Novel non-invasive adjunctive techniques for early oral cancer diagnosis and oral lesions examination

Oral cancer is a potentially fatal disease with an increasing incidence and an unchanged 5-year mortality rate. Unfortunately, oral cancer is often still late diagnosed, which leads to an increase in the likelihood of functional impairment due to treatment and mortality rate. Definitive diagnosis of oral cancer must be confirmed by scalpel biopsy and histological assessment. However despite its benefits, scalpel biopsy is invasive and it is burdened by a potential morbidity. Furthermore, previous studies have suggested a high degree of intraobserver and interobserver variability regarding the histological evaluation of malignancy. As a consequence, in recent years there has been a growing and persisting demand towards developing new non-invasive, practical diagnostic tools that might facilitate the early detection of oral cancer. The most investigated non-invasive adjunctive techniques are vital staining, autofluorescence, chemiluminescence, narrow band imaging, and exfoliative cytology. Aim of the review is to critically describe these adjunctive aids and, after considering the literature data, an expert opinion on the effectiveness and the possible use of each technique will be provided

PRELIMINARY ANALYSES FROM A HOSPITAL BASED STUDY ON 3154 WESTERN SICILIAN PATIENTS WITH ORAL MUCOSAL LESIONS

Objectives: Diagnosis of the wide variety of lesions that occur in the oral cavity is an essential part of dental practice. The objective of this study was to explore the demographic and behavioural profiles of patients affected by oral cavity diseases on a wide spectrum. Methods: Demographic and behavioural data of 3154 patients with at least one oral cavity disease among those consecutively visited between 2004 and 2009 at the Unit of Oral Medicine, were recorded: gender, age, smoking status, alcohol consumption, drugs use. Analysis was restricted to the eleven more frequent oral cavity diseases. Firstly, Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) was applied as a descriptive tool to geometrically characterize which diseases are more or less similar in terms of their demographical and behavioural profiles in a sub-space of low-dimensionality (Benzecri, 1992; Greenacre, 1993); Secondly, the simultaneous marginal homogeneity hypothesis (SMH) for the multivariate distributions associated to the detected profiles was tested (Agresti and Klingenberg, 2005; Lang, 2004). Results: On the first principal MCA axis, similar profiles were found for the couples Carcinoma-Leucoplachia, Alitosi-SAR and for the couple BMS-ONM. The score-type test of SMH and the goodness-of-fit tests of SMH models confirmed that profiles of some oral cavity disorders could not be considered significantly different at a significance level of 5%. Conclusion: Simultaneously modelling joint and marginal distributions of multivariate binary response contributed a very important issue to preventive oral medicine, in other words some oral mucosal lesions can be considered similar in terms of demographical and behavioural profiles

Association of oral lichen planus with thyroid disease in a Finnish population: A retrospective case-control study: "A different finding from a Mediterranean area".

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Oral HPV Infection: Current Strategies for Prevention and Therapy

Infection with High Risk (HR) Human Papillomaviruses (HPVs) is the main aetiological agent of Cervical Squamous Cell Carcinoma (CSCC) and also associated in a subgroup of other neoplasms, including Oropharyngeal Squamous cell Carcinoma (OPSCC). HPV infection, in genital as in oral mucosa can also be subclinical or associated with benign proliferative lesions (common warts, condylomas, papillomas) caused mostly by infection with Low Risk (LR)-HPVs. In the last decades, extensive research has resulted in growing knowledge on HPV biology and specifically viral life cycle, biochemical properties of viral proteins and their interaction with the host proteins leading to potential new targets of prophylactic or therapeutic vaccines and therapies for HPV infection. In addition, notable progresses have been made in the field of diagnostics to detect HPV DNA or RNA. The recent epidemiological data suggest the significant changes in HPV endemic, due to the changes in sexual habits especially among young generations (i.e. early sexual debuts, multiple sexual partners, oral and anal sex); this scenario has urged on the need of adequate campaigns of primary (sexual education, vaccination programs) and secondary prevention (diagnostics of HPV-related diseases). Due to the growing interest on HPV infection and HPV related cancers, the authors made a narrative review of the literature on oral HPV infection and oral-genital transmission. After this, in view of the controversies about the strategies of therapy and prevention of HPV infection, the present review focuses on the current state of art about the available tools for the therapeutic and, if any, preventive management of oral HPV infection

Il corretto punto di vista sulla storia del Partito comunista cinese

The Chinese Communist Party plays a crucial role in attempting to create a metanarrative on the history of China. The specific means used to achieve this goal have been analyzed from the viewpoints of politics, history and ideology. The role that political “code-words” play in such a process is still under-explored. This contribution fills part of this gap by exploring the most recent political and ideological concepts that set the boundaries of acceptable discourses on history. Our analysis focuses on an article authored by the China Institute for Historical Research and published in the January 2021 issue of Qiushi. We decode the meaning that this article conveys to policy makers and intellectuals in the People’s Republic of China. We also unveil the meaning that this and similar texts might hide to international observers, who do not enjoy an unmediated access to Chinese language sources.Il Partito comunista cinese svolge un ruolo cruciale nel tentativo di creare una metanarrativa sulla storia della Cina. I mezzi specifici utilizzati per raggiungere questo obiettivo sono stati analizzati dal punto di vista della politica, della storia e dell'ideologia. Il ruolo che giocano le "parole in codice" politiche in tale processo è ancora poco esplorato. Questo contributo colma parte di questa lacuna esplorando i concetti politici e ideologici più recenti che fissano i confini dei discorsi accettabili sulla storia. La nostra analisi si concentra su un articolo scritto dall'Istituto cinese per la ricerca storica e pubblicato nel numero di gennaio 2021 di Qiushi. Decodificheremo il significato che questo articolo trasmette ai politici e agli intellettuali nella Repubblica popolare cinese, svelando anche il significato che questo e altri testi simili potrebbero nascondere agli osservatori internazionali, che non godono di un accesso immediato alle fonti in lingua cinese

The use of IM in research: the IM-SA study

Dati di Modena della multicentrica europe

Shape memory nanocomposite of poly(L-lactic acid)/graphene nanoplatelets triggered by infrared light and thermal heating

In this study, the effect of graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) on the shape memory properties of poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) was studied. In addition to thermal activation, the possibility of infrared actuating of thermo-responsive shape memory PLLA/GNPs nanocomposite was investigated. The incorporated GNPs were expected to absorb infrared wave’s energy and activate shape memory PLLA/GNPs. Different techniques such as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), wide-angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD), field emission gun scanning electron microscope (FEG-SEM) and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA) were used to characterize samples. DSC and WAXD results indicated that GNPs augmented crystallinity due to nucleating effect of graphene particles. GNPs improved both thermal and infrared activating shape memory properties along with faster response. Pure shape memory PLLA was slightly responsive to infrared light and its infrared actuated shape recovery ratio was 86% which increased to more than 95% with loading of GNPs. Drastic improvement in the crystallinity was obtained in nanocomposites with lower GNPs contents (0.5 and 1 wt%) due to finer dispersion of graphene which resulted in more prominent mechanical and shape memory properties enhancement. Infrared activated shape memory PLLA/GNPs nanocomposites can be developed for wireless remote shape control of smart medical and bio-systems