Use of the intraosseous screw for unilateral upper molar distalization and found well balanced occlusion

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to present a temporary anchorage device with intraosseous screw for unilateral molar distalization to make a space for the impacted premolar and to found well balanced occlusion in a case. CASE PRESENTATION: A 13-year-old male who have an impacted premolar is presented with skeletal Class I and dental Class 2 relationship. The screw was placed and immediately loaded to distalize the left upper first and second molar. The average distalization time to achieve an overcorrected Class I molar relationship was 3.6 months. There was no change in overjet, overbite, or mandibular plane angle measurements. Mild protrusion (0.5 mm) of the upper left central incisor was also recorded. CONCLUSION: Immediately loaded intraosseous screw-supported anchorage unit was successful in achieving sufficient unilateral molar distalization without anchorage loss. This treatment procedure was an alternative treatment to the extraction therapy

Intraoperative electrocortical stimulation of Brodman area 4: a 10-year analysis of 255 cases

BACKGROUND: Brain tumor surgery is limited by the risk of postoperative neurological deficits. Intraoperative neurophysiological examination techniques, which are based on the electrical excitability of the human brain cortex, are thus still indispensable for surgery in eloquent areas such as the primary motor cortex (Brodman Area 4). METHODS: This study analyzed the data obtained from a total of 255 cerebral interventions for lesions with direct contact to (121) or immediately adjacent to (134) Brodman Area 4 in order to optimize stimulation parameters and to search for direct correlation between intraoperative potential changes and specific surgical maneuvers when using monopolar cortex stimulation (MCS) for electrocortical mapping and continuous intraoperative neurophysiological monitoring. RESULTS: Compound muscle action potentials (CMAPs) were recorded from the thenar muscles and forearm flexors in accordance with the large representational area of the hand and forearm in Brodman Area 4. By optimizing the stimulation parameters in two steps (step 1: stimulation frequency and step 2: train sequence) MCS was successful in 91% (232/255) of the cases. Statistical analysis of the parameters latency, potential width and amplitude showed spontaneous latency prolongations and abrupt amplitude reductions as a reliable warning signal for direct involvement of the motor cortex or motor pathways. CONCLUSION: MCS must be considered a stimulation technique that enables reliable qualitative analysis of the recorded potentials, which may thus be regarded as directly predictive. Nevertheless, like other intraoperative neurophysiological examination techniques, MCS has technical, anatomical and neurophysiological limitations. A variety of surgical and non-surgical influences can be reason for false positive or false negative measurements

Logic programming and artificial neural networks in breast cancer detection

About 90% of breast cancers do not cause or are capable of producing death if detected at an early stage and treated properly. Indeed, it is still not known a specific cause for the illness. It may be not only a beginning, but also a set of associations that will determine the onset of the disease. Undeniably, there are some factors that seem to be associated with the boosted risk of the malady. Pondering the present study, different breast cancer risk assessment models where considered. It is our intention to develop a hybrid decision support system under a formal framework based on Logic Programming for knowledge representation and reasoning, complemented with an approach to computing centered on Artificial Neural Networks, to evaluate the risk of developing breast cancer and the respective Degree-of-Confidence that one has on such a happening.This work has been supported by FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope UID/CEC/00319/2013

Platelet-activating factor levels of serum and gingival crevicular fluid in nonsmoking patients with periodontitis and/or coronary heart disease

The purpose of the present study was to investigate systemic and local levels of platelet-activating factor (PAF), a potent proinflammatory mediator implicated in cardiovascular pathophysiology in adult nonsmoking patients with periodontitis with or without coronary heart disease (CHD). Eighty-seven volunteers, 25 periodontitis patients, 19 periodontitis with CHD patients, 19 CHD patients, and 24 healthy controls were included, and periodontal conditions were assessed. Gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) and venous blood were collected, and PAF levels were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. PAF levels in serum (303.3 ± 204 pg/ml) and in GCF (26.3 ± 6 pg/μl) of the periodontitis group with CHD, the periodontitis group (serum, 302.4 ± 241 pg/ml and GCF, 26.3 ± 8 pg/μl) and the CHD group (serum, 284.7 ± 192 pg/ml and GCF, 20.8 ± 6 pg/μl) were significantly higher than the healthy control group (serum, 65.4 ± 35 pg/ml and GCF, 7.7 ± 3 pg/μl; p < 0.05). In summary, the present study could demonstrate that in patients with periodontitis, the inflammatory mediator PAF is released into serum at least in the same range as for patients with coronary heart disease. However, no additive effects were seen when both conditions were present

Aerosolized Human Extracellular Superoxide Dismutase Prevents Hyperoxia-Induced Lung Injury

An important issue in critical care medicine is the identification of ways to protect the lungs from oxygen toxicity and reduce systemic oxidative stress in conditions requiring mechanical ventilation and high levels of oxygen. One way to prevent oxygen toxicity is to augment antioxidant enzyme activity in the respiratory system. The current study investigated the ability of aerosolized extracellular superoxide dismutase (EC-SOD) to protect the lungs from hyperoxic injury. Recombinant human EC-SOD (rhEC-SOD) was produced from a synthetic cassette constructed in the methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris. Female CD-1 mice were exposed in hyperoxia (FiO2>95%) to induce lung injury. The therapeutic effects of EC-SOD and copper-zinc SOD (CuZn-SOD) via an aerosol delivery system for lung injury and systemic oxidative stress at 24, 48, 72 and 96 h of hyperoxia were measured by bronchoalveolar lavage, wet/dry ratio, lung histology, and 8-oxo-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-oxo-dG) in lung and liver tissues. After exposure to hyperoxia, the wet/dry weight ratio remained stable before day 2 but increased significantly after day 3. The levels of oxidative biomarker 8-oxo-dG in the lung and liver were significantly decreased on day 2 (P<0.01) but the marker in the liver increased abruptly after day 3 of hyperoxia when the mortality increased. Treatment with aerosolized rhEC-SOD increased the survival rate at day 3 under hyperoxia to 95.8%, which was significantly higher than that of the control group (57.1%), albumin treated group (33.3%), and CuZn-SOD treated group (75%). The protective effects of EC-SOD against hyperoxia were further confirmed by reduced lung edema and systemic oxidative stress. Aerosolized EC-SOD protected mice against oxygen toxicity and reduced mortality in a hyperoxic model. The results encourage the use of an aerosol therapy with EC-SOD in intensive care units to reduce oxidative injury in patients with severe hypoxemic respiratory failure, including acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS)

Predicting tissue specific cis-regulatory modules in the human genome using pairs of co-occurring motifs

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Researchers seeking to unlock the genetic basis of human physiology and diseases have been studying gene transcription regulation. The temporal and spatial patterns of gene expression are controlled by mainly non-coding elements known as cis-regulatory modules (CRMs) and epigenetic factors. CRMs modulating related genes share the regulatory signature which consists of transcription factor (TF) binding sites (TFBSs). Identifying such CRMs is a challenging problem due to the prohibitive number of sequence sets that need to be analyzed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We formulated the challenge as a supervised classification problem even though experimentally validated CRMs were not required. Our efforts resulted in a software system named CrmMiner. The system mines for CRMs in the vicinity of related genes. CrmMiner requires two sets of sequences: a mixed set and a control set. Sequences in the vicinity of the related genes comprise the mixed set, whereas the control set includes random genomic sequences. CrmMiner assumes that a large percentage of the mixed set is made of background sequences that do not include CRMs. The system identifies pairs of closely located motifs representing vertebrate TFBSs that are enriched in the training mixed set consisting of 50% of the gene loci. In addition, CrmMiner selects a group of the enriched pairs to represent the tissue-specific regulatory signature. The mixed and the control sets are searched for candidate sequences that include any of the selected pairs. Next, an optimal Bayesian classifier is used to distinguish candidates found in the mixed set from their control counterparts. Our study proposes 62 tissue-specific regulatory signatures and putative CRMs for different human tissues and cell types. These signatures consist of assortments of ubiquitously expressed TFs and tissue-specific TFs. Under controlled settings, CrmMiner identified known CRMs in noisy sets up to 1:25 signal-to-noise ratio. CrmMiner was 21-75% more precise than a related CRM predictor. The sensitivity of the system to locate known human heart enhancers reached up to 83%. CrmMiner precision reached 82% while mining for CRMs specific to the human CD4⁺T cells. On several data sets, the system achieved 99% specificity.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These results suggest that CrmMiner predictions are accurate and likely to be tissue-specific CRMs. We expect that the predicted tissue-specific CRMs and the regulatory signatures broaden our knowledge of gene transcription regulation.</p