Topical application of epidermal growth factor accelerates wound healing by myofibroblast proliferation and collagen synthesis in rat

Recombinant human epidermal growth factor (rhEGF) stimulates the proliferation and migration of epithelial cells in human cell culture systems and animal models of partial-thickness skin wounds. This study investigated the effect of a topical rhEGF ointment on the rate of wound healing and skin re-epithelialization in a rat full thickness wound model, and verified whether or not the rhEGF treatment affected both myofibroblast proliferation and collagen synthesis in the dermis. When rhEGF (10 µg/g ointment) was applied topically twice a day for 14 days, there was significantly enhanced wound closure from the 5th to the 12th day compared with the control (ointment base treatment) group. A histological examination at the postoperative 7th day revealed that the rhEGF treatment increased the number of proliferating nuclear antigen immunoreactive cells in the epidermis layer. In addition, the immunoreactive area of alpha-smooth muscle actin and the expression of prolyl 4-hydroxylase were significantly higher than those of the control group. Overall, a topical treatment of rhEGF ointment promotes wound healing by increasing the rate of epidermal proliferation and accelerating the level of wound contraction related to myofibroblast proliferation and collagen deposition

Influence of Radiation Dose to Reconstructed Breast Following Mastectomy on Complication in Breast Cancer Patients Undergoing Two-Stage Prosthetic Breast Reconstruction

Purpose: This study investigated the association between radiation dose and complication rate in patients who underwent breast reconstruction to understand the role of radiation hypofractionated regimen, boost radiation therapy (RT), and RT techniques.Methods: We retrospectively evaluated 75 patients treated with post-mastectomy adjuvant RT for breast cancer in the setting of two-stage prosthetic breast reconstruction. Near maximum radiation dose (Dmax) in the 2 or 0.03 cc of reconstructed breast or overlying breast skin was obtained from dose-volume histograms.Results: Post-RT complications occurred in 22.7% of patients. Receiver operating characteristic analysis showed that all near Dmax parameters were able to predict complication risk, which retained statistical significance after adjusting other variables (odds ratio 1.12 per Gy, 95% confidence interval 1.02–1.23) with positive dose-response relationship. In multiple linear regression model (R2 = 0.92), conventional fractionation (β = 11.7) and 16 fractions in 2.66 Gy regimen (β = 3.9) were the major determinants of near Dmax compared with 15 fractions in 2.66 Gy regimen, followed by utilization of boost RT (β = 3.2). The effect of bolus and dose inhomogeneity seemed minor (P > 0.05). The location of hot spot was not close to the high density metal area of the expander, but close to the surrounding areas of partially deflated expander bag.Conclusions: This study is the first to demonstrate a dose-response relationship between risk of complications and near Dmax, where hypofractionated regimen or boost RT can play an important role. Rigorous RT-quality assurance program and modification of dose constraints could be considered as a critically important component for ongoing trials of hypofractionation. Based on our findings, we initiated a multi-center retrospective study (KROG 18-04) and a prospective study (NCT03523078) to validate our findings

Early experiences with robot-assisted prosthetic breast reconstruction

Robotic surgery facilitates surgical procedures by employing flexible arms with multiple degrees of freedom and providing high-quality 3-dimensional imaging. Robot-assisted nipplesparing mastectomy with immediate reconstruction is currently performed to avoid breast scars. Four patients with invasive ductal carcinoma underwent robot-assisted nipple-sparing mastectomy and immediate robot-assisted expander insertion. Through a 6-cm incision along the anterior axillary line, sentinel lymph node biopsy and nipple-sparing mastectomy were performed by oncologic surgeons. The pectoralis major muscle was elevated, an acellular dermal matrix (ADM) sling was created with robotic assistance, and an expander was inserted into the subpectoral, sub-ADM pocket. No patients had major complications such as hematoma, seroma, infection, capsular contracture, or nipple-areolar necrosis. The mean operation time for expander insertion was 1 hour and 20 minutes, and it became shorter with more experience. The first patient completed 2-stage prosthetic reconstruction and was highly satisfied with the unnoticeable scar and symmetric reconstruction. We describe several cases of immediate robot-assisted prosthetic breast reconstruction. This procedure is a feasible surgical option for patients who want to conceal surgical scars

Sacropelvic Fixation for Adult Deformity Surgery Comparing Iliac Screw and Sacral 2 Alar-Iliac Screw Fixation: Systematic Review and Updated Meta-Analysis

Objective Two commonly used techniques for spinopelvic fixation in adult deformity surgery are iliac screw (IS) and sacral 2 alar-iliac screw (S2AI) fixations. In this article, we systematically meta-analyzed the complications of sacropelvic fixation for adult deformity surgery comparing IS and S2AI. Methods The PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and Cochrane clinical trial databases were systematically searched until March 29, 2023. The proportion of postoperative complications, including implant failure, revision, screw prominence, and wound complications after sacropelvic fixation, were pooled with a random-effects model. Subgroup analyses for the method of sacropelvic fixation were conducted. Results Ten studies with a total of 1,931 patients (IS, 925 patients; S2AI, 1,006 patients) were included. The pooled proportion of implant failure was not statistically different between the IS and S2AI groups (21.9% and 18.9%, respectively) (p = 0.59). However, revision was higher in the IS group (21.0%) than that in the S2AI group (8.5%) (p = 0.02). Additionally, screw prominence was higher in the IS group (9.6%) than that in the S2AI group (0.0%) (p < 0.01), and wound complication was also higher in the IS group (31.7%) than that in the S2AI group (3.9%) (p < 0.01). Conclusion IS and S2AI fixations showed that both techniques had similar outcomes in terms of implant failure. However, S2AI was revealed to have better outcomes than IS in terms of revision, screw prominence, and wound complications

Caloric restriction of db/db mice reverts hepatic steatosis and body weight with divergent hepatic metabolism

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is one of the most frequent causes of liver disease and its prevalence is a serious and growing clinical problem. Caloric restriction (CR) is commonly recommended for improvement of obesity-related diseases such as NAFLD. However, the effects of CR on hepatic metabolism remain unknown. We investigated the effects of CR on metabolic dysfunction in the liver of obese diabetic db/db mice. We found that CR of db/db mice reverted insulin resistance, hepatic steatosis, body weight and adiposity to those of db/m mice. H-NMR- and UPLC-QTOF-MS-based metabolite profiling data showed significant metabolic alterations related to lipogenesis, ketogenesis, and inflammation in db/db mice. Moreover, western blot analysis showed that lipogenesis pathway enzymes in the liver of db/db mice were reduced by CR. In addition, CR reversed ketogenesis pathway enzymes and the enhanced autophagy, mitochondrial biogenesis, collagen deposition and endoplasmic reticulum stress in db/db mice. In particular, hepatic inflammation-related proteins including lipocalin-2 in db/db mice were attenuated by CR. Hepatic metabolomic studies yielded multiple pathological mechanisms of NAFLD. Also, these findings showed that CR has a therapeutic effect by attenuating the deleterious effects of obesity and diabetes-induced multiple complications

Dense dislocation arrays embedded in grain boundaries for high-performance bulk thermoelectrics

The widespread use of thermoelectric technology is constrained by a relatively low conversion efficiency of the bulk alloys, which is evaluated in terms of a dimensionless figure of merit (zT). The zT of bulk alloys can be improved by reducing lattice thermal conductivity through grain boundary and point-defect scattering, which target low- and high-frequency phonons. Dense dislocation arrays formed at low-energy grain boundaries by liquid-phase compaction in Bi_(0.5)Sb_(1.5)Te_3 (bismuth antimony telluride) effectively scatter midfrequency phonons, leading to a substantially lower lattice thermal conductivity. Full-spectrum phonon scattering with minimal charge-carrier scattering dramatically improved the zT to 1.86 ± 0.15 at 320 kelvin (K). Further, a thermoelectric cooler confirmed the performance with a maximum temperature difference of 81 K, which is much higher than current commercial Peltier cooling devices

IS6110-Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism and Spoligotyping Analysis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Clinical Isolates for Investigating Epidemiologic Distribution in Korea

The Beijing family of Mycobacterium tuberculosis has been emerging in the world. However, there are few nationwide data of genotypic distribution in Korea. This study aimed to identify the genotypic diversity of clinical isolates of M. tuberculosis and to demonstrate the population of Beijing family in Korea. We collected 96 clinical M. tuberculosis isolates from 11 university hospitals nationwide in Korea from 2008 to 2009. We observed 24 clusters in IS6110-RFLP analysis and 19 patterns in spoligotyping. Seventy-five isolates were confirmed to be Beijing family. Two isolates of the K strain and 12 isolates of the K family strain were also found. We found that drug resistance phenotypes were more strongly associated with Beijing family than non-Beijing family (P=0.003). This study gives an overview of the distribution of genotypes of M. tuberculosis in Korea. These findings indicate that we have to pay more attention to control of M. tuberculosis strains associated with the Beijing family

Кераміка «terra sigillata» з с. Зимне на Волині

Стаття присвячена публікації чотирьох керамічних посудин типу «terra sigillata», знайдених на дні р. Луги у с. Зимне Володимир-Волинського району Волинської області. Попередній аналіз цих знахідок дозволяє віднести їх до Понтійського центру виробництва такого посуду. Вірогідним шляхом потрапляння цієї колекції на Волинь була готська експансія у Північне Причорномор’я

Differential cross section measurements for the production of a W boson in association with jets in proton–proton collisions at √s = 7 TeV

Measurements are reported of differential cross sections for the production of a W boson, which decays into a muon and a neutrino, in association with jets, as a function of several variables, including the transverse momenta (pT) and pseudorapidities of the four leading jets, the scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT), and the difference in azimuthal angle between the directions of each jet and the muon. The data sample of pp collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV was collected with the CMS detector at the LHC and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 5.0 fb[superscript −1]. The measured cross sections are compared to predictions from Monte Carlo generators, MadGraph + pythia and sherpa, and to next-to-leading-order calculations from BlackHat + sherpa. The differential cross sections are found to be in agreement with the predictions, apart from the pT distributions of the leading jets at high pT values, the distributions of the HT at high-HT and low jet multiplicity, and the distribution of the difference in azimuthal angle between the leading jet and the muon at low values.United States. Dept. of EnergyNational Science Foundation (U.S.)Alfred P. Sloan Foundatio