Phytochemical Screening and Antioxidant Activities of Some Selected Medicinal Plants Used for Malaria Therapy in Southwestern Nigeria

Purpose: Oxidative stress has been shown to play an important role in the development of anaemia in malaria. Indeed, increase in total antioxidant status has been shown to be important in recovery from malaria. The antioxidant activities of four medicinal plants traditionally used in the treatment of malaria in southwestern Nigeria were determined. Methods: The ethanolic extracts of the leaves of Carica papaya Linn. [Caricaceae] , stem bark of Magnifera indica Linn. [Anacardiaceae], leaves of Psidium guajava Linn. [Myrtaceae] and the leaves of Vernonia amygdalina Del. [Compositae], were used in the present study. The plant parts commonly used in the locality in malaria therapy were employed in this study. The plants were screened for the presence of phytochemicals and, their effect on 2,2-Diphenyl-1-picryl-hydrazyl radical (DPPH) was used to determine their free radical scavenging activity. Results: Phytochemical screening of the plants showed the presence of flavonoids, terpenoids, saponins, tannins and reducing sugars. M. indica did not contain cardiac glycosides and alkaloids while, P. guajava also showed the absence of alkaloids and anthraquinones. Anthraquinones was similarly absent from V. amygdalina. Concentrations of the plant extracts required for 50% inhibition of DPPH radical scavenging effect (IC50) were recorded as 0.04 mg/ml, 0.313 mg/ml, 0.58 mg/ml, 2.30 mg/ml and 0.054 mg/ml for P. guajava, M. Indica, C. papaya, V. amygdalina and Vitamin C, respectively. Conclusion: All the plants showed potent inhibition of DPPH radical scavenging activity, P. guajava being the most potent. The free radical scavenging (antioxidant) activities of these plants probably contribute to the effectiveness of the above plants in malaria therapy. Keywords: Carica papaya, Magnifera indica, Psidium guajava, Vernonia amygdalina, Antioxidants, Malaria, DPPH, Oxidative stress. Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research Vol. 7 (3) 2008: pp. 1019-102

Availability and functionality of sphygmomanometers at health care institutions in Enugu, Nigeria

Objective: Our aim was to investigate the availability of functional blood pressure monitors at health care institutions in Enugu, Nigeria.Methods: During repeated surveys of 15 (primary, secondary and tertiary) health care institutions in Enugu between 2007 and 2012, records were made of the availability and functional status of sphygmomanometers in the clinics and wards. We also assessed the degree of agreement between measurements by institutional staff and measurements by trained observers using the same or the standard sphygmomanometer.Results: Apart from three institutions, there was inadequate availability of fully functional sphygmomanometers: 61 staff attending to outpatients were sharing 35 sphygmomanometers, 6 of which were faulty i.e. needing repairs. Wards invariably had only one or two functional sphygmomanometers, regardless of bed occupancy. Institutional staff ignored recommended guidelines for blood pressure measurement. The overall mean difference in blood pressure measurements between institutional staff and a trained observer (1.6 mmHg; 95% confidence interval, CI: -0.3 to 3.4; P = 0.1) was greater and more significant than the mean difference between the two observers (0.1 mmHg; CI: -1.5 to 1.7; P = 0.9) and the mean difference between institutional and standard sphygmomanometers (-0.2 mmHg; CI: -1.7 to 1.3; P = 0.8).Conclusion: There has been a notable lack of reporting on the availability of blood pressure measuring devices in third world health care institutions. Our surveys have shown inadequate availability of functional sphygmomanometers in the institutions, but satisfactory agreement between measurements by institutional staff and trained observers. In view of recent guidelines and recommendations, there is need to supplement office readings with mercury devices with oscillometric home or automated office blood pressure recording.Keywords: Blood pressure measurement, healthcare quality, hospital care, mercury devices, Nigeria, sphygmomanometer

Pattern of childhood and adolescent malignancies at a tertiary health institution in South-east Nigeria : A ten year study

Background: Cancer remains a major cause of death in children and adolescents, and differs in adults in nature, distribution and prognosis1. A culture of case documentation is lacking in our environment and many cases go unreported.Study objectives: To document the pattern of childhood and adolescent malignancies at a tertiary health institution in south-east Nigeria over a ten year period (January 2004 to December 2013)Methodology: Details of all children and adolescents aged 18 years and below treated for malignancy were extracted from the cancer registry and the records unit of the histopathology department for the period beginning at January 2004 to December 2013 at Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH), Nnewi, Nigeria. Information retrieved was verified against the hospital admission register, as well as the medical and histopathology records for all cancer patients over the period of interest.Results: Eighty-five cases of childhood and adolescent malignancy were treated at NAUTH, Nnewi between January 2004 and December 2013. Median age of the study population was 9years, with a range of 0.1– 18years, more males (56.50%) than females (43.50%). Commonest tumours were the Lymphomas (11.76%) comprising Non- Hodgkin’s lymphoma (80%), Hodgkin’s lymphoma (10%) and Large-cell lymphoma (10%), the Leukaemias (11.76%) comprising Acute myeloblastic leukaemia (80%) and Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (20%). Others were Rhabdomyosarcoma (11.76%), Nephroblastoma (11.76%), Retinoblastoma (5.88%), Ovarian tumours (4.71%), the Soft tissue sarcomas-excluding rhabdomyosarcoma (3.53%) and Osteogenic sarcoma (3.35%)’.Conclusion: Study findings suggest that lymphoma, leukaemia, rhabdomyosarcoma and nephroblastoma are the commonest childhood and adolescent malignancies in south-east Nigeria.Keywords: Childhood, Adolescent, Malignanc

Novel technologies and emerging biomarkers for personalized cancer immunotherapy

The culmination of over a century's work to understand the role of the immune system in tumor control has led to the recent advances in cancer immunotherapies that have resulted in durable clinical responses in patients with a variety of malignancies. Cancer immunotherapies are rapidly changing traditional treatment paradigms and expanding the therapeutic landscape for cancer patients. However, despite the current success of these therapies, not all patients respond to immunotherapy and even those that do often experience toxicities. Thus, there is a growing need to identify predictive and prognostic biomarkers that enhance our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the complex interactions between the immune system and cancer. Therefore, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) reconvened an Immune Biomarkers Task Force to review state of the art technologies, identify current hurdlers, and make recommendations for the field. As a product of this task force, Working Group 2 (WG2), consisting of international experts from academia and industry, assembled to identify and discuss promising technologies for biomarker discovery and validation. Thus, this WG2 consensus paper will focus on the current status of emerging biomarkers for immune checkpoint blockade therapy and discuss novel technologies as well as high dimensional data analysis platforms that will be pivotal for future biomarker research. In addition, this paper will include a brief overview of the current challenges with recommendations for future biomarker discovery

The radium legacy: Contaminated land and the committed effective dose from the ingestion of radium contaminated materials

The manufacture and use of radium in the early to mid-20th century within industrial, medicinal and recreational products have resulted in a large number of contaminated sites across a number of countries with notable examples in the USA and Europe. These sites, represent a significant number of unregulated sources of potential radiological exposure that have collectively and hitherto not been well characterised. In 2007, the Radioactive Contaminated Land (RCL) Regulations came into force in the UK, providing the statutory guidance for regulators to classify and deal with RCL. Here we report on results derived from digestion experiments to estimate committed effective dose, a key aspect of the RCL Regulations, from the ingestion of radium contaminated sources that can be found in the environment. This case study includes particles, clinker and artefacts that arise from past military activities on a site that was once an airfield at Dalgety Bay on the Firth of Forth, UK. Since 2011 the number of radium contaminated finds has increased by one order of magnitude on the foreshore areas of Dalgety Bay. The increase in finds may in large part be attributed to a change in monitoring practice. A subsample of sixty sources was selected, on the basis of their activity and dimensions, and subjected to digestion in simulated stomach and lower intestine solutions. The study demonstrated that more radium-226 (226Ra) and lead-210 (210Pb; driven by Polonium solubility) are dissolved from sources in artificial ‘stomach' solutions compared with ‘lower intestine' solutions. The combined ‘gut' solubility for 226Ra and apparent 210Pb varied from less than 1% to up to 35% ICRP 72 conversion factors were used to convert the activities measured in solution to committed effective dose. A little over 10% of the sources tested dissolved sufficient radioactivity to result in 100 mSv committed effective dose to an infant. Using the solubility of 35% as a worst case, minimum source activities necessary to deliver 100 mSv to the full age range of users of the foreshore were estimated. All the estimated activities have been detected and recovered through routine monitoring

Natural polymorphisms in mycobacterium tuberculosis conferring resistance to delamanid in drug-naïve patients.

Mutations in the genes of the F420 signaling pathway, including dnn, fgd1, fbiA, fbiB, fbiC, and fbiD, of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) complex can lead to delamanid resistance. We searched for such mutations among 129 Mtb strains from Asia, South-America, and Africa using whole-genome sequencing; 70 (54%) strains had at least one mutation in one of the genes. For ten strains with mutations, we determined the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of delamanid. We found one strain from a delamanid-naïve patient carrying the natural polymorphism Tyr29del (ddn) that was associated with a critical MIC to delamanid

A systematic review of randomised controlled trials on the effectiveness of exercise programs on lumbo pelvic pain among postnatal women

Background: A substantial number of women tend to be affected by Lumbo Pelvic Pain (LPP) following child birth. Physical exercise is indicated as a beneficial method to relieve LPP, but individual studies appear to suggest mixed findings about its effectiveness. This systematic review aimed to synthesise evidence from randomised controlled trials on the effectiveness of exercise on LPP among postnatal women to inform policy, practice and future research. Methods: A systematic review was conducted of all randomised controlled trials published between January 1990 and July 2014, identified through a comprehensive search of following databases: PubMed, PEDro, Embase, Cinahl, Medline, SPORTDiscus, Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group’s Trials Register, and electronic libraries of authors’institutions. Randomised controlled trials were eligible for inclusion if the intervention comprised of postnatal exercise for women with LPP onset during pregnancy or within 3 months after delivery and the outcome measures included changes in LPP. Selected articles were assessed using the PEDro Scale for methodological quality and findings were synthesised narratively as meta-analysis was found to be inappropriate due to heterogeneity among included studies. Results: Four randomised controlled trials were included, involving 251 postnatal women. Three trials were rated as of ‘good’ methodological quality. All trials, except one, were at low risk of bias. The trials included physical exercise programs with varying components, differing modes of delivery, follow up times and outcome measures. Intervention in one trial, involving physical therapy with specific stabilising exercises, proved to be effective in reducing LPP intensity. An improvement in gluteal pain on the right side was reported in another trial and a significant difference in pain frequency in another. Conclusion: Our review indicates that only few randomised controlled trials have evaluated the effectiveness of exercise on LPP among postnatal women. There is also a great amount of variability across existing trials in the components of exercise programs, modes of delivery, follow up times and outcome measures. While there is some evidence to indicate the effectiveness of exercise for relieving LPP, further good quality trials are needed to ascertain the most effective elements of postnatal exercise programs suited for LPP treatment

Lead-free piezoceramics - Where to move on?

Lead-free piezoceramics aiming at replacing the market-dominant lead-based ones have been extensively searched for more than a decade worldwide. Some noteworthy outcomes such as the advent of commercial products for certain applications have been reported, but the goal, i.e., the invention of a lead-free piezocermic, the performance of which is equivalent or even superior to that of PZT-based piezoceramics, does not seem to be fulfilled yet. Nevertheless, the academic effort already seems to be culminated, waiting for a guideline to a future research direction. We believe that a driving force for a restoration of this research field needs to be found elsewhere, for example, intimate collaborations with related industries. For this to be effectively realized, it would be helpful for academic side to understand the interests and demands of the industry side as well as to provide the industry with new scientific insights that would eventually lead to new applications. Therefore, this review covers some of the issues that are to be studied further and deeper, so-to-speak, lessons from the history of piezoceramics, and some technical issues that could be useful in better understanding the industry demands. As well, the efforts made in the industry side will be briefly introduced for the academic people to catch up with the recent trends and to be guided for setting up their future research direction effectively.ope

Pulmonary fibrosis induced by H5N1 viral infection in mice

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Inflammatory process results in lung injury that may lead to pulmonary fibrosis (PF). Here, we described PF in mice infected with H5N1 virus.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Eight-week-old BALB/c mice were inoculated intranasally with 1 × 10¹MID₅₀of A/Chicken/Hebei/108/2002(H5N1) viruses. Lung injury/fibrosis was evaluated by observation of hydroxyproline concentrations, lung indexes, and histopathology on days 7, 14, and 30 postinoculation.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>H5N1-inoculated mice presented two stages of pulmonary disease over a 30-d period after infection. At acute stage, infected-mice showed typical diffuse pneumonia with inflammatory cellular infiltration, alveolar and interstitial edema and hemorrhage on day 7 postinoculation. At restoration stage, most infected-mice developed PF of different severities on day 30 postinoculation, and 18% of the survived mice underwent severe interstitial and intra-alveolar fibrosis with thickened alveolar walls, collapsed alveoli and large fibrotic areas. The dramatically elevated hydroxyproline levels in H5N1-infected mice showed deposition of collagen in lungs, and confirmed fibrosis of lungs. The dry lung-to-body weight ratio was significantly increased in infected group, which might be associated with the formation of PF in H5N1-infected mice.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our findings show that H5N1-infected mice develop the typical PF during restoration period, which will contribute to the investigation of fibrogenesis and potential therapeutic intervention in human H5N1 disease.</p