Adenosquamous Carcinoma of the Prostate: A Rare Subtype

The vast majority of prostate cancers are acinar adenocarcinomas. Histological variants of prostate cancer are rare. An unusual case of adenosquamous carcinoma (ASCC) in a 61 year old gentleman is described. The incidence is less than 1% of all prostatic carcinomas and usually occurs after previous radiation or hormonal therapy. This case is exceptionally rare as it occurred de novo with no previous radiation or hormonal therapy. Prostatic adenocarcinoma with squamous was diagnosed after a trans-perineal ultrasound guided biopsy of the prostate was performed due to an abnormal prostate felt on digital rectal examination. Staging investigations revealed no distant metastatic disease. A robotic assisted radical prostatectomy and pelvic lymphadenectomy was performed. The patient went on to have salvage radiotherapy and adjuvant chemotherapy. He was doing well 6 months post operatively with no radiological evidence of recurrence on PSMA PET scan

Scrutinization of Nanoparticles as Potential Toxins

This article offers toxicology effects related to nanoparticles. The nanoparticles including nanocarbon have been used as technological tools, however may cause harmful effects on biosystems and environment. The toxic effects are dependent on several factors such as size, shape, surface area, morphology, and chemical nature. Owing to nanosize, these particles may enter living systems, tissues, microcells, and blood stream. They can interact with living systems, so causing damage in different ways. Consequently, these nanoparticles may harm the normal functioning of biological structures and systems. The main aim of this paper is to highlight the toxic effects, potential hazards, and possible remedies for future advancements in this field

Green Polymeric Nanocomposite

Green materials are biodegradable and renewable in nature. Green polymer composite/nanocomposite are made up of green polymer and nanofiller or polymer with green nanofiller. These composite/nanocomposite are obtained from renewable resources. Green nanocomposites are low price, light weight, strengthened, robust, heat constant, biodegradable, and recyclable materials. The compatibility between matrix and filler need to be enhanced owing to uniform dispersion and better adhesion. The properties of nanocomposites are strongly affected by the structure of composite constituents. Green polymer composites have found applications in automotive, aerospace, electronics and packaging

Antibiotic characteristics of clinical isolates of multi-drug resistant Stenotrophomonas maltophilia strains in the military hospital Vietnam

Stenotrophomonas maltophilia (S. maltophilia) is its best known species because it is a globally emerging, multidrug-resistant (MDR), opportunistic pathogen. The aim of the study was to identify species in this collection, defined as genetically cohesive sequence clusters, and to determine the extent of their genetic, ecological and phenotypic differentiation. This framework was used to analyze 50 specimens for cultures were collected from patients in the military hospital in Hanoi, Vietnam, between 2015 and 2017. Three of the 30 MDR S. maltophilia isolates identified by Vitek technology in hospital were confirmed using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The alignment sequences were analyzed in RAxML version 8.2.10 to estimate the best maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree, with 1,000 bootstrap replicates, estimated GTRGAMMA model and the rapid bootstrapping algorithm. Over 70% of S. maltophilia isolates were resistant to β-lactams (such as carbapenem, penicilline, monobactam, amoxicillin, cephem, and β-lactam); Aminoglycosides (such as gentamycine and tobramycin); Miscellaneous (such as fosfomycin and chloramphenicol). In particularly, all of this strain isolates were resistant to β-lactams and Aminoglycosides high annual increasing/ frequency from 2015 to 2017 year. Three resistant strains with most antibiotics (S. maltophilia 17-87M, 17-95M and 17-90N) were randomly selected to test the association between genotype and phenotypic resistance. The results were shown a significantly different in antibiotic genes expression among three strains and a few difference in phenotypic resistance. These data in light of current models of bacterial speciation, which fit these data well, are stressing the implications of species delimitation in ecological, evolutionary and clinical research

Environmental Factors on Medicinal Plants

Plants are unrivaled in the natural world in both the number and complexity of secondary metabolites they produce, and the ubiquitous phenylpropanoids and the lineage-specific glucosinolates represent two such large and chemically diverse groups. Advances in genome-enabled biochemistry and metabolomic technologies have greatly increased the understanding of their metabolic networks in diverse plant species. There also has been some progress in elucidating the gene regulatory networks that are key to their synthesis, accumulation and function. Secondary metabolites have important defense and signaling roles, and they contribute to the overall quality of developing and ripening fruits. Especially, light conditions and temperature are demonstrated to have a prominent role on the composition of phenolic compounds. The present review focuses on the studies on mechanisms associated with the regulation of key secondary metabolites, mainly phenolic compounds, in various plants. are not only a useful array of natural products but also an important part of plant defense system against pathogenic attacks and environmental stresses. With remarkable biological activities, plant SMs are increasingly used as medicine ingredients and food additives for therapeutic, aromatic and culinary purposes. Various genetic, ontogenic, morphogenetic and environmental factors can influence the biosynthesis and accumulation of SMs. According to the literature reports, for example, SMs accumulation is strongly dependent on a variety of environmental factors such as light, temperature, soil water, soil fertility and salinity, and for most plants, a change in an individual factor may alter the content of SMs even if other factors remain constant. Here, we review with emphasis how each of single factors to affect the accumulation of plant secondary metabolites, and conduct a comparative analysis of relevant natural products in the stressed and unstressed plants. Expectantly, this documentary review will outline a general picture of environmental factors responsible for fluctuation in plant SMs, provide a practical way to obtain consistent quality and high quantity of bioactive compounds in vegetation, and present some suggestions for future research and development

Khallaf and Sidebottom Guiding Stent for Temporomandibular Joint Arthrocentesis: A New Era for Joint Space Puncturing Techniques (Registered Technical Note)

Arthrocentesis is becoming the cornerstone of minimally-invasive surgical treatment for inter­nal derangement of the temporomandibular joint (TMJID). Nitzan et al. first described arthrocentesis as the simplest form of surgery in the TMJID. Repeated arthrocentesis up to five times is 91% effective in treating patients with anterior disc displacement without reduction. It depends on lavage of the joint space through placement of two needles inside the superior joint space. The majority of surgeons use conventional puncturing technique (CPT), which is a blind technique for needle placement, in spite of its complications (extra-articular injection, multiple puncturing, facial nerve injury, intracranial penetration).Others use image guided puncturing techniques (CBCT,MSCT, MRI, or US) for superior joint space puncturing, which is proven to be a more accurate and precise technique with fewer complications. We fabricated a new customized guiding stent on a 3D soft and hard tissue model, printed out from MSCT, with adjusted depth and angulation for superior joint space puncturing. The puncturing using this new stent is easy and does not subject patients to imaging each time, as the confirmation of the needle positioning has already been done by the accurate measurements on MSCT. In addition, the procedure no longer requires general anesthesia or deep sedation. Clinically significant differences were noted between the use of IGPT and the present guiding stent, especially on the level of procedural time. These observations confirmed that the use of this stent was a predictable and highly efficient new approach for superior joint space puncturing

Anatomical Assessment of the Inferior Alveolar Canal and Anterior Loop and Measuring its Distance to Mental Foramen in Patients Referred to Radiology Clinics of Shiraz in 2017

Knowledge about inferior alveolar canal (IAC) position is very important in dental surgical procedures of the mandible. It has a close relation to mandibular molar teeth. Anatomic imaging of the mandibular canal prior to surgical procedures, such as implant placement and sagittal split osteotomy, is essential for the best result and minimal complications.Purpose: The aim of this study is to determine normal variations of the mandibular canal and mental foramen in a selected population.Material and methods: A total of 668 high qualities CBCT images of edentulous and dentate patients aged from 15 to 75 were evaluated. CBCT projections were analyzed in different planes (tangential, cross-sectional, and axial). Bifid mandibular canal, presence of anterior loop, the level of cortication and mental foramen variations were identified in cross-sectional and axial views.Result: 668 images, 238 males and 430 females, were evaluated. Statistical analysis did not show a significant correlation between prevalence of bifid mandibular canal, anterior loop and mental foramen in both sides with age and sex (p0.05). A significant relationship was seen between right mandibular canal cortication and age (p=0.003). Anterior loop was detected in 90.5% of cases, and its length was 3.34  while accessory mandibular canal was observed in 4.6% of patients only.Conclusion: This study showed that there are numerous anatomical variations of the mandibular canal, mental foramen and anterior loop. Dentists should be familiar with these variations in order to prevent treatment complications and success of mandibular related dental procedures

Mitigation of Salt Stress by Foliar Application of Jasmonic Acid in Wheat

 Two individual experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of salinity from germination to seedling stage and exogenous application of methyl jasmonate (MeJA) to mitigate the adverse effects of salinity in wheat. The results of laboratory experiment showed that salt stress reduced germination percent and seedling fresh weight of wheat. The BARI Gom 25 exhibited better performance under saline environment upto 12 dSm-1. The field experimental results showed that plant height, leaf number, tiller number, fresh and dry weight per plant, spike length, grain number and weight per spike and yield of wheat were reduced with increased levels of salinity generally at 8 dS m-1. Exogenous application of MeJA significantly mitigated the adverse effects of salinity by improving morpho-physiological, yield contributing and yield characters of wheat. The interaction between different levels of salinity and MeJA improved the morpho-physiological, yield contributing characters and yield of wheat. The yield of wheat increased with 10 µM MeJA from 2.22 to 2.77 t ha-1, 1.63 to 2.01 t ha-1, 1.15 to 1.39 t ha-1 at 0 dS m-1, 4 dS m-1, 8 dS m-1 salinity, respectively and suggested that MeJA mitigate the adverse effects of salt stress in wheat. 

Advances of FDA Approved Drugs that Target PD-1 and PD-L1 for Cancer Immunotherapy

Cancer is a lethal disease and is one of the leading causes of death in the world. Though there have been enormous leaps in the field of cancer treatment and prolonged patient survival rate, new therapies are still in high demand. Cancer immunotherapy is an emerging field in cancer treatment especially for patients with late stage cancers that had few options previously. Cancer immunotherapy is composed of CAR-T cell therapy, immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), and cancer vaccines. ICIs are monoclonal antibodies, which are used to block certain immune checkpoint from binding with tumor cells, preventing the shutdown of the T-cell. As of now, there have been 6 ICIs approved for many different cancer indications that target the proteins, PD-1, PD-L1 and CTLA-4 that have significantly increased patient response rates in recent years. In this review, the concept, history, recent advances in ICIs, and existing commercial drugs and their response rates in different cancer indications were summarised; the advantages and disadvantages of ICI treatment in cancer were also discussed

Toxicology of Biomedical Polymer-based Nanocomposite

This paper deals with various types of biomedical polymers and nanocomposites for the biomedical systems, devices, and diversity of applications. The toxic hazards may arise out of the applications of biomedical polymers and nanocomposites. The potential toxicity of monomers, additives, and fillers used in the manufacture of biomedical polymers and nanocomposites may lead to toxicological effects of these materials. The processing of these materials may be carefully controlled for sterilization and to prevent the toxic impact on human tissues and organs. New quality control measures and stringent toxicity evaluation methods must be developed for the safe use of these materials. Future efforts may focus the removal of systemic toxicity of biomedical polymers and nanocomposites