Metformin Therapy and Breast Cancer Incidence in the Ha’il Region

Background: Metformin is a drug used to treat patients with type 2 diabetes, especially those who suffer from obesity. It is also used in the treatment of women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). This disease is related to insulin resistance and multiplied blood sugar ranges. Furthermore, it has been established that the use of metformin improves the menstrual cycles and ovulation rates of these women. Methods: A structured questionnaire was conducted to determine the prevalence of breast cancer among women using metformin in the Ha’il region. Result: The incidence of breast cancer among women using metformin in the Ha’il region is very low. Thus, it can be said that breast cancer cases declined among diabetics taking metformin. This means that metformin use is associated with a lower risk of breast cancer in women with type 2 diabetes, even in cases where these women have a family history of breast cancer. Conclusions: According to previous findings, metformin has been linked to lower breast cancer risk in women with type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, the findings of this study corroborate the literature on this subject by indicating that there is a substantial connection between metformin use and a lower risk of breast cancer in women with type 2 diabetes. However, further in vitro and in vivo experiments are crucial to investigate the protective effect of metformin against breast cancer and to confirm our findings

Development of Tea Tree Oil Based Nanoemulgel Loaded with Azithromycin for Enhancing the Antibacterial Activity

Azithromycin (AZ) is an azalide macrolide antibiotic that is frequently employed for treating bacterial skin infections. It suffers from limited oral bioavailability, which results from incomplete absorption or extensive first-pass metabolism. Therefore, preparing azithromycin formulations for topical administration is highly recommended to avoid first-pass metabolism and to boost the concentration of the drug on the skin. The objective of our investigation was to formulate and evaluate the efficacy of AZ-loaded nanoemulgel as an antimicrobial drug. The physical appearance, spreadability, viscosity, particle size, in vitro drug release, ex vivo permeation investigations, and antimicrobial efficiency of the prepared formulations were evaluated. The prepared formulation loaded with AZ exhibited good physical quality. AZ-loaded nanoemulgel had a greater ex vivo drug permeation across rabbit skin than other formulations (AZ-loaded gel and AZ-loaded emulgel), revealing improved drug permeation and greater transdermal flux in addition to enhanced antibacterial efficacy (p < 0.05). Overall, our findings imply that tea-tree-oil-based nanoemulgel would be a promising delivery system for enhancing the antimicrobial efficiency of azithromycin

Development and Optimization of Erythromycin Loaded Transethosomes Cinnamon Oil Based Emulgel for Antimicrobial Efficiency

Erythromycin (EM) is a macrolide antibiotic that is frequently used to treat skin bacterial infections. It has a short half-life (1–1.5 h), instability in stomach pH, and a low oral bioavailability. These foregoing factors limit its oral application; therefore, the development of topical formulations loaded with erythromycin is an essential point to maximize the drug’s concentration at the skin. Accordingly, the current study’s goal was to boost the antimicrobial activity of EM by utilizing the advantages of natural oils such as cinnamon oil. Erythromycin-loaded transethosomes (EM-TE) were generated and optimized using a Box–Behnken design employing, phospholipid concentration (A), surfactant concentration (B), and ethanol content (C) as independent variables. Their effects on entrapment efficiency, EE, (Y1) and the total amount of erythromycin that penetrated the skin after 6 h, Q6h (Y2), were assessed. The optimized transethosome showed a particle size of 256.2 nm, EE of 67.96 ± 0.59%, and Q6h of 665.96 ± 5.87 (µg/cm2) after 6 h. The TEM analysis revealed that, the vesicles are well-known packed structures with a spherical shape. The optimized transethosomes formulation was further transformed into a cinnamon oil-based emulgel system using HPMC as a gelling agent. The generated EM-TE-emulgel was characterized by its physical features, in vitro, ex vivo studies, and antimicrobial activities. The formulation showed sufficient characteristics for effective topical application, and demonstrated a great stability. Additionally, EM-TE-Emulgel had the highest transdermal flux (120.19 μg/cm2·h), and showed considerably (p < 0.05) greater antimicrobial activity, than EM-TE-gel and placebo TE-Emulgel. The action of EM was subsequently augmented with cinnamon oil, which eventually showed a notable effect against bacterial growth. Finally, these results demonstrate that the transethosomes-loaded cinnamon oil-based emulgel is an alternative way to deliver erythromycin for the treatment of topical bacterial infections

Synthesis, Crystal Structure, Antibacterial and In Vitro Anticancer Activity of Novel Macroacyclic Schiff Bases and Their Cu (II) Complexes Derived from S-Methyl and S-Benzyl Dithiocarbazate

A series of novel macroacyclic Schiff base ligands and their Cu (II) complexes were synthesised via reacting dicarbonyls of varying chain lengths with S-methyl dithiocarbazate (SMDTC) and S-benzyl dithiocarbazate (SBDTC) followed by coordination with Cu (II) ions. X-ray crystal structures were obtained for compound 4, an SBDTC-diacetyl analogue, and Cu7, an SMDTC-hexanedione Cu (II) complex. Anticancer evaluation of the compounds showed that Cu1, an SMDTC-glyoxal complex, demonstrated the highest cytotoxic activity against MCF-7 and MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells with IC50 values of 1.7 µM and 1.4 µM, respectively. There was no clear pattern observed between the effect of chain length and cytotoxic activity; however, SMDTC-derived analogues were more active than SBDTC-derived analogues against MDA-MB-231 cells. The antibacterial assay showed that K. rhizophila was the most susceptible bacteria to the compounds, followed by S. aureus. Compound 4 and the SMDTC-derived analogues 3, 5, Cu7 and Cu9 possessed the highest antibacterial activity. These active analogues were further assessed, whereby 3 possessed the highest antibacterial activity with an MIC of <24.4 µg/mL against K. rhizophila and S. aureus. Further antibacterial studies showed that at least compounds 4 and 5 were bactericidal. Thus, Cu1 and 3 were the most promising anticancer and antibacterial agents, respectively