Allergy skin testing with nonirritating concentrations of anesthetic agents

Immediate hypersensitivity reactions to anesthetic agents are rare, but with a worrying morbidity and mortality rate. Allergy evaluation is mandatory when hypersensitivity reactions to anaesthetic agents are suspected. Skin prick tests and intradermal tests are important tools due to their clinical utility in establishing the diagnosis of IgE-mediated hypersensitivity and evaluation of cross-reactivity. This article presents, for informational purposes only, the nonirritating concentrations of general anesthetics and adjuvant agents, neuromuscular blocking agents and agents used in local and regional anesthesia, used in clinical practice for allergy skin testing according to international guidelines. The delayed hypersensitivity adverse reactions can be assessed by patch testing. Concentrations used for such skin testing with topical anesthetic agents from the European baseline series, international comprehensive baseline series and medicament series, are also presented

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems for Remote Estimation of Flooded Areas Based on Complex Image Processing

Floods are natural disasters which cause the most economic damage at the global level. Therefore, flood monitoring and damage estimation are very important for the population, authorities and insurance companies. The paper proposes an original solution, based on a hybrid network and complex image processing, to this problem. As first novelty, a multilevel system, with two components, terrestrial and aerial, was proposed and designed by the authors as support for image acquisition from a delimited region. The terrestrial component contains a Ground Control Station, as a coordinator at distance, which communicates via the internet with more Ground Data Terminals, as a fixed nodes network for data acquisition and communication. The aerial component contains mobile nodes—fixed wing type UAVs. In order to evaluate flood damage, two tasks must be accomplished by the network: area coverage and image processing. The second novelty of the paper consists of texture analysis in a deep neural network, taking into account new criteria for feature selection and patch classification. Color and spatial information extracted from chromatic co-occurrence matrix and mass fractal dimension were used as well. Finally, the experimental results in a real mission demonstrate the validity of the proposed methodologies and the performances of the algorithms

DEFICITUL SELECTIV DE IGA ŞI BOLILE ALERGICE

Obiective. Revizuirea datelor din literatura de specialitate privind asocierea DSIgA cu boli alergice. Material şi metodă. S-a cercetat baza de date medicale PubMed şi, dintr-un număr total de 99 de articole publicate în intervalul 1973-2011 au fost selectate 20 articole semnifi cative pentru asocierea studiată. Rezultate. Primele studii privind această asociere datează de peste 35 de ani. Studiile publicate în acest interval citează asocieri cu astmul, dermatita atopică, rinita / conjunctivita alergică, urticaria, alergiile medicamentoase şi alimentare şi anafi laxia posttransfuzională. Uneori, relaţia dintre DSIgA şi bolile alergice poate fi bidirecţională, cum este cazul rinitei alergice sau a dermatitei atopice. Alteori, DSIgA poate chiar să reprezinte un factor agravant al bolii alergice. Concluzii. Deşi în literatura de specialitate există puţine date privind asocierea acestor afecţiuni, alergiile respiratorii şi dermatita atopică par a fi mai frecvente la pacienţii cu DSIgA. Unele studii susţin chiar un efect agravant al DSIgA în aceste boli. Nu trebuie neglijată asocierea DSIgA cu boala celiacă şi reacţiile anafi lactice posttransfuzionale. Manifestările alergice pot fi cele care determină pacientul să se prezinte la medic, de aceea un procent important din DSIgA este depistat cu ocazia consulturilor alergologice

State-of-the-Art on Biomarkers for Anaphylaxis in Obstetrics

Anaphylaxis is an unpredictable systemic hypersensitivity reaction and constitutes a high risk of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality when occurring during pregnancy. Currently, the acute management of anaphylaxis is based on clinical parameters. A total serum tryptase is only used to support an accurate diagnosis. There is a need to detect other biomarkers to further assess high-risk patients in obstetrics. Our objective is to present biomarkers in this complex interdisciplinary approach beyond obstetrician and anaesthetic management. Candidate biomarkers derive either from mediators involved in immunopathogenesis or upcoming molecules from systems biology and proteomics. Serum tryptase is determined by singleplex immunoassay method and is important in the evaluation of anaphylactic mast cell degranulation but also in the assessment of other risk factors for anaphylaxis such as systemic mastocytosis. Another category of biomarkers investigates the IgE-mediated sensitization to triggers potentially involved in the etiology of anaphylaxis in pregnant women, using singleplex or multiplex immunoassays. These in vitro tests with natural extracts from foods, venoms, latex or drugs, as well as with molecular allergen components, are useful because in vivo allergy tests cannot be performed on pregnant women in such a major medical emergency due to their additional potential risk of anaphylaxis