Perceção da Qualidade de Vida numa amostra de pessoas diagnosticadas com Diabetes Mellitus

Objetivo: A presente dissertação insere-se no âmbito do Projeto CRON/PFT 2014, que pretende contribuir para o desenvolvimento de conhecimento científico capaz de basilar estratégias de intervenção na doença, através do estudo da doença crónica e saúde mental. Nesta linha de investigação, este trabalho preconizou, enquanto objetivo geral, avaliar a qualidade de vida numa amostra de pessoas diagnosticadas com Diabetes Mellitus (DM), em seguimento nas consultas de diabetologia do Centro Hospitalar Cova da Beira, E.P.E. e do Centro de Saúde da Covilhã. Introdução: Ao longo dos anos tem-se assistido ao crescente aumento da esperança média de vida. Contudo, a maior longevidade é acompanhada pelo aumento do número e prevalência de doenças crónicas, como é o caso da DM. Os cuidados diários, adaptações e mudanças nos estilos de vida, bem como os sintomas e possíveis complicações clínicas associadas, tendem a exercer um impacto significativo não apenas ao nível físico, como também psicológico, social e económico. Nesta linha, surge o interesse pela avaliação da qualidade de vida, e fatores relacionados, em pessoas que têm que conviver diariamente com as exigências impostas por esta doença crónica. Métodos: A amostra da presente investigação é constituída por 75 sujeitos, que responderam ao protocolo de avaliação composto por um questionário sociodemográfico e de informação clínica e pelos seguintes questionários de auto-resposta: World Health Organization Quality of Life – Brief, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale e Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire. Resultados: De um modo geral, em relação às características sociodemográficas, encontraram-se diferenças significativas entre a qualidade de vida e género, estado civil, escolaridade e situação profissional. Ao nível das características clínicas, o diagnóstico de outros problemas de saúde, a administração de insulina e a prática de exercício físico também evidenciaram diferenças ao nível da qualidade de vida percebida. No que concerne à sintomatologia psicopatológica, constatou-se que níveis de depressão exercem maior influência sobre a qualidade de vida quando comparados com os níveis de ansiedade, sendo ambos bons preditores da variância do constructo avaliado. Relativamente à avaliação das representações de doença, verificou-se que a resposta emocional apresenta uma associação negativa com a qualidade de vida, enquanto a compreensão de doença revela uma associação positiva com o constructo avaliado. Discussão/conclusão: Tendo em consideração os resultados obtidos, afigura-se essencial o desenvolvimento de intervenções interdisciplinares capazes de atuar ao nível bio-psico-social, de modo a promover o desenvolvimento de estratégias de intervenção adequadas na gestão emocional, cognitiva e comportamental da diabetes.Objective: This work is part of the scope of CRON /PFT 2014 Project, which aims to contribute to the development of scientific knowledge able to support intervention strategies on disease throught the study of chronic disease and mental health. In this line of research, this study aims to evaluate the quality of life in a sample of subjects with Diabetes Mellitus (DM), following in the diabetology consultations of Centro Hospitalar Cova da Beira, E.P.E. and Centro de Saúde da Covilhã. Introduction: Over the years there has been increasing the average of life expectancy. However, the longevity is followed by an increase of the number and prevalence of chronic diseases, such as DM. The daily care and changes in the lifestyles, as well as the symptoms and developmente of clinical complications tend to have a significant impact in a psysical, psychological, social and economic level. For this reason arises the interest of assessing the quality of life and of his related factos in people who have to live with the requirements imposed by this chronic disease. Method: The sample is composed by 75 subjects that answered to the collection protocol composed by the following questionnaires: sociodemographic and clinical information, World Health Organization Quality of Life – Brief, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire. Results: In general, regarding the sociodemographic characteristics, we found significant diferences between the quality of life and the gender, marital status, education and employment status. In terms of clinical features, the diagnosis of other health problems, insulin administration and physical exercise also showed diferences in the perception of quality of life. Regarding the psychophatological symptoms, it was found that depression levels have more influence on the quality of life that anxiety levels, and both were good predictors of variance in the construct. In the assessment of disease representations, it was found that the emotional response has a negative association with the quality of life, while understanding disease reveals a positive association with the target construct. Discussion/conclusion: It is important to develop interdisciplinar interventions capable of acting in a bio-psycho-social level, to promote the development of appropriate strategies in the emotional, cognitive and behavioral management of DM

Apalutamide for prostate cancer: multicentre and multidisciplinary real-world study of 227 patients

Apalutamide; Metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer; Prostate cancerApalutamida; Cáncer de próstata metastásico sensible a hormonas; Cáncer de prostataApalutamida; Càncer de pròstata metastàtic sensible a les hormones; Càncer de pròstataObjective: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of apalutamide prostate cancer compared to the pivotal trials patients and to identify the first subsequent therapy in a real-world setting. Methods: The study is prospective and observational based on real-world evidence, performed by different medical disciplines and eight academics centres around Barcelona, Spain. It included all patients with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer (mHSPC) and high-risk non-metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (nmCRPC) treated with apalutamide from June 2018 to December 2022. Results: Of 227 patients treated with apalutamide, 10% had ECOG-PS 2, and 41% were diagnosed with new-generation imaging. In the mHSPC group (209 patients), 75 years was the median age, 53% had synchronous metastases, and 22% were M1a. In the nmCRPC (18 patients), 82 years was the median age, and 81% ≤6 months had PSA doubling time. Patients achieved PSA90 in 92% of mHSPC and 50% of nmCRPC and PSA ≤0.2 in 71% of mHSPC and 39% of nmCRPC. Treatment-related adverse events occurred in 40.1% of mHSPC and 44.4% of nmCRPC. After discontinuation of apalutamide due to disease progression, 54.5% in mHSPC and 75% in nmCRPC started chemotherapy, while after discontinuation because of adverse events, 73.3% in mHSPC and 100% in nmCRPC continued with other hormonal-therapies.This study did not receive funding. Julián Córdoba and Meritxell Pérez have received sponsorship from Janssen for medical congresses and symposiums. Alejo Rodriguez- Vida, Jesús Muñoz Rodriguez, Antonio Alcaraz and Antoni Vilaseca have received honoraria from Janssen for advisory board meetings, symposiums and travel ex-penses. The other authors declare no conflict of interest. Approval of the research protocol by an Institutional Reviewer Board: HCB/2019/0919

Treu la llengua i explica'm un conte

Treball de l'alumnat del Grau d'Educació Primària de la Facultat d'Educació de la UB. Proposta d'activitat emmarcada al projecte de recerca EDU201S-69332-R "Desarrollo de las competencias para la educación multilingüe". Any: 2018. Tutors: Juli PalouActivitat dirigida a nouvinguts però pensada perquè tot l’alumnat tingui l’oportunitat de participar i, sobretot, aprendre. Gràcies als tres nivells progressius i acumulatius en els quals es pot desenvolupar l’activitat, cada participant pot aprendre i evolucionar al seu ritme. L’activitat consisteix a explicar una història a partir de les imatges que trauran de les caixes 1, 2, 3 i 4. A la caixa 0 hi trobaran les instruccions de l’activitat, una llibreta i tres parells de guants que serviran per distingir cada un dels nivells: - Nivell 1 – Guants blancs: explicació de la història amb mímica. - Nivell 2 – Guants blaus: explicació de la història amb mímica i algunes paraules clau. - Nivell 3 – Guants vermells: explicació de la història amb mímica i narrant. A més a més, a la part interior de les caixes 1, 2, 3 i 4 hi haurà d’aquella caixa. Per altra banda, l’activitat pot servir com una guia per conèixer el desenvolupament de les competències lingüístiques comunicatives dels alumnes

Urinary cell microRNA-based prognostic classifier for nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer

Current prognostic tools for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) do not have enough discriminative capacity to predict the risk of tumour progression. This study aimed to identify urinary cell microRNAs that may be useful as non-invasive predictive biomarkers of tumour progression in NMIBC patients. To this end, 210 urine samples from NMIBC patients were included in the study. RNA was extracted from urinary cells and expression of 8 microRNAs, previously described by our group, was analysed by quantitative PCR. A tumour progression predicting model was developed by Cox regression analysis and validated by bootstrapping. Regression analysis identified miR-140-5p and miR-92a-3p as independent predictors of tumour progression. The risk score derived from the model containing these two microRNAs was able to discriminate between two groups with a highly significant different probability of tumour progression (HR, 5.204; p<0.001) which was maintained when patients were stratified according to tumour risk. The algorithm was also able to identify two groups with different cancer-specific survival (HR, 3.879; p=0.021). Although the data needs to be externally validated, miRNA analysis in urine appears to be a valuable prognostic tool in NMIBC patients

Traumatic brain injury in late adolescent rats : effects on adulthood memory and anxiety

This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.The consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI) sustained during late adolescence (7 weeks-old) on spontaneous object recognition memory and on anxiety-like behaviors in the elevated plus maze were tested in rats during adulthood. Testing took place at two different post injury times, in separate groups: three and six weeks, when animals were 10 and 13 weeks old, respectively. The rats were either submitted to controlled cortical impact injury, an experimental model of focal TBI with contusion, or were shamoperated. TBI animals failed to remember the familiar object and had a significantly lower performance than sham-operated animals, indicating memory disruption, when the retention delay was 24 h, but not when it was 3 h. TBI did not have any significant effect on the main anxiety-related behaviors, but it reduced time in the central platform of the elevated plus maze. The effects of TBI on memory and on anxiety-like behaviors were similar at the two post injury times. In both TBI and sham-operated groups, animals tested six weeks after surgery had lower anxiety-related indices than those tested at three weeks, an effect that might be indicative of reduced anxiety levels with increasing age. In summary, focal TBI with contusion sustained during late adolescence led to object recognition memory deficits in a 24-h test during adulthood, but did not have a major impact on anxiety-like behaviors. Memory deficits persisted for at least six weeks after injury, indicating that spontaneous modifications of these functional disturbances did not take place along this time span

Detergent-induced stabilization and improved 3D map of the human heteromeric amino acid transporter 4F2hc-LAT2.

Human heteromeric amino acid transporters (HATs) are membrane protein complexes that facilitate the transport of specific amino acids across cell membranes. Loss of function or overexpression of these transporters is implicated in several human diseases such as renal aminoacidurias and cancer. HATs are composed of two subunits, a heavy and a light subunit, that are covalently connected by a disulphide bridge. Light subunits catalyse amino acid transport and consist of twelve transmembrane α-helix domains. Heavy subunits are type II membrane N-glycoproteins with a large extracellular domain and are involved in the trafficking of the complex to the plasma membrane. Structural information on HATs is scarce because of the difficulty in heterologous overexpression. Recently, we had a major breakthrough with the overexpression of a recombinant HAT, 4F2hc-LAT2, in the methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris. Microgram amounts of purified protein made possible the reconstruction of the first 3D map of a human HAT by negative-stain transmission electron microscopy. Here we report the important stabilization of purified human 4F2hc-LAT2 using a combination of two detergents, i.e., n-dodecyl-β-D-maltopyranoside and lauryl maltose neopentyl glycol, and cholesteryl hemisuccinate. The superior quality and stability of purified 4F2hc-LAT2 allowed the measurement of substrate binding by scintillation proximity assay. In addition, an improved 3D map of this HAT could be obtained. The detergent-induced stabilization of the purified human 4F2hc-LAT2 complex presented here paves the way towards its crystallization and structure determination at high-resolution, and thus the elucidation of the working mechanism of this important protein complex at the molecular level

Treatment with G-CSF reduces acute myeloid leukemia blast viability in the presence of bone marrow stroma

BACKGROUND: The resulting clinical impact of the combined use of G-CSF with chemotherapy as a chemosensitizing strategy for treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) patients is still controversial. In this study, the effect of ex vivo treatment with G-CSF on AML primary blasts was studied. METHODS: Peripheral blood mononuclear cells from AML patients were treated with G-CSF at increasing doses, alone or in co-culture with HS-5 stromal cells. Cell viability and surface phenotype was determined by flow cytometry 72 h after treatment. For clonogenicity assays, AML primary samples were treated for 18 h with G-CSF at increasing concentrations and cultured in methyl-cellulose for 14 days. Colonies were counted based on cellularity and morphology criteria. RESULTS: The presence of G-CSF reduced the overall viability of AML cells co-cultured with bone marrow stroma; whereas, in absence of stroma, a negligible effect was observed. Moreover, clonogenic capacity of AML cells was significantly reduced upon treatment with G-CSF. Interestingly, reduction in the AML clonogenic capacity correlated with the sensitivity to chemotherapy observed in vivo. CONCLUSIONS: These ex vivo results would provide a biological basis to data available from studies showing a clinical benefit with the use of G-CSF as a priming agent in patients with a chemosensitive AML and would support implementation of further studies exploring new strategies of chemotherapy priming in AML

Posttraining epinephrine reverses memory deficits produced by traumatic brain injury in rats

The aim of this research is to evaluate whether posttraining systemic epinephrine is able to improve object recognition memory in rats with memory deficits produced by traumatic brain injury. Forty-nine two-month-old naïve male Wistar rats were submitted to surgical procedures to induce traumatic brain injury (TBI) or were sham-operated. Rats were trained in an object recognition task and, immediately after training, received an intraperitoneal injection of distilled water (Sham-Veh and TBI-Veh group) or 0.01 mg/kg epinephrine (TBI-Epi group) or no injection (TBI-0 and Sham-0 groups). Retention was tested 3 h and 24 h after acquisition. The results showed that brain injury produced severe memory deficits and that posttraining administration of epinephrine was able to reverse them. Systemic administration of distilled water also had an enhancing effect, but of a lower magnitude. These data indicate that posttraining epinephrine and, to a lesser extent, vehicle injection reduce memory deficits associated with TBI, probably through induction of a low-to-moderate emotional arousa

Surface treated PET fibers for enhanced functionalization with lavender oil microcapsules

The objective of this work was to functionalize with microcapsules of untreated and treated polyester fabrics with plasma and ozone. Plasma treatment was carried out using a corona discharge at 200 W, 400 w and 800 W with a constant gap between electrode and roll of 4 mm. For ozone treatment, polyester samples were exposed for 20, 30, and 45 min to ozone production by low-pressure mercury lamps. After plasma or ozone, lavender oil microcapsules were immobilized onto fabric by a conventional pad–dry–cure process, using citric acid as a crosslinking agent. The microcapsules were produced by complex coacervation between chitosan and arabic gum, with lavender oil in emulsion. The release showed that the ozone on the surface of PET (polyester) increased the affinity for the microcapsules, resulting in a greater adhesion of the microcapsules and, as consequence, more amount of oil to be liberated. On the other hand, the effect of the plasma treatment was related to physical etching, without a chemical change, and does not interfere with the affinity of the microcapsule, whose external layer is a polar polymer. The delay in the oil release from PET treated with plasma can also be related to the pore formation, which could retain the microcapsules and difficult the release of the oil. Ozone proved to be a good surface treatment to enhance the functionalization of the textile substrate, so that the oil release with time can be greatly improved.Postprint (published version

Effects of voluntary physical exercise, citicoline, and combined treatment on object recognition memory, neurogenesis and neuroprotection after traumatic brain injury in rats

Final publication is available from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/neu.2014.3502The biochemical and cellular events that lead to secondary neural damage after traumatic brain injury (TBI) contribute to long-term disabilities, including memory deficits. There is a need to search for single and/or combined treatments aimed at reducing these TBI-related dysfunctions. The effects of citicoline and of voluntary physical exercise in a running wheel (3 weeks), alone or in combination, on TBI-related short-term (3 h) and long-term (24 h) object recognition memory (ORM) deficits, and on neurogenesis and neuroprotection were examined using a rodent model of TBI(controlled cortical impact injury). Citicoline improved memory deficits at the two times tested, while physical exercise only in the long-term test. Physical exercise had a clear neuroprotective effect as indicated by reduced interhemispheric differences in hippocampal formation and lateral ventricle volumes and in density of mature neurons in the hilus of the dentate gyrus and the perirhinal cortex. Physical exercise also increased cell proliferation and neurogenesis in the granular cell layer of the dentate gyrus. Some degree of neuroprotection of citicoline was suggested by reduced interhemispheric differences in the volume of the hippocampal formation. Contrary to what was expected, the effects of citicoline and physical exercise did not sum up.Furthermore, a negative interference between both treatments was found in several behavioral and histological variables. The promising profiles of both treatments as therapeutic tools in TBI when applied singly, underscore the need to carry out further works looking for other combined treatment regimens that increase the benefit of each treatment alone