A Screening of Mucin-Producing Cells and Structures, from Digestive System, in Rats

A screening and a morphological analysis of mucin-producing cells and structures, from the digestive tract, in rats, will further allow to quantify their local and systemic response. 10 Wistar rats were selected for this study. Sections of the sublingual gland, Weber's gland, stomach, jejunum and colon were taken. The samples were stained by the Trichrome Goldner technique. Based on the histological examination, both morphometric and statistical analysis were performed using specific software’s (ToupView Soft and GraphPad Prism Software). The histological examination showed normal characteristics for the analyzed cells and structures. The test for the normal distribution of the data revealed that they are normally distributed and statistical comparison between cell surfaces suggested a significant difference between means with p˂0.0001. Moreover, statistically significant differences were observed between the areas of Weber gland acini and those of sublingual gland acini (p<0.05). Based on our results we can conclude that the observed differences, regarding the cellular surfaces, are in accordance with the physiological characteristics of each analyzed structure

An alternative approach to cat’s epilepsy treatment – Case report

Angel, a female British Shorthair cat, would be euthanized at the recommendation of three veterinarians, after she manifested epileptic seizures starting from seven months old. Due to her owner and one veterinarian love and effort, she well passed through many seizures and a non-regenerative anemia episode and she survived for five years from the onset of the disease. The mineral-vitamin supplements improved the life quality for four years and the homeopathic therapy successfully removed the seizures for one more year

The Treatment with Interleukin 17 Inhibitors and Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases

IL-17 inhibitors (IL-17i) are medicines used to treat dermatological and rheumatic diseases They belong to a class of medicines called biological disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (bDMARDs). This class of drugs has had a major impact on the therapy of autoimmune diseases, being much safer and more effective than treatment with small molecules. At the same time, they have highly beneficial effects on skin and joint changes, and their efficacy has been extensively monitored and demonstrated in numerous clinical trials. More and more such drugs are still being discovered today to ensure the best possible treatment of these patients, but more frequently and relatively constantly three agents are used. Two of them (Secukinumab and Ixekizumab) inhibit IL-17A directly, and the third, Brodamulab, inhibits the IL-17A receptor. Although they are extremely effective in the treatment of these diseases, sometimes their administration has been associated with paradoxical effects, i.e., there is an exacerbation of the inflammatory process. Tough, clinical trials of IL-17i have described cases of exacerbation or even onset of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), such as Crohn&rsquo;s disease and ulcerative colitis, after administration of these drugs in patients previously diagnosed with psoriasis (PS), psoriatic arthritis (PsA), or ankylosing spondylitis (AS). The pathophysiological mechanism of action is not well understood at present. One explanation would be that this hyperreactive inflammatory process would be triggered by Interferon 1 derived from dendritic plasma cells. Even though there are many reports in the recent literature about the role of IL17i in the onset of IBD, conclusions of studies do not converge. Some of them show an increased incidence of IBD in patients treated with IL17i, while some others affirm their safety of them. In the near future we will surely have more data emerging from ongoing meta-analyses regarding safety of use IL17i in patients who are at risk of developing IBD. Clinical and paraclinical evaluation (inflammatory intestinal markers) are carefully advised before recommending treatment with IL-17i and after initiation of treatment, and prospective surveillance by clinical and biomarkers of patients treated with IL-17i is absolutely essential to capture the onset of IBD

Noninvasive Assessment of Coronary Artery Disease: Fractional Flow Reserved Derived from Coronary Computed Tomography Angiography (FFRCT)

Invasive coronary angiography (ICA) completed by fractional flow reserve (FFR) assessment represents the main procedure that is performed in the decision process for coronary revascularization. Coronary Computed Tomography Angiography (CCTA) is an effective method used in the noninvasive anatomic assessment of coronary artery disease (CAD). However, CCTA tends to overestimate and does not offer hemodynamic data about the coronary lesions. Recent progresses made in the research involving computational fluid dynamics and image modeling permit the evaluation of FFRCT noninvasively, using data obtained in a standard CCTA. Studies have shown an improved precision and discrimination of FFRCT compared to CCTA for the diagnosis of significant coronary artery stenosis. In this review, we aimed to summarize the role of CCTA in CAD evaluation, the impact of FFRCT, the scientific basis of this novel method and its potential clinical applications