Current and emerging diagnosis tools and therapeutics for giant cell arteritis

Introduction: Giant cell arteritis (GCA) is the most common large-vessel vasculitis in individuals older than 50 years from Western countries. The goal of the treatment is to achieve improvement of symptoms and clinical remission as well as decrease the risk of severe vascular complications. Areas covered: The review summarizes the main epidemiological and clinical features of GCA and discusses in depth both the classic and the new therapies used in the management of GCA. Expert commentary: Prednisone/prednisolone of 40-60 mg/day is the mainstay in GCA therapy. It yields improvement of clinical features and reduces the risk of permanent visual loss in patients with GCA. Other drugs are used in patients who experience relapses (flares of the disease) or side effects related to glucocorticoids. Methotrexate is the most common conventional immunosuppressive drug used as a glucocorticoid sparing agent. Among the new biologic agents, the most frequently used is the recombinant humanized anti-IL-6 receptor antibody, which is effective to improve clinical symptoms, decrease the cumulative prednisone dose and reduce the frequency of relapses in these patients. Anti-tumor necrosis factor-α therapy is not useful in GCA. Experience with other biologic agents, such as abatacept or ustekinumab, looks promising but it is still scarce

Survival of immediately versus delayed loaded short implants: a prospective case series study

Background: to assess and compare survival rates of immediately and delayed loaded short implants (7 mm) in free ends of a partially edentulous jaw with moderate-severe alveolar bone resorption. Material and Methods: 24 patients with atrophic edentulous free-ends were included in this prospective study. Four study groups were monitored monthly and their behavior was evaluated: bridges supported only by short implants and mixed short and long implant bridge groups, both with immediate and delayed loading. Failures, bone loss, probing depth and bleeding on probing were evaluated. Results: 54 Mk III Shorty TiU and 15 Brånemark System®MK III TiU implants with a length longer than 7mm were included in the study. Twenty-eight implants were inserted following the immediate loading protocol and 26 according a two-stage procedure, depending on the torque value. The cumulative survival rate of short implants was 87% (n=54) after a mean time of 47.72 months (range 33-62 months), showing statistically significant differences related to loading protocol (p=0.047). Short implants immediately loaded had a higher long-term survival rate (96.4%) compared to the other study group (76.9%). Besides, short implants splinted to longer immediately loaded implants presented the highest survival rate (100%). Twenty-five (53.19%) short implants showed a bone loss of less than one millimeter after the follow-up period. Statistically significant differences were found between bleeding on probing, presence of plaque or suppuration and a higher bone loss in both loading protocols (p=0.001). Conclusions: immediate loading of short implants placed on free ends can be considered an option in the treatment protocol of patients with severe bone resorption especially if implants are splinted to others of greater length

Assessment of bone-regeneration using adipose-derived stem cells in critical-size alveolar ridge defects: an experimental study in a dog model

Purpose: To assess bone regeneration potential of a fibronectin- and adipose-derived stem cell-covered ceramic biomaterial in three-wall critical size alveolar ridge defects. Materials and methods: In 18 dogs, four dehiscence-type and critical size defects were created surgically in the edentulous alveolar ridge. Defects were randomly regenerated using biomaterials coated with particulate ß-tricalcium phosphate (ß-TCP), ß-TCP with fibronectin (Fn) (ß-TCP-Fn), and ß-TCP with a combination of Fn and autologous adipose-derived stem cells (ADSCs) (ß-TCP-Fn-ADSCs), leaving one defect as control. The animals were divided into three groups according to the time of euthanasia (1, 2, or 3 months of healing). Results: At the time of sacrifice, statistically significant differences between the four types of defects in the total area of bone regeneration, percentage of neoformed bone matrix, medullary space, or contact between particulate biomaterial and neoformed bone matrix were not found. All defects showed a significant increase in neoformed bone matrix as sacrifice was delayed, but a uniform pattern was not followed. Only defects treated with ß-TCP-Fn-ADSCs showed a significant increase in the bone regeneration area when animals sacrificed at 3 months were compared to those sacrificed at 1 month (P = .006). Conclusion: The use of ADSCs in bone regeneration processes of critical size defects of the alveolar ridge did not entail an advantage regarding greater bone regeneration as compared with other biomaterials. However, the use of ß-TCP coated with a combination of Fn and ADSCs appeared to favor stabilization of the regenerated area, allowing a more efficient maintenance of the space at 3 months of healing

Revisión bibliográfica de implantología bucofacial del año 2008. Segunda parte

La actividad asistencial de los profesionales de la Odontología tiene como consecuencia una baja disponibilidad de tiempo para dedicarse a la lectura de artículos científicos. Ante la dificultad de mantener un buen nivel de información en el campo de la Implantología Bucofacial, nuestro interés es exponer de forma sintética una revisión de la literatura científica publicada en las revistas más relevantes de la especialidad durante el año 2008. El lector interesado encontrará en este artículo algunos de los diferentes temas que integran esta disciplina, expuestos por apartados (regenera-ción ósea guiada, técnicas avanzadas, elevación del suelo del seno maxilar, miniimplantes, plasma rico en plaquetas, factores de crecimiento, tejidos blandos y complicaciones)

Septic shock in pregnancy due to pyogenic sacroiliitis: a case report

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Revisión bibliográfica de implantología bucofacial del año 2009. 2ª parte

Debido al amplio número de publicaciones que existen sobre Implantología Bucofacial, resulta difícil para el odontólogo seleccionar y leer de forma crítica una cantidad suficiente de artículos que puedan aportarle una información útil para su praxis diaria. En este artículo pretendemos sintetizar la información más relevante que se encuentra en las revistas indexadas de la especialidad publicadas el año 2009

Revisión bibliográfica de implantología bucofacial del año 2009. 1ª parte

Debido al amplio número de publicaciones que existen sobre Implantología Bucofacial, resultadifícil para el odontólogo seleccionar y leer de forma crítica una cantidad suficiente de artículos que puedan aportarle una información útil para su praxis diaria. En este artículo se pretende sintetizar la información más relevante que se encuentra en las revistas indexadas de la especialidad publicadas durante el año 2009

Revisión bibliográfica de implantología bucofacial del año 2009. 2ª parte

Debido al amplio número de publicaciones que existen sobre Implantología Bucofacial, resulta difícil para el odontólogo seleccionar y leer de forma crítica una cantidad suficiente de artículos que puedan aportarle una información útil para su praxis diaria. En este artículo pretendemos sintetizar la información más relevante que se encuentra en las revistas indexadas de la especialidad publicadas el año 2009

BAFF, APRIL and BAFFR on the pathogenesis of Immunoglobulin-A vasculitis

BAFF, APRIL and BAFF-R are key proteins involved in the development of B-lymphocytes and autoimmunity. Additionally, BAFF, APRIL and BAFFR polymorphisms were associated with immune-mediated conditions, being BAFF GCTGT>A a shared insertion-deletion genetic variant for several autoimmune diseases. Accordingly, we assessed whether BAFF, APRIL and BAFFR represent novel genetic risk factors for Immunoglobulin-A vasculitis (IgAV), a predominantly B-lymphocyte inflammatory condition. BAFF rs374039502, which colocalizes with BAFF GCTGT>A, and two tag variants within APRIL (rs11552708 and rs6608) and BAFFR (rs7290134 and rs77874543) were genotyped in 386 Caucasian IgAV patients and 806 matched healthy controls. No genotypes or alleles differences were observed between IgAV patients and controls when BAFF, APRIL and BAFFR variants were analysed independently. Likewise, no statistically significant differences were found in the genotype and allele frequencies of BAFF, APRIL or BAFFR when IgAV patients were stratified according to the age at disease onset or to the presence/absence of gastrointestinal (GI) or renal manifestations. Similar results were disclosed when APRIL and BAFFR haplotypes were compared between IgAV patients and controls and between IgAV patients stratified according to the clinical characteristics mentioned above. Our results suggest that BAFF, APRIL and BAFFR do not contribute to the genetic network underlying IgAV.Acknowledgements: We are indebted to the patients and healthy controls for their essential collaboration to this study. We also thank the National DNA Bank Repository (Salamanca) for supplying part of the control samples. This study was supported by European Union FEDER funds and `Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias´ (grant PI18/00042) from ‘Instituto de Salud Carlos III’ (ISCIII, Health Ministry, Spain). DP-P is a recipient of a Río Hortega programme fellowship from the ISCIII, co-funded by the European Social Fund (ESF, `Investing in your future´) (grant number CM20/00006). SR-M is supported by funds of the RETICS Program (RD16/0012/0009) (ISCIII, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)). VP-C is supported by a pre-doctoral grant from IDIVAL (PREVAL 18/01). BA-M is a recipient of a `López Albo´ Post-Residency Programme funded by Servicio Cántabro de Salud. LL-G is supported by funds from IDIVAL (INNVAL20/06). OG is staff personnel of Xunta de Galicia (Servizo Galego de Saude (SERGAS)) through a research-staff stabilization contract (ISCIII/SERGAS) and his work is funded by ISCIII and the European Union FEDER fund (grant numbers RD16/0012/0014 (RIER) and PI17/00409). He is beneficiary of project funds from the Research Executive Agency (REA) of the European Union in the framework of MSCA-RISE Action of the H2020 Programme, Project 734899—Olive-Net. RL-M is a recipient of a Miguel Servet type I programme fellowship from the ISCIII, cofunded by ESF (`Investing in your future´) (grant number CP16/00033)

Revisión bibliográfica de implantología bucofacial del año 2010. Segunda parte

La gran cantidad de publicaciones que existen en las múltiples fuentes de información de la literatura científica junto a la baja disponibilidad de tiempo para consultarlas de la que disponen los profesionales de la Odontología, ha motivado a los autores de este artículo a efectuar una revisión de la literatura científica publicada a lo largo del año 2010 en el campo de la Implantología Bucofacial. Se han agrupado los diferentes trabajos en distintos temas (regeneración ósea guiada, elevación del seno maxilar y otras técnicas especiales, factores de crecimiento, implantes cigomáticos, implantes ortodóncicos y complicaciones en la cirugía implantológica), con el fin de facilitar una buena puesta al día