Modified decompression technique in the management of odontogenic cystic lesions: An retrospective study

Introduction: Odontogenic cystic lesions requiring conservative management were treated with a novel technique of modified decompression and assessed. Aims and Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the resolution of the lesion, recurrence, and complications in patients treated with the novel modified decompression technique. Materials and Methods: The retrospective study included patients treated with the novel modified decompression technique between 2004 and 2022. The cystic lesions were packed with chlorhexidine acetate gauze dressing (Bactigras), and patients were prescribed a combination of Calcium, Vitamin C, and Vitamin D. Pack was changed periodically until a reduction of at least 80% in the volume of the lesion was achieved. Period of decompression, volume at each follow-up, and lesion size were recorded. In addition, inter-group significance co-relating the size and diagnosis of the lesions with the rate and duration of healing were derived by ANOVA test. Results: OKC, unicystic ameloblastoma, and dentigerous cysts were included, and the follow-up period ranged from one year to eighteen years. 25 cases (83.33%) showed full resolution, whereas five cases (16.17%) showed more than 80% resolution. The period of decompression and the rate of decompression was found to correlate with both the diagnosis and the size of the lesion. Conclusions: The modified decompression technique is superior to traditional decompression with a high rate of resolution of cystic lesions and no recurrence over a long follow-up period

Activity and mechanism of action of HDVD, a novel pyrimidine nucleoside derivative with high levels of selectivity and potency against gammaherpesviruses

A novel nucleoside analogue, 1-[(2S,4S-2-(hydroxymethyl)-1,3-dioxolan-4-yl]5-vinylpyrimidine-2,4(1H,3H)-dione, or HDVD, was evaluated against a wide variety of herpesviruses and was found to be a highly selective inhibitor of replication of the gammaherpesviruses Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). HDVD had also a pronounced inhibitory activity against murine herpesvirus 68 (MHV-68) and herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1). In contrast, replication of herpesvirus saimiri (HVS), HSV-2, and varicella-zoster virus (VZV) was weakly inhibited by the compound, and no antiviral activity was determined against human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and rhesus rhadinovirus (RRV). The HDVD-resistant virus phenotype contained point mutations in the viral thymidine kinase (TK) of HSV-1, MHV-68, and HVS isolates. These mutations conferred cross-resistance to other TK-dependent drugs, with the exception of an MHV-68 mutant (E358D) that exhibited resistance only to HDVD. HSV-1 and HVS TK-mutants isolated under selective pressure with bromovinyldeoxyuridine (BVDU) also showed reduced sensitivity to HDVD. Oral treatment with HDVD and BVDU was assessed in an intranasal model of MHV-68 infection in BALB/c mice. In contrast to BVDU treatment, HDVD-treated animals showed a reduction in viral DNA loads and diminished viral gene expression during acute viral replication in the lungs in comparison to levels in untreated controls. The valyl ester prodrug of HDVD (USS-02-71-44) suppressed the latent infection in the spleen to a greater extent than HDVD. In the present study, HDVD emerged as a highly potent antiviral with a unique spectrum of activity against herpesviruses, in particular, gammaherpesviruses, and may be of interest in the treatment of virus-associated diseases.status: publishe

SmartGraph API: Programmatic Knowledge Mining in Network- Pharmacology Setting

The recent SmartGraph platform facilitates the execution of complex drug-discovery workflows with ease in the network-pharmacology paradigm. However, at the time of its publication, we identified the need for the development of an Application Programming Interface (API) that could promote biomedical data integration and hypothesis generation in an automated manner. This need was magnified at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study addresses this hiatus. Most functionalities of the original platform were implemented in the SmartGraph API. We demonstrate that by using the API it is possible to transform the original semi-automated workflow behind the Neo4COVID19 database to a fully automated one. The availability of the SmartGraph API lends a significant improvement to the programmatic integration of networkpharmacology- oriented knowledge graphs and analytics, as well as predictive functionalities and workflows