Cytological changes in the oral mucosa after use of a mouth rinse with alcohol: a prospective double blind control study

Aim: The aim of this preliminary study was to detect cytological changes in the oral mucosa after using a mouth wash with alcohol. Material and Methods: A prospective double-blind, controlled study was performed, for 6 months. Group 1 consisted of 30 subjects who used a mouth rinse with 26.9% of alcohol [Listerine ® ] and Group 2 consisted of 30 subjects who used a mouth rinse with the same ingredients but with no alcohol. We obtained three cytological samples from the oral mucosa. The presence of cytological atypia, binucleation and karyorrhesis, and type of cells were studied. We also used a fluorescent in situ hybridization technique (FISH) in 15 samples in each group, for the micronucleus. Results: We found no clinical mucosal alteration after using the mouth wash at the end of the study in either group. We observed no cytological differences between the groups at the end of the study (p>0.05). Regarding the study of the micronucleus by FISH, we observed no significant difference between the groups (p>0.05). Conclusions: Our results showed no cytological alteration in patients using a mouth rinse with alcohol, but these findings should be considered preliminary results, to be confirmed in a greater sample of patients

Predictive potential of SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration in wastewater to assess the dynamics of COVID-19 clinical outcomes and infections

Coronavirus disease 2019 - caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) -, has triggered a worldwide pandemic resulting in 665 million infections and over 6.5 million deaths as of December 15, 2022. The development of different epidemiological tools have helped predict new outbreaks and assess the behavior of clinical variables in different health contexts. In this study, we aimed to monitor concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater as a tool to predict the progression of clinical variables during Waves 3, 5, and 6 of the pandemic in the Spanish city of Xátiva from September 2020 to March 2022. We estimated SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in 195 wastewater samples using the RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel validated by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. We also compared the trends of several clinical variables (14-day cumulative incidence, positive cases, hospital cases and stays, critical cases and stays, primary care visits, and deaths) for each study wave against wastewater SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations using Pearson's product-moment correlations, a two-sided Mann-Whitney U test, and a cross-correlation analysis. We found strong correlations between SARS-CoV-2 concentrations with 14-day cumulative incidence and positive cases over time. Wastewater RNA concentrations showed strong correlations with these variables one and two weeks in advance. There were significant correlations with hospitalizations and critical care during Wave 3 and Wave 6; cross-correlations were stronger for hospitalization stays one week before during Wave 6. No association between vaccination percentages and wastewater viral concentrations was observed. Our findings support wastewater SARS-CoV-2 concentrations as a potential surveillance tool to anticipate infection and epidemiological data such as 14-day cumulative incidence, hospitalizations, and critical care stays. Public health authorities could use this epidemiological tool on a similar population as an aid for health care decision-making during an epidemic outbreak

Predictive potential of SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentration in wastewater to assess the dynamics of COVID-19 clinical outcomes and infections

Coronavirus disease 2019 -caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)-, has trig-gered a worldwide pandemic resulting in 665 million infections and over 6.5 million deaths as of December 15, 2022. The development of different epidemiological tools have helped predict new outbreaks and assess the behavior of clinical variables in different health contexts. In this study, we aimed to monitor concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater as a tool to predict the progression of clinical variables during Waves 3, 5, and 6 of the pandemic in the Spanish city of Xativa from September 2020 to March 2022. We estimated SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations in 195 wastewater samples using the RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel vali-dated by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. We also compared the trends of several clinical variables (14-day cumulative incidence, positive cases, hospital cases and stays, critical cases and stays, primary care visits, and deaths) for each study wave against wastewater SARS-CoV-2 RNA concentrations using Pearson's product-moment correlations, a two-sided Mann-Whitney U test, and a cross-correlation analysis. We found strong correlations between SARS-CoV-2 concentrations with 14-day cumulative incidence and positive cases over time. Wastewater RNA concentrations showed strong correlations with these variables one and two weeks in advance. There were significant correlations with hospitalizations and critical care during Wave 3 and Wave 6; cross-correlations were stronger for hospitalization stays one week before during Wave 6. No association between vaccination percentages and wastewater viral concentrations was observed. Our findings support wastewater SARS-CoV-2 concentrations as a potential surveillance tool to anticipate infection and epidemiological data such as 14-day cumulative incidence, hospitalizations, and critical care stays. Public health authorities could use this epidemiological tool on a similar population as an aid for health care decision-making during an epidemic outbreakThis research was funded by the Valencian International University and Generalitat Valenciana (GVA) through the Grants to emerging research groups 2023 (CE2023) from the Regional Ministry of Innovation, Universities, Science and Digital Society (CIGE/2022/58).Medicin

Esudio de la implicación de los receptores de quimiocinas CXCR3-A y CXCR7 y sus ligandos en la progresión del melanoma cutáneo humano.

El melanoma es un tumor maligno que se desarrolla a partir de los melanocitos, células que derivan de la cresta neural. La mayoría de los melanomas se localizan en la piel y menos frecuentemente en mucosas y otras localizaciones. Al igual que en la mayoría de los tumores malignos, la principal causa de mortalidad en el melanoma es la aparición de metástasis, por lo que es muy importante que la detección del tumor tenga lugar antes de que se inicie este proceso. En la mayor parte de casos, el diagnóstico precoz se puede realizar de forma relativamente sencilla, debido a que el melanoma presenta dos fases de crecimiento bien diferenciadas, una radial (intraepidérmica) y otra vertical (intradérmica). En la primera, fase radial, el melanoma prácticamente no tiene capacidad de metastatizar. Sin embargo, la fase de crecimiento vertical del melanoma maligno está asociada a un potencial metastásico importante, lo que a su vez es responsable de una alta tasa de mortalidad. Las quimiocinas son una superfamilia de pequeñas citoquinas con propiedades quimiotácticas. Se ha descrito su relación con el proceso neoplásico a nivel de senescencia, transición epitelio-mesenquimal, crecimiento tumoral, angiogénesis, desarrollo de metástasis y activación del sistema inmune; así como el paso de la fase radial a la vertical y al desarrollo de metástasis en distintas localizaciones en el caso del melanoma. Kawada y cols. demuestran que CXCR3 puede tener un papel importante en el proceso de metástasis de células de la línea B16F10 (línea celular de melanoma) hacia los ganglios linfáticos en ratones, y que la abundancia de las quimiocinas CXCL9 y CXCL10 en los ganglios linfáticos facilita la aparición de metástasis mediada por CXCR3. Recientemente se ha caracterizado un nuevo receptor de citocinas, CXCR7, cuya expresión está implicada en la formación de metástasis linfáticas y peor pronóstico en cáncer de mama y de pulmón. Este receptor tiene dos ligandos, CXCL11 y CXCL12, que también se unen la los receptores CXCR3 y CXCR4 respectivamente, y cuyo papel en la progresión e invasión del cáncer es bien conocido Sabiendo que las quimiocinas y sus receptores también se expresan en numerosos tipos de células tumorales, planteamos la hipótesis de que los niveles de expresión de los receptores CXCR3-A, CXCR7 y sus ligandos, las quimiocinas CXCL9, CXCL10, CXCL11 y CXCL12, así como la proporción ligando/receptor en el microambiente tumoral podrían estar implicados en los mecanismos de diseminación metastásica del melanoma cutáneo humano. Para ello estudiamos la expresión de estas moléculas muestra provenientes de tumores humanos (qPCR) y las relacionamos con los distintos grupos de progresión tumoral, así como con las variables clínico-patológicas. También se estudiaron 9 líneas celulares mediante IHQ y q PCR, para demostrar la expresión de estas moléculas por las propias células de melanoma. Nuestros resultados mostraron cómo las células de melanoma y también las del microambiente tumoral expresan las quimiocinas y receptores de quimiocinas estudiados; además indican cómo los niveles de CXCR7 y CXCL12 disminuyen con la progresión tumoral, mientras que los niveles de expresión relacionados con CXCR3 y sus receptores aumentan. Además los niveles de CXCL12 y CXCR7 se correlacionan con un seguimiento clínico favorable del paciente

La construcción de mapas conceptuales por los estudiantes a través de conceptos previos dados por el profesor: experiencia en el Grado de Derecho y de Odontología

Esta comunicación tiene como finalidad proponer una forma de trabajar con los estudiantes mediante la elaboración de mapas conceptuales a través de conceptos previos dados por el profesor y, de este modo, enseñarles a elaborar sus propios mapas conceptuales en el futuro, en tanto que herramienta eficaz para promover un aprendizaje significativo.SIN FINANCIACIÓNNo data 2015UE

Promotion of Environmental Education in the Spanish Compulsory Education Curriculum. A Normative Analysis and Review

The environmental education and the promotion of the sustainability are two of the main axes in the international guidelines around the world. Education institutions must play an active role to achieve environment and sustainability awareness, and government educational policies should provide education institutions the necessary tools. This study tries to analyze the way in which these topics have been integrated in the Spanish compulsory curriculum through the normative review. Specifically, a content analysis has been used to quantify environmental and sustainability references, both in the subjects they integrate and the contents and standards which they relate with. The results show that: (1) there is not a transversal consideration of these terms; (2) the integration is greater in the Secondary Education; (3) environmental and sustainability treatment is mostly theoretical and focused on instrumental subjects; (4) when the approach is practical, it is often linked to reflections processes. Thus, we conclude on the need for governmental institutions to increase the presence of these terms in the educational curriculum and to integrate them in a transversal way and, through specific content, skills that contribute to build a collective social awareness of the importance of these phenomena in our society, including them as content as well as in the initial and continuous training

Genially as an interactive tool in the integrated curriculum in basic biomedical sciences

BACKGROUND. An integrated curriculum enables learning that integrates knowledge and skills, connects concepts and areas of achievement, and brings students closer to the professional world across disciplines and subjects. However, there is little literature on integrated curricula in higher education, especially Health sciences. Existing research highlights that its implementation causes several problems, such as inconsistent educational backgrounds, lack of teaching materials, and inadequate curriculum. Moreover, contemporary pedagogical trends encourage the use of digital interactive materials, which are active, innovative tools and highly popular with students. OBJECTIVE. The primary objective of this quasi-experimental longitudinal study was to assess the effectiveness of digital interactive learning materials in facilitating mastery of the integrated curriculum in the first-year dental students at the Universidad Europea de Valencia (UEV). METHODS. The Genially tool was used to create an educational interactive learning game that integrated the contents about “Cell Junctions” studied in Biology, Physiology, and Histology. It included the classification of cell junctions, differences among anchoring junctions, molecules of adhesion, interaction with leukocyte-endothelium, and the most relevant dental diseases, related to the student’s future professional career. The subjects were ca. 240 first-year undergraduate dental students enrolled in “Cellular Biology and Human genetics” and “Anatomy and Physiology of the Human body”. They were divided into the control group following a master class and the experimental group that played the interactive material after the master class. The student knowledge was evaluated through a 4-question test which was performed with Blackboard Ultra at two different time points: i) a pre-test at the beginning of the course to assess students’ previous knowledge; ii) a post-test at the end of the activity to evaluate the knowledge improvement. To evaluate students’ opinions about the experience, a perception survey was completed, using Microsoft Forms. RESULTS. An improvement was observed in each of the 4 questions of the post-test compared to the pre-test in the experimental group, but not in the control group. 12% of students in the experimental group answered correctly all 4 post-test questions compared to 1% of students in the control group. Regarding the perception survey, 88% of the students found Genially to be an effective tool to learn about Cell Junctions, encouraging them to think about this topic in a new way; 93% stated that it was effective to repeat topics taught in “Cell Biology” and “Anatomy and Physiology”, 79%considered that it was useful to integrate knowledge among different subjects and relate Basic Science concepts to their future professional life as a dentist. Most of the students found the activity entertaining (90%), rewarding (74%), fun (63%), interesting (92%), and a better way to learn compared to a master class (78%). Moreover, 89% of the students would like to repeat a similar experience in another subject and 93% would recommend this activity to other students. CONCLUSION. Genially can be used as an effective tool to consolidate knowledge from different subjects and enhance students' understanding of fundamental scientific concepts.2022/UEM12No data SPI 2018UE

Sociodemographic Determinants for the Health-Related Quality of Life of Patients with Vascular Amputations as Determined with the Prosthesis Evaluation Questionnaire

Background: To identify the sociodemographic variables independently related to the different dimensions of the Prosthesis Evaluation Questionnaire (PEQ). Methods: An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted, with a sample of 61 Spanish vascular amputees (Valencia, Spain). Included in this study are the results of the PEQ and explanatory-sociodemographic variables, as well as a descriptive and analytic analysis. Results: Gender differences were observed in "appearance" and "perception of appearance" (significantly higher levels for men). Older patients tended to have worse scores in "utility", "frustration", "social burden" and "deambulation". More favorable scores were obtained for those residing in rural areas in "social burden" and "deambulation". Educational level had a positive correlation with scores. Conclusion: Gender, age, place of residence, and educational level could be considered determinants of the quality of health related to prosthesis adaptation in vascular amputees. Clinical relevance: Knowing the influential variables in the process of prosthetization will allow better adaptation and an improvement in the quality of life.Sin financiación3.390 JCR (2020) Q1, 42/176 Public, Environmental & Occupational Health0.747 SJR (2020) Q2, 182/560 Public Health, Environmental and Occupational HealthNo data IDR 2020UE

Sociodemographic Determinants for the Health-Related Quality of Life of Patients with Vascular Amputations as Determined with the Prosthesis Evaluation Questionnaire

Background: To identify the sociodemographic variables independently related to the different dimensions of the Prosthesis Evaluation Questionnaire (PEQ). Methods: An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted, with a sample of 61 Spanish vascular amputees (Valencia, Spain). Included in this study are the results of the PEQ and explanatory-sociodemographic variables, as well as a descriptive and analytic analysis. Results: Gender differences were observed in "appearance" and "perception of appearance" (significantly higher levels for men). Older patients tended to have worse scores in "utility", "frustration", "social burden" and "deambulation". More favorable scores were obtained for those residing in rural areas in "social burden" and "deambulation". Educational level had a positive correlation with scores. Conclusion: Gender, age, place of residence, and educational level could be considered determinants of the quality of health related to prosthesis adaptation in vascular amputees. Clinical relevance: Knowing the influential variables in the process of prosthetization will allow better adaptation and an improvement in the quality of life.Medicin