Post-exposure prophylaxis for hepatitis A: immune globulin, vaccine or both?

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Tablets, capsules and injections for cancer prevention?

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Health promotion or pharmacological treatment for chronic diseases?

Over the last years medicine has progressed very rapidly. Com- municable diseases, which were the leading causes of mortali- ties, are not anymore, especially in developed countries. Cur- rently, non-communicable diseases are more prevalent, and most of them are related to changes in our daily habits and degenerative processes. Most of these diseases are chronic, need continuous care and treatment with limited improvement and high costs. The General Assembly of the United Nations in its resolution 65/238 recognized the primary role and responsibility of Governments in responding to the challenge of non- communicable diseases and the essential need for the efforts and engagement of all sectors of society to generate an effec- tive response. Special emphasis has been concentrated on phar- macological treatments for most of chronic non-communicable diseases with the challenge to discover new drugs for treating, in most cases, chronic irreversible degenerative diseases asso- ciated with aging. Little care was given to non-pharmacological lines of treatment

Influenza a(h1n1) pandemic: 2 years after

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Role of Members of University Students? Unions in tobacco prevention

Introduction. In Egypt, each faculty has it own students? union, which represents the students and collaborates in organizing all educational, sporting and social activities. The objectives of the current study were to evaluate the knowledge of members of students? unions about cigarette and Shisha smoking together with assessing their attitudes towards smoking in public places in general and in the university. Methodology. A random sample of members of Ain Shams University Students? Unions was subjected to an interview questionnaire. All participants were individually interviewed face-to-face by a trained interviewer from March 1, 2005 to April 30, 2005. Results. Our study showed that 34 (31.5%) students were smokers. The mean knowledge score percentage was 79.4 ± 20.7. Regarding knowledge about Shisha smoking hazards, the majority of the students (84.3%) knew that Shisha smoking is hazardous. The mean attitude score percentage was 56.8± 22.2. Smokers had less mean knowledge as regard smoking hazards compared to non-smokers (p inf. 0.01). Also, smokers had a lower mean attitude compared to non-smokers (p inf. 0.001). More than one-third (38.9%) of the interviewed students didn?t know if the students? union has a policy for prevention of smoking or not. Conclusion. Our findings point that although our students had a moderately high mean knowledge score yet this didn?t increase their attitude about the smoking problem in the university and in the community. This supports the notion that, in addition to knowledge about smoking hazards, efforts are needed to change beliefs that allow this offensive habit to continue

Evaluation of the level of knowledge of Egyptian women of breast cancer and its risk factors. A cross sectional study

Breast cancer is considered the leading cause of cancer death among females in economically developing countries. Preva- lence of breast carcinoma is high in Egypt and the cases of breast cancer constitute 29% of cancer cases treated at the national cancer institute. This study aimed at exploring the level of knowledge of Egyptian females of breast cancer and its risk factors. An interview questionnaire with 22 questions about breast cancer was developed. This questionnaire was previ- ously published as a part of the German multicentre DACH study. A total of 600 female subjects that attended primary health care centres were enrolled in our study. The majority were located in Cairo with the mean age of 40.5 ± 11.0. Most of our studied sample (94%) has heard about breast cancer as a disease. TV and radio were the main sources of knowledge about the disease (60%). The level of knowledge about breast cancer was limited in 80% of the subjects. Younger age subjects had a higher level of knowledge about breast can- cer compared to older subjects with no significant difference statistically. The grade of knowledge about breast cancer was higher among highly educated subjects compared to less edu- cated subjects with significant difference statistically. The highest known risk factors of breast cancer were exposure to X ray (79.5%), hormonal therapy (75.7%) and previous breast cancer disease (70.8%). This study clearly illustrates the need for a health education program directed to Egyptian females to improve the knowledge of breast cancer

Concerns, perceived impacts and preparedness of health care workers in a referral hospital in Egypt in facing influenza (H1N1) epidemic

Objective. In Egypt, influenza A(H1N1) cases have been detected and deaths have been reported. The aim of this study was to investigate Concerns, Perceived Impacts and Preparedness of Physicians and Nurses of Chest Specialty Hospital in Cairo (Egypt) concerning Influenza A(H1N1). Methods. A questionnaire was applied to a total of 72 Physicians and 41 Nurses from Chest Specialty Hospital in Cairo (Egypt). Results. More than half of physicians (55.6%) were men, while most of nurses (92.7%) were women. The mean age in years of physicians was 36.6 ± 11.3 compared to 26.5 ± 8 in nurses. Physicians feel that they are at greater risk by their job to the pandemic100% compared to 87.6% among nurses and the difference is highly significant. More than one third of the studied physicians reported that they are not ready to face H1N1 pandemic. Residents feel less ready to face the danger of Influenza A(H1N1) compared with Consultants and Specialists/Assistant Specialists, with no statistical significant difference. In concordance, Residents reported less Personal Protective Equipment training compared with Consultants and Specialists/Assistant Specialists, with no statistical significant difference. All Consultants received Seasonal Influenza Vaccine compared with Specialists/Assistant Specialists (68.2%) and Residents (44.7%). Conclusion. Higher work related and non work related stress was found among physicians compared to nurses, which reflects the demand of more information and training courses for physicians about the pandemic nature and its consequences, complications, and methods infection prevention

Identifying chondroprotective diet-derived bioactives and investigating their synergism

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a multifactorial disease and nutrition is a modifiable factor that may contribute to disease onset or progression. A detailed understanding of mechanisms through which diet-derived bioactive molecules function and interact in OA is needed. We profiled 96 diet-derived, mainly plant-based bioactives using an in vitro model in chondrocytes, selecting four candidates for further study. We aimed to determine synergistic interactions between bioactives that affected the expression of key genes in OA. Selected bioactives, sulforaphane, apigenin, isoliquiritigenin and luteolin, inhibited one or more interleukin-1-induced metalloproteinases implicated in OA (MMP1, MMP13, ADAMTS4, ADAMTS5). Isoliquiritigenin and luteolin showed reactive oxygen species scavenging activity in chondrocytes whereas sulforaphane had no effect and apigenin showed only a weak trend. Sulforaphane inhibited the IL-1/NFκB and Wnt3a/TCF/Lef pathways and increased TGFβ/Smad2/3 and BMP6/Smad1/5/8 signalling. Apigenin showed potent inhibition of the IL-1/NFκB and TGFβ/Smad2/3 pathways, whereas luteolin showed only weak inhibition of the IL-1/NFκB pathway. All four bioactives inhibited cytokine-induced aggrecan loss from cartilage tissue explants. The combination of sulforaphane and isoliquiritigenin was synergistic for inhibiting MMP13 gene expression in chondrocytes. We conclude that dietary-derived bioactives may be important modulators of cartilage homeostasis and synergistic relationships between bioactives may have an anti-inflammatory and chondroprotective role

Citrullinated histone H3 as a novel prognostic blood marker in patients with advanced cancer

Citrullinated histone H3 (H3Cit) is a central player in the neutrophil release of nuclear chromatin, known as neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs). NETs have been shown to elicit harmful effects on the host, and were recently proposed to promote tumor progression and spread. Here we report significant elevations of plasma H3Cit in patients with advanced cancer compared with age-matched healthy individuals. These elevations were specific to cancer patients as no increase was observed in severely ill and hospitalized patients with a higher non-malignant comorbidity. The analysis of neutrophils from cancer patients showed a higher proportion of neutrophils positive for intracellular H3Cit compared to severely ill patients. Moreover, the presence of plasma H3Cit in cancer patients strongly correlated with neutrophil activation markers neutrophil elastase (NE) and myeloperoxidase (MPO), and the inflammatory cytokines interleukin-6 and -8, known to induce NETosis. In addition, we show that high levels of circulating H3Cit strongly predicted poor clinical outcome in our cohort of cancer patients with a 2-fold increased risk for short-term mortality. Our results also corroborate the association of NE, interleukin-6 and -8 with poor clinical outcome. Taken together, our results are the first to unveil H3Cit as a potential diagnostic and prognostic blood marker associated with an exacerbated inflammatory response in patients with advanced cancer

Кинетика восстановления железа при восстановительной плавке рудоугольных окатышей

Исследовано влияние интенсивности теплообмена на кинетику восстановления железа в процессе плавки рудоугольных окатышей. Показано, что с ростом интенсивности теплообмена повышается скорость восстановительных процессов. Вследствие роста коэффициента теплообмена увеличивается глубина восстановленного слоя окатыша, существенно изменяются его структура и химический состав образующейся металлической фазы.Досліджено вплив інтенсивності теплообміну на кінетику відновлення заліза в процесі плавки рудовугільних окатишів. Показано, що при зростанні інтенсивності теплообміну підвищується швидкість відновлювальних процесів. Внаслідок зростання коефіцієнту теплообміну збільшується глибина відновленого шару окатиша, суттєво змінюються його структура та хімічний склад металевої фази, що утворюється.Influence of intensity of heat exchange is investigational on kinetics reduction of iron in the process of melting ore-coal pellets. It is rotined that speed of reduction processes rises with growth of intensity of heat exchange. Because of growth of coefficient of heat exchange the depth of the recovered layer of pellet is increased, his structure and chemical composition of appearing metallic phase changes substantially