Brain Abscess and Dental Infections: A review

Odontogenic infections may cause brain abscesses. Although infrequent, infections can lead to development of aggressive brain lesions that may be life-threatening for patients. With the advent of new antibiotic treatments, dental abscesses appear to be under control but all patients with high risk of brain abscess should be assessed and treated properly. Hereby, we present an overview of the information available in the literature of the relationship between brain and dental abscesses

Brain hydatidosis: Review of the literature

Hydatidosis is a common disease worldwide. The causal agent may compromise any Organ of the body, the cerebral location is infrequent. The infection is caused by the larval form of Cestodo Echinococcus granulosus. The man is an accidental intermediary host for food consumption or water contaminated with eggs present in animal feces. We present a review of the literature. At the imaging level, the disease has a classic characteristic consisting of single, usually unilocular and less frequent multilocular, intra-axial and more frequently hemispheric cerebral lesions, compromising the vascular territory of the middle cerebral artery by the hematogenous dissemination of the parasite

Neuroprotective effects of progesterone in acute brain trauma and its physiological mechanism

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death and neurological disability in young adults worldwide. This work aims to review the role of progesterone in traumatic brain injury and the usefulness as a possible treatment. We searched pubmed database (2000-2017) for articles containing “progesterone and brain traumatic injury”. Basic science studies have advanced knowledge of the mechanisms of secondary brain injury, creating prospects for the medical and pharmacological management of TBI. Although several comparative studies evaluated both the efficacy and safety of several groups of drugs, in which, corticosteroids, tranexamic acid, β receptor antagonists, erythropoiesis-stimulating agents, reductase inhibitors include hydroxymethyl glutaryl-CoA inhibitors (statins), among others. Several studies even evaluated the role of progesterone in the treatment of TBI, which is providing growing evidence about its potential neuroprotective mechanisms during the acute phase of trauma. Despite recent advances in the field of management of TBI care in the emergency units, intensive care and the multiple trials for more than 20 years to find useful pharmacological treatments, most of these efforts failed in pre-clinical stages (II and III)