Comparative study of the efficacy and safety of topical sertaconazole versus topical terbinafine in the treatment of dermatophytoses in a tertiary care centre

Background: Dermatophytes are superficial fungal infection termed dermatophytosis, diagnosed by direct microscopy and confirmed with culture and treated with antifungal agents by both topical and systemic therapy. The objective of this study was to compare the efficacy of topical sertaconazole with topical terbinafine applied twice daily in reducing the size and severity of the lesions.Methods: Two groups of patients, the topical sertaconazole nitrate 2% cream (group 1) and the topical terbinafine hydrochloride 1% cream (group 2) were treated twice daily for 2 weeks and followed after 4 weeks. Skin scrapings were taken to confirm the diagnosis, to assess the efficacy and potency of the study drugs. The statistical analysis was performed using statistical package for Social Sciences. Assessment of the groups was analysed using Chi-square test. Baseline demographic data was analysed using ANOVA.Results: At the end of first week, sertaconazole group showed significant changes in pruritis (p value 0.045) as compared to terbinafine group (p value <0.05) and no severe symptoms of erythema in both grups. After 2 weeks, resolution of vesicle was seen higher in terbinafine group. But after ‘follow-up phase’, all patients showed absence of vesicles and negative mycological assessment.Conclusions: Topical sertaconazole nitrate was better in reducing the severity of pruritis and achieving faster mycological cure compared to terbinafine and found to possess additional anti-pruritic and anti-inflammatory action

Evaluation of neuroprotective effect of flupirtine in brain of albino rats

Background: Flupirtine (FP) is found to antagonize both glutamate and N methyl, D aspartate (NMDA) and the current study was undertaken to elucidate a possible neuroprotective role of flupirtine against NMDA induced neurotoxicity in experimental rat model.Methods: Excitotoxicty was produced in rat and it is counteracted by flupirtine. The animals were grouped as Group 1 (vehicle treated), Group 2 (received NMDA+vehicle), Group 3 (received FP+NMDA only), and Group 4 (received FP+vehicle) and were observed of animal behavior and oxidative stress biomarkers and also mRNA expression using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (PCR PCR) was performed to determine the level of mRNA expression of acetyl cholinesterase (AChE) and muscarinic cholinergic receptor (MChR) in brain samples (hippocampus) of experimental animals.Results: Depression effect induced by NMDA was reversed by flupirtine. Decrease in oxidative stress bio-markers associated with increase in the antioxidant enzyme activities in group 3 and 4 compared to group 1 and 2. Gene expression were up-regulated in group 2 compared to 1, 3 and 4. Flupritine treatment reversed these alterations.Conclusions: This study represents the neuroprotective characteristics of flupiritne against the excitotoxicity induced by NMDA in an in vivo rat models

Vascular Dysfunction and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Examining the Role of Oxidative Stress and Sympathetic Activity

Purpose: The physiological manifestations of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have been associated with an increase in risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) independent of negative lifestyle factors. The goal of the study was to better elucidate the mechanisms behind the increased CVD risk by examining peripheral vascular function, a precursor to CVD. Moreover, this study sought to determine the role of oxidative stress and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity in PTSD-induced vascular dysfunction. Methods: Sixteen individuals with PTSD (10 women, 6 men; age 24 ± 4 years), and twenty-four healthy controls (CTRL; 15 women, 9 men, 24 ± 4 years), participated in the study. The PTSD group participated in two visits, consuming either a placebo or antioxidant cocktail (AO - vitamins C and E and alpha lipoic acid) prior to their visits, in a randomized order. Arm vascular function was assessed via the reactive hyperemia- induced flow mediated dilation of the brachial artery (BAFMD) technique and evaluated with Doppler ultrasonography. Brachial artery and arm microvascular function were determined by percent change of diameter from baseline normalized for BA shear rate (BAD/Shear), and blood flow area under the curve (BF AUC), respectively. Heart rate variability (HRV) was used to assess autonomic nervous system activity. Results: BF AUC was significantly lower (p = 0.02) and SNS activity was significantly higher (p = 0.02) in the PTSD group when compared to the CTRL group. BAD/Shear was not different between groups. Following the acute AO supplementation, BF AUC was augmented to which it was no longer significantly different (p = 0.16) when compared to the CTRL group. SNS activity within the PTSD group was significantly reduced (p=.007) following the AO supplementation when compared to the PL condition, and the difference between PTSD and CTRL was no longer significant (p=.41). Conclusion: Young individuals with PTSD demonstrated lower arm microvascular, but not brachial artery, function as well as higher sympathetic activity when compared to healthy controls matched for age, sex, and physical activity level. Furthermore, this microvascular dysfunction and SNS activity was attenuated by an acute AO supplementation to the level of the healthy controls. Taken together, this study revealed that the modulation of oxidative stress, via an acute AO supplementation, improved vascular dysfunction in individuals with PTSD, potentially by reducing the substantial SNS activity associated with this disorder.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/gradposters/1084/thumbnail.jp

Relaxation at late stages in an entropy barrier model for glassy systems

The ground state dynamics of an entropy barrier model proposed recently for describing relaxation of glassy systems is considered. At stages of evolution the dynamics can be described by a simple variant of the Ehrenfest urn model. Analytical expression for the relaxation times from an arbitrary state to the ground state is derived. Upper and lower bounds for the relaxation times as a function of system size are obtained.Comment: 9 pages no figures. to appear in J.Phys. A: Math. and Ge

High-dimensional quantum dynamics of adsorption and desorption of H2_2 at Cu(111)

We performed high-dimensional quantum dynamical calculations of the dissociative adsorption and associative desorption of hydrogen on Cu(111). The potential energy surface (PES) is obtained from density functional theory calculations. Two regimes of dynamics are found, at low energies sticking is determined by the minimum energy barrier, at high energies by the distribution of barrier heights. Experimental results are well-reproduced qualitatively, but some quantitative discrepancies are identified as well.Comment: 4 two column pages, revtex, 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Thickness-dependent thermal properties of amorphous insulating thin films measured by photoreflectance microscopy

In this work, we report on the measurement of the thermal conductivity of thin insulating films of SiO2 obtained by thermal oxidation, and Al2O3 grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD), both on Si wafers. We used photoreflectance microscopy to determine the thermal properties of the films as a function of thickness in the 2 nm to 1000 nm range. The effective thermal conductivity of the Al2O3 layer is shown to decrease with thickness down to 70% for the thinnest layers. The data were analyzed upon considering that the change in the effective thermal conductivity corresponds to an intrinsic thermal conductivity associated to an additional interfacial thermal resistance. The intrinsic conductivity and interfacial thermal resistance of SiO2 were found to be equal to 0.95 W/m·K and 5.1 × 10− 9 m2K/W respectively; those of Al2O3 were found to be 1.56 W/m·K and 4.3 × 10− 9 m2K/W