Combined treatment with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator and dexamethasone phosphate-containing liposomes improves neurological outcome and restricts lesion progression after embolic stroke in rats

Abstract Variable efficacies have been reported for glucocorticoid drugs as anti-inflammatory treatment after stroke. We applied an alternative drug delivery strategy, by injection of dexamethasone phosphate-containing liposomes in combination with recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA), in an experimental stroke model, and tested the hypothesis that this approach improves behavioral recovery and reduces lesion growth. Rats were subjected to right middle cerebral artery occlusion with a blood clot. After 2 h, animals were intravenously injected with rtPA plus empty long-circulating liposomes (LCL), free dexamethasone phosphate (DXP), or DXP-containing LCL (LCL-DXP). Neurological status was evaluated with different behavioral tests up to 7 days after stroke. Lesion development was assessed by magnetic resonance imaging of tissue and perfusion parameters from 0-2 h until 7 days after stroke. Expression of brain inflammatory markers was measured with RT-PCR at post-stroke day 7. Treatment with rtPA plus LCL-DXP resulted in significantly improved behavioral outcome as compared to treatment with rtPA plus empty LCL or free DXP. Acute and final brain lesion sizes were comparable between treatment groups; however a predictive algorithm revealed a significantly larger salvaged tissue area after treatment with LCL-DXP. We conclude that delivery of dexamethasone phosphate via LCL in combination with rtPA-induced thrombolysis can significantly improve outcome after stroke. Furthermore, magnetic resonance imaging-based predictive algorithms provide a sensitive means to measure treatment effects on lesion development

El componente educativo en el abordaje integral del asma bronquial The educational component in an integrated approach to bronchial asthma

El asma bronquial es una enfermedad inflamatoria crónica de las vías respiratorias cuya prevalencia está aumentando en el mundo. Actualmente no se dispone de un tratamiento curativo, y el objetivo principal de todo abordaje es el control de la enfermedad y la optimización de la calidad de vida de los pacientes. En este sentido, durante las últimas décadas se han estado implementando y evaluando programas de intervención complementarios a los tratamientos médicos convencionales. Gran parte de éstos consisten en intervenciones educativas o incluyen algún tipo de componente educativo. El objetivo del presente trabajo fue analizar las características y el impacto de las intervenciones educativas en el asma, a través de: a) revisión actualizada sobre los diferentes tipos de intervenciones educativas desarrolladas e implementadas para el asma; b) identificación de aspectos comunes a todas estas intervenciones; c) análisis de los hallazgos de la investigación referidos a su impacto sobre la salud y la calidad de vida de los pacientes. Se concluye que las intervenciones educativas son efectivas para mejorar la salud y la calidad de vida de los pacientes con asma, y para reducir el uso y el costo de recursos sanitarios. Estos hallazgos señalan la importancia de incluir el componente educativo como parte esencial del abordaje integral de esta población clínica. Asimismo, la complejidad inherente al proceso educativo pone de manifiesto la necesidad del trabajo conjunto y complementario entre diferentes profesionales de la salud.<br>Bronchial asthma is an inflammatory chronic disease of the respiratory tract whose prevalence is increasing worldwide. Since there is no curative treatment available, the principal objective of every approach is to control the disease and to improve the quality of life of patients. Over the last few decades, intervention programs supplementing conventional medical treatments have been tested and implemented. The majority of such programs consist of educational interventions or include some type of educational component. In this study, we attempted to determine the characteristics and the impact of educational interventions on asthma by means of the following: a) an updated review of the various educational interventions developed and implemented for asthma patients; b) the identification of aspects that are common to all of these interventions; and c) the analysis of the findings in the literature regarding the impact that these interventions have on the health and quality of life of patients. We conclude that educational interventions are effective in improving the health and quality of life of asthma patients, as well as in reducing the use and costs of health resources. These findings indicate the importance of including an educational component as part of an integrated approach to this population. Likewise, the inherent complexity of the educational process highlights the importance of a complementary joint effort including various health professionals

Las plantas medicinales en el inventario español sobre los conocimientos Tradicionales relativos al patrimonio natural y a la biodiversidad

En las últimas décadas las organizaciones internacionales han puesto de manifiesto la importancia de los conocimientos ecológicos tradicionales para la conservación y el uso sostenible de la diversidad biológica, como se refleja en el Convenio sobre la Diversidad Biológica (CBD 1992). En España, el marco jurídico que recoge las normas y recomendaciones de esta estrategia es la Ley de Patrimonio Natural y Biodiveresidad 42/2007 que establece la creación del Inventario Español de Conocimientos Tradicionales (IECT) relevantes para la conservación y el uso sostenible de la biodiversidad y geodiversidad. Desde hace más de un año un equipo de más de 60 investigadores, incluyendo botánicos, zoólogos, antropólogos, ecólogos y geólogos de más de 20 centros de investigación y universidades del estado español, están trabajando en el IEDT, con el objetivo de recopilar y difundir la información publicada sobre los conocimientos tradicionales relativos a la flora, fauna, geodiversidad y el manejo de los ecosistemas

Sharing Plant Uses with Animals: Plants Used for Feeding and Curing Humans and Animals in the Spanish Inventory of Traditional Knowledge Related to Biodiversity

Trabajo presentado en la 57th Annual Meeting of the Society for Economic Botany (Cultural resilience and resource extraction: preserving plants & people of degraded ecosystems), celebrada en Pine Mountain (USA) del 5 al 9 de junio de 2016.Spain has a very rich and dynamic traditional ecological knowledge system that has suffered severe erosion over the last decades. This knowledge has been deeply influenced by a rich and diverse historical heritage that includes many centuries old documents from ancient cultures, some over 2000 years old. Spanish acute useful flora comprises around 3,000 species, most of them autochthonous. A team of more than 70 scientists from more than 30 universities and other research centres are developing the Spanish Inventory of Traditional Knowledge. The inventory includes a database with information from over180 papers. The review of such papers showed that more than 2,300 plant species are used in human and animal food and medicine: 1,681 in human medicine, 1,295 in animal food, 953 in human food and 709 in veterinary medicine. Nearly 14% of the species (313) are shared in the four categories and a very important amount of species are used both for humans and animals: 35% of the species (800) are employed in animal food and medicine, 31% (710) in human food and medicine, 28% (650) in human and veterinary medicine and 27% (624) in animal and human food. This high percentage of overlap between human and animal uses may indicate that the observation of animal behaviour , specially feeding and selfmedication behaviours, might have given clues to humans on how to use food and medicinal plants[Lo1]. It also reinforces the idea that food and medicine represent a continuum not only for humans, but also for animals.Peer reviewe

Sustainability of traditional ecological knowledge: importance, distribution, endemicity and conservation of Spanish medicinal plants

Trabajo presentado en la 58th Annual Meeting of the Society for Economic Botany (Living in a global world: local knowledge ans sustainability), celebrada en Braganza (Portugal) del 4 al 9 de junio de 2017.-- IECTB authors: L Aceituno, R Acosta, A Alvarez, E Barroso, J Blanco, MA Bonet, L Calvet, E Carrio, R Cavero, U DAmbrosio , L Delgado, J Fajardo, I Fernandez-Ordonez, J Garcia, T Garnatje, JA Gonzalez, R Gonzalez-Tejero, A Gras, E Hernandez-Bermejo, E Laguna, JA Latorre, C. Lopez, MJ Macia, E Marcos, V Martinez, G Menendez, M Molina, R Morales, LM Munoz, C Obon, R Ontillera, M Parada, A Perdomo, I Perez, MP Puchades, V Reyes-Garcia, M Rigat, S Rios, D Rivera, R Rodriguez, O Rodriguez, R Roldan, L San Joaquin, FJ Tardio, JR Vallejo, J Valles, H Velasco and A Verde.More than 17,000 of the plant species of the world have been used as medicines. The Mediterranean basin, and specifically Spain, has a great floristic and ethnobotanical richness, comprising its useful flora around 3,000 plant species. This paper studies medicinal plants traditionally used in Spain in order to analyze the sustainability of their exploitation. Given that sustainability is related to the amount of the resource and its gathering pressure, its availability and cultural importance were analysed based on: the number of papers cited from a selection of over 180 papers, the number of 10x10 km UTM grid cells in which the plants were represented, the number of phytosociological inventories in which the presence of the plant has been registered, and searched on their current conservation status in European, national and regional legislations. The total number of wild or naturalized medicinal species in Spain reaches 1,393, 15% of them being endemic. A positive correlation was found among cultural importance and abundance (ρ=0.48) and among cultural importance and distribution (ρ=0.502), showing that abundant widely distributed species are those more commonly used. Most of the medicinal plants (72%) do not appear on the consulted regulations and do not have any legal protection or known threat and only 11 species are registered in any of the annexes of the European Habitats directive. While this study confirms that people tend to select as medicinal abundant and widely distributed species, many other criteria are used for selecting them.Peer reviewe

Memorias IX Congreso Geológico Venezolano (3)

Memorias IX Congreso Geol&oacute;gico Venezolano (3