Neurological recovery after traumatic spinal cord injury:what is meaningful? A patients' and physicians' perspective

Study design: Cross-sectional survey. Objectives: Most studies on neurological recovery after traumatic spinal cord injury (tSCI) assess treatment effects using the American Spinal Injury Association Impairment Scale (AIS grade) or motor points recovery. To what extent neurological recovery is considered clinically meaningful is unknown. This study investigated the perceived clinical benefit of various degrees of neurological recovery one year after C5 AIS-A tSCI. Setting: The Netherlands. Methods: By means of a web-based survey SCI patients and physicians evaluated the benefit of various scenarios of neurological recovery on a scale from 0 to 100% (0% no benefit to 100% major benefit). Recovery to AIS-C and D, was split into C/C+ and D/D+, which was defined by the lower and upper limit of recovery for each grade. Results: A total of 79 patients and 77 physicians participated in the survey. Each AIS grade improvement from AIS-A was considered significant benefit (all p < 0.05), ranging from 47.8% (SD 26.1) for AIS-B to 86.8% (SD 24.3) for AIS-D+. Motor level lowering was also considered significant benefit (p < 0.05), ranging from 66.1% (SD 22.3) for C6 to 81.7% (SD 26.0) for C8. Conclusions: Meaningful recovery can be achieved without improving in AIS grade, since the recovery of functional motor levels appears to be as important as improving in AIS grade by both patients and physicians. Moreover, minor neurological improvements within AIS-C and D are also considered clinically meaningful. Future studies should incorporate more detailed neurological outcomes to prevent potential underestimation of neurological recovery by only using the AIS grade

Electrochemical and optical properties of a conducting polymer and its use in a novel biosensor for the detection of cholesterol

A simple and robust cholesterol biosensor was designed by immobilizing cholesterol oxidase (ChOx) onto a conducting polymer modified graphite electrode. For this purpose, monomer, (Z)-4-(4-(9H-carbazol-9-yl) benzylidene) 2 (4 nitrophenyl) oxazol-5(4H)-one (CBNP), was synthesized and electrochemically polymerized on an electrode to achieve an effective immobilization platform for enzyme immobilization. After electropolymerization of the monomer (CBNP), electrochemical and spectroelectrochemical properties were investigated. Through the presence of nitro group on the polymer backbone hydrogen-bonding between enzyme molecules and polymer was achieved. Moreover, strong pi-pi stacking between aromatic moities in the polymer and aromatic residues of the enzyme enables a sensitive and reliable biosensor by conserving the crucial structure of biological molecules during the enzymatic reaction. The efficient interaction of the enzyme with the polymer coated surface brings easy and long-life detection of the substrate, cholesterol. After successful immobilization of ChOx with the help of glutaraldehyde as the crosslinking agent, amperometric biosensor responses were recorded at -0.7 V vs Ag wire in phosphate buffer (pH 7.0). K-M(app) (37.3 mu M), I-max (3.92 mu A), LOD (0.4063 mu M) and sensitivity (1.49 pA mu M-1 cm(-2)) values were determined. Finally, the prepared biosensor was successfully applied for determination of cholesterol content in real blood samples. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved