Bone turnover markers in sheep and goat: a review of the scientific literature

Bone turnover markers (BTMs) are product of bone cell activity and are generally divided in bone formation and bone resorption markers. The purpose of this review was to structure the available information on the use of BTMs in studies on small ruminants, especially for monitoring their variations related to diet, exercise, gestation and metabolic lactation state, circadian and seasonal variations, and also during skeletal growth. Pre-clinical and translational studies using BTMs with sheep and goats as animal models in orthopaedic research studies to help in the evaluation of the fracture healing process and osteoporosis research are also described in this review. The available information from the reviewed studies was systematically organized in order to highlight the most promising BTMs in small ruminant research, as well as provide a wide view of the use of sheep and goat as animal models in orthopaedic research, type of markers and commercial assay kits with cross-reactivity in sheep and goat, method of sample and storage of serum and urine for bone turnover markers determination and the usefulness and limitations of bone turnover markers in the different studies, therefore an effective tool for researchers that seek answers to different questions while using BTMs in small ruminants.José Arthur de A. Camassa acknowledges to the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Brazil, for his PhD scholarship 202248/2015-1.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

YKL-40 – A NEW DIAGNOSTIC BIOMARCER FOR BENIGN BREAST DISEASES AND BREAST CANCER

Benign breast diseases encompass a wide spectrum of lesions, which raise a lot of questions about their classification, diagnosis, prognosis and surgical treatment. The aim of this study is to measure the serum level of YKL-40 in cases of different groups of benign breast diseases, to compare it to the level of healthy women as well as to those with breast cancer and to examine its tissue expression after surgical treatment. We use it as a diagnostic marker and as a criterion for differential diagnosis.Forty nine (49) patients with benign breast diseases and twenty (20) patients with breast cancer were examined. All of them had their serum level of YKL-40 measured preoperatively and its tissue expression examined immunohystochemically after the surgical intervention. There were significant differences in both concentration and tissue expression of this marker in patients with different groups of benign breast diseases and breast cancer. YKL-40 can be an important biomarker in the diagnosis and differential diagnosis of breast diseases