Biomarkers of Periodontal Tissue Remodeling during Orthodontic Tooth Movement in Mice and Men: Overview and Clinical Relevance

Tooth movement by orthodontic force application is dependent on remodeling in periodontal ligament and alveolar bone, involving the activation of complex cellular and molecular mechanisms correlated with several macro- and microscopic biological changes. The orthodontic process involves the activation of many complex cellular and molecular mechanisms mediated by the release of chemical substance cascades by many cells of the periodontium. Mainly during the early stage of application of orthodontic forces, an inflammatory process can occur in the periodontium as a physiological response to the tissue stress. Several potential biomarkers of the biological alterations after an orthodontic force application expressing bone resorption and formation, periodontal ligament changes, and vascular and neural responses, may be detected. The appropriate choice of the mechanical force to achieve the highest rate of tooth movement in the shortest time of treatment avoiding adverse consequences is a primary objective of a specialist. Thus, an insight into the biological phenomena occurring during the orthodontic therapies by evaluating these biomarkers may be quite relevant for the clinicians. In this chapter, two models of study, i.e., mice and men, were used to describe the clinical usefulness of some biomarkers in orthodontics

Cleft Lip and Palate Patients: Diagnosis and Treatment

Cleft lip or palate is one of the most common types of craniomaxillofacial birth anomalies. Midface deficiency is a common feature of cleft lip and palate patients due to scar tissue of the lip and palate closure. Cleft lip and palate patients should be carefully evaluated by the craniofacial team in order to detect potentially serious deformities. Craniofacial team is involved with diagnosis of facial morphology, feeding problems, guidance of the growth and development of the face, occlusion, dentition, hearing and speech problems, and psychosocial issues and jaw discrepancy of the patients with cleft lip and palate or craniofacial syndromes. Treatment for cleft children requires a multidisciplinary approach including facial surgery in the first months of life, preventive and interceptive treatment in primary dentition, speech therapy, orthodontics in the mixed dentition phase, oromaxillofacial surgery, and implant and prosthetics in adults. Treatment plan from orthodontic perspective can be divided into the following stages based on the dentition stages: (1) presurgical orthopedics, (2) primary dentition, (3) mixed dentition, and (4) permanent dentition. The aim of this chapter is to assess a rational team work approach in the management of the patient with cleft lip and/or palate from birth to adulthood

A probabilistic approach to the evaluation of seismic resilience in road asset management

Road networks are classified as critical infrastructure systems. Their loss of functionality not only hinders residential and commercial activities, but also compromises evacuation and rescue after disasters. Dealing with risks to key strategic objectives is not new to asset management, and risk management is considered one of the core elements of asset management. Risk analysis has recently focused on understanding and designing strategies for resilience, especially in the case of seismic events that present a significant hazard to highway transportation networks. Following a review of risk and resilience concepts and metrics, an innovative methodology to stochastically assess the economic resources needed to restore damaged infrastructures, one that is a relevant and complementary element within a wider resilience-based framework, is proposed. The original methodology is based on collecting and analyzing ex post reconstruction and hazard data and was calibrated on data measured during the earthquake that struck central Italy in 2016 and collected in the following recovery phase. Although further improvements are needed, the proposed approach can be used effectively by road managers to provide useful information in developing seismic retrofitting plans

Treatment Considerations for Missing Teeth

Specific terms are used to describe the nature of tooth agenesis. Hypodontia is most frequently used when describing the phenomenon of congenitally missing teeth. Many other terms to describe a reduction in the number of teeth appear in the literature: oligodontia, anodontia, aplasia of teeth, congenitally missing teeth, absence of teeth, agenesis of teeth and lack of teeth. The term hypodontia is used when one to six teeth, excluding third molars, are missing, and oligodontia when more than six teeth are absent (excluding the third molars). The long‐term management of hypodontia in the aesthetic zone is a particularly challenging situation. Although there are essentially two distinct approaches to manage this problem, that is space closure or opening for prosthetic replacements, implant or autotransplantation. These patients often manifest with many underlying skeletal and dental problems and a multidisciplinary approach for management of this condition is recommended. Two treatment approaches including space closure and space reopening are described in details in this chapter

Pituitary metastasis: a rare condition

Tumor metastasis to the pituitary gland is a rare, not well-documented and life-threatening condition associated with a shortened life span. A better understanding of its clinical manifestations could lead to earlier diagnosis, appropriate therapy and potentially improving quality of life. Therefore, we retrospectively studied the charts of patients with pituitary metastases who were treated at the City of Hope National Medical Center (Duarte, CA) from 1984 to 2018. We reviewed and analyzed tumor origin, primary pituitary clinical manifestation, duration between primary tumor diagnosis and pituitary metastasis, type of treatment and patient survival. A total of 11 patients were identified with a mean age of 59.2 years and median survival following the diagnosis of metastasis of 10 months. Breast cancer and lymphoma were the most common primary origins in these cases, and diabetes insipidus and panhypopituitarism were the most common clinical manifestations of their metastasis. We also compared our results with reports in the literature published between 1957 and 2018. A total 289 patients with pituitary metastasis have been reported in the literature. Breast cancer was the most frequent primary origin of the metastasis, and visual symptoms were the most common primary manifestation. The posterior part of the pituitary is more susceptible than the anterior to metastasis. Pituitary metastasis may occur as a consequence of successful primary tumor treatment prolonging the chance of seeding. Future studies are needed to determine the molecular mechanism of metastasis to the pituitary

TYMSTR, a putative chemokine receptor selectively expressed in activated T cells, exhibits HIV-1 coreceptor function

AbstractBackground: Chemokines bind to specific receptors and mediate leukocyte migration to sites of inflammation. Recently, some chemokine receptors, notably CXCR4 and CCR5, have been shown to be essential fusion factors on target cells for infection by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); the chemokines bound by these receptors have also been shown to act as potent inhibitors of HIV infection. Here, we describe the isolation of a novel, putative chemokine receptor.Results: We have isolated the cDNA for a putative human chemokine receptor, which we have termed TYMSTR (T-lymphocyte-expressed seven-transmembrane domain receptor). The TYMSTR gene is localized to human chromosome 3 and encodes a protein that has a high level of identity with chemokine receptors. TYMSTR mRNA was selectively expressed in interleukin-2-stimulated T lymphocytes but not in freshly isolated lymphocytes and leukocytes or related cell lines. The natural ligand for TYMSTR was not identified among 32 human chemokines and other potential ligands. Cells co-expressing TYMSTR and human CD4 fused with cells expressing envelope glycoproteins of macrophage (M)-tropic HIV-1 as well as T-cell line (T)-tropic HIV-1 isolates. Addition of infectious, T-tropic HIV-1 particles to TYMSTR/CD4-expressing cells resulted in viral entry and proviral DNA formation.Conclusions: Our findings demonstrate that TYMSTR, in combination with CD4, mediates HIV-1 fusion and entry. The high-level expression of TYMSTR in CD4+ T lymphocytes and the selectivity of this receptor for T-tropic and M-tropic HIV-1 strains indicates that TYMSTR might function as HIV coreceptor at both early and late stages of infection

Development and Implementation of Image-based Algorithms for Measurement of Deformations in Material Testing

This paper presents the development and implementation of three image-based methods used to detect and measure the displacements of a vast number of points in the case of laboratory testing on construction materials. Starting from the needs of structural engineers, three ad hoc tools for crack measurement in fibre-reinforced specimens and 2D or 3D deformation analysis through digital images were implemented and tested. These tools make use of advanced image processing algorithms and can integrate or even substitute some traditional sensors employed today in most laboratories. In addition, the automation provided by the implemented software, the limited cost of the instruments and the possibility to operate with an indefinite number of points offer new and more extensive analysis in the field of material testing. Several comparisons with other traditional sensors widely adopted inside most laboratories were carried out in order to demonstrate the accuracy of the implemented software. Implementation details, simulations and real applications are reported and discussed in this paper