Antioxidant and antihemolytic activities of methanol extract of Hyssopus angustifolius

This study was designed to evaluate antioxidant and antihemolytic activities of Hyssopus angustifolius flower, stem and leaf methanol extracts by employing various in vitro assays. The leaf extract showed the best activity in DPPH (63.2 ± 2.3 μg mL-1) and H2O2  (55.6 ± 2.6 μg mL-1) models compared to the other extracts. However, flower extract exhibited the highest Fe2+ chelating activity (131.4 ± 4.4 μg mL-1). The extracts exhibited good antioxidant activity in linoleic acid peroxidation and reducing power assays, but were not comparable to vitamin C. The stem (23.58 ± 0.7 μg mL-1) and leaf (26.21 ± 1 μg mL-1) extracts showed highest level of antihemolytic activity than the flower extract

Mechanistic Observation of Interactions between Macrophages and Inorganic Particles with Different Densities

Many different types of inorganic materials are processed into nano/microparticles for medical utilization. The impact of selected key characteristics of these particles, including size, shape, and surface chemistries, on biological systems, is frequently studied in clinical contexts. However, one of the most important basic characteristics of these particles, their density, is yet to be investigated. When the particles are designed for drug delivery, highly mobile macrophages are the major participants in cellular levels that process them in vivo. As such, it is essential to understand the impact of particles’ densities on the mobility of macrophages. Here, inorganic particles with different densities are applied, and their interactions with macrophages studied. A set of these particles are incubated with the macrophages and the outcomes are explored by optical microscopy. This microscopic view provides the understanding of the mechanistic interactions between particles of different densities and macrophages to conclude that the particles’ density can affect the migratory behaviors of macrophages: the higher the density of particles engulfed inside the macrophages, the less mobile the macrophages become. This work is a strong reminder that the density of particles cannot be neglected when they are designed to be utilized in biological applications

Management of gastrointestinal complaints in differentiated thyroid cancer patients treated with 131I: Comparison of the efficacy of pantoprazole, metoclopra-mide, and ondansetron – a randomized clinical trial

Objective: To compare safety and efficacy of pantoprazol, metoclopramide, ondansetron, as compared to placebo, in controlling gastrointestinal (GI) complaints of thyroid cancer patients treated with I-131these patients. Design: Four-armed, parallel group, single blind, randomized controlled clinical trial, setting: A university hospital, registration: database for clinical trials IRCT2013061713705N1. Patients: 85 patients with differentiated thyroid cancer who received131I. Main outcome measures: Post-radioiodine nausea and vomiting within three days of therapy (primary endpoint); occurrence of adverse reaction. Results: The patients' characteristics were similar within the study groups. Among the study variables, age, sex, administered dosage, history of previous GI complaints, and history of hyper -emesis gravidarum in female patients were not statistically different among the groups (p > 0.05). The results revealed that only ond-ansetron shows a therapeutic benefit over the placebo in controlling nausea (p 0.05). The other two drugs, pantoprazole and meto-clopramide, did not control nausea (p > 0.05) or vomiting (p > 0.05). Conclusions: This study may demonstrate that the therapeutic dose of ondansetron could be an effective prophylactic agent in controlling GI complaints in differential thyroid carcinoma (DTC) patients following RAI therapy; however, these pre -liminary findings should be validated in larger studies. © Schattauer 2014