Is early diagnosis of myofascial pain syndrome possible with the detection of latent trigger points by shear wave elastography?

Purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the contribution of shear wave elastography to the diagnosis of myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) of the upper part of the trapezius. Material and methods: Ethical committee approval was obtained for the study. Thirty volunteer women with trigger points in the upper part of the trapezius muscle and 30 healthy women with a similar age distribution were included in the study. The patient group performed a self-stretching exercise program for 4 weeks. No intervention was applied to the control group. Muscle stiffness values of both groups were evaluated with shear wave elastography (SWE), and pain levels of all volunteers were evaluated by the Visual Analogue Scale at the beginning and the end of the study. The statistical analyses were performed using SPSS version 18.0. Results: There was a significant decrease after the treatment in terms of upper trapezius muscle stiffness and the pain levels in the patient group (p 0.05). Conclusions: SWE is a reliable method for detecting latent trigger points in MPS, and it can be used for evaluating the response to treatment

Computerised 3-D anatomical modelling using plastinates: an example utilising the human heart

Computerised modelling methods have become highly useful for generating electronic representations of anatomical structures. These methods rely on crosssectional tissue slices in databases such as the Visible Human Male and Female, the Visible Korean Human, and the Visible Chinese Human. However, these databases are time consuming to generate and require labour-intensive manual digitisation while the number of specimens is very limited. Plastinated anatomical material could provide a possible alternative to data collection, requiring less time to prepare and enabling the use of virtually any anatomical or pathological structure routinely obtained in a gross anatomy laboratory. The purpose of this study was to establish an approach utilising plastinated anatomical material, specifically human hearts, for the purpose computerised 3-D modelling. Human hearts were collected following gross anatomical dissection and subjected to routine plastination procedures including dehydration (–25oC), defatting, forced impregnation, and curing at room temperature. A graphics pipeline was established comprising data collection with a hand-held scanner, 3-D modelling, model polishing, file conversion, and final rendering. Representative models were viewed and qualitatively assessed for accuracy and detail. The results showed that the heart model provided detailed surface information necessary for gross anatomical instructional purposes. Rendering tools facilitated optional model manipulation for further structural clarification if selected by the user. The use of plastinated material for generating 3-D computerised models has distinct advantages compared to cross-sectional tissue images. (Folia Morphol 2011; 70, 3: 191–196

Double-orifice mitral valve and an associated malformation: secundum atrial septal defect

The authors report a case of double-orifice mitral valve (DOMV) which showed mitral stenosis and mild insufficiency. An associated anomaly was secundum atrial septal defect. DOMV is an unusual congenital heart defect. The occurrence of this anomaly with or without secundum atrial septal defect is very rare. More often it is associated with other congenital malformations arising from atrioventricular canal defects. There may be no haemodynamic consequences but mitral insufficiency and/or stenosis may complicate this malformation. Treatment can be summarised as abstention, surgical repair or valve replacement

Distribution and genetic diversity of Dothistroma septosporum in Pinus brutia forests of south-western Turkey

The support of the DIAROD project, funded as EU COST Action FP1102, is gratefully acknowledged. Forest engineers Ali Datumani and Erdal Örtel are thanked for their great help in the field. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers who helped improve the manuscript. We would like to thank Dr Alkan Unlu for providing the climate data and to Dr Ilker Ercanli for performing the statistical analysis. The study was financially supported by the Forestry Commission, United Kingdom and by the European Regional Development Fund, Project Phytophthora Research Centre Reg. No. CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/15_003/0000453.Peer reviewedPostprin

Oral health and related factors in a group of children with cystic fibrosis in Istanbul, Turkey

Background: Cystic fibrosis (CF) patients can be considered as high caries risk patients because they frequently consume sugar.rich food between meals and they have a high intake of sugar containing syrups, aerosols, and salivary flow reducing medication. Variable caries prevalences were reported in CF patients in previous studies. There are no studies related to CF and salivary thromboplastic activity, which can be presented as a marker of wound healing and bleeding tendency of oral cavity.Objective: The aim of this study was to compare oral health status and salivary pH, flow rate, and thromboplastic activity in children with CF and healthy controls.Materials and Methods: Asample of 35 children with CF (23 girls and 12 boys), and 12 healthy control subjects (6 girls and 6 boys) were selected. Caries experience, oral hygiene, and dental erosion were assessed. Salivary flow rate, pH, thromboplastic activity, and total protein content were determined. Differences between the groups were evaluated using Chi.square test with a significance level set at 0.05.Results: The differences between children with CF and healthy controls in tooth brushing frequency, use of fluoride tablets, caries experience, dental erosion index, oral hygiene index, salivary flow rate and total protein levels were not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Salivary thromboplastic activity of the CF group was significantly lower than the healthy controls (P < 0.01).Conclusion: Large population studies may be necessary to establish the role of salivary thromboplastic activity in children with CF considering our findings related to the decreased salivary thromboplastic activity, which  may indicate delayed oral wound healing process.Key words: Caries, children, cystic fibrosis, saliva, salivary thromboplastic activit

The effect of racemic gossypol and AT-101 on angiogenic profile of OVCAR-3 cells: a preliminary molecular framework for gossypol enantiomers

To compare the effect of racemic gossypol with its (–)/(–) enantiomer (AT-101) on expression profiles of angiogenic molecules by mRNA levels in human ovarian cancer cell line OVCAR-3. Methods: Cell viability assay (2,3-bis (2-methoxy-4-nitro-5- sulfophenyl)-5-[(phenylamino) carbonyl]-2H-tetrazolium hydroxide) was used to detect cytotoxicity of gossypol enantiomers. DNA fragmentation by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent (ELISA) assay was used to evaluate the rate of apoptosis. The mRNA expression levels of angiogenic molecules were investigated by Human Angiogenesis RT2 ProfilerTM PCR Array (SuperArray, Frederick, MD). Results: Both racemic form and AT-101 resulted in a significant cytotoxicity and induced apoptosis. This effect was observed in a dose- and time dependent manner. However, AT-101 was much more potent. In addition, the treatment of 10 μM of racemic gossypol alone and 3 μM of AT-101 alone resulted in significant down-regulation (≥ 3 fold) in mRNA levels of some pivotal angiogenic molecules in OVCAR-3, but altered gene profiles were different by the treatment of each enantiomer. Conclusion: The efficacy of two gossypol enantiomers in OVCAR-3 cells showed distinction. AT-101 was much more potent than racemic gossypol, not only by means of cell death and apoptosis, but also by modulation of angiogenic molecules released from OVCAR-3 cells. Further studies with endothelial cells should be done to verify the anti-angiogenic effect of gossypol enantiomers in cancer treatment

Forecasting Dengue, Chikungunya and Zika cases in Recife, Brazil: a spatio-temporal approach based on climate conditions, health notifications and machine learning

Dengue has become a challenge for many countries. Arboviruses transmitted by Aedes aegypti spread rapidly over the last decades. The emergence chikungunya fever and zika in South America poses new challenges to vector monitoring and control. This situation got worse from 2015 and 2016, with the rapid spread of chikungunya, causing fever and muscle weakness, and Zika virus, related to cases of microcephaly in newborns and the occurrence of Guillain-Barret syndrome, an autoimmune disease that affects the nervous system. The objective of this work was to construct a tool to forecast the distribution of arboviruses transmitted by the mosquito Aedes aegypti by implementing dengue, zika and chikungunya transmission predictors based on machine learning, focused on multilayer perceptrons neural networks, support vector machines and linear regression models. As a case study, we investigated forecasting models to predict the spatio-temporal distribution of cases from primary health notification data and climate variables (wind velocity, temperature and pluviometry) from Recife, Brazil, from 2013 to 2016, including 2015’s outbreak. The use of spatio-temporal analysis over multilayer perceptrons and support vector machines results proved to be very effective in predicting the distribution of arbovirus cases. The models indicate that the southern and western regions of Recife were very susceptible to outbreaks in the period under investigation. The proposed approach could be useful to support health managers and epidemiologists to prevent outbreaks of arboviruses transmitted by Aedes aegypti and promote public policies for health promotion and sanitation