Evaluation of Biomechanical Traction of Incisional Gastropexy and Scarification Gastropexy Techniques in Dogs

Background: Gastropexy is used to correct gastric dilation, a disease that usually affects large and giant dogs and leads to death in 23.4 - 43% of patients. This study aimed to evaluate the biomechanical traction of 2 gastropexy techniques, incisional gastropexy and scarified gastropexy, in 10 dog cadavers. Incisional gastropexy comprises a single incision in the abdominal wall and another incision in the stomach wall in the pyloric region followed by simple continuous sutures. The scarification technique creates scarification along the stomach borders of the pexy. Thereby, knowing that both techniques are successful, the biomechanical traction of each technique was compared.Materials, Methods & Results: A total of 10 animals without defined breed weighing from 6.4-43.0 kg were allocated into 2 equal groups (GE [scarified gastropexy] and GI [incisional gastropexy]). Incisional gastropexy was performed with a simple continuous suture pattern in the GI group and scarified gastropexy with an interrupted simple suture pattern was performed in the GE group. Absorbable 2-0 monofilament yarn (polygllecaprone 25) was used for sutures in both groups. Rectangular segments of the gastric antrum were collected from the right abdominal wall and from the bottom of the stomach at the left abdominal wall, which were subjected to a traction test. The scarification technique was easier, faster, and used less surgical sutures than the incisional technique. Both techniques were effective regardless of the site applied, with no significant differences. There was a difference in stretching depending on location.Discussion: The pathogenesis of gastric dilatation volvulus (GDV) is unknown. However, gas accumulation inside the gastric chamber may lead to organ dilation and consequently cause torsion of the cardia region and pyloric antrum, resulting in strangulation of blood vessels and nerves. This torsion could cause stomach ischemia followed by organ necrosis if early emergency care is not provided. In addition, vessel strangulation my lead to a systemic syndrome resulting in shock. The disease presents acute and non-specific clinical signs such as weight loss, vomiting, and abdominal intumescence. Patients with risk factors such as reduced gastric motility, delayed stomach replenishment, lower weight, advanced age, or presence of a foreign body may present with poor prognosis. Once GDV becomes an emergency, surgical correction with the most efficient surgical techniques and procedures is necessary to guarantee patient survival. Based on the results obtained, both the scarified and incisional gastropexy techniques are more efficient than other techniques. In addition, the scarified technique with interrupted simple stitches stood out when compared to the incisional technique with a continuous simple suture pattern as it was faster and used less suture thread. The incisional technique, on the other hand, provides good juxtaposition of the edges of the wounds, avoiding the exposure of muscle tissue, as well as adhesions from other organs. The knowledge of those factors promotes positive effects on the effectiveness of an emergency surgical approach for patients with GDV, since it allows less surgical time, as well as less anesthetic time. Based on the results obtained during the biomechanical traction tests of the study, it was concluded that both scarified gastropexy with interrupted single stitches and incisional gastropexy with a continuous single stitch may be efficient. The scarified technique stood out when compared to the incisional technique as it required less time and used less sutures

Utilização de terapia fotodinâmica e óleos essenciais no controle In Vitro de Acinetobacter Baumannii e Pseudomonas Aeruginosa

O aumento da incidência de bactérias resistentes às múltiplas classes de antimicrobianos, principalmente Gram-negativas de prevalência nosocomial, têm se mostrado como grande ameaça à saúde pública internacional. O desenvolvimento de terapias alternativas que não induzem resistência bacteriana se mostra necessária e promissora. Este estudo objetivou avaliar a ação de extratos naturais derivados de plantas e terapia fotodinâmica no controle Pseudomonas aeruginosa e Acinetobacter baumannii cultivadas in vitro, através da determinação de concentrações inibitórias e bactericidas mínimas, e quantificação de unidades formadoras de colônias após exposição dos respectivos agentes, variando em tempo e concentração. Evidenciou-se ação dos extratos de limão taiti, tangerina e laranja amarga em diferentes concentrações. Neste estudo, a tangerina (Citrus tangerina) causou efeito inibitório e bactericida com menor quantidade em ambas as bactérias quando comparada aos outros extratos, porém, com maior concentração necessária na A. baumannii quando comparada à P. aeruginosa. Em relação à terapia fotodinâmica, foi evidenciada redução expressiva na quantidade de bactérias existentes no ambiente exposto, principalmente por maior quantidade de tempo, porem, sem garantir efeito inativação total de tais bactérias. A atividade antimicrobinada evidenciada no estudo, de ambas as terapias, demonstra a possibilidade do desenvolvimento de agentes adjuvantes no controle de replicação bacteriana com baixo custo e boa eficácia, sem risco de resistência bacteriana adicional

Benzbromarone as adjuvant therapy for cystic fibrosis lung disease: a pilot clinical trial

ABSTRACT Objective: Cystic fibrosis (CF) affects multiple organs, the most severe consequences being observed in the lungs. Despite significant progress in developing CF transmembrane conductance regulator-specific treatments for CF lung disease, exploring alternative CF-targeted medications seems reasonable. We sought to evaluate the potential beneficial effects of oral benzbromarone as an adjuvant therapy in CF patients with reduced lung function. Methods: This was a prospective open-label pilot study of oral benzbromarone (100 mg/day) administered once daily for 90 days. Patients were followed at a tertiary referral center in southern Brazil. Safety was assessed by the number of reported adverse events. Secondary objectives included percent predicted FEV1 (FEV1%) and pulmonary exacerbations. Results: Ten patients were enrolled. Benzbromarone was found to be safe, with no serious drug-related adverse events. Eight patients completed the study; the median relative change in FEV1% tended to increase during the treatment, showing an 8% increase from baseline at the final visit. However, a nonparametric test showed that the change was not significant (p = 0.06). Of a total of ten patients, only one experienced at least one pulmonary exacerbation during the study. Conclusions: Oral benzbromarone appears to be safe, and improved FEV1% has been observed in patients with CF. Further assessment in larger trials is warranted to elucidate whether oral benzbromarone can be a potential adjuvant therapy for CF

Lying in Wait: The Resurgence of Dengue Virus After the Zika Epidemic in Brazil

After the Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemic in the Americas in 2016, both Zika and dengue incidence declined to record lows in many countries in 2017-2018, but in 2019 dengue resurged in Brazil, causing ~2.1 million cases. In this study we use epidemiological, climatological and genomic data to investigate dengue dynamics in recent years in Brazil. First, we estimate dengue virus force of infection (FOI) and model mosquito-borne transmission suitability since the early 2000s. Our estimates reveal that DENV transmission was low in 2017-2018, despite conditions being suitable for viral spread. Our study also shows a marked decline in dengue susceptibility between 2002 and 2019, which could explain the synchronous decline of dengue in the country, partially as a result of protective immunity from prior ZIKV and/or DENV infections. Furthermore, we performed phylogeographic analyses using 69 newly sequenced genomes of dengue virus serotype 1 and 2 from Brazil, and found that the outbreaks in 2018-2019 were caused by local DENV lineages that persisted for 5-10 years, circulating cryptically before and after the Zika epidemic. We hypothesize that DENV lineages may circulate at low transmission levels for many years, until local conditions are suitable for higher transmission, when they cause major outbreaks

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Perspectivas epidemiológicas, clínicas e terapêuticas do transtorno bipolar em comorbidade com o uso de drogas: revisão de sistemática: Epidemiological, clinical and therapeutic perspectives of bipolar disorder in comorbidity with drug use: a systematic review

Conhecida como transtorno maníaco-depressivo, atualmente possui um novo nome: Transtorno Afetivo Bipolar, visto que com o passar do tempo foi se percebendo que esse transtorno não se tratava de uma alteração psicótica, e mais de um prejuízo afetivo. O transtorno bipolar possui alguns tipos, não se caracterizando em apenas uma forma, sua manifestação varia conforme o indivíduo e suas tendências, disforia e/ou euforia porém independente da forma expressa o paciente bipolar pode ter sua vida social comprometida, se não tratada, visto a irregularidade no estado de humor; bem como pode fazer uso de substâncias psicoativas, o que prejudica a sua condição clínica. Objetivo central da pesquisa é de apresentar a correlação do transtorno bipolar com o uso de drogas, mediante uma revisão de literatura integrativa realizada entre os meses de março de 2022 a julho de 2022, através da busca de artigos científicos nos bancos de dados online PubMed, Scielo e Google Acadêmico, utilizando como critério de refinamento de pesquisa artigos de todas as línguas publicados entre os anos 2000 e 2022

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear understanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5,6,7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8,9,10,11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world's most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepresented in biodiversity databases.13,14,15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may eliminate pieces of the Amazon's biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological communities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple organism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region's vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most neglected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lost