Oral Health-Related Quality of Life in Single Implant Mandibular Overdenture Retained by CM LOC versus Ball Attachment: A Randomized Controlled Trial

AIM: This randomised clinical study aimed to detect whether CMLOC attachment could improve Oral Health-Related Quality of Life (OHRQOL) when compared to ball attachment. METHODS: Eighty edentulous patients were recruited to receive a single symphyseal implant for mandibular overdenture, after three months, randomisation was done to divide them into two groups; Dalbo ball (control group) and Cendres and Metaux locator (CM-LOC) (intervention) attachments respectively, oral health impact profile for edentulous patients (OHIP-EDENT)questionnaire was recorded before implant placement, two weeks after pick up, at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. RESULTS: Results revealed a lack of statistical significance between the two groups except for psychological discomfort at 2 weeks after pick-up (p-value = 0.029) CONCLUSION: Single implant overdenture is a simple, reliable treatment modality for treating edentulous mandible and both CM LOC and Ball attachments are good alternatives for such treatment modality

Exploring Safety Aspects in Dental School Clinics Including Droplet Infection Prevention

BACKGROUND: Health-care safety focuses on improving patient’s and worker’s safety in a safe working clinics’ environment and prevent infection transmission including droplet infections as seasonal influenza and novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Dental health-care personnel (DHCP) are the target of safety measures and are themselves responsible for elimination of preventable harm. Dental schools are expected to demonstrate the model for quality safe care. AIM: This study aims to achieve high-quality safe dental care at dental clinics, Faculty of Dentistry, Cairo University. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey study was conducted at two Dental Outpatient Clinics, Cairo University. Disk review of policies, observation checklists for practices and awareness questionnaires of DHCP were used. RESULTS: DHCP showed good awareness for most of infection control (IC) and X-ray safety items. However, there are no policies or procedures to control droplet infections in the clinics. The clinics were closed in the current COVID-19 pandemic. There were poor patient safety practices, hand hygiene compliance, and personal protective equipment (PPE) use except for protecting clothes and disposable gloves. Students showed better compliance for patient safety guidelines. Other safety policies were poorly communicated. CONCLUSION: There should be preparedness plan to deal with any droplet infection outbreak, epidemic or pandemic as COVID-19 in all dental settings. There is a need to initiate dental safety unit in dental schools to implement, communicate, train, and supervise all dental safety practices including infection control

Designing Lightweight 3D-Printable Bioinspired Structures for Enhanced Compression and Energy Absorption Properties

Recent progress in additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, has offered several bene-fits, including high geometrical freedom and the ability to create bioinspired structures with intri-cate details. Mantis shrimp can scrape the shells of prey molluscs with its hammer-shaped stick, while beetles have highly adapted forewings that are lightweight, tough, and strong. This paper introduces a design approach for bioinspired lattice structures by mimicking the internal micro-structures of a beetle’s forewing, a mantis shrimp’s shell, and a mantis shrimp’s dactyl club, with improved mechanical properties. Finite element analysis (FEA) and experimental characterisation of 3D printed polylactic acid (PLA) samples with bioinspired structures were performed to deter-mine their compression and impact properties. The results showed that designing a bioinspired lattice with unit cells parallel to the load direction improved quasi-static compressive perfor-mance, among other lattice structures. The gyroid honeycomb lattice design of the insect forewings and mantis shrimp dactyl clubs outperformed the gyroid honeycomb design of the mantis shrimp shell, with improvements in ultimate mechanical strength, Young’s modulus, and drop weight impact. On the other hand, hybrid designs created by merging two different designs reduced bend-ing deformation to control collapse during drop weight impact. This work holds promise for the development of bioinspired lattices employing designs with improved properties, which can have potential implications for lightweight high-performance applications

Graded cellular structures for enhanced performance of additively manufactured orthopaedic implants

Hip implants face a significant challenge due to their limited lifespan, a concern amplified by the rising human life expectancy. Lattice structures have demonstrated the ability to provide precise control over geometry, thereby significantly enhancing implant performance. This paper introduces the development of graded additively manufactured Ti6Al4V lattice structures for orthopaedic implants. The objective focuses on developing a graded lattice unit cell design mirroring human bone properties, emphasising high surface curvature and design versatility to improve mechanical and biomedical properties, specifically osseointegration and stress shielding. The study involves modelling and grading simple cubic (SC) and body-centred cubic (BCC) lattice structures with various geometries and graded conditions and conducting compressive tests to identify the optimal configuration. The results showed that filleting was found to be the mechanical strength. On the other hand, BCC lattice structures demonstrated superior performance compared to SC structures. The optimised structure with a pore size of 400 µm provided an elastic modulus of 15.7 GPa, yield strength of 296 MPa and compressive strength of 530 MPa. This graded lattice design approach provides a promising technique for enhancing hip implant performance, offering potential improvements

Designing Lightweight 3D-Printable Bioinspired Structures for Enhanced Compression and Energy Absorption Properties

Recent progress in additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, has offered several bene-fits, including high geometrical freedom and the ability to create bioinspired structures with intri-cate details. Mantis shrimp can scrape the shells of prey molluscs with its hammer-shaped stick, while beetles have highly adapted forewings that are lightweight, tough, and strong. This paper introduces a design approach for bioinspired lattice structures by mimicking the internal micro-structures of a beetle’s forewing, a mantis shrimp’s shell, and a mantis shrimp’s dactyl club, with improved mechanical properties. Finite element analysis (FEA) and experimental characterisation of 3D printed polylactic acid (PLA) samples with bioinspired structures were performed to deter-mine their compression and impact properties. The results showed that designing a bioinspired lattice with unit cells parallel to the load direction improved quasi-static compressive perfor-mance, among other lattice structures. The gyroid honeycomb lattice design of the insect forewings and mantis shrimp dactyl clubs outperformed the gyroid honeycomb design of the mantis shrimp shell, with improvements in ultimate mechanical strength, Young’s modulus, and drop weight impact. On the other hand, hybrid designs created by merging two different designs reduced bend-ing deformation to control collapse during drop weight impact. This work holds promise for the development of bioinspired lattices employing designs with improved properties, which can have potential implications for lightweight high-performance applications

Assessment of Global Methylation in Paraffin Embedded Prostatic Tissues and Cell Lines Using Flow Cytometry: submitted: Jan 20, 2018 Accepted: Mar 15, 2018 Published online: Mar 20, 2018

Background. The aim of this study is to measure global 5-methylcystosine (5MeC) methylation in paraffin embedded prostatic tissues and cell lines using flow cytometry. Methods. Cell/nuclei suspension from 10 cases of benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), 10 cases of prostatic adenocarcinoma, and two prostatic cell lines (PNT1A and LNCaP) were prepared using modified heat pretreatment technique. 5MeC global methylation was assessed by flow cytometry of cell/nuclei suspension and immunostaining of tissue sections. Results. Higher percentage of positively stained cells (PPSC) and mean channel fluorescence (MCF) were detected in PNT1A cell line and BPH cell/nuclei suspensions as compared to LNCaP cell lines and adenocarcinoma cell/nuclei suspensions. Lower scores of 5MeC immunostaining were observed in all prostate adenocarcinoma tissue sections as compared to BPH sections indicating global hypomethylation in prostate adenocarcinoma. Two distinctive populations of cells were detected in histograms generated from most of the BPH cell/nuclei suspensions. Conclusion. The study developed a novel technique that could measure 5MeC global methylation in paraffin embedded prostatic tissues. This represents a rapid and objective assessment of methylation and when combined with tissue micro-dissection and cell sorting, this technique could be applied to larger tissue samples such as post radical prostatectomy and transurethral resected specimens