring and a low - pressure pneumoperitoneum ( 10 to 12 mm hg ) . |
6,135 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: inflammatory pseudotumors constitute a heterogenous group of reactive lesions characterized by a mixture of inflammatory cells and a minor component of spindle cells .
this benign lesion needs to be distinguished from an inflammatory pseudotumor - like follicular dendritic cell ( ipt - like fdc ) tumor , a distinctive low - grade malignant neoplasm with consistent epstein - barr virus ( ebv ) association that has a similar morphology .
the ipt - like variant of fdc tumor is usually found in the spleen or liver and appears to be much more indolent compared to conventional fdc sarcoma .
splenic ipt - like fdc tumors are extremely rare lesions , and only a few cases have been previously reported .
some of the cases referred to as ipt in the literature should be reclassified as ipt - like fdc tumors , especially when spindle cells are positive for ebv and there are no data for the expression of fdc markers within the lesion .
we present a case of a splenic ipt - like fdc tumor that was incidentally found in a 61-year - old man and increased gradually in size during a period of 3 months . despite abdominal computed tomography ( ct ) and magnetic resonance imaging ( mri ) findings , the definitive diagnosis was established only after immunohistochemical study of the resected spleen .
a 61-year - old male was admitted to the emergency surgical department of our hospital due to a car accident .
basic laboratory tests of peripheral blood on admission were within normal range , and physical examination was unremarkable .
abdominal ultrasonography examination incidentally revealed a well - circumscribed splenic mass 4 cm in diameter .
abdominal ct confirmed the presence of a well - circumscribed isodense lesion 4.2 4 cm in size in the splenic hilum with subtle inhomogenous enhancement in the early - phase images ( fig .
1 ) . mri of the abdomen with contrast showed inhomogenous enhancement on gd - enhanced images ( fig .
a follow - up mri scan of the abdomen 3 months later confirmed the above - mentioned findings... | inflammatory pseudotumor of the spleen with expression of follicular dendritic cell markers is an extremely rare lesion with only a few cases reported previously .
the present study reports on an inflammatory pseudotumor of the spleen 10 8 7 cm in size that was incidentally found in a 61-year - old man and increased gradually in size during a period of 3 months .
abdominal ultrasonography revealed a well - circumscribed splenic mass , and abdominal computed tomography confirmed the presence of a well - circumscribed isodense lesion in the splenic hilum with inhomogenous enhancement in the early - phase images and no enhancement on delayed - phase contrast - enhanced images .
magnetic resonance imaging of the abdomen showed a well - defined isodense tumor on t1-weighted images with mildly increased signal intensity on t2-weighted images , and this is only the second study that provides mri findings of this entity .
the patient underwent an uncomplicated open splenectomy for definitive histologic diagnosis . under microscopic examination ,
the lesion was an admixture of lymphocytes , plasma cells and spindle cells .
in situ hybridization analysis for epstein - barr virus ( ebv ) revealed that most of the spindle cells were positive for ebv , and immunochemistry showed the expression of the follicular dendritic cell markers cd21 , cd35 and
cd23 within the tumor . the diagnosis of inflammatory pseudotumor - like follicular dendritic cell tumor was established . |
6,136 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: according to an estimation of the world health organization ( who ) , more than 366 million people worldwide will have diabetes mellitus in 2030 ; the urban population in developing countries is projected to double between 2000 and 2030 .
diabetes mellitus ( dm ) is an endocrine and metabolic disease which affects almost all organs in our body .
although the lungs are not thought to be primarily affected by diabetes and lung physiological and structural abnormalities are happening in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes , the lung should be considered as a target organ .
chronic hyperglycemia is considered as the main reason for diabetes complications . in the process of prolonged
increased glucose concentration , reactive oxygen species ( ros ) overproduction may be one of the key factors which induce organ injury .
decreased antioxidative function and increased oxidative stress were seen in the lung of diabetic rats and rabbits [ 2 , 3 ] .
mitochondria dysfunction will cause oxidative stress injury which is one of the underlying factors for neurodegenerative diseases , diabetes , cardiovascular diseases , cancer , and so on .
physiological hypoxia triggers the changes of mitochondrial redox and increases superoxide generation at complex iii in alveolar epithelial cells .
mitochondrial aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 ( aldh2 ) is a nuclear - encoded mitochondrial enzyme that localizes in mitochondrial matrix ; aldh2 protein had been detected in liver , lung , heart , kidney , testis , esophagus , stomach , colon , and pancreas .
our previous study had reported that , in diabetic rats , ethanol ( etoh ) at low concentration offered myocardial protection through activation of aldh2 expression , and upregulation of aldh2 also plays the protective effect in myocardial ischemia and reperfusion injury , diabetes cardiomyopathy , and kidney and brain injury [ 912 ] ; meanwhile , some researchers reported the association between aldh2 and lung disease .
xu et al . reported that , in neonatal rat lung , after prolonged... | to observe the changes of lung injury when diabetic rats were treated with low concentration of ethanol ( etoh ) and analyze the related mechanisms , male sprague - dawley ( sd ) rats were divided into control , diabetic ( dm ) , and etoh+dm groups .
diabetic rat was mimicked by injection of streptozotocin intraperitoneally . fasting blood glucose ( fbg ) level , lung weight ( lw ) , body weight ( bw ) , and lw / bw were measured .
the changes of lung tissue and type ii alveolar cell were detected .
pulmonary malondialdehyde ( mda ) content and superoxide dismutase ( sod ) activity were measured ; meanwhile , aldh2 mrna and protein expressions were detected by rt - pcr and western blotting , respectively . compared with control group , in dm group
, sod activity was decreased ; fbg level , lw / bw , mda content , aldh2 mrna , and protein expressions were decreased .
compared with dm group , in etoh+dm group , sod activity , aldh2 mrna , and protein expressions were increased ; lw / bw and mda content were decreased .
the structures of lung tissue and lamellar bodies were collapsed in dm group ; the injury was attenuated in etoh+dm group .
our findings suggested that , in diabetic rat , pulmonary aldh2 expression was decreased accompanying lung injury .
etoh at low concentration decreased diabetes induced lung injury through activating aldh2 expression . |
6,137 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: participants consisted of 108 ( 66 men and 42 women ) older adults with one or more chronic diseases including diabetes , coronary heart disease , chronic pain , and hypertension .
the sample was recruited from several retirement clubs such as kholde barin club and tamine ejtemai organization in shiraz - iran , using convenience sampling .
inclusion criteria for participation in this study were as follows : ( 1 ) age of 55 or older ; ( 2 ) having one or more physical disease confirmed by a physician ; and ( 3 ) the ability to understand the questionnaire items .
demographic characteristics of older adults with chronic disease ( n = 108 ) mhls ( 9 ) was used to measure the health locus of control .
the mhlc ( mhlc - form c ) scale consists of three components including internal , chance and powerful others .
each of the subscales contains six items , measured on a 6 point - likert scale , ranging from 1 ( strongly disagree ) to 6 ( strongly agree).the god locus of health control ( glhc ) was added later ( 6 items ) to measure the belief that god is the locus of control of one s health status ( 15 ) .
internal consistency reliability coefficients of 0.66 , 0.67 , 0.58 and 0 .91 has been reported for internal mhloc , powerful others mhloc , chance mhloc and god mhloc , respectively ( 9 , 15 ) . the mhlc has been used in iran and found to have a good reliability and validity .
research in iran has reported cronbach s alpha coefficients of 0.72 , 0.70 and 0.81 for internal , chance and powerful others health locus of control ( 16 ) .
a score of 0 to 4 on this scale is normal , but a score greater than 5 suggests depression .
gds is one of the most widely used scales for screening depression in the old adults and has been used to identify depression in the elderly in iran .
the gds has been found to have a good reliability and validity for the elderly population ( 18 ) . in iran ,
a cronbach s alpha coefficients of 0.92 have been reported for the gds ( 19 ) . to analyze the data , descriptive statistics indexes... | objective : the purpose of this study was to examine the prediction of depression on a group of iranian older adults based on components of health locus of control.method:sixty-six men and 42 women over the age of 55 were recruited from the retirement clubs in shiraz , using convenience sampling .
the participants completed the research questionnaires including the geriatric depression scale ( gds ) and the multidimensional health locus of control scale ( mhlc).results : the findings on health locus of control revealed that the highest score was on internal locus of control followed by god , powerful others and chance .
the mean score on depression was on a normal range .
multiple regression analysis showed that two independent variables including internal control ( = .32 , p < 0.01 ) and god control ( = .20 , = p < 0.03 ) significantly predicted depression .
the other components of health locus of control such as chance and powerful others as well as age did not predict depression .
findings also revealed that the independents variables explained 26% of the total variance of depression ( r2 = .26 , p < 0.001).conclusion : his study provides more support for the application of theory of health locus of control on depression . |
6,138 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: we recruited patients who were initially diagnosed with ntg at seoul national university hospital glaucoma clinic from september 2007 to march 2009 .
ntg was diagnosed based on clinical and visual field evaluations as well as glaucomatous optic nerve changes with corresponding visual field defects and a peak iop of less than 22 mmhg .
patients diagnosed with ntg were admitted overnight and underwent circadian bp and iop measurements as described below . for unilateral ntg , the affected eye was evaluated ; in bilateral ntg , we evaluated a randomly selected eye .
those patients with a previous or current history of anti - glaucoma medication use , severe heart or renal failure causing hemodynamic instability or any other ocular disease that might cause visual field loss and peak iop exceeding 22 mmhg during a hospitalized circadian iop measurement and subsequently lead to the diagnosis of primary open angle glaucoma ( poag ) were excluded from this study . during the same time period , we recruited a control group of age- and gender - matched patients who were not diagnosed with glaucoma but who had been admitted to kangbuk samsung hospital for cataract surgery .
iop was adjusted by 2.5 mmhg for every 50 m that deviated from 525 m .
all procedures conformed to the declaration of helsinki , and our study was approved by the institutional review board of the clinical research institute .
ntg patients were admitted in the afternoon ( between 1 and 2 pm ) , and they underwent bp and iop measurements at 3 , 5 , 7 , 9 , and 11 pm ; 1 , 7 , 9 , and 11 am ; and at 1 pm the following day .
systolic blood pressure ( sbp ) and diastolic blood pressure ( dbp ) measurements was taken using an automated bp monitor ( pa350 ; mediana , wonju , korea ) placed on the patient 's upper arm after at least three minutes of rest .
iop was subsequently measured using goldmann applanation tonometry three times alternatively for each eye , and the average of the three values was recorded as the iop .
control patients were hospitalized... | purposeto investigate and compare the circadian pattern of blood pressure ( bp ) , intraocular pressure ( iop ) and mean ocular perfusion pressure ( mopp ) while experiencing undisturbed sleep in normal - tension glaucoma ( ntg ) and non - glaucoma control patient groups.methodstwenty-four eyes from 24 patients diagnosed with ntg and 22 eyes from 22 control group patients were enrolled .
systolic bp , diastolic bp and iop were measured every two hours except for the period of time from 1 am to 7 am in the ntg group and from 11 pm to 7 am in the control group over a one - day period .
iop and hemodynamic parameters were then compared between the two groups .
ntg patients were subdivided according to the degree of morning bp dip and iop , and hemodynamic parameters and visual field indices ( mean deviation and pattern standard deviation ) were also compared among these subgroups.resultsthere were no significant differences in mean systolic bp , mean diastolic bp and mean arterial pressure ( map ) between the ntg and the control groups .
the ntg group showed a significantly large morning bp dip compared to the control group ( 7.14.2% vs. 3.83.4% , p=0.022 ) .
however , there were no significant differences in mean or fluctuation of mopp between the two groups .
morning over - dippers showed significantly large map and mopp fluctuations compared to non - dippers and dippers , while there were no significant differences in visual field indices among the three subgroups.conclusionsntg patients showed significant morning bp dips compared to the control group .
the marked morning bp dip was associated with significantly large map or mopp fluctuations but was not associated with visual field indices . |
6,139 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: iodine deficiency has been well documented in many parts of the developing world and surprisingly it has reemerged in australia despite various programs to reduce its incidence [ 1 , 2 ] .
urinary iodine levels , which are used as a measure of dietary iodine intake , have declined over the past decade , and australia is now defined by the world health organization ( who ) criteria as a mildly iodine - deficient country . the physiological importance of iodine is its central role in maintaining normal thyroid function .
inadequate iodine supply to the thyroid gland will result in decreased thyroid hormone synthesis and enlargement of the gland . during pregnancy iodine intake
needs to be increased to meet the demands upon the thyroid gland to boost thyroid hormone production by up to 50% more than preconception requirements , to ensure a supply of thyroxine and iodine to the foetus and to compensate for increased renal iodide clearance iodine deficiency in an asymptomatic young female population may have a negative impact on thyroid function and neonatal outcome , as infants born in areas of moderate to - severe iodine deficiency suffer from a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders caused by irreversible brain damage in utero [ 5 , 6 ] , but adverse effects from mild maternal iodine - deficiency remain less certain .
the incidence of neonatal hypothyroidism is also increased in an iodine deficient population , and there is evidence to suggest that severe iodine deficiency may increase rates of miscarriage and stillbirths .
there is an increasing body of information confirming a high prevalence of mild - to - moderate iodine deficiency in pregnant women in the australian state of new south wales ( nsw ) , victoria , and tasmania , as evidenced by reduced median urinary iodine concentrations in a number of sporadic studies .
none of these studies in pregnant women have examined thyroid function or thyroid volume so it is unknown if iodine deficiency documented in pregnant australian women has any... | aim .
the primary objective of the study was to assess the iodine nutritional status , and its effect on thyroid function , of pregnant women in a private obstetrical practice in sydney .
methods .
it was a cross - sectional study undertaken between november 2007 and march 2009 .
blood samples were taken from 367 women at their first antenatal visit between 7 and 11 weeks gestation for measurement of thyroid stimulating hormone ( tsh ) and free thyroxine ( ft4 ) levels and spot urine samples for urinary iodine excretion were taken at the same time as blood collection . results .
the median urinary iodine concentration ( uic ) for all women was 81 g / l ( interquartile range 41169 g
/ l ) .
71.9% of the women exhibited a uic of < 150 g / l .
26% of the women had a uic < 50
g / l , and 12% had a uic
< 20 g / l .
the only detectable influences on uic were daily milk intake and pregnancy supplements .
there was no statistically significant association between uic and thyroid function and no evidence for an effect of iodine intake on thyroid function .
conclusions .
there is a high prevalence of mild to moderate iodine deficiency in women in western sydney but no evidence for a significant adverse effect on thyroid function .
the 6.5% prevalence of subclinical hypothyroidism is unlikely to be due to iodine deficiency . |
6,140 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the ionic constituents that directly participate in neuronal excitability , evidence is accumulating that sodium homeostasis plays a central role in migraine from both human and animal studies : cerebrospinal fluid ( csf ) sodium ( but not calcium , magnesium , or potassium ) increases during migraine in the absence of any change of sodium in blood plasma2 ; the diurnal rhythm of csf sodium is characterized by peaks in early morning and late afternoon,3 corresponding to the most frequent onset times of episodic migraine4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ; intracranial sodium increases in a rat migraine model of nitroglycerintriggered central sensitization9 ; and computergenerated simulation and electrophysiology studies indicate higher extracellular sodium contributes to neuronal hyperexcitability.9 an especially compelling reason to explore dietary sodium is the evidence that higher extracellular sodium has been shown to increase the electrical activity of giant squid axons,10 an effect that we replicated in primary neuronal cultures.11 these results collectively point to a sodium disturbance in migraine .
studies have shown that higher dietary sodium increases ventricular csf sodium concentration in rats,12 but sensory evaluation was not reported in these experiments . despite the knowledge that human choroid plexus has an almost identical distribution pattern of water channels and sodium transporters as in the rat,13 we are not aware of prospective human studies focused on the relationship between dietary sodium intake and sodium dysregulation in migraine .
the regulation of sodium throughout the body depends on the requirements of different tissues , ranging from the kidneys , skin , and salivary glands to the choroid plexus , but the source of sodium results as a redistribution from elsewhere in the body or from dietary sodium .
as sodium has profound effects on neuronal activity , we hypothesized that there would be an association between migraine status ( a binary variable ) and dietary sodium and used the nhanes... | objectivewe investigated whether dietary sodium intake from respondents of a national crosssectional nutritional study differed by history of migraine or severe headaches.backgroundseveral lines of evidence support a disruption of sodium homeostasis in migraine.designour analysis population was 8819 adults in the 19992004 national health and nutrition examination survey ( nhanes ) with reliable data on diet and headache history .
we classified respondents who reported a history of migraine or severe headaches as having probable history of migraine . to reduce the diagnostic conflict from medication overuse headache , we excluded respondents who reported taking analgesic medications .
dietary sodium intake was measured using validated estimates of selfreported total grams of daily sodium consumption and was analyzed as the residual value from the linear regression of total grams of sodium on total calories .
multivariable logistic regression that accounted for the stratified , multistage probability cluster sampling design of nhanes was used to analyze the relationship between migraine and dietary sodium.resultsodds of probable migraine history decreased with increasing dietary sodium intake ( odds ratio = 0.93 , 95% confidence interval = 0.87 , 1.00 , p = .0455 ) .
this relationship was maintained after adjusting for age , sex , and body mass index ( bmi ) with slightly reduced significance ( p = .0505 ) . in women , this inverse relationship was limited to those with lower bmi ( p = .007 ) , while in men the relationship did not differ by bmi .
we likely excluded some migraineurs by omitting frequent analgesic users ; however , a sensitivity analysis suggested little effect from this exclusion.conclusionsthis study is the first evidence of an inverse relationship between migraine and dietary sodium intake .
these results are consistent with altered sodium homeostasis in migraine and our hypothesis that dietary sodium may affect brain extracellular fluid sodium concentrations and... |
6,141 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: it is a relatively common tumor , comprising approximately 5% of all benign soft tissue tumors , and shows a predilection to affect the sensory nerves .
intraosseous neurilemmoma , however , is very rare , accounting for less than 1% of benign bone tumors .
the mandible is the most frequently affected site , followed by the sacrum ; this tumor rarely arises in the bones of the extremities .
only 2 cases of intraosseous neurilemmoma around the elbow have been described in literature ; these cases arose in the distal humerus .
a 21-year - old woman was referred to our orthopedic unit with a 1-month history of pain in the left elbow .
the initiating factor , such as trauma , was not clear . on physical examination , the overlying skin was intact , and there was no evidence of warmth , erythema , or induration .
no other masses were palpable . the elbows and forearms had a normal range of motion ( rom ) .
plain radiographs revealed a well - defined , lytic , and expansile lesion , with thin marginal sclerosis and trabeculation in the proximal ulna ( fig .
1 ) . computed tomography ( ct ) showed considerable destruction of the cortex of the ulna , which connected with a mass of soft tissue . at the edge of
2a ) , which had invaded into the cortex , and no periosteal reaction was seen ( fig .
2b ) . magnetic resonance imaging ( mri ) showed the well - defined and lobulated lesion to be isointense to skeletal muscle on t1-weighted images , and heterogeneous and hyperintense on t2-weighted images .
the lesion revealed uniform enhancement following gd - dtpa administration . because of uncertainty regarding the histological origin of the tumor , we performed an open biopsy . the pathologic specimen consisted of hypercellular regions with palisading nuclei ( antoni type a ) , and hypocellularity regions with myxoid background ( antoni type b ) .
curettage was performed on the bone lesion , and the resulting deficit was grafted with beta - tricalcium phosphate ( fig .
after 3.5 years of follow up , the patient is... | introductionneurilemmoma is a benign nerve sheath neoplasm commonly located in the soft tissue .
intraosseous neurilemmoma is rare , constituting less than 1% of primary bone tumors.presentation of casea 21 year - old woman was presented with left elbow pain of 1-month duration .
plain radiographs showed a well - defined , lytic and expansile lesion of the proximal ulna . computed tomography revealed cortical destruction and soft tissue extension . because the tissue of origin for the tumor was uncertain , an open biopsy was performed .
the specimens demonstrated a benign spindle cell tumor suggestive of a neurilemmoma , similar to a soft tissue neurilemmoma .
the diagnosis of intraosseous neurilemmoma was established .
marginal excision of the soft tissue component and curettage of the lesion in the bone were performed .
after 3.5 years of follow up , there is no clinical or radiographic finding to suggest any recurrence.discussionthe major site of intraosseous neurilemmoma is the mandible .
occurrence in the long bone is particularly rare .
only two cases of intraosseous neurilemmoma involving the bones around the elbow have been reported to our knowledge ; these cases arose in the distal humerus .
we describe the first case of intraosseous neurilemmoma of the proximal ulna of the left elbow .
the recommended treatment is conservative resection and bone grafting , as malignant change is extremely rare.conclusionalthough very rare , intraosseous neurilemmoma should be taken under consideration in the differential diagnosis of painful , radiographically benign - appearing osseous tumor around the elbow . |
6,142 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: carpal tunnel syndrome ( cts ) is the most frequent entrapment neuropathy , which occurs as a consequence of compression of the median nerve at the wrist .
the diagnosis is usually based on characteristic symptoms and signs , and electrophysiological studies4,21 ) .
the most reliable method to confirm clinical diagnosis of cts is electrophysiological study18,19 ) but false negatives can be seen in the variable range of 10 - 20%7 ) .
the electrophysiological studies usually show the level of the lesion , but do not provide anatomical information about the nerve or its surroundings . in the last few years ,
ultrasonography ( us ) has been shown to be useful diagnostic tools in cts , providing information on the median nerve and surrounding structures4,6,13,23 ) .
a few papers have been published in neurosurgery literature regarding diagnostic utility of ultrasonography in carpal tunnel syndrome1,6 ) . to our knowledge ,
publication has not been available , describing measurements of ultrasonographic parameters for the diagnosis of cts , compared with electrodiagnostic findings as well as clinical severity , assessed by historical - objective scale9 ) .
the purpose of the present study is to identify the efficacy of ultrasonographic measurements in a consecutive sample of patients with clinically diagnosed cts and to analyze the correlation of ultrasonographic findings with electrophysiological abnormalities and clinical severity .
the clinical diagnostic criterion of cts is based on the american academy of neurology21 ) .
one - hundred thirty - five patients who had the symptoms of cts between january 2007 and december 2009 were included in this study .
nineteen persons with no clinical symptoms and signs of cts were classified as the control group .
patients with diabetes mellitus , collagen disease , thyroid disease , peripheral neuropathy , rheumatic arthritis , traumatic nerve injury were excluded from the study .
the patient group contained total of 246 hands , whereas 30 hands were used in the control... | objectiveto investigate a diagnostic value of ultrasonography in carpal tunnel syndrome ( cts ) patients and to evaluate a correlation of sonographic measurements with the degree of electrodiagnostic abnormalities and clinical severity.methodstwo-hundred-forty-six symptomatic hands in 135 patients and 30 asymptomatic hands in 19 healthy individuals as control group were included . in ultrasonographic study , we measured the cross - sectional area ( csa ) and flattening ratio ( fr ) of the median nerve at the pisiform as well as palmar bowing ( pb ) of the flexor retinaculum .
sensitivity and specificity of ultrasonographic measurements were evaluated and ultrasonographic data from the symptomatic and control hands were compared to the grade of electrodiagnostic and clinical severity.resultsthe mean csa was 13.74.2 mm2 in symptomatic hands and 7.91.3 mm2 in asymptomatic hands .
the mean fr was 4.21.0 in symptomatic hands and 3.40.4 in asymptomatic hands .
the mean pb was 3.50.5 mm in symptomatic hands and 2.60.3 mm in asymptomatic hands .
statistical analysis showed differences of the mean csa , fr and pb between groups were significant . a cut - off value of 10 mm2 for the mean csa was found to be the upper limit for normal value .
both the mean csa and pb are correlated with the grade of electrophysiological abnormalities and clinical severity , respectively.conclusionultrasographic measurement of the csa and pb is helpful to diagnose cts as a non - invasive and an alternative modality for the evaluation of cts .
in addition , ultrasonography also provides a reliable correlation with the grade of electrodiagnostic abnormalities and clinical severity . |
6,143 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: vascular injury is an uncommon but potentially devastating complication of spine surgery . throughout its course
, the aorta remains in close proximity to the thoracic and lumbar spine and is at risk from malpositioned pedicle screws or other hardware.1 despite this risk , the reported rate of vascular injury from spine surgery is low . in one systematic review ,
papadoulas et al found the incidence of vascular injury after excision of a herniated lumbar disc via a posterior approach to be less than 0.05%.2 in addition , hicks et al systematically reviewed 14,570 pedicle screws placed in the thoracic and lumbar spine of 1,666 patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis ( ais ) ; they found a 4.2% overall rate of screw malposition with 6 of 8,147 screws ( 0.07% ) abutting the aorta in the subgroup of studies that reported this finding .
there were no reports of major vascular complications.3
despite the low rates of vascular injury identified in these reviews , the literature contains multiple case reports in which pedicle screw instrumentation was associated with early or late aortic injuries.4
5
6
7
8
9
10 in the majority of these reports , treatment consisted of removing of the offending hardware with simultaneous open or endovascular aortic repair ( evar ) . here
, we describe the case of an adolescent patient with a malpositioned pedicle screw abutting the thoracic aorta and new complaints of deep - seated thoracic pain .
intraoperative aortography demonstrated normal flow in the thoracic aorta , so no graft was placed to avoid the known morbidity of evar .
the patient was a 20-year - old man who presented to clinic with 4 months of back pain . at the age of 15 years , he had undergone a t6t8 posterior instrumented fusion with excision of an osteoblastoma from the right t7 pedicle and lamina . at that time , his primary symptom was midthoracic pain ; this pain resolved within 3 months of his index surgery .
when he returned to clinic 5 years later , he complained of deep - seated... | study design case report and review of the literature .
objective the objective of the article is to report the case of a 20-year - old patient with a threatened aortic injury from pedicle screw instrumentation successfully managed without aortic grafting .
methods the patient 's clinical course is retrospectively reviewed .
the offending hardware was removed after gaining endovascular control of the aorta .
results intraoperative aortography was normal and no graft was placed .
the patient remains asymptomatic at 2 years after surgery .
conclusions hardware impinging on the aorta can safely be removed by gaining endovascular control of the aorta . in the setting of normal intraoperative aortography in a young patient , we recommend against further intervention to avoid the known morbidity of aortic grafting . |
6,144 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: both wild and captive reptiles are frequently affected by external parasites . of these , acarids ( ticks and mites ) are the most commonly encountered .
the most commonectoparasite in captive snakes is the hematophagous snake mite ( ophionyssus natricis ) belonging to the macronyssidae family of the suborder mesostigmata ( 1 ) .
unfed females are yellow - brown ; engorged females are dark red , brown or black .
1 ) . the engorged female leaves the host and deposits eggs in cracks and crevices .
the eggs hatch in 14 days , developing through larva , protonymph and deutonymph stages to the adult .
o. natricis has a worldwide distribution affecting mainly snakes and to a lesser extent lizards .
infected snakes often exhibit lethargy , dysecdysis , pruritus , crusting dermatitis ( sometimes progressing to abscesses ) , and behavioral changes ( increased bathing time , rubbing against objects ) .
the mite , which thrives in skin crevasses , acts as an irritant to the snake that can cause parasitic dermatitis , but often leads to increased , irregular shedding cycles ( 3 ) .
o. natriciscan also attack humans , causing popular vesiculo - bullous eruption of the skin ( 4 ) .
a 29 years old manworking in sari zoo , sari , mazandaran , iran , presented itchy papullar eruption of the skin ( fig .
he had noticed small insects fixed on his skin and he had attempted to remove them , also large numbers of these same insects were on a python and its cage in the zoo .
department of veterinary parasitology , veterinary faculty , islamic azad university , babol branch was asked to examine the python .
the snake was a 2.95 m caramel burmese python snake and insects were collected from the snake and its glass cage in the zoo .
the man who feeds and takes care of python with papullar rash was also examined and behavioral changes noticed such as , restlessness , irritation , anorexia , and short cycles of skin shedding in python history .
samples were preserved in alcohol , and then made them transparent in lacto phenol in order... | ophionyssus natricis is a purely blood sucking parasite of snakes and of worldwide distribution .
infected snakes often exhibit lethargy , pruritus , crusting dermatitis , and behavioral changes .
ophionyssus natricis can also attack humans , causing popular vesiculo - bullous eruption of the skin .
a 29 years old man working in zoo , sari , mazandaran , iran , presented itchy papullar eruption of the skin .
he had noticed small insects fixed on his skin and large numbers of these same insects on a python and its cage in the zoo . regarding totheir morphological characteristics they were diagnosed as o. natricis ( geravis , 1844 ) , a snake mite .
it is the first report of o. natricis from iran . |
6,145 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: urinary tract infections in diabetics are a common occurrence , and they may be complicated by the presence of gas producing organisms . emphysematous infection of the kidney is well known , but such infections are rare in the testis and epididymis .
these infections are often referred to the surgeon , because of the likelihood of surgical intervention .
both emphysematous pyelonephritis and epididymo - orchitis may not be detected clinically and ultrasound or computed tomography ( ct ) may be needed for the diagnosis .
the presentation of epididymo - orchitis with gas bubbles in the scrotum is very rare , and one case that has been reported was secondary to seminal vesicle involvement by diverticulitis of the colon .
. however , there are no case reports of emphysematous epididymo - orchitis caused by e. coli with a normal seminal vesicle .
a 52-year - old man was brought to emergency with a 3-day history of pain and swelling in the left scrotum with fever [ figure 1 ] .
clinical examination of the scrotum showed inflamed left scrotum and tender and enlarged left testis and epididymis .
per rectal examination showed that the prostate was normal in size and consistency , with its upper limit just reachable .
he gave a history of previous urinary tract infection , and the culture had shown e. coli .
an ultrasound of the scrotum was done , which showed gas shadows in the left epididymis and testis with inflammation in the skin of the scrotum and fluid in the tunical sacs [ figure 2 ] . a ct scan of the abdomen and the pelvis showed the pockets of gas in the scrotum and testis , but the seminal vesicles and the sigmoid colon were normal [ figure 2 ] .
clinical presentation with acute inflamed scrotum with per operative image showing destroyed testicular tunica and parenchyma radiology of the patient showing in clockwise sequence , gas bubbles in the testis and scrotum seen on ultrasound , ct images showing preserved fat planes around the seminal vesicles , gas bubbles seen in the scrotum and substance of the... | emphysematous epididymo - orchitis is a rare cause of an acute scrotum and is a surgical emergency .
diagnosis is clinically difficult , and sonography with a high - frequency probe is useful to pick up gas shadows in the scrotal wall or testicular substance . a diabetic patient presented with fever , urinary tract infection , and an acute scrotal swelling .
the patient needed orchidectomy and scrotal debridement .
as in emphysematous pyelonephritis , this condition occurs in diabetics , and patients may need surgery .
there is a need to perform sonography in all diabetic patients with an acutely inflamed scrotum , because detection of gas shadows makes surgical intervention more likely . |
6,146 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the genome sequences of gdah16 and gdse16 have been deposited in genbank under the accession numbers ky347898 , ky347899 . | previously , we identified three porcine circovirus type 2 ( pcv2 ) strains in buffalo meat samples from southern china . in this study , we confirmed the reappearance of those buffalo - origin - like pcv2 strains in swine herds in this region , which supported the possible cross - species infection of pcv2 between buffalos and pigs under field conditions . |
6,147 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: gemella morbillorum is a gram - positive , catalase - negative , facultatively anaerobic coccus that often behaves as commensal bacteria of the mucous membranes of oropharynx , gastrointestinal tract , and female genital tract .
however , in some rare cases , this bacterium has been implicated in serious invasive infections , especially endocarditis 1 .
possible predisposing factors for gemella morbillorum endocarditis include situations in which there is a lack of the gastrointestinal mucosal barrier integrity , as surgical manipulation of the oral cavity and gastrointestinal tract neoplasia 2,3 .
severe cases of gemella endocarditis have been reported , both cases requiring cardiac valve replacement and cases with fatal outcome 4 ; this fact underscores the potential virulence of this pathogen in the setting of infective endocarditis .
we present here a case of cardiogenic shock as a complication of acute mitral valve regurgitation following gemella morbillorum native valve endocarditis in a 72-year - old male .
a 72-year - old caucasian male with a history of hypertension , type-2 diabetes mellitus , peripheral arterial disease of the lower limbs , and previous coronary artery bypass graft surgery was admitted to a tertiary referral hospital in southern brazil with dry cough , fever , anorexia , loss of more than 10% of body weight , and dyspnea in the last 30 days . upon arrival to the emergency department ,
the patient was hypotensive ( blood pressure 78/53 mmhg ) , tachycardic ( heart rate 122 bpm ) , feverish ( axillary temperature 38.4c ) , with jugular turgor at 45 , with bibasilar pulmonary rales and with new systolic mitral regurgitation murmur ( murmur grade 4 ) .
the patient rapidly developed cardiorespiratory collapse requiring mechanical ventilation and continuous infusion of vasopressors ; he also presented oliguria ( urine output < 0.5 ml / kg / h ) and signs of poor peripheral perfusion ( cold extremities , cyanosis , and capillary refill time > 2 sec ) .
the initial chest x - ray... | key clinical messagegemella morbillorum is a rare cause of infective endocarditis .
consequently , little is known about the natural course of endocarditis secondary to this pathogen .
herein , we report a case of cardiogenic shock as a complication of acute mitral valve regurgitation following gemella morbillorum native valve endocarditis . |
6,148 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: in 1960 nowell first described lymphocyte activation by mitogenic lectins to result in " blastic transformation " and subsequent mitosis , which are complex cellular events that require several days to evolve .
more than 40 years later , we have advanced considerably in our understanding of the cellular and molecular events responsible for these phenomena .
now with the genomic revolution , we are poised on a new threshold of discovery , in that it is finally feasible to begin to identify the genes that are responsible for such complicated cellular processes .
however , it is now necessary to develop an experimental approach that will rapidly and accurately facilitate the discovery process . with the description of lymphocyte - derived growth factor activities in the 1960s and 1970s
, it was realized that activated lymphocytes secrete soluble factors that are critical for subsequent lymphocyte proliferation .
moreover , in 1967 it was demonstrated that monocytes or macrophages serve as necessary accessory cells for the lymphocyte activation process .
then , in the early 1970s several reports indicated that mitogen- or endotoxin - stimulated macrophages release soluble lymphocyte activating factors ( lafs ) that also amplify the activation process .
accordingly , lymphokines and monokines , which collectively came to be known as cytokines , became prime research subjects for those interested in lymphocyte activation .
however , it was not until the 1980s that the cell surface and soluble molecules responsible for the complex cellular changes of lymphocyte activation were identified . with the isolation of the lymphocyte - derived molecule responsible for t cell growth factor ( tcgf ) activity , which came to be known as interleukin 2 ( il-2 ) , and
discovery of il-2 receptors ( il-2r ) , it could be shown that mitogenic lectins and specific antigens triggered an initial activation event , which was analogous to the activation of cell cycle " competence " by serum - stimulated fibroblasts , and resulted in... | backgroundlymphocyte activation culminates in blastogenesis , cell cycle progression , dna replication and mitosis .
these complex cellular changes are programmed almost simultaneously by multiple ligands and receptors that trigger specific signal transduction pathways and transcription factors . until now ,
the discovery of the genes regulated by each ligand / receptor pair has been hampered by the technologies available.resultsto identify interleukin-2 ( il-2)-responsive genes , human peripheral blood mononuclear cells ( pbmc ) were pre - activated with anti - cd3 , rested , and restimulated with il-2 for 4 hr . gene expression was analyzed using affymetrix u95av2 oligonucleotide arrays . to determine the most stringent parameters to score a gene as a bona fide il-2 target
, the expression of 19 known il-2-regulated genes was examined first .
all were induced at least 2-fold , with a difference in fluorescent intensity of 100 at p < 0.05 .
an additional 53 unique genes met these criteria . to determine which of these were immediate / early il-2 targets in t cells ,
purified t cells were stimulated with il-2 for 4 hr in the presence of cycloheximide to prevent secondary gene expression .
of the 72 genes identified in pbmcs , 20 were detected as immediate / early il-2-regulated genes in purified t cells .
in addition , 27 unique genes were il-2-regulated in t cells but not in pbmcs.conclusionsfor a successful reductionist approach to the analysis of gene expression in lymphocyte activation , it is necessary to examine purified cell populations and immediate / early gene expression regulated by each ligand / receptor pair involved .
this approach should allow the discovery of genes regulated by all of the ligand / receptor pairs involved in lymphocyte activation . |
6,149 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: direct invasion or metastasis of malignant lymphoma in the middle ear is rare and the clinical features remain unknown [ 1 , 2 ] . we treated a case of non - hodgkin b - cell lymphoma ( nhbl ) in the middle ear presenting as recalcitrant otitis media and mastoiditis associated with transverse sinus thrombosis .
the patient was diagnosed 6 years after the initial symptoms and was treated successfully with surgery and chemotherapy .
we report the clinical characteristics of a rare case of nhbl in the middle ear and review the literature .
a 57-year - old woman presented with chronic temporal headache and right tinnitus , and the symptoms gradually aggravated .
conservative treatment continued at the local otolaryngology clinic based on a diagnosis of otitis media .
slight consciousness disturbance , slight fever and auditory disturbance were noted 1 year after the initial symptoms , and the patient was referred to our department .
neurological findings showed slight consciousness disturbance , and an audiometric hearing test demonstrated 30 db in the right ear , diagnosed as a mild hearing impairment .
magnetic resonance imaging ( mri ) showed edematous brain swelling in the right temporal lobe and right tentorium and dural enhancement around the transverse sinus ( fig .
mri showed a heterogeneous mass lesion in the right middle ear and mastoid air cells with dural enhancement around the lesion ( fig .
she was diagnosed with recalcitrant otitis media invading the mastoid associated with transverse sinus thrombosis and was treated with antibiotics , hyperosmotic fluids , steroids and repeated external drainage of the middle ear .
symptoms of temporal headache , auditory disturbance , slight fever and radiological findings of brain swelling did not disappear , and remission and exacerbation of these symptoms occurred repeatedly . consciousness disturbance occurred again , and chronic temporal headache gradually aggravated 5 years after the first examination in our department .
mri revealed enlargement of the... | cerebral venous thrombosis as a manifestation of paraneoplastic angitis and otitis media , revealing non - hodgkin b - cell lymphoma ( nhbl ) , is extremely rare . a 57-year - old woman presented with headache , auditory disturbance and recalcitrant otitis media
. magnetic resonance imaging showed brain edema in the temporal lobe and transverse sinus thrombosis .
external drainage under antibiotic treatment was repeated based on a diagnosis of invasive otitis media and mastoiditis associated with infectious sinus thrombosis , but the condition deteriorated progressively .
open surgery for otitis media was performed 6 years after the initial symptoms and after a tumorous lesion had been detected in the middle ear .
pathological findings revealed nhbl .
we report a rare case of nhbl presenting as otitis media and mastoiditis associated with sinus thrombosis , and a literature review . |
6,150 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: patients aged 12 years with asthma were eligible if they could demonstrate a 12% and 200-ml reversibility of fev1 following albuterol inhalation at screening and had a best evening fev1 of 40% to 85% of the predicted normal value at screening and at randomization . before screening
, patients had been taking ics for 12 weeks , with a stable medium dose of ics ( fp 250 g bid or equivalent ) for 4 weeks .
the study was approved by the local ethics review committees ( e - table 1 ) and was conducted in accordance with the declaration of helsinki and good clinical practice guidelines .
this phase 3 , multicenter , randomized , double - blind , double - dummy , parallel group study was conducted between june 16 , 2010 , and july 27 , 2011 . after screening
, eligible patients entered a 4-week run - in period during which they replaced their current asthma medication with fp 250 g bid , and their short - acting bronchodilator with albuterol delivered through a metered - dose inhaler .
after the run - in period , patients received ( 1:1 ) either ff / vi 100/25 g ( emitted dose , 92/22 g ) once daily in the evening , administered through an ellipta dry powder inhaler ( glaxosmithkline ) , or fp / sal 250/50 g bid ( morning and evening ) through diskus / accuhaler ( glaxosmithkline ) for 24 weeks . the central randomization schedule was generated by the sponsor with a validated computerized system ( randall ; glaxosmithkline ) .
compliance with study medication was measured by reviewing the dose counter on the dry powder inhaler and diskus / accuhaler .
the primary end point was change from baseline in 0- to 24-h serial weighted mean ( wm ) fev1 after 24 weeks of treatment .
secondary end points were individual serial fev1 assessments at week 24 ( fev1 at each time point on day 168 ) , time to onset of bronchodilator effect ( the time point when fev1 first exceeded the 12% and 200-ml increase over baseline [ taken from serial measurements ] ) at randomization visit only , 0- to 4-h serial wmfev1 postdose at the... | background : the combination of fluticasone furoate ( ff ) , a novel inhaled corticosteroid ( ics ) , and vilanterol ( vi ) , a long - acting 2 agonist , is under development as a once - daily treatment of asthma and copd .
the aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of ff / vi with fluticasone propionate ( fp)/salmeterol ( sal ) in patients with persistent asthma uncontrolled on a medium dose of ics.methods:in a randomized , double - blind , double - dummy , parallel group study , 806 patients received ff / vi ( 100/25 g , n = 403 ) once daily in the evening delivered through ellipta ( glaxosmithkline ) dry powder inhaler , or fp / sal ( 250/50 g , n = 403 ) bid through diskus / accuhaler ( glaxosmithkline ) .
the primary efficacy measure was 0- to 24-h serial weighted mean ( wm ) fev1 after 24 weeks of treatment.results:improvements from baseline in 0- to 24-h wmfev1 were observed with both ff / vi ( 341 ml ) and fp / sal ( 377 ml ) ; the adjusted mean treatment difference was not statistically significant ( 37 ml ; 95% ci , 88 to 15 , p = 0.162 ) .
there were no differences between 0- to 4-h serial wmfev1 , trough fev1 , and asthma control and quality - of - life questionnaire scores .
there was no difference in reported exacerbations between treatments .
both treatments were well tolerated , with no clinically relevant effect on urinary cortisol excretion or vital signs and no treatment - related serious adverse events.conclusions:the efficacy of once - daily ff / vi was similar to bid fp / sal in improving lung function in patients with persistent asthma .
no safety issues were identified.trial registry : clinicaltrials.gov ; no .
: nct01147848 ; url : www.clinicaltrials.gov |
6,151 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: hyperinsulinemia and elevated circulation angiotensin ii ( ang ii ) level tend to concomitantly occur in obesity patients and contribute to obesity - related hypertension . in recent years
, a number of studies found a cross talk , at multiple levels , between ang ii and insulin [ 26 ] .
several studies showed that ang ii could negatively modulate insulin - mediated actions [ 24 ] . at the intracellular level
, ang ii was found to work on jak-2/irs1-irs2/pi3 kinase , jnk , and erk via ang ii receptor type 1 ( at1r ) , to phosphorylate serine residues of key components of insulin signaling pathway , that is , the insulin receptors , irs1 , and the p85 subunit of pi3 kinase , thereby inhibiting pi3 kinase / akt signaling pathway .
in addition , by inducing expression of the regulatory protein socs 3 , ang ii may inhibit insulin - induced tyrosine phosphorylation of irs1 and irs2 and [ ser473 ] phosphorylation of akt , as a consequence , impairing the transduction of insulin signals in the jak2/stat-5b pathway [ 5 , 6 ] .
it is generally believed that ang ii acts on insulin predominantly by inhibiting pi3 kinase / akt pathway .
nonetheless , researchers do not entirely agree about the role of the map kinase pathway in the cross talk between ang ii and insulin .
mayer and colleagues found that , after treatment with ang ii , the phospho - erk1/2 activity at the hypothalamic level was significantly higher in rats pretreated with insulin than in those treated with insulin or ang ii alone .
studies by carvalheira et al . also suggested a direct and positive cross talk between ang ii and insulin in erk pathway in cardiac tissues . on the other hand
, other studies revealed a competitive cross talk between ang ii and insulin - mediated erk pathways . in the epithelial cells of renal proximal tubules ,
insulin - mediated erk activation was found to be suppressed by ang ii , although the two hormones , when working separately , augmented erk1/2-type kinase activity . similarly , a study observed that , in at1ar - ok... | the cross talk between angiotensin ii ( ang ii ) and insulin has been described mainly in cardiovascular cells , hepatocytes , adipocytes , and so forth , and to date no such cross talk was reported in adrenal . in this study , we examined the interaction between ang ii and insulin / igf-1 in erk and akt signaling pathways and expression of steroidogenic enzymes in h295r cells .
compared to the control , 100 nm ang ii increased phospho - erk1/2 approximately 3-fold .
insulin ( 100 nm ) or igf-1 ( 10 nm ) alone raised phospho - erk1/2 1.8- and 1.5-fold , respectively , while , after pretreatment with 100 nm ang ii for 30 min , insulin ( 100 nm ) or igf-1 ( 10 nm ) elevated phospho - erk1/2 level 8- and 7-fold , respectively .
the synergistic effect of ang ii and insulin / igf-1 on erk1/2 activation was inhibited by selective at1 receptor blocker , pkc inhibitor , and mek1/2 inhibitor .
ang ii marginally suppressed akt activation under the basal condition , while it had no effect on phospho - akt induced by insulin / igf-1 .
ang ii significantly stimulated mrna expression of cyp11b1 and cyp11b2 , and such stimulatory effects were enhanced when cells were cotreated with insulin / igf-1 .
we are led to conclude that ang ii in combination with insulin / igf-1 had an evident synergistic stimulatory effect on erk1/2 activation in h295r cells and the effect may be responsible for the enhanced steroid hormone production induced by ang ii plus insulin / igf-1 . |
6,152 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: polycystic ovary syndrome ( pcos ) is a heterogeneous and complex endocrine disorder associated with hyperandrogenism and insulin resistance signs and symptoms such as obesity , abnormal glucose tolerance test or type 2 diabetes , abnormal blood lipid profile , high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease ( 1 ) .
this disorder is prevalent and affects 5 - 10% of women of reproductive age ( 2 ) and causes infertility in 75% of these women due to chronic anovulation ( 3 ) .
many drugs were used as a treatment for pcos or control its consequences , including metformin ( 4 ) , simvastatin ( 5 ) , atorvastatin ( 6 ) , n - acetyl - cysteine ( nac ) ( 7 ) and flutamide ( 8) . in general , all of these drugs have positive effects in improving hyperandrogenic symptoms and regulation of menstrual cycles , but simvastatin and metformin have been more commonly used than others for treatment and research purposes . in one study , long - term treatment with simvastatin was more effective than metformin for control of hyperandrogenism sign and increased menstrual regulation in women with pco ( 9 ) .
there are several published studies regarding the effectiveness of statins administration in women with pco ( 10 , 11 ) , but in comparison with metformin there is no published research about drug administration before or during icsi cycle .
simvastatin a drug from statins group , inhibits hmg - coa reductase and reduces cholesterol production , increases liver ldl receptor sensitivity and hdl level , meanwhile decreases tg level in blood circulation ( 12 ) .
moreover , statins prevent theca - interstitial cell proliferation in ovaries and therefore reduce total androgen production ( 13 ) .
metformin as a biguanid drug , blocks glucose synthesis in liver and enhances peripheral sensitivity to insulin , which finally decreases androgen level in patients with pco and enhances the chance of pregnancy ( 14 ) . according to latest cochrane published study about metformin treatment before and during icsi cycle , live birth or... | background : drugs administration as a pretreatment regiment before icsi cycle in pcos patients could enhance the success rate.objectives:the aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of metformin with simvastatin in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome ( pcos ) candidates for intra - cytoplasmic sperm injection ( icsi ) before starting the cycle.patients and methods : in this prospective , double blind , randomized clinical trial the efficacy of these drugs was evaluated in 40 women with pco syndrome ( 20 patients in each group ; a : simvastatin and b : metformin ) candidates for icsi . in the both groups , metformin and simvastatin administrated for eight weeks before starting the icsi cycle .
endocrine , metabolic and clinical parameters were measured before and after drug therapy ; also , the results of icsi cycle evaluated in the both groups.results:both drugs improved hirsutism score significantly , but simvastatin better than metformin ( group a , 24.5 3.6 p : 0.0001 vs group b , 22.9 5.9 p : 0.003 ) .
the reduction in body mass index ( bmi ) was not significant in the groups .
simvastatin reduced some biochemical parameters such as fsh , lh , testosterone , total cholesterol , ldl and increased hdl level significantly , whereas metformin decreased fsh , tg , testosterone and total cholesterol significantly .
overall , respectively 35% and 30% of patients treated with metformin and simvastatin became pregnant .
there was no significant difference between the effects of these two drugs on icsi cycle results like oocyte in meiosis2 ( m2 ) phase ( 1.35 1.6 vs. 2 3.87 , p value : 0.4 ) and the number of grade a , embryo ( 1.2 1.3 vs. 1.1 1.4 , p value : 0.7).conclusions : simvastatin effectively improved hyperandrogenism signs and symptoms in patients with pco , but this effect as a pretreatment regiment was not more expressive than metformin in icsi cycle outcome . |
6,153 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: adhesive bond failure between acrylic teeth and resin material is the most routine type of failure in dental practice .
appropriate bonding of acrylic teeth to denture base resin is essential as it increases strength since the teeth becomes an intrinsic part of the prosthesis .
the bond strength between acrylic teeth and denture base is multifaceted including mechanical and chemical methods for enhancing the bond between teeth and resin material .
many researchers have over the years tried to improve the bond strength by altering the ridge lap area mechanically .
( 1986 ) reported that the there is no advantage of vertical retention grooves prepared in the ridge lap area of cross - linked teeth .
( 1990 ) contradictated his earlier statement and proved that vertical retention grooves made on cross linked teeth increased bond strength between cross - linked teeth and denture base material .
the teeth were divided into three groups : group ano tooth preparation , group ba mesiodistal groove was prepared in the ridge lap area of the tooth , and group ca vertical groove of the same dimensions was prepared at the center of the ridge lap extending halfway up the lingual surface of the tooth .
a shear force was applied at an angle of 130 to the lingual surface of the cross - linked teeth until failure occurred .
the vertical retention grooves prepared in the ridge lap area of the teeth proved to be beneficial and modified retention to the resin material but there was no benefit of placement of the horizontal grooves .
the advantage of mechanical modifications of cross - linked teeth for bond strength between high - impact denture base material and cross - linked teeth is unclear .
hence , an attempt has been made to evaluate and compare the bond strength of cross - linked teeth bonded to high - impact denture base material by providing different mechanical modifications of denture teeth .
to evaluate bond strength between heat cure resin material and cross - linked teeth without modificationto evaluate bond... | aim and objective : acrylic teeth separates from the denture base and remains a major worry in day - to - day routine dental procedure .
the present study was conducted to comparatively evaluate different mechanical modifications of acrylic teeth on bond strength between lucitone 199 heat cure resin and cross - linked teeth.materials and methods : the test specimens , central incisors ( 21 ) were demarcated into four groups .
group 1 was the control group , whereas group 2 , group 3 , and group 4 were experimental groups modified with round groove , vertical groove , and t - shaped groove , respectively .
the preparation of masterpiece was done by aligning the long axis of the central incisor teeth at 45 to the base of a wax block ( 8 mm 10 mm 30 mm ) , with ridge lap surface contacting the base . these test specimen ( 21 )
was prepared by lucitone 199 heat cure resin .
evaluation of bond strength of all the specimens was done using universal tester ( materials testing machine ) .
shapiro
wilk test , one - way analysis of variance ( anova ) , and bonferroni test were done to do statistical investigation.results:group 1 specimens prepared by lucitone 199 heat cure resin showed the lowest bond strength and group 4 specimens prepared with t - shaped groove packed with lucitone 199 exhibited the highest bond strength.conclusion:the bond strength between lucitone 199 heat cure resin and cross - linked teeth was increased when mechanical modifications was done on denture teeth .
the specimens prepared with t - shaped groove packed with lucitone 199 heat cure resin showed the highest bond strength followed by group 3 , group 2 , and lastly group 1 prepared by lucitone 199 heat cure resin . |
6,154 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: phosphorylation of proteins is the most abundant posttranslational modification used in regulatory mechanisms in eukaryotic cells ( khoury et al . , 2011 ) .
advanced techniques of phosphoproteomics have led to the identification of tens of thousands of phosphorylated sites in protein kinase targets . a closer look at phosphoproteomes highlights one important feature : a large fraction of protein kinase targets contain multiple phosphorylation sites , and clusters of sites tend to be located within intrinsically disordered regions of the target proteins ( holt et al . , 2009 ; tyanova et al . ,
thus it appears that the mechanism of phosphorylation may hide yet another level of complexity arising from combinatorial patterns of multistep phosphorylation events .
however , how this multisite phosphorylation code is to be read and transformed into meaningful signaling information remains unclear because the biochemical details of the signal processing logic of these multisite phosphorylation networks have not been studied until recently . during multisite phosphorylation
, phosphate groups are added in either a random or defined order to serine , threonine , or tyrosine residues in kinase substrates . when a crucial set of key sites becomes phosphorylated , the downstream signaling switch will be triggered .
our recent studies shed light on a mechanism by which sequential multisite phosphorylation is used for processing of cyclin - dependent kinase 1 ( cdk1 ) signals in cell cycle regulation ( koivomagi et al . ,
here we discuss the main engineering principles of molecular switches based on sequential multisite phosphorylation of cdk1 targets .
we also explore a range of possible but as - yet - unobserved properties that multisite phosphorylation networks may provide to the signal processing capacity of cellular systems in general .
cdk1-dependent phosphorylation events often lead to the generation of phosphorylated sequence motifs ( phosphodegrons ) that are recognized by the ubiquitination machinery and... | multisite phosphorylation of proteins is a powerful signal processing mechanism that plays crucial roles in cell division and differentiation as well as in disease .
we recently demonstrated a novel phenomenon in cell cycle regulation by showing that cyclin - dependent kinase
dependent multisite phosphorylation of a crucial substrate is performed sequentially in the n - to - c terminal direction along the disordered protein .
the process is controlled by key parameters , including the distance between phosphorylation sites , the distribution of serines and threonines in sites , and the position of docking motifs . according to our model ,
linear patterns of phosphorylation along disordered protein segments determine the signal - response function of a multisite phosphorylation switch . here
we discuss the general advantages and engineering principles of multisite phosphorylation networks as processors of kinase signals .
we also address the idea of using the mechanistic logic of linear multisite phosphorylation networks to design circuits for synthetic biology applications . |
6,155 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: medication - assisted treatment ( mat ; sometimes known as opioid substitution therapy or opioid replacement therapy ) is widely accepted as one of the most effective interventions for opioid dependence.1 however , variations in treatment access and provision exist across countries .
open - access , whereby treatment is predominantly delivered in primary - care settings rather than specialist addiction clinics .
this approach has several advantages , including good accessibility , lower costs , reduced stigma , less contact with drug - using peers , and enhanced social integration .
methadone was introduced in france in 1995 , and 1 year later france became the first country in europe to introduce buprenorphine.2 since then there has been a rapid growth in the number of people receiving mat in france ; an estimated 138,000 people received mat in 2009 , of whom 73% received buprenorphine and 27% received methadone.3 a unique feature of the french treatment system is that all registered medical doctors are allowed to prescribe buprenorphine without any special education or licensing ; once prescribed by a doctor , buprenorphine can be dispensed by the pharmacy chosen by the patient and named on the prescription.4,5 regulations allow buprenorphine prescriptions of up to 28 days with seven take - home doses , although physicians have the authority to request daily , supervised dosing by pharmacists or up to 28 days of take - home doses.5 in contrast , treatment with methadone still requires mandatory initiation within a specialized center or health care facility , and management of the patient can only be transferred to a nonspecialist physician once the patient has been stabilized.5 urine testing is compulsory in france when treating with methadone , but is not compulsory with buprenorphine.5 another important feature of the french model is that costs are fully covered by the social security system and psychosocial support is provided free of charge by local authorities.5 in 2008 , the french governmental plan... | aimproject access france was a national survey designed to provide real - world observations on the status of opioid dependence treatment in france.methodsthe views of physicians ( n=100 ) , patients ( n=130 ) , and out - of - treatment opioid users ( n=33 ) were collected via interviews and questionnaires.resultsphysicians reported being moderately satisfied with treatment programs in their area ( rating 6.9 out of 10 ) .
most physicians ( 82% ) reported being concerned about misuse and diversion of medication - assisted treatment ( mat ) medications and 50% identified psychosocial / behavioral counseling as the key change that would most improve patient care . among patients ,
the mean number of previous mat episodes was low ( 1.5 ) ; 78% reported that it was easy to access a doctor to undergo mat ; 14% reported regularly or sometimes using heroin ; misuse and diversion were reported in 15% and 39% of patients , respectively ; and 57% of patients were not receiving psychosocial help .
out - of - treatment opioid users reported using drugs on a regular basis ( 42% regularly used heroin ) and cited not wanting to give up drugs completely as the most frequent reason for staying out of mat.conclusionthis survey highlights a number of positive features of the open - access , gp - based treatment model for opioid dependence in france .
challenges remain with regard to continued misuse / diversion of mat medications and limited patient access to psychosocial support . |
6,156 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: a thorough understanding of root canal anatomy and morphology is required for achieving high levels of success in endodontic treatment .
failure to recognize variations in root or root canal anatomy can result in the unsuccessful endodontic treatment .
hence , it is imperative that the clinician be well informed and alerted to the commonest possible variations .
hoen and pink in their analysis on teeth requiring re - treatment , found a 42% incidence of missed roots or canals .
numerous reports of root canal variations in these teeth have been reported in the literature .
vertucci in his series of studies conducted on extracted teeth , reported 2.5% incidence of a second canal .
in the case of mandibular first premolars , it is normally a single - rooted tooth . the frequency of occurrence of two roots is 1.8% while three roots are reported to be present in 0.2%of cases . in single - rooted mandibular first premolars ,
these anatomic abnormalities are additional challenges , which begin at the case assessment and involve all operative stages , including access cavity design , localization , cleaning , and shaping of the root canal system .
although preoperative radiography gives a two - dimensional image of a three - dimensional object , precise interpretation can reveal external and anatomic details that suggest the presence of extra canals or roots .
the purpose of this clinical report is to describe an anatomic abnormality that was detected during routine root canal treatment in a mandibular first premolar .
a 24-year - old male patient came to a private dental clinic with pain in the left lower back tooth .
on radiographic examination preoperative radiograph revealed radiolucency involving pulp with respect to 34 [ figure 1a ] .
diagnosis of acute irreversible pulpitis was made . also iopa revealed 34 having four roots . to confirm the presence of four roots two more radiographs one with distal angulation and the other with mesial angulation
access was gained to the pulp chamber after administration of... | mandibular premolars have earned the reputation for having aberrant anatomy .
the literature is replete with reports of extra canals in mandibular first premolars , but reports about the incidence of extra roots in these teeth are quite rare
. this paper attempts at explaining a rare case of successful endodontic management of a four - rooted mandibular first premolar with diagnostic , interoperative and postoperative radiographic records along with a substantial data on the incidence of extra roots in these teeth .
the standard method of radiographic appraisal was maintained as the criteria for determining the presence of extra roots . |
6,157 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: it is regarded as the most expensive disorder among all psychiatric disorders in terms of health care expenditure per patient.1 a recent japanese study estimated the annual burden of disease to exceed 3.5 million yen per patient ( approximately us$30,000).2 most of the costs can be attributed to the loss of working ability as schizophrenia patients face a higher likelihood of being unemployed .
hospitalization has been identified as another significant cost driver not only in japan but also in the united states3,4 and europe.5,6 hence , relapse prevention that helps to reduce inpatient stays is an important element in the treatment of schizophrenia .
there is a wide range of antipsychotic medications available ranging from conventional or typical first - generation antipsychotics , atypical second - generation antipsychotics , and conventional and atypical long - acting injectables ( lais ) .
what they all have in common is that the efficacy of the drugs is highly dependent on patient adherence.7 however , adherence levels are reported to be low among schizophrenia patients,8,9 and scientific evidence suggests a strong negative relationship between the level of adherence and the probability of hospitalization for patients in the united states1017 and europe;18,19 refer also , higashi et al20 for a recent systematic review on this topic .
they found lack of insight , medication beliefs , and substance abuse to be key drivers of nonadherence that in turn leads to a greater risk of relapse , hospitalization , and suicide .
we are not aware of any study that utilizes japanese data to analyze the relationship between adherence and hospitalization . in our view
, it is worth studying the japanese data because stigmatizing attitudes in response to mental disorders are reported to be more severe in japan,21 which some authors attribute to the old japanese character of the word schizophrenia which literally means
the disease of disorganized mind.22 in 2002 , the japanese name of schizophrenia was changed into
togo... | backgroundthe aim of this study is to analyze if there is a relationship between adherence to antipsychotic medication and rehospitalization for patients diagnosed with schizophrenia in japan.methodsbased on japanese claims data , we constructed three patient groups based on their medication possession ratio ( mpr ) .
controlling for potential confounders , a cox proportional hazard model was employed to assess if medication adherence affects the risk of rehospitalization.resultspatients with good adherence ( mprs from 0.81.1 ) had the lowest rates of admission . both poor adherence ( mprs < 0.8 ) and overadherence ( mprs > 1.1 ) were associated with a significant higher risk of rehospitalization with hazard ratios of 4.7 and 2.0 , respectively.conclusionthe results of this study support the notion that good adherence to antipsychotic medication reduces the risk of rehospitalization of schizophrenia patients .
appropriate measures should be taken to improve adherence of schizophrenia patients . |
6,158 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: less commonly , this condition presents in teenagers and young adults often with less aggressive features.4 coats disease is a major simulator of retinoblastoma , a life - threatening pediatric ocular malignancy.14 in a study of angiographic findings of patients with coats disease , we noticed that occlusion of the retinal microvasculature with peripheral nonperfusion and shunt or microshunt formation between arterioles and venules in the retina was a prominent finding.5 this led to a speculation regarding serum factors that could lead to the microocclusions , such as a hypercoagulability state .
realizing that such a state would more likely lead to bilateral manifestations , we continued to explore serum features in coats disease . in 2012 , we found a significantly high level of anti - cytomegalovirus ( cmv ) immunoglobulin g ( igg ) in 92% of coats patients , higher serum proteins c and s , anti - herpes simplex virus ( hsv ) igg i / ii , alpha-2 globulin , and homocysteinemia in patients with coats disease.6 in the second step of the analysis , it was planned to compare these factors in patients with coats disease with a control group .
herein , we evaluated serum hypercoagulable factors and viral and protozoan diseases in patients with coats disease versus normal controls .
a prospective , single - center , comparative , consecutive cross - sectional study was conducted for evaluating blood hypercoagulability state and infectious diseases , including cmv , herpes simplex , epstein - barr virus ( ebv ) , toxoplasma and toxocara infections , in all patients with coats disease from february 2011 to december 2013 .
the research adhered to the tenets of the declaration of helsinki and the study was approved by tehran university of medical sciences institutional review board . each patient or parents
were carefully informed about the purpose of the research , and oral consent for laboratory examinations was obtained . each patient or
coats disease was defined as unilateral or bilateral retinal vasculopathy... | purposethe purpose of this study was to investigate the serum hypercoagulability state and common viral and protozoan infections in coats disease versus a normal control group.materials and methodsin this comparative case series , 22 consecutive patients with coats disease and 19 non - coats patients undergoing lensectomy for congenital , traumatic , or senile cataract between january 2011 and june 2014 were included .
laboratory data for hypercoagulability states and common viral and protozoan infections were investigated.resultsthe mean age for the coats group was 14.5 years ( median 8 years , range : 2 months to 59 years ) , and for the control group it was 30.6 years ( median 17 years , range : 282 years ) . in patients aged 10 years or younger , anticytomegalovirus immunoglobulin g ( igg ) ( p0.01 ) , homocysteine ( p=0.03 ) , and serum beta globulin ( p<0.001 ) were associated with coats disease . in those older than 10 years , higher serum protein s ( p=0.04 ) , beta globulin ( p=0.05 ) , and gamma globulin ( p=0.04 ) were related to coats diagnosis . after adjusting for sex and age as confounding factors ,
only beta globulin was found to be associated with coats disease in logistic regression analysis ( odds ratio : 1.8 , 95% confidence interval : 1.03.1 , p=0.02).conclusionserum beta globulin levels appear to be elevated in patients with coats disease . |
6,159 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: juvenile idiopathic arthritis ( jia ) is the most common chronic rheumatic disease of childhood .
it is an heterogeneous disease group of unknown aetiology with distinct presentation , clinical features , and genetic background .
jia is a complex genetic disease caused by the effects of environmental factors and multiple genes that act in concert to predispose the host to the development of jia and to determine the different disease phenotypes .
cytokines , a group of modulatory proteins or glycoproteins produced by a wide range of cells in response to a variety of stimuli , are important mediators and regulators of synovial inflammation .
basal and cell - stimulated cytokine levels differ between individuals ; both genetic and environmental influences have been shown to play a role in their variability .
genetic variation that produces altered structure or expression of a cytokine can have evident pathological consequences , as chronic diseases , increased risk of infection , and altered outcome of acute disorders .
variations in dna include single nucleotide polymorphisms ( snps ) , microsatellites , and insertion / deletion polymorphisms
. a large number of polymorphisms within the coding and noncoding regions of cytokines genes have been identified , and several thousand disease - association studies have been carried out using these variants . defining cytokine gene polymorphisms in jia
is linked to the necessity of understanding the aetiology , discovering possible markers of severity , and identifying targets for therapeutic intervention .
one of the most important molecule is tnf- , several studies have demonstrated high tnf- levels in both sera and synovial fluid of children with chronic arthritis [ 810 ] .
several snps have been identified within the promoter , exonic , intronic , and 3-untranslated region of the tnf- gene , but conflicting results have been reported [ 11 , 12 ] .
although many snps have been reported , only a very small minority of the genetic variants published have proven... | whether tumor necrosis factor alpha ( tnf- ) gene polymorphisms ( snps ) influence disease susceptibility and treatment of patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis ( jia ) is presently uncertain .
tnf- is one of the most important cytokine involved in jia pathogenesis .
several single nucleotide polymorphisms ( snps ) have been identified within the region of the tnf- gene but only a very small minority have proven functional consequences and have been associated with susceptibility to jia .
an association between some tnf- snps and adult rheumatoid arthritis ( ra ) susceptibility , severity and clinical response to anti - tnf- treatment has been reported .
the most frenquetly studied tnf- snp is located at 308 position , where a substitution of the g allele with the rare a allele has been found .
the presence of the allele 308a is associated to jia and to a poor prognosis . besides
, the 308 g genotype has been associated with a better response to anti - tnf- therapy in jia patients , confirming adult data .
psoriatic and oligoarticular arthritis are significantly associated to the 238 snp only in some works .
studies considering other snps are conflicting and inconclusive .
large scale studies are required to define the contribution of tnf- gene products to disease pathogenesis and anti - tnf- therapeutic efficacy in jia . |
6,160 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the myocyte enhancer factor 2 ( mef2 ) proteins belong to the mads ( mcm-1-agamous - deficiens - serum response factor ) box evolutionarily conserved family of transcription factors ( tf ) .
four vertebrate genes encode for distinct isoforms ( a - d ) of the mef2 family , whose expression is detected in a wide range of tissues , but the proteins are most abundant in muscle and brain . in the cns ,
mef2 isoforms exhibit distinct but overlapping patterns throughout the developing brain through adulthood , indicating that they are tightly regulated in multiple processes . in the mature brain ,
mef2 proteins are expressed in brain regions involved in memory formation , including amygdala , hippocampus , cortex and striatum .
each isoform is characterized by a highly conserved n - terminal region including the mads box , a dna binding domain that recognizes a / t - rich motif in target genes , and the mef2 domain that mediates homo- and hetero - dimerization .
the c - terminal region of mef2 is characterized by a divergent transactivation domain that mediates the interaction with numerous co - factors , including co - activators , such as the acetyl - transferases p300 and cbp , or co - repressor , such as class ii histone deacetylases ( hdacs ) and ncor / smrt co - repressor complex .
mef2 factors function as bivalent transcriptional regulators . in the absence of stimulating inputs , mef2 proteins form a complex with co - repressor complexes to keep their target genes in a repressed state . upon stimulus ,
the interaction with hdacs is disrupted to permit mef2 proteins to recruit co - activator complexes that promote transcription of target genes .
the transcriptional activity of mef2 proteins is tightly regulated by post - translational modifications that include phosphorylation , sumoylation , acetylation , and nitrosylation . in the central nervous system ,
neuronal activity induced by depolarization , neurotrophins or synaptic stimuli , such as reelin at glutamatergic synapses , triggers calcium signaling... | the transcription factors of the myocyte enhancer factor 2 family ( mef2 a - d ) are highly expressed in the brain and play a key role in neuronal survival / apoptosis , differentiation and synaptic plasticity . however , the precise genome - wide mapping of different members of the family has not yet been fully elucidated . here , we report the comparative analysis of mef2a and mef2c genome - wide mapping in mouse cortical neurons by chip - seq , a powerful approach to elucidate the genomic functions of transcription factors and to identify their transcriptional targets .
our analysis reveals that mef2a and mef2c each orchestrate similar epigenomic programs mainly through the binding of enhancer regulatory elements in proximity of target genes involved in neuronal plasticity and calcium signaling .
we highlight the differences in the enhancer networks and molecular pathways regulated by mef2a and mef2c , which might be determined by the combinatorial action of different transcription factors . |
6,161 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: today there is a great debate about the role of inflammation in control and regulation of tumor microenvironment directly influencing the development of neoplasms .
inflammation plays a fundamental role in tumor dynamic and is accepted as one of the hallmarks of cancer [ 1 , 2 ] .
currently there are two marked ways by which inflammation is associated with cancer development , an intrinsic pathway characterized by the gene expression and an extrinsic pathway , characterized by the formation of an inflammatory microenvironment . within this microenvironment , macrophages are the major cell populations involved in the inflammatory process associated with the development of neoplasms . considered highly plastic cells , they are able to respond to stimuli and produce numerous pro- and anti - inflammatory factors and when related to cancer , they are termed tumor - associated macrophages ( tams ) .
it is believed that tams play a key role in promoting and coordination phenomena of tumor growth due to their ability to modulate the angiogenesis and lymphangiogenesis that are processes involved in the progression of neoplasms .
tams are activated by different stimuli , such as growth factors , nutrients , and cytokines , produced in the tumor microenvironment that are responsible for inducing differentiation in functionally distinct populations . in populations of classically activated macrophages ( m1 )
, there is a high production of proinflammatory cytokines displaying an immune - stimulatory function . on the other hand ,
the alternative activation of macrophages ( m2 ) is based on the release of anti - inflammatory cytokines supporting an immunosuppressive environment [ 79 ] .
this environment , formed by cells , extracellular matrix , growth factors , nutrients , and cytokines , may be responsible for the macrophages differentiation and behavior of tumor cells .
however , like a feedback loop , these cells alter the environment in reply to stimuli .
, the role of tams polarization in m1 and m2 profiles might... | since 2000 , written with elegance and accuracy , hanahan and weinberg have proposed six major hallmarks of cancer and , together , they provide great advances to the understanding of tumoral biology .
our knowledge about tumor behavior has improved and the investigators have now recognized that inflammatory microenvironment may be a new feature for the tumor entities .
macrophages are considered as an important component of tumoral microenvironment .
biologically , two forms of activated macrophages can be observed : classically activated macrophages ( m1 ) and alternative activated macrophages ( m2 ) . despite the canonical pathways that control this puzzle of macrophages polarization , recently , mtor signaling pathway has been implicated as an important piece in determining the metabolic and functional differentiation of m1 and m2 profiles .
currently , it is believed that macrophages related to tumoral microenvironment present an
m2-like feature promoting an immunosuppressive microenvironment enhancing tumoral angiogenesis , growth , and metastasis . in the present review we discuss the role of macrophages in the tumor microenvironment and the role of mtor pathway in m1 and m2 differentiation .
we also discuss the recent findings in m1 and m2 polarization as a possible target in the cancer therapy . |
6,162 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the meiotic cell cycle in mammalian oocytes proceeds up to the diplotene or dictiate
stage of the first prophase and stay at this phase before lh surge ( hubbard & terranova , 1982 ; dutta et al . , 2016 ) .
during growth phase of the
follicle , the oocyte remains the arrested condition at prophase i. at this time it
is incompetent to complete meiosis .
the germinal vesicle intact oocytes in
cumulus - oocyte - complex removed from mature antral follicles spontaneously progress
to the metaphase ii stage by culture without gonadotropin ( pincus & enzmann , 1935 ; erickson & sorrenson , 1974 ) . on the other hand , the oocytes enclosed
in an antral follicle , do not enter meiosis even though these follicles are removed
from their environment . by the adding of gonadotropin or releasing from follicle
therefore , some low molecular weight substances in the
follicular fluid have been suggested as a mediator for meiotic arrest ( eppig et al .
cyclic adenosine monophosphate ( camp ) is a key signaling mediator in oocyte for
meiotic prophase arrest in most species studied .
elevated camp concentration in the
oocyte has been demonstrated to maintain meiotic arrest and a transient decrease in
camp levels in the oocytes is thought to be a primary trigger for resumption of
meiosis .
camp works through protein kinase a ( pka)-mediated phosphorylation of
maturation promoting factor ( jones , 2008 ) .
the levels of camp can be modulated by the activity of camp phosphodiesterase , pde3a
in the oocyte ( hambleton et al . , 2005 ) .
on the
other hand , camp can be transported from the surrounding cumulus cells ( norris et al . , 2009 ) or generated by oocyte
itself through the activation of heterotrimeric g protein ( gs)-linked
receptor , gpr3 or grp12 g ( mehlmann , 2005 ) . in the case of cyclic gmp
, it has been shown to increase in the whole ovaries in
hamsters until the lh surge when camp rises and cgmp falls ( hubbard , 1980 ) .
cgmp works in maintaining of the meiotic arrest
in... | abstractintact germinal vesicle ( gv ) arrest and release are essential for maintaining the
fertility of mammals inducing human .
intact germinal vesicle release , maturation
of oocytes is maintained by very complex procedures along with folliculogenesis
and is a critical step for embryonic development .
cyclic guanosine monophosphate
( cgmp ) has been suggested a key factor for meiotic arrest but so far its
mechanisms are controversy . in this study
we examine the effects of cgmp on
germinal vesicle breakdown in cumulus - enclosed oocytes and denuded oocytes .
spontaneous maturation was inhibited by a cgmp agonist , 8-br - cgmp with
concentration dependent manners both in cumulus - enclosed oocytes and denuded
oocytes .
the inhibitory effect was more severe in denuded oocytes than
cumulus - enclosed oocytes .
the rp-8-br - cgmp and rp - pcpt-8-br - cgmp did not
severely block gvb compared to 8-br - cgmp .
the spontaneous gvb inhibitory effects
were different by the existence of cumulus . based on them it
is suggested that
the cumulus modulates the role of cgmp in gv arrest . |
6,163 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: cardiomyopathies are difficult and complicated diseases of heart muscle associated with heart failure and/or sudden cardiac death , which are classified by the world health organization ( who ) in 1995 into four main forms ; hypertrophic cardiomyopathy ( hcm ) , dilated cardiomyopathy ( dcm ) , restrictive cardiomyopathy ( rcm ) , and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy ( arvc ) .
hcm is characterized by ventricular muscle hypertrophy , which especially involves the increased thickness of interventricular septum , leading to a marked decrease in left ventricular ( lv ) chamber volume .
hcm has impaired lv diastolic function probably because of hypertrophy itself , interstitial fibrosis and/or myocyte disarray , while it usually has normal , or slightly attenuated lv systolic function . , the prevalence of hcm is about 1/500 , in which more than 70% are familial cases .
dcm is characterized by abnormal enlargement of lv or both ventricular chambers with impaired systolic function , affecting about 36.5 in 100,000 people , of whom about 25%30% are familial cases .
its prognosis is poor due to high frequency of arrhythmias and sudden death , and there are no effective therapeutic drugs at end stage and heart transplantation is the most effective treatment for survival .
rcm , which is sometimes familial , is a rare form of cardiomyopathy , characterized by impaired ventricular filling with normal or decreased diastolic volume of either , or both ventricles and normal , or near normal , systolic function and wall thickness . , arvc is characterized by progressive fibrofatty replacement of right ventricular myocardium , with palpitations , syncope , and sudden death . its prevalence is between 1/1000 and 1/5000 , with 10% of deaths occurring before age 19 and 50% before age 35 .
reported the first hcm - causing mutation of -myosin heavy chain ( -myhc ) gene in 1990 , a large number of mutations in sarcomeric protein genes that encode -myhc , cardiac troponin t ( ctnt ) , cardiac troponin i ( ctni ) ,... | genetic investigations of cardiomyopathy in the recent two decades have revealed a large number of mutations in the genes encoding sarcomeric proteins as a cause of inherited hypertrophic cardiomyopathy ( hcm ) , dilated cardiomyopathy ( dcm ) , or restrictive cardiomyopathy ( rcm ) .
most functional analyses of the effects of mutations on cardiac muscle contraction have revealed significant changes in the ca2 + -regulatory mechanism , in which cardiac troponin ( ctn ) plays important structural and functional roles as a key regulatory protein . over a hundred mutations
have been identified in all three subunits of ctn , i.e. , cardiac troponins t , i , and c. recent studies on ctn mutations have provided plenty of evidence that hcm- and rcm - linked mutations increase cardiac myofilament ca2 + sensitivity , while dcm - linked mutations decrease it .
this review focuses on the functional consequences of mutations found in ctn in terms of cardiac myofilament ca2 + sensitivity , atpase activity , force generation , and cardiac troponin i phosphorylation , to understand potential molecular and cellular pathogenic mechanisms of the three types of inherited cardiomyopathy . |
6,164 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: in tissue engineering research , it is necessary to develop effective culture substrates for cells to facilitate regeneration of deficient tissue .
it has been shown that the environment surrounding cells has a significant effect on cell behavior .
the physical conditions of any scaffold to which cells adhere are an important determinant of cell growth [ 16 ] , along with biochemical signals .
cells receive various types of information from the culture substrate , such as surface stiffness [ 14 ] or roughness [ 5 , 6 ] .
therefore , a good understanding of the relationship between cellular behavior and the physical characteristics of culture substrates is critical for development of effective scaffolds that allow suitable cell adhesion , proliferation , and differentiation . in a previous study
, we demonstrated that ferric - ion - cross - linked alginate ( fe - alginate ) was an efficient material for use as scaffold , allowing good cell adhesion and proliferation .
alginates are a material widely used in various biomedical fields , and are composed of 1,4-linked -d - mannuronic acid ( m ) and -l - guluronic acid ( g ) residues , forming gels with certain multivalent metal ions [ 8 , 9 ] .
calcium ions are used most frequently as a cross - linking agent for alginates , but calcium - ion - cross - linked alginate ( ca - alginate ) is known to be an unfavorable culture substrate for cells .
fe - alginate is able to overcome the deficiencies of ca - alginate , such as poor protein adsorptive capacity , and has been established as an effective cell culture substrate .
alginates are commonly derived from seaweed , and have widely varying proportions and sequences of two the m and g monomers depending on the source from which they are derived [ 8 , 10 ] .
it is known that the m / g ratio influences the mechanical properties of ca - alginate gels : those with a high g - content have higher mechanical strength than those with a high m - content .
it has also been reported that high - g ca - alginate forms more... | we investigated the suitability of ferric - ion - cross - linked alginates ( fe - alginate ) with various proportions of l - guluronic acid ( g ) and d - mannuronic acid ( m ) residues as a culture substrate for human dermal fibroblasts .
high - g and high - m fe - alginate gels showed comparable efficacy in promoting initial cell adhesion and similar protein adsorption capacities , but superior cell proliferation was observed on high - g than on high - m fe - alginate as culture time progressed . during immersion in culture medium , high - g fe - alginate showed little change in gel properties in terms of swelling and polymer content , but the properties of high - m fe - alginate gel were altered due to loss of ion cross - linking .
however , the degree of cell proliferation on high - m fe - alginate gel was improved after it had been stabilized by immersion in culture medium until no further changes occurred .
these results suggest that the mode of cross - linkage between ferric ions and alginate differs depending on alginate composition and that the major factor giving rise to differences in cell growth on the two types of fe - alginate films is gel stability during culture , rather than swelling of the original gel , polymer content , or protein adsorption ability .
our findings may be useful for extending the application of fe - alginate to diverse biomedical fields . |
6,165 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase ( g6pd ) deficiency is one of the most common hereditary hemolytic disorders in human , affecting around 400 million people worldwide .
the majority of deficient individuals live in tropical and subtropical regions where malaria is still endemic or has been eradicated only recently .
in fact , g6pd deficient individuals have been protected from severe forms of malaria in these areas .
although most of individuals with g6pd deficiency are usually asymptomatic , deficient subjects may suffer from neonatal jaundice , severe non - spherocytic hemolytic anemia or acute hemolytic anemia induced by infection , ingestion of fava beans or some drugs .
the severity of these serious consequences of g6pd varies based on different gene mutations which cause different levels of residual enzyme activity . therefore to prevent the above complications , it is important to investigate their molecular bases .
this gene is located on the xq28 region with a length of 18.5 kb , which contains 13 exons and 12 introns . since g6pd deficiency is an x - linked recessive disorder , it is more frequent in males than females .
glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase enzyme , the product of g6pd gene , catalyzes the first step of the pentose phosphate pathway ( ppp ) , which provides cells with pentoses and reduction power in the form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate ( nadph ) .
nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate cofactor is required for various redox reactions , and protects cells against oxidative stress via glutathione and catalase .
glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase is the only source of nadph in erythrocytes , so any oxidative stress in g6pd deficient red blood cells may results in hemolytic anemia . approximately 140 mutations and 400 biochemical variants have been reported for this enzyme till now .
the g6pd cosenza mutation was described for the first time in the of , southern .
previous investigations have revealed that g6pd cosenza ( g1376c ) , which is a common g6pd mutation in... | glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase ( g6pd ) deficiency is one of the most common hereditary enzymatic disorders in human , increases the vulnerability of erythrocytes to oxidative stress .
it is also characterized by remarkable molecular and biochemical heterogeneity .
according to previous investigations , g6pd cosenza ( g1376c ) is a common g6pd mutation in some parts of .
therefore in the present study we have characterized mutation among g6pd deficient individuals in khuzestan province . in order to identify g6pd cosenza , we analyzed the g6pd gene in 64 samples out of 231 deficient individuals who had not g6pd mediterranean mutation , using pcr- restriction fragment length polymorphism ( rflp ) method .
g6pd cosenza mutation was found in 6 males of 231 samples , resulting in the relative rate of 2.6% and allele frequency of 0.023 among khuzestanian g6pd deficient subjects .
a comparison of these results with previous findings in some parts of suggests that g6pd cosenza is a common mutation in khuzestanian g6pd deficient individuals . |
6,166 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: two days after the onset of fever , vomiting , and diarrhea , a 10-month - old previously healthy boy was admitted with generalized tonic - clonic seizure .
brain ct , performed elsewhere , revealed the presence of symmetric low - density thalamic lesions . on admission
conventional brain mr images obtained using a 1.5-t system on the second day of hospitalization depicted symmetric distribution of t1- and t2-prolonged areas in the thalami ( fig .
* -weighted gradient - echo images ( tr / te = 800/30 , flip angle = 20 ) demonstrated low signal intensities within the thalamic lesions , suggesting acute hemorrhage ( fig .
after the intravenous administration of gadolinium - diethylene triamine penta - acetic acid , the lesions showed no abnormal enhancement .
diffusion - weighted mr imaging ( b value=1000 sec / mm ) demonstrated high signal intensity in all the lesions , though this was absent in the central portion of thalamic lesions , and other than in this same area , apparent diffusion coefficient ( adc ) mapping revealed low signal intensity ( fig .
localized proton mr spectroscopy of the thalami using a stimulated echo - acquisition mode sequence ( tr / te=3000/30 , 96 acquisitions , volume of interest=7 ml ) showed that compared with an age - matched control subject , peak intensities were higher , occurring at 2.0 - 2.5 and 0.8 - 1.5 ppm ( figs .
laboratory findings on admission showed increased serum aspartate and alanine aminotransferase levels , though those of blood ammonium and lactate were normal .
polymerase chain reaction analysis of the csf was negative for deoxynucleic acid ( dna ) of herpes simplex virus and enterovirus , and similar analysis of peripheral blood was negative for major mutations in mitochondrial dna , which would indicate mitochondrial encephalopathy with lactic acidosis and stroke - like episode ( melas ) syndrome .
his mental state improved , and on the fourth day of hospitalization he was almost alert .
follow - up brain mr imaging performed three months later revealed... | in this report , we describe the findings of diffusion mr imaging and proton mr spectroscopy in two infants with acute necrotizing encephalopathy in which there was characteristic symmetrical involvement of the thalami .
diffusion mr images of the lesions showed that the observed apparent diffusion coefficient ( adc ) decrease was more prominent in the first patient , who had more severe brain damage and a poorer clinical outcome , than in the second .
proton mr spectroscopy detected an increase in the glutamate / glutamine complex and mobile lipids in the first case but only a small increase of lactate in the second .
diffusion mr imaging and proton mr spectroscopy may provide useful information not only for diagnosis but also for estimating the severity and clinical outcome of acute necrotizing encephalopathy . |
6,167 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: in past three decades , minimal access and minimally invasive techniques have been firmly established in the field of surgery .
though , initially it was restricted to abdominal and gynaecological surgeries , minimal access techniques have been employed in sub specialities in the latter period . similarly , thyroidectomy is not an exclusion to these minimally invasive approaches .
various endoscopic thyroidectomy ( et ) techniques ranging from totally endoscopic , video- assisted , trans - axillary , chest wall approaches have been reported .
the gas dependent techniques also lead to complications such as hypercarbia , subcutaneous emphysema , mediastinal emphysema , cardiac arrythmias etc . in few cases . in this context
, we evaluated our technique of a safer et through trans - axillary route for its feasibility and safety .
this is a retrospective study conducted in endocrine and metabolic surgery department of a tertiary care teaching hospital in southern india .
this study complied with the international ethical norms according to helsinki declaration - ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects .
the details of operative technique were documented and recorded in all the cases . only cases with benign thyroid nodules were included .
exclusion criteria were diffuse toxic goitres ( graves disease ) , thyroid cancer , > 6 cm nodules , recurrent goitres and patients with shoulder joint pathology .
all the cases were performed by the operative team -the primary operating surgeon ( os ) and two assisting surgeons ( as ) .
the ipsilateral arm was abducted to 90 and elbow flexed such that hand stays besides the head .
the surface markings of relevant anatomical landmarks such as clavicle , anterior axillary line ( aal ) , sternocleidomastoid ( scm ) and jugular notch were made [ figure 1 ] . surface markings for surgical procedure - axillary incision ( vertical arrow ) ; anatomical landmarks ( trasverse arrows ) a 4 - 5 cm long skin incision was used 1 cm posterior and parallel to aal .... | introduction : a range of minimally invasive endoscopic techniques ( gas dependent and gasless ) have been attempted for thyroidectomy in the past two decades . in this context
, we evaluated the feasibility and safety of our technique of a gasless trans - axillary thyroidectomy.material and methods : this retrospective study from the department of endocrine and metabolic surgery in southern india included 15 cases .
the details of operative technique , intra and postoperative data were documented in all the cases . only cases with benign thyroid nodules were included .
exclusion criteria were diffuse toxic goiters ( graves disease ) , thyroid cancer , > 6 cm nodules , recurrent goitres and patients with shoulder joint pathology .
statistical analysis was done with spss software 12.0 version.results:f:m -14:2 .
mean age of the patient group was 26.4 years ( 15 - 52 ) .
mean operative time was 123.4 ( 82 - 206 ) minutes .
the only specific complications were induration in the infraclavicular area between axillary incision and thyroid region , prolonged wound drainage and stiffness in lower 3rd of sternocleidomastoid .
wound drainage lasted for 5.4 days ( 4 -8 ) .
there was no significant operative morbidity.conclusion:this gasless trans - axillary technique for nodular goitres is safe and effective in the hands of an experienced thyroid surgeon . |
6,168 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: different cystic lesions may occur both in the brain parenchyma and in the ventricular system , alone or in association to hydrocephalus .
these include porencephalic cysts , ependymal cysts , cysts arising from a defect in the hemispheric cleavage and from the choroid plexus ( 1 ) .
they are typically small and asymptomatic and are discovered incidentally in older patients , usually in the trigone ( also known as atrium ) of the lateral ventricle .
symptomatic cpcs ( usually exceptionally large , 2 - 8 cm ) are rare ( 2 ) .
symptomatic cpcs were treated to date either by direct surgical fenestration or excision through a craniotomy or by a cyst - peritoneal shunt .
the development of endoscopic techniques has provided a new modality of surgical treatment of these cysts , which allows one to avoid further treatment in most cases ( 3 ) .
we report on a case of a large symptomatic cpc , located in the trigone of the right lateral ventricle resulting in an blockage of the right foramen of monro in a 26-yr - old man who underwent endoscopic removal .
a 26-yr - old man , with no other medical history , complained of progressive headache and vomiting for 3 months .
computed tomographic ( ct ) scans demonstrated only asymmetry of the lateral ventricles , with enlargement of the right lateral ventricle ( fig .
1 ) . subsequent magnetic resonance imaging revealed a large , cystic , nonenhancing lesion with a thin wall in the right lateral ventricle .
the cyst contents had the same signal intensity as cerebrospinal fluid ( csf ) on mri ( fig .
the patient was positioned supine with head in neutral position and the thorax elevated 15 degree .
a linear incision on the right frontal scalp , parallel to the sagittal suture , was applied to the pericranium .
a 15-mm burr hole was placed 3 cm from the midline and just behind the hair line .
a 12-french introducer sheath was inserted into the frontal horn of the right lateral ventricle under freehand - guidance .
a 2.7 mm rigid telescope was introduced , and the cyst wall... | choroid plexus cysts ( cpcs ) are the most commom neuroepithelial cysts , occuring in more than 50% of some autopsy series .
they are typically small and asymptomatic and are discovered incidentally in older patients , usually in the trigone of the lateral ventricle .
symptomatic cpcs ( usually exceptionally large , 2 - 8 cm ) are rare .
the authors report a case of large symptomatic choroid plexus cyst , located in the trigone of the right lateral ventricle in a 26-yr - old man who presented with headache and vomiting .
the patient underwent endoscopic removal through a burr hole placed 3 cm from the midline and just behind the hair line .
the histological examination of the cyst wall was consistent with choroid epithelium .
despite of postoperative intraventricular hemorrhage and catheter infection , he discharged home without neurologic deficits .
the endoscopic fenestration rather than excision should be considered as the first surgical procedure because the goal of treatment is shrinkage of the cyst until normal cerebrospinal fluid flow is restored . |
6,169 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: pulmonary tuberculosis is divided into primary and post - primary types according to pathogenic and radiological features .
pleural involvement is generally seen in the form of a pleural effusion , which can be a component of both primary and post - primary tuberculosis .
empyema , residual pleural thickening and calcification are other forms of pleural tuberculosis involvement and are generally seen in association with parenchymal disease . in approximately two - thirds of cases
, there is no associated parenchymal lesion on the chest radiograph ; yet tubercle bacilli are frequently found in biopsy specimens of pleural tissue .
we report an unusual form of pleural tuberculosis demonstrated by pleuroscopy and computed tomography ( ct ) presenting with multiple pleural nodules and masses with large hemorrhagic pleural effusion and without any evidence of either parenchymal or lymphatic disease .
a 68-year - old male was admitted with complaints of gradually progressive exertional dyspnea and dry cough of three months duration .
he had pleuritic chest pain , low grade fever and weight loss for one month .
his routine hemogram , urine examination , renal and liver function tests and coagulation profile were normal except raised erythrocyte sedimentation rate .
chest x - ray was suggestive of large right - sided pleural effusion . at thoracentesis ,
it was a lymphocytic exudate ( total protein 3.4 g / dl , sugar 76 mg / dl , cholesterol 67 mg / dl , lactate dehydrogenase 253 iu / l , adenosine deaminase 9
polymorphs : 5% , lymphocytes : 92% , cytology negative for malignant cells , gram stain and afb smear negative ) .
post - aspiration chest x - ray showed multiple irregular pleural masses [ figure 1 ] .
ct of the chest revealed multiple different size masses involving the parietal as well as visceral pleura [ figure 2 ] .
post taping chest x - ray shows multiple irregular pleural masses computed tomography ( ct ) chest shows multiple different size masses on parietal pleura as well as on visceral pleura... | tuberculous involvement of the pleura usually presents as pleural effusion , empyema or pleural thickening .
pleural tuberculosis presenting with multiple masses without parenchymal involvement or lymphadenopathy has been reported rarely in the english literature .
we report a case of a 68-year - old male with unilateral pleural tuberculosis presenting as multiple different sized nodular masses evident on computed tomography ( ct ) of the chest with a large hemorrhagic pleural effusion , which initially raised a possibility of mesothelioma .
pleuroscopy also revealed multiple pleural masses .
pathological examination of the biopsy specimen showed multiple epitheloid cell granulomas confirming the diagnosis . |
6,170 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: age - related macular degeneration ( amd ) is a progressive disease characterized by the degeneration of retinal pigment epithelium ( rpe ) and photoreceptor atrophy in the macula [ 1 , 2 ] .
recently , the inflammasome , a multimeric protein consisting of nod - like receptor ( nlr ) , apoptosis - associated speck - like domain contains a caspase - recruitment domain ( asc ) , and pro - caspase-1 plays a central role in innate immunity and has been implicated in the pathogenesis of amd [ 4 , 5 ] .
activation of the nlrp3 inflammasome results in caspase-1 cleaving pro - il-1 and pro - il-18 into their mature proinflammatory forms in macrophages and rpe cells [ 5 , 6 ] .
however , the direct effect of il-1 and il-18 on other retinal cells has not been well studied . in combination with il-23 , il-1 or il-18
can induce interleukin-17a ( il-17a ) production by th17 cells , t cells , and inkt cells [ 710 ] .
higher levels of il-17a are found in the serum and macular tissues of the amd patients when compared to age - matched controls [ 11 , 12 ] . in vitro
, il-17a is cytotoxic to arpe-19 cells , characterized by the accumulation of cytoplasmic lipids , autophagosome formation , and the presence of cleaved caspase-9 and cleaved caspase-3 .
il-17rc , a member of il-17r family and the primary receptor for il-17a , is highly expressed in amd macular tissues and in arpe-19 cells . in a study of twins with discordant amd status , hypomethylation of the il-17rc promoter
this finding was correlated with elevated expression of il-17rc in peripheral blood cells as well as the macular tissue of amd patients .
however , the direct effect of il-17a on other cell types remains to be explored . to test the hypothesis that il-18 and
il-1 could stimulate il-17a secretion in retinal cells , we used a mouse - derived multipotent retinal stem cell line ( rscs ) as a model .
rscs are cultured stem cells from the mouse retina and can be efficiently differentiated into photoreceptor cells and all major cell types of neural retina under... | purpose . to investigate how multipotent retinal stem cells ( rscs ) isolated from mice respond to the proinflammatory signaling molecules , il-1 , il-18 , and il-17a .
materials and methods .
rscs were cultured in a specific culture medium and were treated with these cytokines .
cell viability was detected by mtt assay ; ultrastructure was evaluated by transmission electron microscopy ; expression of il-17rc and proapoptotic proteins was detected by immunocytochemistry and expression of il-6 and il-17a was detected by quantitative rt - pcr . as a comparison ,
primary mouse retinal pigment epithelium ( rpe ) cells were also treated with il-1 , il-18 , or il-17a and analyzed for the expression of il-6 and il-17rc .
results . treatment with il-1 , il-18 , or il-17a decreased rsc viability in a dose - dependent fashion and led to damage in cellular ultrastructure including pyroptotic and/or necroptotic cells .
il-1 and il-18 could induce proapoptotic protein expression .
all treatments induced significantly higher expression of il-6 and il-17rc in both cells
. however , neither il-1 nor il-18 could induce il-17a expression in rscs .
conclusions .
il-1 , il-18 , and il-17a induce retinal cell death via pyroptosis / necroptosis and apoptosis .
they also provoke proinflammatory responses in rscs .
though il-1 and il-18 could not induce il-17a expression in rscs , they both increase il-17rc expression , which may mediate the effect of il-17a . |
6,171 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: it is generally whitish , yellowish , or greenish vaginal discharge in females that might be normal or a symptom of infection .
it is almost mucus discharge , which exhibit exfoliation of vaginal epithelial cells due to estrogen influence on the vaginal mucosa .
leucorrhea is a well - known disease in iranian traditional medicine ( itm ) . in their manuscripts , the word
sayalan - e rahem was used by avicenna and some other iranian traditional practitioners to describe this condition .
ancient practitioners believed that excessive residue ( kesrate fozool ) and weakness of digestion ( zaafe hazm ) were the main causes of leucorrhea , for which herbal therapy was the main proposed treatment . in the present study ,
in this research , six iranian traditional textbooks including canon of medicine ( avicena 980 - 1037 ad ) , a - hawi ( razes 865 - 925 ad ) , tuhfat ul - momineen ( momen tonekaboni , 17th century ) , makhzan - ul - adwiah ( aghili 18th century ) , ikhtiarat badii ( ansari 1329 - 1404 ad ) , and al - jmi li - mufradt al - adwiyawa al - aghdhiy ( ibn al - baitar 1197 ad ) were studied and searched for anti - leucorrhea medicines . then the herbal medicines were selected and scored depending on their frequency in the above - mentioned textbooks .
this study introduced many materia medica with anti - leucorrhea activity and among them seven herbs including rubus fruticosus l. , rhus coriaria l. , phoenix dactylifera l. , pimpinella anisum l. , rumex acetosa l. , olea europaea l. and quercus lusitanica lam . showed the most repetition in itm prescriptions
these herbs can be introduced as new anti - leucorrhea herbal medicines for clinical research . | background : leucorrhea or vaginal discharge is a conventional complaint . it is generally whitish , yellowish , or greenish vaginal discharge in females that might be normal or a symptom of infection . it is almost mucus discharge , which exhibit exfoliation of vaginal epithelial cells due to estrogen influence on the vaginal mucosa .
it is important to identify the differences between physiologic and pathologic discharges .
leucorrhea is a well - known disease in iranian traditional medicine ( itm ) . in their manuscripts , the word
sayalan - e rahem was used by avicenna and some other iranian traditional practitioners to describe this condition .
ancient practitioners believed that excessive residue ( kesrate fozool ) and weakness of digestion ( zaafe hazm ) were the main causes of leucorrhea , for which herbal therapy was the main proposed treatment . in the present study , medicinal plants used in itm for leucorrhea are introduced.methods:in this research , six iranian traditional textbooks including canon of medicine ( avicena 980 - 1037 ad ) , a - hawi ( razes 865 - 925 ad ) , tuhfat ul - momineen ( momen tonekaboni , 17th century ) , makhzan - ul - adwiah ( aghili 18th century ) , ikhtiarat badii ( ansari 1329 - 1404 ad ) , and al - jmi li - mufradt al - adwiyawa al - aghdhiy ( ibn al - baitar 1197 ad ) were studied and searched for anti - leucorrhea medicines .
then the herbal medicines were selected and scored depending on their frequency in the above - mentioned textbooks .
additional attention was paid to provide the most suitable scientific name for each plant.results:this study introduced many materia medica with anti - leucorrhea activity and among them seven herbs including rubus fruticosus l. , rhus coriaria l. , phoenix dactylifera l. , pimpinella anisum l. , rumex acetosa l. , olea europaea l. and quercus lusitanica lam .
showed the most repetition in itm prescriptions.conclusion:these herbs can be introduced as new anti - leucorrhea herbal medicines for clinical research . |
6,172 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the babydiab study examined the natural history of islet autoimmunity in children of patients with type 1 diabetes ( 8) . families were eligible if one or both parents had type 1 diabetes .
venous blood samples were obtained from children at study visits scheduled at age 9 months and 2 , 5 , 8 , 11 , 14 , 17 , and 20 years .
if children had a positive autoantibody result , visit frequencies and islet autoantibody measurements were subsequently performed at 6- to 12-month intervals .
the study was coordinated centrally from munich and conducted from this site by directly contacting the participating families and their family pediatrician .
the babydiab cohort contains 1,650 offspring followed from birth to last sample for a median of 8.8 years ( range 0.7520.1 ) .
families were asked to report the occurrence of symptoms of diabetes . in children with islet autoantibodies ,
diabetes onset was defined according to american diabetes association criteria , which include unequivocal hyperglycemia with acute metabolic decompensation or the observation ( on at least two occasions ) of a 2-h plasma glucose > 200 mg / dl after an oral glucose challenge , or a random blood glucose > 200 mg / dl if accompanied by unequivocal symptoms . since 1997 , fasting blood glucose > 126 mg / dl on two occasions was added to the diabetes diagnosis criteria .
insulin autoantibodies ( iaas ) , gad autoantibodies ( gadas ) , ia-2a autoantibodies ( ia-2as ) , and znt8 autoantibodies ( znt8as ) were measured by radiobinding assays as previously described ( 8,9 ) .
the upper limits of normal were determined using qq plots and corresponded to the 99th percentile of control children .
performances in the diabetes autoantibody standardization program are shown as laboratory 121 in published reports ( 10,11 ) .
offspring were considered islet autoantibody positive when two consecutive samples collected after birth were positive .
thyroid peroxidase antibodies ( tpoas ) were measured by radiobinding assay according to the manufacturer s... | objectivegenome - wide association studies have identified gene regions associated with the development of type 1 diabetes .
the aim of this study was to determine whether these associations are with the development of autoimmunity and/or progression to diabetes.research design and methodschildren ( n = 1,650 ) of parents with type 1 diabetes were prospectively followed from birth ( median follow - up 10.20 years ) for the development of islet autoantibodies , thyroid peroxidase antibodies , tissue transglutaminase antibodies , and diabetes .
genotyping for single - nucleotide polymorphisms of the ptpn22 , erbb3 , ptpn2 , kiaa0350 , cd25 , and ifih1 genes was performed using the massarray system with iplex chemistry.resultsislet autoantibodies developed in 137 children and diabetes developed in 47 children .
type 1 diabetes risk was associated with the ifih1 rs2111485 single - nucleotide polymorphism ( hazard ratio 2.08 ; 95% ci 1.163.74 ; p = 0.014 ) .
none of the other genes were significantly associated with diabetes development in this cohort .
ifih1 genotypes did not associate with the development of islet autoantibodies ( p = 0.80 ) or autoantibodies against thyroid peroxidase ( p = 0.55 ) and tissue transglutaminase ( p = 0.66 ) .
islet autoantibody positive children with the ifih1 rs2111485 gg genotype had a faster progression to diabetes ( 31% within 5 years ) than children with the type 1 diabetes protective ga or aa genotypes ( 11% within 5 years ; p = 0.006).conclusionsthe findings indicate that ifih1 genotypes influence progression from autoimmunity to diabetes development , consistent with the notion that protective genotypes downregulate responses to environmental insults after initiation of autoimmunity . |
6,173 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: cystic fibrosis ( cf ) or mucoviscidosis is a multisystem inflammatory disorder where the primary cause of morbidity and mortality is pulmonary destruction , characterized by chronic inflammation , bacterial colonization and frequent exacerbations ( 1 , 2 ) .
cf is an autosomal - recesive disease caused by mutations in the cf transmembrane conductance regulator ( cftr ) protein at the chromosome 7q31.2 ( cftrf508 ) .
the mutation is a deletion of the three nucleotides that comprise the codon for phenylalanine at position 508 .
mutations of the cftr gene affecting chloride ion channel function lead to dysregulation of epithelial fluid transport in the lung resulting in cystic fibrosis ( 3 -7 ) . in the united states
approximately 30 , 000 individuals have cf , and in canada 4,000 ( 8) . in the european union , 1 in 2000 - 3000 newborns is found to be affected by cf ( 5 , 6 , 7 ) .
cf occurs in one of every 3,200 live white births , and in 1 of every 15,000 live african american births , 1 of every 31,000 live asian americans births ( 2 , 8) . in normal conditions ,
cftr regulates the normal absorption of sodium ions ( na ) from the lumen of the channel gland , by controlling the function of neighboring epithelial sodium channel ( enac ) . in cf
this control is missing , which leads to excessive absorption of na in the epithelial cells .
inhibit secretion of cl and na hyperabsorption lead to the withdrawal of water from the lumen of the secretory canals of glands and secretion in them remains dehydrated and viscous and difficult to be removed by normal mucociliary mechanisms .
this leads to obstruction of the airway lumen and a suitable basis for the development of pathogenic microorganisms ( 1 , 2 , 9 ) . in the thick layer of dense and tenacious secretions
airway gradually create anaerobic conditions , which encourages bacteria to adjustment , especially pseudomonas , with the formation of alginate and mucous form of growth ( 10 ) .
cystic fibrosis is a chronic progressive disease that affects multiple organ... | aim : the aim of this study is to present the first total number of tested children in the federation of bosnia and herzegovina and the number of children with positive sweat test . during the study we determined the number of ill children , the median age of children with cystic fibrosis , date of initial diagnosis , an average amount of chloride in the sweat.material and methods : the study was a retrospective , conducted at the department of pulmonology pediatric clinic of university clinical center of sarajevo.results:in the period from march 2003 to december 2014 , we have tested 625 children .
351 child were from sarajevo canton and 272 children from other cantons .
female children were more affected then male children , in the ratio of 1 : 1,105 .
an average age of female children was 4.194.26 years , and the male 2.153.11 years .
the median concentration of chloride in the sweat measured by sweat test was for male children 103.0521.29
mmol / l , and for the female children 96.0528.85 mmol / l.conclusion : most of children in federation of bosnia and herzegovina have f508 gene mutation . in the post - war period
we started to use a sweat test .
male children tend to live longer than female children with cf . |
6,174 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: dna and rna nucleobases contain the genetic
information of all
living cells and play a vital role in the development and functioning
of all known living organisms . because of their importance in maintaining
the genome integrity during cell replication , increasing attention
continues to be devoted to understanding the specific mechanisms ( particularly
ionization and electron - impact radiation damage ) that can dramatically
alter their electronic and structural states .
an important first step
in understanding the reactivity and damage mechanisms in dna and rna
is the ability to both efficiently and accurately predict electronic properties such as ionization energies and electron
affinities .
while numerous theoretical studies using high - level wave - function - based
techniques have been used to accurately predict the electronic properties
of nucleobases , ( see ref ( 1 ) and references within ) , their immense computational costs
prevent their routine use for complex biological environments or for
large geometries ( i.e. , a fully periodic dna / rna strand is currently
not possible with wave - function - based methods ) .
because of its favorable
balance between accuracy and efficiency , density functional theory
( dft ) has become the most widely used quantum mechanical method for
obtaining electronic structure information of molecules and solids .
however , selecting the best exchange - correlation functional continues
to be a difficult task due to the large number of functionals available .
herein , we assess the accuracy of a nonempirically tuned range - separated
( long - range corrected ) density functional theory ( lc - dft ) method for predicting both the quasiparticle properties ( homo lumo
fundamental gaps ) and the excitation energies in dna and rna nucleobases .
the fundamental gap is rigorously defined as the difference in energy
between the first ionization potential ( ip ) and the first electron
affinity ( ea ) , whereas the excitation /... | using a nonempirically tuned range - separated dft approach ,
we study
both the quasiparticle properties ( homo lumo fundamental gaps )
and excitation energies of dna and rna nucleobases ( adenine , thymine ,
cytosine , guanine , and uracil ) .
our calculations demonstrate that
a physically motivated , first - principles tuned dft approach accurately
reproduces results from both experimental benchmarks and more computationally
intensive techniques such as many - body gw theory .
furthermore , in
the same set of nucleobases , we show that the nonempirical range - separated
procedure also leads to significantly improved results for excitation
energies compared to conventional dft methods .
the present results
emphasize the importance of a nonempirically tuned range - separation
approach for accurately predicting both fundamental and excitation
gaps in dna and rna nucleobases . |
6,175 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: congenital lip pits are malformations that occur on the paramedial portion of the vermilion border of the lip .
if it occurs along with cleft lip and palate , it is termed as vander woude 's syndrome .
the other anomalies which may or may not be associated with syndrome are hypodontia , hypoplasia , ankyloglossia , high arched palate , limb anomalies , congenital heart defects , etc .
most cases have been associated with a deletion of chromosome 1q32-q41 , but an extra chromosomal locus at 1p34 has been identified .
lip pits may result due to notching of the lip at an early stage of development with fixation of the tissues at the base of the notch or it may result from a failure of complete union of embryonic lateral sulci of the lip .
the surface opening of the lip may present as a circular or transverse slit or be located at the apex of nipple - like elevations .
its diameter may be upto 3 mm and its depth can range from 1 to 15 mm .
the problem associated with lip pits is exudation of mucous on the lower labial skin which is a source of embarrassment for the patient .
other than the lip pits , the other intraoral features should also be properly looked for and treated simultaneously .
the cleft lip and palate patients have various dental anomalies like hypoplastic , malformed , supernumerary , congenitally missing , and peg - shaped teeth .
it is also important to identify and treat these anomalies at an early stage thus improving the esthetics and function of the patient .
a 7-year - old male child reported to the department of pedodontics and preventive dentistry with a chief complaint of carious teeth .
natal history revealed that he was delivered through a caesarean section . maternal history relieved no medications or illness during pregnancy .
, it was seen that the patient was a treated case of unilateral cleft lip and palate , and two lip pits were present on the lower lip [ figures 1 and 2 ] . when the lip was compressed there was mucous secretion .
intraoral examination revealed carious teeth... | one of the most common developmental defects seen in south india is cleft lip and palate . among them
a few are associated with lip pits and termed as vander woude 's syndrome .
the early diagnosis of this rare syndrome is very necessary followed by a multidisciplinary approach .
it is also necessary to differentiate this syndrome from the other syndromes which may present similar features . a case report of the same is presented here requiring a multidisciplinary approach for a functional and esthetically pleasing outcome . |
6,176 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: prostate cancer ( pca ) , the most frequently diagnosed malignancy , has become the second leading cause of cancer - related deaths among men in western countries [ 1 , 2 ] .
endocrine therapies which aimed at inhibiting the androgen receptor ( ar ) function was the mainstay of treatment for advanced prostate cancer based on that the androgen signaling will promote the proliferation of prostate cancer cell . unfortunately , most of treated patients progressed toward castration - resistant prostate cancer ( crpc ) from castration - dependent prostate cancer . and
crpc characterized by aggressive growth and ability to colonize distal organs , which made crpc still incurable and the median survival time for patients with crpc was only 12 months .
the status of ar was highly predictive of prostate cancer patients that will benefit from endocrine therapy but was not correlated with a better clinical outcome [ 4 , 5 ] .
prostate - specific antigen ( psa ) is a protein produced by the prostate gland cells .
although many published studies have assessed the performance of candidate biomarkers in predicting time to relapse of prostate cancer following radical prostatectomy [ 6 , 7 ] , no molecular markers suitable for routine clinical practice that can identify those prostate cancer patients with a high risk of early clinical progression or prostate cancer - specific mortality have been found .
g - proteins are composed of , , and subunits and subunit are classified into 4 families : gs , gi / o , gq/11 , and g12/13 .
each of them has multiple members with different expression specificity [ 8 , 9 ] .
although gs is the most extensively characterized and clinically relevant , literature is not unanimous on the role of gs in different types of cancers . in lung cancer ,
choi et al . found that gs could augment cisplatin - induced apoptosis of lung cancer cells through upregulating bak expression by increasing transcription and by decreasing the rate of protein degradation and the efficacy of radiotherapy of lung... | background .
t393c polymorphism in the gene gnas1 , which encodes the g - protein alpha s subunit ( gs ) of heterotrimeric g protein , is significantly associated with the clinical outcome of patients suffering from several cancers .
however , studies on the role and protein expression of gs subunit in prostate cancer were still unavailable . methods .
the immunohistochemical staining was used to assess gs expression through tissue microarray procedure of 56 metastatic pcas , 291 localized pcas , and 67 benign hyperplasia ( bph ) .
gs expression was semiquantitatively scored and evaluated the correlation with pathologic parameters and biochemical recurrence of prostate - specific antigen ( psa ) . results .
gs expression was localized in nuclear and cytoplasm in prostate cancer cells and downregulated in metastatic pca compared to localized pca and bph ( p < 0.001 ) .
gs was inversely associated with psa level and gleason scores ; patients with low expression of gs had adverse clincopathological features .
in multivariable cox regression analysis , high gs expression and gleason scores were independent predictors of both psa progression - free and overall survival . conclusions .
gs down - expression is associated with adverse pathologic features and clinical psa biochemical recurrence of prostate cancer .
gs is an independent predictor to help determine the risk of psa progression and death . |
6,177 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: ultra - high magnification endoscopy , also known as endocytoscopy ( ec ) or endomicroscopy , enables assessment of the muscularis propria ( mp ) or myenteric plexus in vivo through a submucosal tunnel 1
2
3 .
this technique is expected to be applicable for clinical use for the treatment of neuromuscular diseases because the nidus of such diseases is under the mucosa , a location that is difficult to assess using conventional endoscopy .
achalasia is an idiopathic esophageal motility disorder characterized by a lack of peristalsis in the esophageal body and absent or incomplete relaxation of the lower esophageal sphincter ( les ) 4
5 .
the novel procedure , peroral endoscopic myotomy ( poem ) , has become one of the best treatment options for achalasia because it is safe , offers long - lasting symptom control , and is less invasive than surgery 6
7
8 .
moreover , the submucosal tunnel created during poem allows insertion of the endoscope under the mucosa and access to the mp . during poem , thick muscle at the middle to lower esophagus , as well as thin muscle at the les area , can be identified ( fig . 1 ) , although there are variations among patients with achalasia 9
10 .
during peroral endoscopic myotomy , thick muscle is observed at the mid- to lower- esophagus ( a ) , whereas thin muscle is observed at the les ( b ) .
the histopathology of achalasia has been insufficiently investigated because of the low prevalence of this condition , and because the mainstream treatment for achalasia has been balloon dilatation , which does not allow tissue sampling .
surgical myotomy may allow access to the mp at the les but , because of the limited treatment window ( difficult to pull the mid - esophagus into the abdominal cavity ) , using surgical myotomy to assess the mid - esophagus is technically difficult .
the approach to and examination of the esophageal mp was difficult until the introduction of poem .
the purpose of the current study , therefore , is to determine the feasibility of ec for... | background : the histopathology of the muscularis propria ( mp ) is unknown
in patients with achalasia . endocytoscopy ( ec ) was developed as an ultra - high
magnification endoscopy , and the submucosal tunnel created during peroral
endoscopic myotomy ( poem ) not only provides access to the mp but also enables
subsequent endoscopic assessment of the mp .
patients and methods : in seven patients with achalasia ( mean sd ;
35 18.1 years ; men : women , 4:3 ) who underwent poem ( myotomy length :
12 2.2 cm ) , subsequent ec examination was performed from the mid - esophagus to
the gastric side .
ec images were compared to the results of histopathologic
examination ( two biopsies from the mid - esophagus and lower esophageal
sphincter ) , which was the standard .
results : in all patients , favorable ec images were obtained , and
spindle - shaped smooth muscle cells were detected . in our series , we observed no
notable features such as atrophy or hypertrophy of smooth muscle cells . in
addition , the ec assessment was consistent with the results of biopsy .
no
complications were encountered during any of the procedures .
conclusion : in a clinical setting , real - time assessment of the mp using ec
is feasible .
this technique may play an important role in determining the
pathology of achalasia and other diseases that affect gastrointestinal
function . |
6,178 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: cardiovascular diseases ( cvds ) are the leading cause of death worldwide composed of heart and blood vessel diseases . in the recent years , the incidence of cvds has been increasing at a sharp rate globally . according to the world health report 2010
, cvds contributed to 17.5 million deaths and these numbers are estimated to increase to 23.3 million by 2030 [ 1 , 2 ] .
fibroblast growth factor ( fgf ) is a cytokine superfamily with pleiotropic biological functions including regulating cell growth , differentiation , development , and metabolism [ 37 ] .
human fgfs contain 22 members which can be divided into 7 subfamilies based on phylogeny and sequence [ 810 ] . due to the lack of a heparin binding domain , fgf19 subfamily members ( fgf19 , fgf21 , and fgf23 ) function in an endocrine manner rather than an autocrine manner as other subfamily members of fgfs . among them , fgf21 is a polypeptide with 209/210 ( human / rodent ) amino acid residues that is primarily produced and secreted by the liver , adipose tissue , and thymus .
fgf21 expression is mainly regulated by peroxisome proliferator - activated receptor ( ppar ) in the liver and ppar in adipocytes [ 13 , 14 ] .
fgf21 was firstly cloned in 2000 and received global attention in recent years due to its outstanding ability on regulating carbohydrate and lipid metabolism including improving insulin sensitivity , lowering blood glucose , reducing hepatic / plasma triglycerides , inducing weight loss by increasing energy expenditure , and reducing fat mass [ 1518 ] .
further studies indicated that fgf21 functions by binding to ( fgfr)1c and ( fgfr)2c in the presence of coreceptor -klotho and activation of downstream signaling pathway [ 19 , 20 ] .
although fgf21 and other members of fgfs share the same fgf receptors , the coreceptors are different ( -klotho for fgf21 and heparin for others ) which determined that they have different bioactivity due to activation of various pathways [ 21 , 22 ] .
the possible explanation is that fgf21 induces... | cardiovascular disease ( cvd ) is one of the most severe diseases in clinics .
fibroblast growth factor 21 ( fgf21 ) is regarded as an important metabolic regulator playing a therapeutic role in diabetes and its complications .
the heart is a key target as well as a source of fgf21 which is involved in heart development and also induces beneficial effects in cvds .
our review is to clarify the roles of fgf21 in cvds .
strong evidence showed that the development of cvds including atherosclerosis , coronary heart disease , myocardial ischemia , cardiac hypertrophy , and diabetic cardiomyopathy is associated with serum fgf21 levels increase which was regarded as a compensatory response to induced cardiac protection .
furthermore , administration of fgf21 suppressed the above cvds .
mechanistic studies revealed that fgf21 induced cardiac protection likely by preventing cardiac lipotoxicity and the associated oxidative stress , inflammation , and apoptosis .
normally , fgf21 induced therapeutic effects against cvds via activation of the above kinases - mediated pathways by directly binding to the fgf receptors of the heart in the presence of -klotho . however , recently , growing evidence showed that fgf21 induced beneficial effects on peripheral organs through an indirect way mediated by adiponectin . therefore whether adiponectin is also involved in fgf21-induced cardiac protection still needs further investigation . |
6,179 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: strabismus , also referred to as squint , presents as a misalignment of the eyes .
strabismus is also a feature of several syndromes , such as congenital fibrosis of extraocular muscles , duane retraction syndrome , and chronic progressive external ophthalmoplegia .
population - based studies show that the familial clustering of strabismus has been observed , and the incidence of specific types of strabismus differs , in different racial groups , which suggests that the etiology of strabismus has genetic factors [ 38 ] .
michaelides et al . studied the genetics of strabismus and found that it was related to mitochondrial cytopathies and cranial nerve misrouting , which indicated that strabismus has a significant genetic component .
however , significant genetic heterogeneity makes it difficult to determine the mode of inheritance and the relevant causative genes . in a large family with nonsyndromic strabismus , parikh et al
. found a presumptive strabismus susceptibility locus to chromosome 7p22.1 with a multipoint lod score of 4.51 under a model of recessive inheritance .
several studies have identified the causative gene mutations associated with strabismus - related disorders , such as congenital stationary night blindness , intellectual disability , and kaufman oculocerebrofacial syndrome .
however , the identity of the strabismus susceptibility genes has been enigmatic and the genetic mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of strabismus remain poorly understood .
mutation screening of candidate genes may be necessary to localize genes that predispose humans to strabismus .
exome sequencing is a powerful and cost - effective tool for dissecting the genetic basis of diseases [ 1618 ] . in the present study
, we investigated a chinese strabismus pedigree with the parents unaffected and 2 offspring affected . by whole - exome sequencing
, we identified 2 mutations c.a3257 g ( p.e1086 g ) in ahi1 and c.a914 g in neb as the most likely causative mutations of the disorder
. of interest , biallelic pathogenic... | backgroundthe etiology of strabismus has a genetic component .
our study aimed to localize the candidate causative gene mutant in a chinese family with strabismus and to describe its underlying etiology.material/methodsgenomic dna was extracted from the affected individual and his parents in a chinese pedigree with strabismus .
the resulting exomes were sequenced by whole - exome sequencing . after variant calling and filtering ,
the candidate causative gene mutations were selected for the rarity and predicted damaging effect , which complied with the model of recessive disease transmission.resultswe examined a chinese strabismus pedigree with the parents unaffected and 2 offspring affected .
whole - exome sequencing and bioinformatics filtering identified 2 variants including abelson helper integration site 1 ( ahi1 ) gene and nebulin ( neb ) gene .
the variant in the ahi1 gene , c.a3257 g ( p.e1086 g ) , and the altered amino acid had a damaging effect on the encoded protein predicted by polyphen2 . moreover , this change was located in the conserved sh3 domain of ahi1 .
biallelic pathogenic variant in ahi1 gene can cause joubert syndrome - related disorders with oculomotor apraxia characteristics .
additionally , c.a914 g mutation was found in nebulin ( neb ) gene .
therefore , we concluded that ahi1 c.3257a > g and neb c.914 a > g were potential causal variants in this strabismus pedigree.conclusionswe detected an ahi1 homozygous mutation in the affected individual .
whole - exome sequencing is a powerful way to identify causally relevant genes , improving the understanding of this disorder . |
6,180 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: chronic hepatitis c virus ( hcv ) infection is a major worldwide cause of liver - related deaths , including those caused by cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma .
the eradication of hcv using interferon - based treatment improves liver - related mortality and reduces the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma development .
recently , interferon - free direct - acting antiviral therapy was used , which showed an excellent rate of hcv eradication among patients with chronic hcv genotype 1b , including those with prior interferon - based treatment failure .
however , interferon - based therapy is still a treatment option , and negativity for hcv rna at the end of antiviral treatment ( end - of - treatment response ; etr ) is essential to achieve the viral clearance of chronic infection .
although delayed viral clearance after the completion of 2448 weeks of interferon - based therapy is rarely reported , such a situation has not been observed among patients with the early discontinuation of therapy .
here , we report a case of hcv clearance at 7 months after a 6-week treatment with peginterferon ( pegifn ) plus ribavirin ( rbv ) .
a 76-year - old japanese male ( height , 161 cm ; weight , 63 kg ) with chronic hcv genotype 1b infection had initiated treatment with pegifn -2b plus rbv .
previously , he had been followed up for inactive chronic hepatitis for 15 years , with alanine aminotransferase ( alt ) levels < 40 iu / l , which had fluctuated from 40 to 140 iu / l for a year before the initiation of the latest treatment regimen .
his medical history included hypertension , hyperuricemia , and resistant gastroesophageal reflux disease , which were being treated with nifedipine , candesartan cilexetil , allopurinol , and lansoprazole for more than 5 years .
laboratory examinations ( table 1 ) revealed the following biochemical levels : alt , 129 iu / l ; albumin , 4.3 g / dl ; -glutamyl transpeptidase , 72 iu / l ; platelet count , 23.6 10/l , and -fetoprotein , 4.9 ng / ml . hepatitis c viral load was 5.3 log iu... | following interferon - based therapy for chronic hepatitis c , the negativity of hepatitis c virus rna is essential to achieve viral clearance at the end of treatment .
we report a case of clearance of chronic hepatitis c virus infection following early discontinuation ( at 6 weeks ) of peginterferon plus ribavirin therapy , without negativity for hepatitis c virus rna during the treatment period .
the patient was a 76-year - old japanese male infected with hepatitis c virus genotype 1b and tt of il28b rs8099917 .
hepatitis c virus rna remained positive at persistently low levels for more than 2 months after the cessation of therapy and became negative at 7 months after the discontinuation of therapy .
spontaneous clearance of hepatitis c virus rna can occur following antiviral failure in patients with persistently low viral loads , and virological follow - up is therefore necessary in chronic hepatitis c virus infection , even after antiviral failure . |
6,181 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: nondopaminergic and nonmotor symptoms of parkinson 's disease ( pd ) , which include psychiatric , autonomic , and gastrointestinal symptoms , are sometimes present before a diagnosis of pd and almost inevitably emerge with the disease progression .
in contrast to motor symptoms of pd , nonmotor symptoms have been poorly recognized and inadequately treated .
however , methods for recognizing and quantifying the nonmotor symptoms of pd have become a new focus of research that will form the basis for improved treatments . among the nonmotor symptoms ,
cognitive impairment adversely influences their activities of daily living and quality of life and worsens caregiver burden .
a community - based study found that within a group of patients with a diagnosis of pd of at least 20 years , 83% had experienced dementia , and a similar number of patients had experienced frequent falls ( 87% ) , moderate dysarthria ( 81% ) , visual hallucinations ( 74% ) , or urinary incontinence ( 71% ) . in pd dementia
( pd - d ) patients , -synuclein pathology can be widespread in the cerebral cortex .
in addition , there is less acetylcholinesterase activity in the cerebral cortex of pd - d patients than of alzheimer 's disease patients .
moreover , clinical studies have reported on the effectiveness of cholinesterase inhibitors for treating cognitive impairment in pd - d patients .
the prevalence of cognitive dysfunction among pd patients has led to the recognition that a diagnostic criterion is needed for pd - d . as a result ,
the movement disorder society task force published diagnostic criteria for pd - d in 2007 and simultaneously proposed a practical diagnostic procedure for pd - d with the aim of its widespread international application .
level i testing includes a simple and short algorithm based on current cognitive tools that can be used in an office or at the bedside .
it is considered a screening tool for diagnosing pd - d , whereas level ii testing provides a more detailed assessment that characterizes the... | backgrounddementia is a new focus of research on improved treatment for parkinson 's disease ( pd ) . in 2007 , a screening tool for pd dementia ( pd - d ) was developed by the movement disorder society ( level i testing ) , which still requires verification by a large population study.methodswe conducted a cross - sectional and multicenter study including 13 institutions administering the mini - mental state examination ( mmse ) and montreal cognitive assessment ( moca ) to 304 pd patients ( mean age : 70.6 8.3 years ; mean hoehn and yahr stage : 2.7 0.7).resultsin all , 34.5% of the patients had mmse scores < 26 ; 94.3% of these patients had impairments in 2 cognitive domains and met the criteria for probable pd - d by level i testing .
executive dysfunction combined with attention and memory impairment was most common ( 51.4% ) . in the level
i subtests of executive function , the score for phonemic fluency declined by < 50% in patients with high moca scores ( 24 - 30 points ) and lacked specificity for pd - d .
no patient had visuospatial impairment ( measured by the pentagon copying subtest ) alone , and the score for pentagon copying stayed at 70% even in patients with low mmse scores ( 12 - 25 points ) , therefore lacking sensitivity for pd-d.conclusionslevel i testing with administration of the mmse and moca is a practical and efficient screening tool for pd - d .
however , the phonemic fluency and pentagon copying tests should be replaced by more specific / sensitive ones when screening for pd - d . |
6,182 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: we conducted a cross - sectional study among poultry farmers and cullers from 1 district in each of the 5 provinces ( chachoengsao , kanchanaburi , khon kaen , sukhothai , and suphanburi ) where outbreaks of avian influenza ( h5n1 ) among poultry and human infections had been confirmed since january 2004 ( figure ) . with the assistance of provincial human and animal health authorities
informed consent was obtained , and a brief interview was conducted . because the precise timing of potential exposures could not be determined , a single serum sample was collected from each patient and stored at 20c until tested under biosafety level 3 ( bsl-3 ) conditions .
( 4 ) , at the department of microbiology , faculty of medicine , siriraj hospital , mahidol university by microneutralization assay ( micro - nt ) for antibody to h5n1 viruses . before this study ,
senior laboratory staff from siriraj hospital received 2 weeks of on - site training by a visiting scientist from the us centers for disease control and prevention who had expertise with this assay . the world health organization ( who ) defines a positive test result as a microneutralization antibody titer for influenza virus ( h5n1 ) of > 80 with a confirmatory elisa or western blot assay ( 3,4 ) ( www.who.int/csr/disease/avian_influenza/guidelines/case_definition2006_08_29/en/index.html ) .
serum samples from persons > 50 years of age were excluded from laboratory analysis because the microneutralization assay for antibodies against subtype h5n1 has been reported to be less specific for older persons ( 5 ) .
gray shading indicates provinces with confirmed avian influenza outbreaks ; black outlines indicate provinces included in this study . of 350 farmers asked to participate , 322 ( 92% ) enrolled in the study , of which 167 ( 52% )
the mean age of participants was 34 years ( range 550 years ) ( table ) . among participants , 188 ( 58% ) reported handling sick or dying poultry , 107 ( 33% ) were involved in culling operations of apparently well poultry in... | in thai provinces where avian influenza outbreaks in poultry had been confirmed in the preceding 6 months , serum from 322 poultry farmers was tested for antibodies to avian influenza virus subtype h5n1 by microneutralization assay .
no study participant met the world health organization serologic criteria for confirmed infection . |
6,183 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: this advantage is enhanced through sealant strength in penetrating to the depth of the fissures and retention in the porosity of the etched enamel surfaces .
the better the resin and the etched enamel contact , the more increased will be the adhesion of s sealant to the enamel .
therefore , the cleaner the teeth surface and the better etching , rinsing and drying , the better resin can wet the etched enamel and penetrate into deeper depth .
the remains of the etching products will cause in lesser resin penetration in the etched enamel and causes lesser retention ; therefore , the total eradication of dissolved calcium phosphate salts will result into improvement of sealant bond to the tooth .
the purpose of the present study is to assess the effect of different rinsing angles of the etched enamel to the bond strength between the tooth and the sealant .
in the present study , 60 first - maxillary premolars , which had been extracted for orthodontic purposes were collected .
all teeth were free of any caries , breakage or enamel problems at buccal or lingual surfaces . following rinsing with water , the teeth
depending on the rinsing angle , the teeth were divided into six groups as follows : group i ( with a rinsing angle of 90 ) ; group ii ( with a rinsing angle of 75 ) ; group iii ( with a rinsing angle of 60 ) ; group iv ( with a rinsing angle of 45 ) ; group v ( with a rinsing angle of 30 ) ; and group vi ( with a rinsing angle of 15 ) . following this division ,
the teeth in each of the groups were sub - divided into two groups as follows : buccal ( five teeth ) and palatal ( five teeth ) randomly .
next , the teeth roots were mounted in plaster blocks ( vel - mix stone , kerr , italy ) with a diameter of 2.5 cm and a height of 2 cm .
they were mounted in such a way that the height of contour of the surfaces were almost in vertical positions .
tow fissures , one vertically and one horizontally were cut by a high speed hand piece to indicate the location , which was etched and rinsed . by means of a low... | background and objectives : attempts to enhance bond strength of the sealant have been among the most important sides of dental research .
the purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effect of using different rinsing angles on the micro - tensile bond strength of the sealant to the etched enamel.materials and methods : sixty first - premolars were randomly assigned to six groups based on the rinsing angle applied ( 15 , 30 , 45 , 60 , 75 and 90 ) . following etching and rinsing , a 4-mm height build - up of sealant material was created .
bonded specimens were sectioned into sticks ( 1 mm 1 mm ) , which were subjected to micro - tensile bond strength , testing at a cross head speed of 0.5 mm / min.statistical analysis used : the data were analyzed by kolmogorov - smirnov and post - hoc tukey test.results:the tensile bond strength in specimens rinsed at 90 were statistically higher compared to those rinsed at 15 and 30 ( p < 0.05 ) and increasing the angle from 15 to 90 was correlated with a reduction in the number of specimens with adhesive failures.conclusions:rinsing the conditioned enamel surface at 90 may improve the bond strength and retention of the sealant . |
6,184 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: urine has now become one of the most attractive biological fluids in clinical proteomics [ 1 , 2 ] .
a number of urinary proteomic studies have been conducted and have revealed urinary biomarker candidates for renal systemic diseases and malignancies of urinary tract [ 35 ] .
proteomic analysis of urines can be applied to biomarker search in nonrenal diseases as well [ 68 ] .
although urinary proteome analyses have been conducted by various gel - based and gel - free techniques , comprehensive urinary proteome analysis is not an easy task because the urine has very diluted protein concentration with high levels of salts .
sample preparation , processing , and storage for urinary proteomics have been reviewed [ 1013 ] .
more recently , an optimized quantitative proteomic strategy for urine biomarker discovery was described . in any event ,
maximal protein recovery from urine is essential for detecting trace quantities of proteins present in urine for potential biomarker discovery . for this purpose ,
one possible factor responsible for loss of trace amounts of urinary proteins could be adsorption to sample tubes , but this issue has not been well addressed so far to our knowledge .
many attempts have been made to prevent the adsorption of plasma proteins and to improve blood compatibility by surface modification [ 15 , 16 ] .
ishihara and coworkers reported on rapid development of hydrophilicity and protein adsorption resistance by polymer surfaces bearing poly(2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine ( mpc)-co - n - butyl methacrylate ) ( poly(mpc - co - bma ) ) [ 17 , 18 ] .
we took advantage of this coating method in the present study and assessed whether conventionally used tubes adsorb trace amount of urinary proteins and , if any , whether the surface coating by poly(mpc - co - bma ) can minimize the adsorption .
poly(mpc - co - bma ) was obtained from ai bio - chips co. , ltd ( tokyo , japan ) .
a total of 6 different types of conventional urine collection tubes were used in this study .
tubes made from... | one possible factor determining recovery of trace amount of protein biomarker
candidates during proteome analyses could be adsorption on urine tubes .
this
issue , however , has not been well addressed so far .
recently , a new technical
device of surface coating by poly(2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine
( mpc)-co - n - butyl methacrylate ( bma ) )
( poly(mpc - co - bma ) ) has been developed mainly to prevent the
adsorption of plasma proteins .
we assessed whether conventionally used urine
tubes adsorb trace amount of urinary proteins and , if any , whether the surface
coating by poly(mpc - co - bma ) can minimize the adsorption .
proteinuric urine samples were kept in poly(mpc - co - bma)-coated
and noncoated urine tubes for 15 min and possibly adsorbed proteins and/or
peptides onto urine tubes were analyzed by sds - page , 2-de , and the maldi - tof ms .
it was found that a number of proteins and/or peptides adsorb on the
conventionally used urine tubes and that surface coating by
poly(mpc - co - bma ) can minimize the adsorption without any
significant effects on routine urinalysis test results .
although it remains to
be clarified to what extent the protein adsorption can modify the results of
urinary proteome analyses , one has to consider this possible adsorption of
urinary proteins when searching for trace amounts of protein biomarkers in
urine . |
6,185 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: cutis laxa is a rare connective tissue disorder , which may be inherited or acquired , and is characterized by progressive looseness of skin , associated with abnormalities of other organs and structures such as lung , vasculature or gastrointestinal tract as they contain elastic tissues .
the hereditary form of cutis laxa may be inherited as either autosomal dominant , x - linked recessive or autosomal recessive trait .
the acquired form is even rarer than the inherited form and is often associated with some form of preceding or accompanying cutaneous eruptions like eczema , urticaria , erythema multiforme , sweet 's syndrome or multiple myeloma .
the clinical appearance is characterized by inelastic , loose and pendulous skin that produces a wrinkled , prematurely aged appearance .
the primary change is in the elastic fiber , which is decreased or nearly absent in the dermis . here
an itchy eruption had developed on the anterior neck 5 years ago , and it lasted for about a month .
several months later , she noticed that the skin of that area was becoming wrinkled and loose .
the wrinkling and looseness progressed for 4 to 5 months after which it became stable .
she was otherwise well and had no history of dyspnoea , chest pain , palpitation or visual problems .
family history of similar skin lesion was absent . physical examination revealed a circumscribed palm sized area of lax , extensible , wrinkled skin localized to the anterior part of the neck [ figure 1a ] .
lesion on the neck of a 14-year - old female lesion on the neck showing stretching of the lax skin a 40-year - old muslim male presented to us with a complaint of loose skin all over his body for last 10 years .
he was well till the age of 30 , when he noticed that his skin was gradually becoming wrinkled and loose .
it started from forehead and progressed slowly downwards over a couple of years after that the process stabilized . at the time of presentation
the skin of his forehead [ figure 2a ] , neck , abdomen and back [ figure 2b ] was... | cutis laxa is a rare disease that may be either inherited or acquired .
the acquired form is rarer than the inherited form .
pathogenesis of this disease is largely unknown .
two cases of acquired cutis laxa are reported here and neither of them had any systemic involvement or any history of drug intake .
one of them had localized disease with history of preceding cutaneous inflammation .
the other patient with generalized lesion lacked any history of preceding illness .
the patient with localized lesion was treated satisfactorily by reconstructive surgery .
the other patient had generalized involvement , for which no satisfactory treatment could be offered . |
6,186 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: pierre robin sequence ( prs ) is the triad of glossoptosis , micrognathia , and cleft palate1 .
varying degrees of airway obstruction are a major problem that may be encountered in these patients . if left untreated , these airway obstructions can lead to acute and chronic hypoxia , apnea , cyanosis , aspirations , respiratory tract infections , feeding difficulty , malnutrition and failure to thrive .
the treatment protocol for prs starts with conservative management , which mostly consists of positional adjustments ( prone positioning ) and nasopharyngeal airway placement2 .
surgical options include tongue - lip adhesion ( tla ) , glossopexy , tracheostomy and early mandibular lengthening by distraction osteogenesis34 . in 1946 , douglas5 described the tla technique for the management of pierre robin patients .
tla is a simple procedure in which the tongue is attached anteriorly to the lower lip .
glossoptosis and microretrognathia were managed conservatively with oxygen via nasal cannula and prone positioning during the first few months of life .
moreover , this child 's presentation was complicated by poor weight gain , hence was referred to plastic surgery department and tla was performed . following the procedure ,
patient showed clinical improvements such as weight gain , reduced episodes of respiratory infection and improvement in oxygen saturation .
the central surface of the tongue was pulled anteriorly to make contact with the lower lip mucosa in order to estimate the necessary raw area .
b ) an inferiorly based 21-cm flap was raised from the lower lip , and a superiorly based flap of the same size was raised from the ventral surface of the tongue.(fig .
3 ) written permission had been obtained from the patient to report and publish the identifying photographs prior itself .
based on a study by sher et al.6 , in which flexible fiberoptic nasopharyngoscopy was used in 53 infants with prs , four types of obstruction have been described . in type
i obstruction , the most common , obstruction is caused... | patients with pierre robin sequence exhibit varying degrees of airway obstruction and feeding difficulty . in some patients
, airway obstruction may be profound , warranting surgical intervention to maintain a patent airway .
the purpose of this article is to highlight the advantages of the tongue - lip adhesion procedure for the management of airway obstruction in such patients compared to the currently available options . |
6,187 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the research sample consisted of 40 individuals with asd who referred to forensic medicine centers of mazandaran province and 40 individuals with war - related ptsd following displacement after iran - iraq war who referred to clinical centers of mazandaran province .
then , 40 individuals who had the experience of trauma but were not diagnosed as patients with acute stress disorder wereas normal individuals for the study . to ensure the correctness of psychiatrist 's diagnosis , the composite international diagnostic interview was utilized .
age over 25 years , minimum education level of grade 9 , being married , being informed , and voluntary consent were considered as the entrance criteria .
data were analyzed using multivariate analysis of variance ( manova ) and multivariate regression analysis .
instruments utilized for data collection were as follows : the composite international diagnostic interview ( cidi ) : the original version of cidi has been edited by world health organization ( 1997 ) . this interview is of good validity in diagnosing mental disorders . in terms of validity of cidi ,
the specificity for most psychiatric disorders is high ( over 0.85 ) , but the sensitivity for diagnoses is to some extent lower , especially for severe psychiatric disorders ( like schizophrenia ) .
the instrument 's reliability assessment through test - retest method showed that the reliability of diagnosis for most psychiatric disorders is within an acceptable range kappa over 0.4 ; however , for schizophrenia , this figure was smaller .
results obtained from the two diagnostic systems of dsm - iv and icd were similar to a large extent ( 20 ) .
stroop color - word test ( scwt ) : stroop test is a classic scale for attention processing and cognitive set shifting ability .
the test in its original form consists of four cards : word reading ( first card ) , color naming ( second card ) , reading words regardless of the color ( third card ) , and telling the color of words regardless of what is written ( forth card )... | objectivethe purpose of the present study was to compare response inhibition and cognitive appraisal in clients with acute stress disorder , clients with posttraumatic stress disorder , and normal individuals.methodthis was a comparative study .
the sample consisted of 40 clients with acute stress disorder , 40 patients with posttraumatic stress disorder , and 40 normal individuals from mazandaran province selected through convenience sampling method .
data were collected using composite international diagnostic interview , stroop color - word test , posttraumatic cognitions inventory , and the impact of event scale.resultsresults showed that individuals with acute stress disorder are less able to inhibit inappropriate responses and have more impaired cognitive appraisals compared to those with posttraumatic stress disorder .
moreover , results showed that response inhibition and cognitive appraisal explain 75% of the variance in posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and 38% of the variance in posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms.conclusionthe findings suggest that response inhibition and cognitive appraisal are two variables that influence the severity of posttraumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder symptoms .
also , these results have important implications for pathology , prevention , and treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder . |
6,188 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: cord blood is currently used as a source of hematopoietic stem cells ( hscs ) to treat a variety of malignant and nonmalignant hematologic disorders [ 15 ] .
its utilization has expanded beyond the pediatric field thanks to several favorable factors , including ease of collection , prompt availability , absence of risk to donors , and reduced risk of adverse effects such as graft versus host disease ( gvhd ) [ 68 ] . in adult patients , the therapeutic potential of this procedure is still limited by the low number of nucleated cells contained in each unit and by the consequent risk of delayed or inadequate recovery of neutrophils ( pmn ) and platelets ( plt ) [ 914 ] .
direct cord blood cells intrabone transplantation ( ib - cbt ) has been proposed as a tool to improve the hscs engraftment and thus their therapeutic effectiveness [ 914 ] .
however , the mechanisms underlying this potential benefit have not been fully defined so far .
local hscs engraftment might be assumed after ib - cbt , yet a recent experimental study documented that , in rats , approximately 5% of hscs remain within the injected bone site after administration .
it , however , favorably compares with the 10% seeding efficiency of conventional protocols implying intravenous administration [ 16 , 17 ] .
in fact , should the same homing features characterize transplanted hscs present in the circulating blood , the extra local engraftment produced by ib - cbt might play a relevant role in accelerating the reconstitution of recipient hematopoiesis . in order to test this hypothesis
, we verified whether the metabolic activity in the site of injection predicts the subsequent reconstitution of recipient hematopoiesis in adult patients treated with ib - cbt . to this purpose
, we exploited the high sensitivity of f - fluorodeoxiglucose ( fdg ) pet - ct imaging .
this method has been proved to accurately estimate bone marrow ( bm ) mitotic activity as well as its hematopoietic response to chemotherapy in a large number of conditions . in... | background . despite advancements in comprehension of molecular mechanisms governing bone marrow ( bm )
homing of hematopoietic stem cells , cord blood transplant ( cbt ) suffers from a slow rate of hematopoietic recovery .
intrabone ( ib ) injection has been proposed as a method able to improve speed of bm engraftment with respect to conventional iv protocols . however , the mechanisms underlying this benefit are largely unknown .
aim . to verify whether ib - cbt determines a local engraftment able to predict the reconstitution of recipient hematopoiesis .
design and methods .
twenty - one patients with hematologic malignancies received ib injection into both iliac crests of 3.2 0.68 107/kg cord blood cells .
one month following ib - cbt , pet - ct imaging was performed .
maximal standardized uptake values ( suvs ) were assessed in bm of both iliac crests and in all lumbar vertebrae .
results . maximal suv within iliac crests was higher than in lumbar vertebrae ( 4.1 1.7 versus 3.2 0.7 , resp . ,
p = 0.01 ) . however , metabolic activity in these two different bm districts was significantly correlated ( r = 0.7 , p < 0.001 ) . moreover ,
fdg uptake values within the injection site closely predicted platelet recovery 100 days after ib - cbt ( r = 0.72 , p < 0.01 ) .
conclusions .
the metabolic activity of injected bm predicts the subsequent rate of hematopoietic recovery after ib - cbt , suggesting a pivotal role of the local engraftment in the reconstitution of recipient hematopoiesis . |
6,189 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: infection is one of the major complications of total knee arthroplasty ( tka ) that can be best treated with two - stage revision arthroplasty1,2 ) .
however , the use of non - articulating spacers , such as bead spacers and static block spacers , in two - stage revision has been associated with undesirable side effects : the difficulty of joint exposure at the time of revision arthroplasty due to scarring and shortening of the joint capsule and quadriceps , additional bone loss , and impaired postoperative rehabilitation and functional recovery due to restriction on weight - bearing between the two stages3 ) .
the introduction of articulating prosthesis with antibiotic - loaded acrylic cement ( prostalac ; depuy orthopaedics inc . ,
warsaw , in , usa ) has contributed to reduced infection rates and increased range of motion ( rom ) .
unfortunately , it is neither affordable nor applicable to all patients4,5 ) . thus , some studies suggested using articulating prostheses that are manufactured intraoperatively by the surgeon6,7 ) .
the custom - made spacers are described as facilitating the procedure , allowing for early ambulation and minimal soft tissue contractures , and yielding favorable outcomes in terms of preservation of the muscle strength and rom .
still , prolonged use of such prostheses has been associated with quadriceps contractures and joint capsule adhesion in two - stage revision .
hence , efforts have been focused on inventing temporary articulating spacers for two - stage revision arthroplasty . in this article , we present our experience of two - stage revision tka using a modified articulating spacer that was effective for facilitating joint mobility and eradicating infection with a review of the literature .
the surgery consisted of reinsertion of the autoclaved femoral component and implantation of a new polyethylene with antibiotic - loaded cement in the proximal tibia .
of the patients who were treated for infected tka between january 2006 and december 2011 , 20 patients ( 20 knees )... | purposeto evaluate clinical results of two - stage revision using a modified articulating spacer for treatment of infected total knee arthroplasty ( tka).materials and methodswe retrospectively reviewed 20 cases treated by two - stage revision arthroplasty using a modified articulating spacer under the diagnosis of infected tka from january 2006 to december 2011 .
the mean follow - up period was 22.3 months . the first operation consisted of debridement after removal of the prosthesis , reinsertion of the femoral component after autoclaving , and implantation of antibiotic - loaded cement with a new polyethylene in the proximal tibia.resultsthe mean period between the primary tka and the first stage operation was 39 months and between the first stage operation and the revision arthroplasty was 3.3 months .
the average range of motion ( rom ) increased from 69.8 preoperatively to 102.8 postoperatively ( p<0.001 ) .
the mean knee society knee score increased from 33.8 points to 85.3 points ( p<0.001 ) .
the mean knee society function score increased from 35 points to 87.5 points ( p<0.001 ) .
the mean hospital for special surgery score increased from 57.6 points preoperatively to 82.6 points postoperatively ( p<0.001 ) .
two cases ( 10% ) were re - infected after the revision arthroplasty.conclusionstwo-stage revision arthroplasty using an articulating cement spacer can be an effective therapy not only for the treatment of an infected tka but also for recovery of knee rom and function . |
6,190 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: the purpose of this article is to report on the opening plenary session of the association of chiropractic colleges educational conference research agenda conference ( acc - rac ) 2014 , aiming for effective change : leadership in chiropractic education , research and clinical practice .
speakers with extensive backgrounds with implementing substantial change on a broad level shared personal examples from their experiences in education , research , political organizations , and clinical practice .
they described efforts , challenges , and opportunities that are encountered in order to implement effective change and shared their personal thoughts on leadership .
each of the speakers shared their diverse , unique insights and personal experiences to convey the process and meaning of leadership .
leadership may be defined by one s actions and ability to direct others towards a common goal .
successful leaders establish direction and vision , communicate goals , and are able to develop coalitions and alliances .
although leadership seems to be an elusive concept , it is one that most people agree is necessary to promote effective change .
the world has seen leaders , such as adolph hitler or jim jones , who were able to motivate people into action ; but their actions were devastating .
as well , just because someone is popular enough to be voted into a position of leadership does not make that person a good leader .
we must look beyond the title or position and understand the qualities that are necessary to implement change and , through good leadership , for us to improve the chiropractic profession .
leader position but is focused on himself , group efforts aim to satisfy his self - aggrandizement instead of what is best for the group . unfortunately , a position of power is a magnet to those who use others for their own gain . to be an effective leader ,
a good leader focuses on moving the group towards a better future and is willing to endure difficult times to get there . by focusing on the best interest... | objectivethe purpose of this article is to report on the opening plenary session of the association of chiropractic colleges educational conference research agenda conference ( acc - rac ) 2014 , aiming for effective change : leadership in chiropractic education , research and clinical practice.discussionspeakers with extensive backgrounds with implementing substantial change on a broad level shared personal examples from their experiences in education , research , political organizations , and clinical practice .
they described efforts , challenges , and opportunities that are encountered in order to implement effective change and shared their personal thoughts on leadership.conclusioneach of the speakers shared their diverse , unique insights and personal experiences to convey the process and meaning of leadership . |
6,191 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: transurethral resection of the prostate ( turp ) is considered the best option for treating benign prostatic enlargement ( bpe ) ; however , it is associated with significant bleeding . in recent years
, we have seen a gradual increase in life expectancy and , particularly in more developed countries , an increased incidence of cardiovascular diseases , metabolic syndrome , and cerebrovascular stroke , all of which are conditions that require oral antiplatelet or anticoagulation ( oap / oac ) therapy . owing to the severe bleeding risk in these patients ,
turp is contraindicated . furthermore , suspending oap / oac therapy is also not recommended .
for example , the use of laser technology has advantages in patients receiving oap / oac therapy who have severe comorbidities and bleeding disorders .
thulium vaporesection of the prostate ( thuvarp ) with a 2-m continuous - wave ( cw ) thulium - doped yttrium - aluminum - garnet ( tm : yag ) laser has been established as a new approach for bpe treatment .
this laser has a peak absorption spectrum closer to that of water than the holmium laser , which causes increased tissue vaporization and results in reduced penetration depth .
however , because the thulium laser operates in cw mode , it permits smaller and more precise cutting and consequently decreased risk of bleeding .
the aim of this study was to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of vaporesection with the 120-w tm : yag laser ( revolix duo ) in patients with bpe receiving systemic oap / oac therapy and to evaluate medium - term functional outcomes .
between october 2011 and december 2013 , a total of 103 patients with lower urinary tract symptoms due to bpe were enrolled in the study , and data were retrospectively analyzed .
a , oap / oac therapy was interrupted for 10 days before the operation and patients were switched to low molecular weight heparin ( lmwh ) until 2 weeks after the procedure . in group
group b patients were also divided into subgroups according to the oap / oac therapy that they were... | purposethulium vaporesection of the prostate ( thuvarp ) is a new and safe approach for patients receiving anticoagulant therapy in whom transurethral resection of the prostate ( turp ) may possess a high bleeding risk .
we aimed to demonstrate the efficacy and safety of thuvarp in patients receiving oral antiplatelet / anticoagulant ( oap / oac ) therapy.materials and methodsa total of 103 patients who underwent thuvarp between 2011 and 2013 were enrolled in the study .
patients were divided into 2 groups .
group a consisted of 47 patients who underwent low molecular weight heparin ( lmwh ) bridging and group b consisted of 56 patients who were operated on while receiving oap / oac therapy.resultsthe drop in hemoglobin levels in the pre- and postoperative periods was significantly higher in group a than in group b. when subgroups were analyzed , the mean drop in hemoglobin was significantly lower in the warfarin and ticlopidine subgroups of group b than in group a. international prostate symptom scores were significantly lower 3 , 12 , 18 , and 24 months after surgery in group a than in group b. quality of life scores , maximal flow rate values , and postmicturition residual urine volumes ( ml ) were similar between the 2 groups .
a total of 38 and 41 patients in groups a and b , respectively , had no complications.conclusionsour study showed the safety profile of continuing different oap / oac therapies in terms of bleeding problems in patients undergoing thuvarp .
we strongly recommend abandoning lmwh bridging and maintaining the oap / oac regimen patients are already receiving . |
6,192 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia ( cpvt ) is an inherited arrhythmogenic disease that can cause syncope or sudden cardiac death during emotional or physical stress in the absence of detectable structural heart disease and a prolonged qt interval on an electrocardiogram ( ecg ) .
mutations in two genes , the cardiac ryanodine receptor gene ( ryr2 ) and calsequestrin 2 gene ( casq2 ) , have been identified in patients with cpvt .
these mutations lead to an increase in intracellular ca concentration , resulting in life - threatening ventricular arrhythmias , possibly via delayed depolarizations .
a 16-year - old male , who had suffered from recurrent episodes of syncope triggered by physical exertion was referred to our hospital after undergoing defibrillation at a local emergency department ( ed ) .
he had lost consciousness at school during a volleyball test that was also emotionally stressful .
an initial ecg at a local ed revealed ventricular fibrillation . although his arrhythmia was converted to sinus rhythm after defibrillation , the patient was stuporous and had repeated episodes of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia ( vt ) .
after referral to our hospital , ecg monitoring in the ed and intensive care unit showed intermittent nonsustained vt and bidirectional vt ( fig .
when the patient became agitated , his heart rate increased , and the ecg showed nonsustained polymorphic vt despite intravenous administration of a -blocker . he was sedated and placed on mechanical ventilation .
two days later , his heart rate was regular , and no additional episodes of vt were observed .
his ecg showed a sinus rhythm with a corrected qt interval of 423 msec ( fig .
2 ) . routine laboratory findings , including electrolytes and two - dimensional echocardiography , were unremarkable . a detailed history of the patient included several episodes of syncope since the age of 8 years associated with physical activities , such as sprinting , playing football , and fighting with a sibling .
his father... | a 16-year - old male with a prior history of recurrent syncope was referred to our hospital after being resuscitated from cardiac arrest developed while playing volleyball .
his electrocardiogram ( ecg ) demonstrated ventricular fibrillation at a local emergency department .
after referral , an ecg showed bidirectional ventricular tachycardia ( vt ) and nonsustained torsade de pointes .
two days later , his heart rate became regular , and no additional episodes of vt were observed .
his ecg showed sinus rhythm with a corrected qt interval of 423 msec , and two - dimensional echocardiography was unremarkable .
we made the diagnosis of a catecholaminergic polymorphic vt .
however , only premature ventricular complex bigeminy was induced on exercise ecg and epinephrine infusion tests , and the patient showed no episodes of syncope .
his father and mother had different missense mutations in the cardiac ryanodine receptor on genetic testing .
the proband had both mutations in different alleles and was symptomatic .
it was recommended that the patient avoid competitive physical activities , and a -blocker was prescribed . |
6,193 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: in molecular biology , the comparative analysis of organisms exhibiting different phenotypes is still mostly performed on the level of genes . however , many genes encode proteins that are involved in complex metabolic pathways , whose functions result from the interplay of all involved enzymes . so to understand the phenotype of any living system , it is essential to not only investigate single genes in isolation , but also the metabolic pathway variant of the particular organisms under study .
interesting questions to study in this context are what are the commonalities and differences within a group of organisms or more elaborately , if you subdivide the group of organisms of interest into subsets , what are the features all organisms of one set share while all members of another set completely lack these functions? for example , consider analyzing a set of pathogens versus a set of non - pathogens for identifying reactions associated with pathogenicity . sets of organisms instead of single representatives are used for comparison , because it is not the goal to find special innovations present in one species only , but rather more general differences that could be interpreted as principles of pathogenicity .
the set of reactions or respectively their catalyzing enzymes resulting from answering the above questions may serve as candidate set for finding new drug targets . throughout the rest of this article
we will use the term differential reaction content to describe the set of reactions that do not occur in all organisms under study .
( 1 ) have published an algebraic method for comparing networks that can be used to find the
metabolic innovations in a set of organisms as compared to a second set of organisms .
they use this method to find those reactions that occur in at least one organism out of a predefined set of organisms and are missing in all organisms of another predefined set .
however , it is of interest to also detect all reactions that occur in exactly all organisms of the first set , while... | in order to understand the phenotype of any living system , it is essential to not only investigate its genes , but also the specific metabolic pathway variant of the organism of interest , ideally in comparison with other organisms .
the comparative pathway analyzer , cpa , calculates and displays the differences in metabolic reaction content between two sets of organisms . because results are highly dependent on the distribution of organisms into these two sets and the appropriate definition of these sets often is not easy , we provide hierarchical clustering methods for the identification of significant groupings .
cpa also visualizes the reaction content of several organisms simultaneously allowing easy comparison .
reaction annotation data and maps for visualizing the results are taken from the kegg database .
additionally , users can upload their own annotation data .
this website is free and open to all users and there is no login requirement .
it is available at https://www.cebitec.uni-bielefeld.de/groups/brf/software/cpa/index.html . |
6,194 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: diabetes mellitus is a common metabolic disease characterized by hyperglycemia which often leads to nerve injury probably through the induction of systemic and neuronal oxidative stress ( 1 , 2 ) .
it has been shown that high glucose ( hg ) induces oxidative stress and cell death via nadph oxidase dependent generation of reactive oxygen species and no production ( 3 , 4 ) . during cerebrovascular accidents , ischemia induced metabolic deficiency appears to promote a cascade of events leading to neuronal cell death via both necrosis and apoptosis ( - ) . in other words
, ischemia induced glucose and/or oxygen deficiencies can cause both cellular and functional damage to the brain ( 8 , 9 ) .
also , neuronal cells deprived of means of production of energy appear to be highly susceptible to excitotoxicity ( 8 , - ) .
although glucose appears to be essential in normal function of the nervous system ( 14 ) , there is conflicting evidence regarding the effects of extracellular glucose concentration on various forms of ischemic injury ( 9 ) .
some studies have found that hyperglycemia worsens the effects of ischemic insult , probably due to enhanced lactate generation which results in tissue acidosis and leads to generation of reactive oxygen species ( 9 , - ) .
in contrast , other studies have found that elevated glucose levels before hypoxic insult reduced neuronal damage ( 9 , - ) , while other studies have demonstrated that hyperglycemia can decrease glutamate levels released during ischemia ( 9 , 15 , - ) .
corroborating evidence of neuroprotective effects of glucose was provided by dave kr , pileggi a and raval ap ( ) who showed that exposure of hippocampal slices to hypoglycemia prior to ischemic insult exacerbated ischemia induced damage .
research on noscapine , a non - addictive antitussive alkaloid of opium , as a neuroprotective agent in our laboratory had previously shown it efficacy in attenuating brain injury after hypoxia in neonatal rats ( 33 ) .
also , in a limited clinical trial , it was shown... | in the present work we set out to investigate the neuroprotective effects of noscapine ( 0.5 - 2 m ) in presence of d - glucose on primary murine foetal cortical neurons after oxygen
glucose deprivation/24 h. recovery .
cell viability , nitric oxide production and intracellular calcium ( ( ca2+)i ) levels were evaluated by mtt assay , the modified griess method and fura-2 respectively .
25 and 100 mm d - glucose could , in a concentration dependent manner , improve cell viability and decrease no production and ( ca2+)i level in neuronal cells after ischemic insult . moreover , pre - incubation of cells with noscapine , noticeably enhanced protective effects of 25 and 100 mm d - glucose compared to similar conditions without noscapine pre - treatment . in fact , noscapine attenuated no production in a dose - dependent fashion , after 30 minutes ( min ) ogd , during high - glucose ( hg ) condition in cortical neurons . pretreatment with 2 m noscapine and 25 or 100 mm d - glucose , was shown to decrease the rise in ( ca2+)i induced by sodium azide / glucose deprivation ( chemical ogd ) model .
these effects were more pronounced than that of 25 or 100 mm d - glucose alone.the present study demonstrated that the neuroprotective effects of hg before an ischemic insult were augmented by pre - treatment with noscapine .
our results also suggested that the neuroprotection offered by both hg and noscapine involve attenuation of no production and ( ca2+)i levels stimulated by the experimental ischemia in cortical neurons . |
6,195 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: there is ample evidence showing that 711% of hcv - infected children and adult individuals have thyroid dysfunction , mainly subclinical hypothyroidism , prior to the initiation of treatment [ 1 , 2 ] .
the association between autoimmune thyroiditis in hcv - infected patients , in particular in subjects with hcv - related mixed cryoglobulinemia , has also been confirmed .
once combined pegifnalpha2b + ribavirin therapy is initiated , the percentage of patients with thyroid dysfunction goes up to 1520% .
immunological mechanisms at the origin of this thyroid dysfunction are presumed but the precise mechanism still is unknown .
it is involved in some organ - specific autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis , asthma , inflammatory bowel disease , multiple sclerosis , and even organ allograft rejection [ 69 ] , among many others .
the main function of il-17-secreting t cells is to mediate inflammation , by stimulating production of inflammatory cytokines , such as tnf - a , il-1b , il-6 , and inflammatory chemokines that promote the recruitment of neutrophils and macrophages .
initial evidence suggested that human th17 cells were regulated by cd4 + 25+foxp3 + regulatory t cells , but recent evidence suggests an alternative regulatory mechanism mediated by il-10 and tgf - b [ 11 , 12 ] .
ag - specific th17 cells are induced in hcv - infected patients , but the hcv - ns4 protein also induces the secretion of il-10 and tgf - b by monocytes .
neutralization of both anti - inflammatory cytokines significantly enhances ns4-specific il-17 and ifn - gamma production by t cells from hcv - infected donors .
although this may represent a novel immune subversion mechanism by the virus to evade host protective immune responses , it could also be responsible for the thyroid dysfunction
an initial evaluation of the thyroid function in chronically infected hcv patients referred to the gastroenterology service at mexico 's h.r .
issste , showed that a high percentage of patients had subclinical hypothyroidism prior to... | hcv - ag - specific th17 cells secrete il17 , a cytokine involved in autoimmune diseases and regulated by il10 and tgf - b .
512% of patients with chronic hcv infection have hypothyroidism .
we evaluated the role of these cytokines in this patients by determining serum concentration of tsh , t3 , free t4 , il2 , il10 , il12 , il17 , tgf - b , anti - tg , tpo , ccp , gbm , and cardiolipin antibodies in 87 chronically noninterferon treated hcv - infected patients .
20 patients ( group a ) had elevated tsh values ( > 5 ui / ml ) whereas the remaining 67 ( group b ) had normal values .
the percentage of anti - tpo , tg , gbm , and cardiolipin antibodies in group a patients ( 33% , 41% , 5% and 5% , resp . ) as well as il17 , il2 and tgf - b concentrations ( 25 23 pg / ml , 643 572 pg / ml , and 618 221 pg / ml , resp . )
were significantly higher than group b. abnormal th17 regulation mediated by il-2 and low tgf - b concentrations is associated with hypothyroidism in chronically - infected hcv patients . |
6,196 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: eight adult cats weighing between 2.9 and 4.4 ( mean , 3.9 ) kg were used in this study .
each animal was anesthetized with 5% halothane administered through an endotracheal tube by a mechanical ventilator ( mini-7 ; royal medical , seoul , korea ) .
pancuronium bromide ( panslan ; reyon pharmaceutical , seoul , korea ) ( 0.6 mg / kg ) was used for skeletal muscle relaxation . to monitor blood pressure and allow pulse - gated mr imaging ,
a femoral artery was cannulated , and for the administration of drugs and contrast agents , this procedure was applied to a femoral vein .
after a left lateral thoracotomy along the fifth intercostal space , pericardiotomy was performed by means of a midline incision , and a pericardial cradle was prepared by attaching the margins of the dissected pericardium to the adjacent thoracic wall . the left anterior descending ( lad ) coronary artery was isolated distal to the first diagonal branch , and a snare loop was made with 4 - 0 silk placed in a slender plastic tube .
occlusion or reperfusion of the lad artery was achieved simply by fastening or releasing the snare loop .
obstruction of this artery was confirmed by observing changes in the color of the myocardium at risk during a preliminary test occlusion . in each cat
the lad artery was occluded for 90 minutes , and this was followed by 90 minutes of reperfusion .
gd - dtpa has been widely used as a clinical mr contrast agent . after injection
, it is rapidly distributed from the vascular compartment to the extracellular fluid space . in rats ,
the plasma half - life is approximately 12 minutes ( 8) , and due to a rapidly changing blood concentration resulting from the large volume distributed , the utility of gd - dtpa for the mr diagnosis of acute myocardial ischemia is therefore limited ( 9 , 10 , 11 ) .
gadomer-17 , provided by schering , is designed for prolonged intravascular retention and reduced transcapillary diffusion and has a molecular weight ( mw ) of 17453 g / mol .
noh et al . demonstrated that following the... | objectiveto identify and evaluate the lateral border zone by comparing the size and distribution of the abnormal signal area demonstrated by mr imaging with the infarct area revealed by pathological examination in a reperfused myocardial infarction cat model.materials and methodsin eight cats , the left anterior descending coronary artery was occluded for 90 minutes , and this was followed by 90 minutes of reperfusion .
ecg - triggered breath - hold turbo spin - echo t2-weighted mr images were initially obtained along the short axis of the heart before the administration of contrast media .
after the injection of gadomer-17 and gadophrin-2 , contrast - enhanced t1-weighted mr images were obtained for three hours .
the size of the abnormal signal area seen on each image was compared with that of the infarct area after ttc staining .
to assess ultrastructural changes in the myocardium at the infarct area , lateral border zone and normal myocardium , electron microscopic examination was performed.resultsthe high signal area seen on t2-weighted images and the enhanced area seen on gadomer-17-enhanced t1wi were larger than the enhanced area on gadophrin-2-enhanced t1wi and the infarct area revealed by ttc staining ; the difference was expressed as a percentage of the size of the total left ventricle mass ( t2= 39.2% ; gadomer-17 = 37.25% vs gadophrin-2 = 29.6% ; ttc staining = 28.2% ; p < 0.05 ) .
the ultrastructural changes seen at the lateral border zone were compatible with reversible myocardial damage.conclusionin a reperfused myocardial infarction cat model , the presence and size of the lateral border zone can be determined by means of gadomer-17- and gadophrin-2-enhanced mr imaging . |
6,197 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: enhancing the coupling of light and matter at the level of a few photons is one of the challenges inevitable in fundamental research in quantum optics .
it is likewise important in applications related to quantum information processing and quantum communication . without any advanced measures the coupling of light and matter especially single atoms
is inefficient under standard laboratory conditions , where optics with low numerical apertures ( na < 0.9 ) is typically used for focusing light onto the target to interact with .
one choice is employing collective effects and letting the photons interact with an ensemble of atoms .
however , this is obviously not the way to proceed when interacting with single atoms .
a single atom may be placed in the near field of a plasmonic antenna resulting in strong coupling between the two [ 35 ] . the task is then modified to coupling efficiently to the plasmonic antenna , which enhances the electric field at the position of the atom in comparison to the absence of the antenna . however
, this is achieved at the cost of modifying the density of modes of the electromagnetic field .
another method which also modifies the density of modes is placing the atom inside a high quality resonator .
this defines the field of cavity quantum electrodynamics ( cavity qed ) [ 710 ] , with seminal achievements and many impressive results . as outlined below , a coupling between light and single atoms high enough to begin touching the strong coupling regime of cavity qed should be feasible also without modifying the free space density of modes of the electromagnetic field .
the key to success is letting the radiation incident onto the atom resemble a dipole wave [ 1115 ] , since this is the mode of the electromagnetic field that maximizes the electric field at its focus , i.e. at the location of the atom .
the achievements made so far are reviewed in the next section and compared to the maximum values possible in free space . in section 3 we attempt a comparison between the coupling... | we review recent experimental advances in the field of efficient coupling of single atoms and light in free space .
furthermore , a comparison of efficient free space coupling and strong coupling in cavity quantum electrodynamics ( qed ) is given .
free space coupling does not allow for observing oscillatory exchange between the light field and the atom which is the characteristic feature of strong coupling in cavity qed .
like cavity qed , free space qed does , however , offer full switching of the light field , a 180 phase shift conditional on the presence of a single atom as well as 100% absorption probability of a single photon by a single atom .
furthermore , free space cavity qed comprises the interaction with a continuum of modes . |
6,198 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: deep vein thrombosis , ischemic stroke , and pulmonary embolism are manifestations of the same disease process , summed up over 100 years ago by rudolph virchow.1 his hypothesis that thrombosis was the result of the interaction of the three factors stasis of blood flow , hypercoagulability of the blood , and damage to the vascular endothelium
has become the basis of risk - association diagnosis in patients who have developed venous thrombosis embolism .
atrial fibrillation ( af ) is the most common tachyarrhythmia with prevalence of over 10% in older patients ( > 70 years ) .
af is the leading cause of ischemic stroke , and stroke due to af is one of the leading causes of death and adult disability.2 besides rate and rhythm control , stroke prevention is the key management strategy for patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation and one or more additional risk factors for stroke.3 thrombosis risk can be quantified using the chads2 or recently quantified cha2ds2-vasc scores ( documenting risk factors for stroke : history of congestive heart failure , hypertension history ; age 75 [ or age 65 years associated with one of the following : diabetes mellitus , coronary artery disease , or hypertension ] ; diabetes mellitus ; stroke or transient ischemic attack or thromboembolism history ; vascular disease history ; sex ) ( see also table 1).46 by considering these additional risk factors the score is calculated to determine whether antithrombotic therapy is required or not .
anticoagulation with vitamin k antagonists ( vka ) , ever since their introduction in the 1950s , has been an enduring gold standard for stroke prevention in af as well as for the prophylaxis and long - term treatment of venous thromboembolism.7,8 vkas such as phenprocoumon ( marcumar ; meda pharma gmbh & co. kgaa , bad homburg , germany ) or warfarin ( coumadin ; bristol - myers squibb gmbh & co. kgaa , munich , germany ) prevent hepatic synthesis of coagulation factors ii , vii , ix , and x by inhibiting vitamin k - dependent... | atrial fibrillation ( af ) continues to be a leading cause of cerebrovascular morbidity and mortality resulting from cardioembolic stroke .
oral anticoagulation therapy has been shown to decrease the incidence of cardioembolic stroke in patients with af by more than 50% .
appropriate use of anticoagulation with vitamin k antagonists requires precise adherence and monitoring .
a number of factors that potentially induce patients dissatisfaction reduce quality of patient life .
new direct oral anticoagulants , such as the direct factor xa inhibitors rivaroxaban , apixaban , edoxaban , and the thrombin inhibitor dabigatran , were developed to overcome the limitations of the conventional anticoagulant drugs .
however , models to optimize the benefit of therapy and to ensure that therapy can be safely continued are missing for the new oral anticoagulants .
this review will briefly describe the new oral anticoagulants dabigatran , rivaroxaban , apixaban , and edoxaban with focus on their use for prevention of embolic events in af .
moreover , it will discuss the safety , efficacy , cost data , and benefit for patients quality of life and adherence . |
6,199 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: grip was a prospective , nonrandomized , open - label phase iv study performed in 55 centers in 9 countries ( germany [ 18 centers ] , italy , spain , austria , switzerland , canada , australia , south korea , and thailand ) .
the primary objective was to assess the magnitude of potential risk of developing nsf after gadobutrol administration in patients with moderate to severe renal impairment .
the study population consisted of patients with moderate to severe renal impairment scheduled for gadobutrol - enhanced mri within the approved indications and dose .
the study was conducted in accordance with all international and local guidelines and laws stated by the involved institutional review boards .
the classification of cohorts based on the degree of renal impairment was already described by lauenstein et al in a study on gadoxetate disodium .
the definitions in brief are as follows : severe renal impairment was defined by an egfr of < 30 ml / min per 1.73 m or dialysis . moderate
renal impairment was defined as an egfr between 30 and 59 ml / min per 1.73 m. however , renal status was tested twice
first during screening within 6 weeks before the gadobutrol injection at the local laboratory and second at baseline ( ie , 48 hours before gadobutrol administration ) at a central laboratory . as a result
, 2 additional cohorts were defined post hoc : ( 1 ) an extended moderate
renal impairment cohort ( presenting an egfr 59 ml / min per 1.73 m at screening , but > 59 and 65 ml / min per 1.73 m at baseline ) and ( 2 ) a mild renal impairment cohort ( presenting an egfr 59 ml / min per 1.73 m at screening , but an egfr > 65 ml / min per 1.73 m at baseline ) ( table 1 ) . classification of study cohorts all patients received a single intravenous bolus injection of 0.1 mmol / kg ( 0.1 ml / kg ) bw gadobutrol followed by a 20 ml saline flush in the framework of the clinical routine diagnostic workup .
gadobutrol is marketed in all participating countries and was provided by the local hospital pharmacies... | objectivethe aim of this study was to assess the potential risk of gadobutrol - enhanced magnetic resonance imaging ( mri ) in patients with moderate to severe renal impairment for the development of nephrogenic systemic fibrosis ( nsf).materials and methodswe performed a prospective , international , multicenter , open - label study in 55 centers .
patients with moderate to severe renal impairment scheduled for any gadobutrol - enhanced mri were included .
all patients received a single intravenous bolus injection of gadobutrol at a dose of 0.1 mmol / kg body weight .
the primary target variable was the number of patients who develop nsf within a 2-year follow - up period.resultsa total of 908 patients were enrolled , including 586 with moderate and 284 with severe renal impairment who are at highest risk for developing nsf .
the mean time since renal disease diagnosis was 1.83 and 5.49 years in the moderate and severe renal impairment cohort , respectively .
overall , 184 patients ( 20.3% ) underwent further contrast - enhanced mri with other gadolinium - based contrast agents within the 2-year follow - up .
no patient developed symptoms conclusive of nsf.conclusionsno safety concerns with gadobutrol in patients with moderate to severe renal impairment were identified .
there were no nsf cases . |
6,200 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: schwannoma is a benign nerve sheath tumor that most commonly occurs solitary in otherwise normal individuals .
occasionally it presents with multiple form involving several areas along the peripheral nervous system , including cranial nerves , spinal nerve roots , the brachial and lumbosacral plexuses , or major peripheral nerves ( 1 , 2 ) . patients can be definitely diagnosed with schwannomatosis if they have had two or more pathologically proven schwannomas and without radiographic evidence of a vestibular nerve tumor at age greater than 18 yr ( 3 ) .
if radiologic examination such as brain magnetic resonance imaging ( mri ) is not available , then a probable diagnosis may be made if the patient has two or more pathologically proven schwannomas and no clinical symptoms of eighth nerve dysfunction at age greater than 30 yr or two or more schwannomas in an anatomically limited distribution without clinical finding of eighth nerve dysfunction at any age ( 3 ) .
several recent reports have suggested that some patients have schwannomatosis without any other associated stigmata of neurofibromatosis ( nf ) and that may also be a distinct clinical entity ( 4 , 5 ) .
a 21-yr - old woman was hospitalized for evaluation of an incidentally found mediastinal mass on routine check .
physical examination revealed palpable soft tissue masses on the right posterior neck and right ankle .
those soft tissue masses had been found about four years previously and tumor aspiration had revealed findings of benign soft tissue tumor .
her chromosomal analysis showed normal structural variation of chromosome 9 ( 44,xx , inv(9)(p11q12 ) ) without evidence of chromosomal abnormality .
1a ) and another smaller one between the right quadratus lumborum and the psoas muscle at the level of the second lumbar vertebra ( fig .
contrast - enhanced chest ct scan showed well - defined soft tissue mass in subcutaneous tissue of the right posterior neck and also an enhancing mass in the mediastinum right lateral to the heart ( fig .
mri of the... | schwannomatosis or neurilemmomatosis has been used to describe patients with multiple nonvestibular schwannomas with no other stigmata of neurofibromatosis type-2 ( nf-2 ) . in our case ,
schwannomatosis , multiple schwannomas were present in a 21-yr - old woman with no stigmata or family history of nf-1 or nf-2 .
she had no evidence of vestibular schwannoma or other intracranial tumors .
multiple peripheral tumors were found in the carotid space of the neck , and soft tissue of posterior shoulder , lower back , ankle and middle mediastinum .
all of those tumors were completely limited to the right side of the body .
all surgically removed tumor specimens in this patient proved to be schwannomas . |
6,201 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: rna interference ( rnai ) has opened new avenues for the systematic analysis of phenotypes . with the completion of many whole genome sequences
, rnai allows the depletion of gene products in a wide range of organisms , thus enabling reverse genetic approaches where genetic tools are lacking .
the molecular mechanism of rnai - mediated gene silencing is conserved from plants to higher animals and studies in many organisms have benefited tremendously from the availability of rnai libraries . compared to classical genetic screens , rnai has the advantage to provide a link from phenotype to gene without the need for positional cloning of mutant alleles , but it lacks the possibility to make stable mutations and may display non - specific off - target effects . depending on the experimental system ,
rnai approaches are amenable for high - throughput screening , thereby allowing complete genomes to be queried for specific phenotypes .
screens can be performed for whole organism phenotypes , which has been done in caenorhabditis elegans ( 1,2 ) .
cell - based rnai experiments have become widely used in particular in drosophila and to a smaller extent in vertebrates , organisms for which many cell lines are available ( 36 ) .
cell - based phenotypes can be measured using simple fluorescent or luminescence reporters or more complex phenotypes as can be detected by immunofluorescence and microscopy ( 7 ) .
however each phenotypic readout method has its specific analysis method and a generally accepted ontology for phenotypes is still missing . in the past few years different rnai libraries
have been constructed that cover large parts of many genomes . for invertebrates , such as c.elegans and drosophila ,
libraries can be produced relatively cheaply , since long double - stranded rnas ( dsrnas ) can be generated by in vitro transcription .
in addition , use of dsrna in these organisms does not elicit an interferon response ( 8,9 ) .
expression of dsrna in bacteria that are fed to c.elegans is sufficient to produce an... | rna interference ( rnai ) has emerged as a powerful tool to generate loss - of - function phenotypes in a variety of organisms . combined with the sequence information of almost completely annotated genomes ,
rnai technologies have opened new avenues to conduct systematic genetic screens for every annotated gene in the genome . as increasing large datasets of rnai - induced phenotypes become available , an important challenge remains the systematic integration and annotation of functional information .
genome - wide rnai screens have been performed both in caenorhabditis elegans and drosophila for a variety of phenotypes and several rnai libraries have become available to assess phenotypes for almost every gene in the genome .
these screens were performed using different types of assays from visible phenotypes to focused transcriptional readouts and provide a rich data source for functional annotation across different species .
the genomernai database provides access to published rnai phenotypes obtained from cell - based screens and maps them to their genomic locus , including possible non - specific regions .
the database also gives access to sequence information of rnai probes used in various screens .
it can be searched by phenotype , by gene , by rnai probe or by sequence and is accessible at |
6,202 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: it has been reported that the lack of insight is prevalent among patients with schizophrenia and that impaired insight is significantly associated with medication noncompliance , frequent relapse , and poor prognosis.15 insight in mental illness is generally a multidimensional concept that includes the following aspects : 1 ) awareness of the mental disorder , 2 ) understanding of the social consequences of the disorder , 3 ) awareness of the need for treatment , 4 ) awareness of specific signs and symptoms , and 5 ) the attribution of symptoms to the disorder.13,6 for patients with schizophrenia and related psychotic disorders , however , there has been a crucial extension to the concept of insight : it has been suggested that the cognitive processes involved in patients re - evaluation of their anomalous experiences and of their misinterpretations should be incorporated into this concept.7 the beck cognitive insight scale ( bcis ) has been developed and utilized to evaluate patients self - reflectiveness and overconfidence in the interpretations of their experiences.7 the bcis assesses patients reports of their objectivity regarding their current anomalous thoughts , their perspective about previous errors , their capacity for reattribution of erroneous explanations , and their receptiveness to corrective information from other people.7,8 previous studies have shown that cognitive insight is significantly disrupted in patients with schizophrenia compared with those with nonpsychotic disorders , such as mood disorders.7,9 this reflects the metacognitive deficits inherent in schizophrenia.10 a recent factor analytic study has found that the bcis score loads with metacognitive awareness in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder , indicating that cognitive insight is associated with the ability to form complex images of oneself and others , a synthetic form of metacognition.11 there have been reports on the clinical correlates of cognitive insight in schizophrenia .
the disruption of cognitive... | backgroundthe concept of cognitive insight refers to the cognitive processes involved in patients re - evaluation of their anomalous experiences and of their misinterpretations .
the purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between cognitive insight and subjective quality of life in patients with schizophrenia to further shed light on the nature of cognitive insight and its functional correlates in schizophrenia.methodsseventy-one stable outpatients with schizophrenia were evaluated for cognitive insight and subjective quality of life using the beck cognitive insight scale ( bcis ) and the schizophrenia quality of life scale revision 4 ( sqls - r4 ) .
the symptoms of schizophrenia were also assessed .
pearson s correlation analysis and partial correlation analysis that controlled for the severity of symptoms were performed to adjust for the possible effects of symptoms.resultsthe self - reflectiveness subscale score of the bcis had significant positive correlations with the sqls - r4 psychosocial domain and total sqls - r4 scores , indicating that the higher the level of cognitive insight , the lower the subjective quality of life . in partial correlation analysis controlling for symptoms ,
the bcis self - reflectiveness subscale score still had a significant correlation with the sqls - r4 psychosocial domain score .
the correlation coefficient between the bcis self - reflectiveness and total sqls - r4 scores was reduced to a nonsignificant statistical tendency.conclusionthe results of our study suggest that cognitive insight , particularly the level of self - reflectiveness , is negatively associated with the level of subjective quality of life in outpatients with schizophrenia and that this relationship is not wholly due to the confounding effect of symptoms .
future studies are necessary to explore possible mediating and moderating factors and to evaluate the effects of therapeutic interventions on the relationship . |
6,203 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: brucellosis is one of the world 's major bacterial zoonosis and an important cause of a serious debilitating disease in humans ; further , it is the cause of abortion and sterility in animals .
brucella canis , a facultative , gram - negative , intracellular pathogen , is the etiologic agent of canine brucellosis .
canine brucellosis is widely distributed around the world and this is an important disease due to the economic losses in animal production and its risks for human health .
serological diagnosis is usually performed using a tube agglutination test ( tat ) , a rapid slide agglutination test , and a gel immunodiffusion test [ 24 ] .
however , agglutination tests often give false positive results because of cross - reactions with other pathogens .
a general strategy for eliminating cross - reactions is to use purified antigen with unique epitopes in the serological tests .
bacterial cell wall antigens of b. canis can be prepared by hot saline extraction and are reportedly useful in serological diagnosis . in a previous study , we reported the characterization of crude hot saline extracts and identified three antigens , namely , rhizopine - binding protein ( rbp , former assigned ribose abc transporter ) , cu - zn superoxide dismutase ( sod ) , and a hypothetical protein ( ag 4 ) .
this paper describes the development of latex beads coated with purified recombinant versions of these antigens and demonstrates the usefulness of these antigen - coated latex beads in the serological diagnosis of canine brucellosis .
the gene encoding each antigen was amplified from chromosomal dna isolated from b. canis using pcr with the pair of primers shown in table 1 .
his - tagged antigens were expressed in the escherichia coli strain dh5 , and their purification was performed as described by the manufacturer ( novagen , darmstadt , germany ) .
serum samples ( n = 743 ) were collected from fleas- or ticks - infested dogs consecutively admitted to animal hospitals in japan by the hospital staff in 2012 and 2013 .
b.... | brucella canis , a facultative intracellular pathogen , is the causative agent of canine brucellosis .
the diagnosis of canine brucellosis is based on bacteriological examination and serological methods , including agglutination and gel diffusion tests . in this study , four recombinant antigens , heat shock protein 60 , rhizopine - binding protein , cu - zn superoxide dismutase , and hypothetical protein ( ag 4 ) , were constructed .
these antigens were coated on latex beads and their usefulness in the serological diagnosis of canine brucellosis was examined .
all recombinant antigens showed specific reaction with sera from b. canis - infected dogs in western blotting . in a microplate agglutination test , mixing sera from b. canis - infected dogs , but not sera from b. canis - free dogs , with single or multiple antigens - coated latex beads produced clear agglutination .
moreover , the antigen - coated latex beads did not show nonspecific agglutination in hemolyzed serum samples .
a survey of canine serum samples conducted by the microplate agglutination test using single antigen - coated latex beads showed that this method would be useful in the serological diagnosis of canine brucellosis .
further investigations using more serum samples are required to confirm the usefulness of our method . |
6,204 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study: to characterize hcv - specific cd8 t cell mediated responses associated with severe liver pathology in acute hcv infection , we analyzed the global profile of the hcv - specific t cell response in eight patients who showed variable outcomes of acute hcv infection ( fig .
1 a , patients 1 and 2 ) that were infected with genotype 1b hcv showed a severe clinical course of acute hepatitis c with rapidly rising bilirubin levels , elevated alt values , and prolonged prothrombin time ( fig . 1 , b and c ) . six patients ( patients 38 ) that were also infected by genotype 1 hcv displayed a mild course of liver disease , as generally observed after hcv infection ( fig .
a comprehensive analysis of the hcv - specific t cell repertoire was performed using a panel of 601 15-mer peptides overlapping by 10 residues and spanning the entire hcv sequence of genotype 1a .
direct ex vivo frequency of ifn-producing t cells was evaluated in patients 15 and 8 ( fig .
2 , a and b ) in the acute phase of infection at the peak of alt .
a dramatic difference in the t cell repertoire was evident in the two patient populations .
although t cell responses were narrowly focused on a few peptide pools in patients 1 and 2 ( fig .
2 a ) , simultaneous recognition of multiple hcv sequences was detected in patients 35 and 8 ( fig . 2 b ) , as previously described in recovered and acutely infected patients ( 79 ) .
characteristics of the population of patients with acute hepatitis c. ( a ) clinical and virological features of the eight patients with acute hcv infection studied .
( b ) sequential evaluation of serum alt levels from the time of clinical presentation .
( c ) behavior of serum alt levels ( closed squares ) , prothrombin activity ( open squares ) , and quantitative ( open circles ) and qualitative hcv - rna and anti - hcv antibodies in patient 1 .
pbmcs from patients with severe course ( a , patients 1 and 2 ) and with mild course ( b , patients 35 and 8) of acute hcv infection were stimulated overnight with 119 pools of... | hepatitis c virus ( hcv ) can cause liver disease of variable severity .
expansion of preexisting memory cd8 t cells by cross - reactivity with a new heterologous virus infection has been shown in mice to shape the repertoire of the primary response and to influence virus - related immunopathology ( selin , l.k .
2004 . immunity .
20:516 ) . to determine whether this mechanism can influence the course of hcv infection , we analyzed the features of the hcv - specific cd8 t cell response in eight patients with acute hcv infection , two of whom had a particularly severe illness .
patients with severe hepatitis , but not those with mild disease , showed an extremely vigorous cd8 t cell response narrowly focused on a single epitope ( ns3 10731081 ) , which cross - reacted with an influenza neuraminidase sequence .
our results suggest that cd8 t cell cross - reactivity influences the severity of the hcv - associated liver pathology and depicts a model of disease induction that may apply to different viral infections . |
6,205 | Assuming you're helping a researcher in a hurry, could you summarize the essence of this research for them?
Study:
naja sumatrana , commonly known as the black spitting cobra or equatorial spitting cobra , is the dominant cobra species in peninsular malaysia , singapore , borneo , and sumatra .
it was estimated that the highest burden of snake bites exists in south asia , southeast asia , and sub - saharan africa .
cobra bites are common in peninsular malaysia and require significant medical intervention [ 3 , 4 ] . however , snake bites are considered uncommon in largely urban singapore [ 5 , 6 ] .
it is an equine polyvalent antivenom raised against the indian binocellate cobra ( naja naja ) , common krait ( bungarus caeruleus ) , russell 's viper ( vipera russelli ) , and saw - scaled viper ( echis carinatus ) .
the antivenom composition of the haffkine was chosen for the treatment of black spitting cobra snake bites due to the empirical belief that cobras are originated from the naja naja .
it is unknown if the haffkine product has any effective paraspecific activity against the naja sumatrana venom .
there have been no previous papers that report the outcomes of patients given this antivenom for black spitting cobra bites .
this study aims to examine if effective cross - neutralisation exists for naja sumatrana envenoming when using the haffkine antivenom .
using comparable doses of naja naja or naja sumatrana venom , this study analysed the neutralising capability of the haffkine antivenom in a mouse model .
this was followed by a challenge test by giving a fixed dose of naja sumatrana venom intramuscularly and subsequent attempt at rescue with the antivenom .
naja naja venom was purchased from accurate chemical corporation ( new york , usa ) .
naja sumatrana venom was pooled from five local adult naja sumatrana cobras housed at the zoo , lyophilised , and stored at 20c .
the antivenom used was a commercial product from the haffkine bio - pharmaceutical corporation ( mumbai , india ) .
ethics committee approvals from tan tock seng hospital ( ttsh ) and singapore zoo were first sought .
the experiments were... | naja sumatrana is the dominant cobra species in malaysia , singapore , borneo , and sumatra , and it does not have specific antivenom .
the haffkine antivenom has been advocated instead .
this study aims to determine the efficacy of this antivenom against naja sumatrana envenoming using a mouse model . methods .
male swiss albino mice were used .
intravenous ld50 was first determined separately for naja naja and naja sumatrana venom .
ed50 was determined by preincubating antivenom with each venom at 2.5 ld50 before administering the mixture into the tail vein .
validation was carried out using a challenge test .
each mouse received 111 g of naja sumatrana venom intramuscularly followed by intraperitoneal administration of dilute haffkine antivenom .
survival was recorded 24 hours after envenoming .
results .
the ld50 of naja naja venom was 78.13 g , standard error ( se ) 13.3 g .
the ed50 of the haffkine antivenom against naja naja venom was 45.9 mg , se 7.5 mg .
the ld50 and ed50 of naja sumatrana venom were 55.5 g , se 12.0 g ; and 73.9 mg , se 12.0 mg , respectively . the intra - peritoneal ed50 against 111 g intramuscular naja sumatrana venom was 136.95 mg , se 36.74 mg . conclusion .
the haffkine polyvalent antivenom exhibited cross - neutralisation against naja sumatrana venom when used at a higher dose . |
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