Should the General Practitioner Consider Mesotherapy (Intradermal Therapy) to Manage Localized Pain?

Wide variations in the types of pain and response to analgesic pharmacotherapy mean that a variety of treatment strategies are needed. One approach is mesotherapy (intradermal therapy). This consists of microinjections into the skin and is ideally suited to the management of localized pain. Advantages include increasing the duration of drug activity, reduced risk of adverse events and interactions, and possible synergy with other therapies. Mesotherapy provides general practitioners with another tool for the treatment of local pain. However, it is important to provide patients with full details of the pros and cons of this approach and obtain informed patient consent

A call to action by the italian mesotherapy society on scientific research

: Mesotherapy (local intradermal therapy, LIT) is a technique used to slowly spread drugs in tissues underlying the site of injection to prolong the pharmacological effect with respect to intramuscular injection. Recommendations for proper medical use of this technique have been made for pain medicine and rehabilitation, chronic venous disease, sport medicine, musculoskeletal disorders, several dermatological conditions, skin ageing, and immune-prophylaxis. Although mesotherapy is considered a valid technique, unresolved questions remain, which should be answered to standardize methodology and dosing regimen as well as to define the right indications in clinical practice. New randomized controlled trials are needed to test single products (dose, frequency of administration, efficacy and safety). Even infiltration of substances for dermo-cosmetic purposes must be guided by safety and efficacy tests before being proposed by mesotherapy. In this article, we put forth a preclinical and clinical research plan and a health technology assessment as a call to action by doctors, researchers and scientific societies to aid national health authorities in considering mesotherapy for prevention, treatment and rehabilitation paths

Biosignature detection by Mars rover equivalent instruments in samples from the CanMars Mars Sample Return Analogue Deployment

The University of Winnipeg's HOSERLab was established with funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Manitoba Research Innovations Fund and the Canadian Space Agency, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. This study was supported with grants from the Canadian Space Agency through their FAST program, NSERC, and UWinnipeg.This work details the laboratory analysis of a suite of 10 samples collected from an inverted fluvial channel near Hanksville, Utah, USA as a part of the CanMars Mars Sample Return Analogue Deployment (MSRAD). The samples were acquired along the rover traverse for detailed off-site analysis to evaluate the TOC and astrobiological significance of the samples selected based on site observations, and to address one of the science goals of the CanMars mission: to evaluate the ability of different analytical techniques being employed by the Mars2020 mission to detect and characterize any present biosignatures. Analytical techniques analogous to those on the ExoMars, MSL and the MER rovers were also applied to the samples. The total organic carbon content of the samples was <0.02% for all but 4 samples, and organic biosignatures were detected in multiple samples by UV–Vis–NIR reflectance spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy (532 nm, time-resolved, and UV), which was the most effective of the techniques. The total carbon content of the samples is < 0.3 wt% for all but one calcite rich sample, and organic C was not detectable by FTIR. Carotene and chlorophyll were detected in two samples which also contained gypsum and mineral phases of astrobiological importance for paleoenvironment/habitability and biomarker preservation (clays, gypsum, calcite) were detected and characterized by multiple techniques, of which passive reflectance was most effective. The sample selected in the field (S2) as having the highest potential for TOC did not have the highest TOC values, however, when considering the sample mineralogy in conjunction with the detection of organic carbon, it is the most astrobiologically relevant. These results highlight importance of applying multiple techniques for sample characterization and provide insights into their strengths and limitations.PostprintPeer reviewe

Mesotherapy: From Historical Notes to Scientific Evidence and Future Prospects

Intradermal therapy, known as mesotherapy, is a technique used to inject a drug into the surface layer of the skin. In particular, it involves the use of a short needle to deposit the drug in the dermis. The intradermal microdeposit modulates the drug's kinetics, slowing absorption and prolonging the local mechanism of action. It is successfully applied in the treatment of some forms of localized pain syndromes and other local clinical conditions. It could be suggested when a systemic drug-sparing effect is useful, when other therapies have failed (or cannot be used), and when it can synergize with other pharmacological or nonpharmacological therapies. Despite the lack of randomized clinical trials in some fields of application, a general consensus is also reached in nonpharmacological mechanism of action, the technique execution modalities, the scientific rationale to apply it in some indications, and the usefulness of the informed consent. The Italian Mesotherapy Society proposes this position paper to apply intradermal therapy based on scientific evidence and no longer on personal bias

Life design and career counseling: contributions to social justice

The chapter begins with the presentation of LDC framework. In the second section, considerations are given on LDC possibilities for enhancing decent work and social justice. From this perspective of social exclusion, designated social integrationist, participation in paid work is viewed as the key to social inclusion (Watts, 2001). At the end of this section the relevance of contextual factors in career development of disadvantaged populations is referred to highlight the importance of these interventions not be exclusively focused on inter- and intrapersonal career development factors, but also take into consideration social action at the institutional, community, public policy and international/global levels (Cook, 2017). In the next section, the process of balancing the focus on the self-determination of the individual with a focus on a transformation of contextual factors that reinforce the disadvantaged position (Blustein, et al., 2005; Prilleltensky, 1997) is illustrated by presenting an intervention in which LDC was integrated into supported employment approach. Our proposal focuses exclusively on collaborative activities at the individual, institutional and communal level, with these being the tiers which the counselor can more easily influence as part of their more routine interaction with disadvantaged populations in general. The chapter concludes with an overview of the subject and a reference on LDC limitations for the intervention with disadvantaged populations in general

Smoking and adolescence: Exploring tobacco consumption and related attitudes in three different age groups in Switzerland

The present study constitutes an investigation of tobacco consumption, related attitudes and individual differences in smoking or non-smoking behaviours in a sample of adolescents of different ages in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. We investigated three school-age groups (7th-grade, 9th-grade and the second-year of high school) for differences in attitude and social and cognitive dimensions. We present both descriptive and inferential statistics. On an inferential level, we present a binary logistic regression based model predicting risk of smoking. The resulting model most importantly suggests a strong relationship between smoking and alcohol consumption (both regular and sporadic). We interpret this result in terms of both the impact of the actual campaigns and the cognitive processes associated with adolescence