Endodontic Rotary Systems : Comparison between gentlefile and pro taper universal for removal of enterococcus faecalis

As a resistant bacterium species in infected root canals, Enterococcus faecalis needs to be removed in any endodontic treatment. So, we aimed to compare the effectiveness of two rotary systems, Gentlefile and Pro Taper Universal, in removing Enterococcu

The plasma Tumor Necrosis Factor-α (TNF-α) does not have any correlation with disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis patients treated with disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs)

We performed this study to measure the Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-α) plasma level and to survey its correlation with disease activity in the newly diagnosed Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) patients and those who were under treatment with the combination of Disease-Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Drug (DMARD) plus Prednisolone (PSL).We enrolled 30 newly diagnosed RA patients who received no treatment regarding their disease, 30 patients under treatment with the combination of Methotrexate (MTX) + Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) + PSL and 30 healthy subjects in this case-control study from September 2017 to December 2017. The level of plasma TNF-α was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) in each group. For assessment of disease severity, we used Disease Activity Score-28 (DAS-28) formula, and regarding DAS-28, we divided patients into four groups, including remission, low, moderate and high disease activity. There were no significant differences in the plasma level of TNF-α between the newly diagnosed RA patients and subjects who received MTX + HCQ + PSL, as well as healthy controls (p>0.05). There was a significant correlation between plasma levels of TNF-α and DAS-28 in the newly diagnosed patients with RA (r = 0.594, P = 0.001). Targeting TNF-α at the early stage of RA could have more beneficial effects on the amelioration of disease activity

A comprehensive analysis of rare genetic variation in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in the UK.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a progressive neurodegenerative disease of motor neurons. About 25 genes have been verified as relevant to the disease process, with rare and common variation implicated. We used next generation sequencing and repeat sizing to comprehensively assay genetic variation in a panel of known amyotrophic lateral sclerosis genes in 1126 patient samples and 613 controls. About 10% of patients were predicted to carry a pathological expansion of the C9orf72 gene. We found an increased burden of rare variants in patients within the untranslated regions of known disease-causing genes, driven by SOD1, TARDBP, FUS, VCP, OPTN and UBQLN2. We found 11 patients (1%) carried more than one pathogenic variant (P = 0.001) consistent with an oligogenic basis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. These findings show that the genetic architecture of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is complex and that variation in the regulatory regions of associated genes may be important in disease pathogenesis

Hemodynamic-effects of Corwin (ici118,587), a New Cardioselective Beta-adenoceptor Partial Agonist

We investigated a CAG trinucleotide repeat expansion in the ATXN2 gene in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Two new case-control studies, a British dataset of 1474 ALS cases and 567 controls, and a Dutch dataset of 1328 ALS cases and 691 controls were analyzed. In addition, to increase power, we systematically searched PubMed for case-control studies published after 1 August 2010 that investigated the association between ATXN2 intermediate repeats and ALS. We conducted a meta-analysis of the new and existing studies for the relative risks of ATXN2 intermediate repeat alleles of between 24 and 34 CAG trinucleotide repeats and ALS. There was an overall increased risk of ALS for those carrying intermediate sized trinucleotide repeat alleles (odds ratio 3.06 [95% confidence interval 2.37–3.94]; p = 6 × 10−18), with an exponential relationship between repeat length and ALS risk for alleles of 29–32 repeats (R2 = 0.91, p = 0.0002). No relationship was seen for repeat length and age of onset or survival. In contrast to trinucleotide repeat diseases, intermediate ATXN2 trinucleotide repeat expansion in ALS does not predict age of onset but does predict disease risk

List of participating sites and ethics committee approvals.

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Data measures definitions.

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Characteristics of participating sites.

IQR: interquartile range. (PDF)</p