A prospective study to assess the efficacy of tranexamic acid in reducing blood loss during total hip arthroplasty

Background: Tranexamic acid has been reported to reduce bleeding, risk of thromboembolic events and the need for allogenic blood transfusion in total hip replacement patients. The present study was conducted to assess the efficacy of tranexamic acid in reducing blood loss during total hip replacement surgery.Methods: Total hip arthroplasty patients (n=60) were divided into control and test groups with 30 patients each. Test group was administered with tranexamic acid (15 mg/kg) for 15 min before and after the surgery. Patients were administered cefuroxime (1.5 g), 30 min prior to the surgery and deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis; enoxaparin (40 mg), 48 hours after surgery. Demographic details along with levels of hemoglobin and blood loss before, during and after the surgery were recorded.Results: Tranexamic acid reduced the early post-surgical blood loss (292±132.38 vs. 155.8±86.56 ml; p<0.0001), total blood loss (989.6±340.98 vs. 580.4±131.88 ml; p<0.0001), and the blood loss during surgery (723.5±277.73 vs. 434.3±131.83 ml; p<0.05). Test group required fewer transfusions (6.7%) than control group (26%) and had no increased incidence of deep-vein thrombosis. Postsurgical hemoglobin in the control group had significantly reduced as compared to test group.Conclusions: Administration of intravenous tranexamic acid before and after the surgery was effective in reducing the blood loss and transfusion requirements and its related complications

Green electrochemical sensors based on ionic liquid nanocomposites for detection of environmental pollutants

387-398Industrialization and globalization have caused a huge burden on the limited natural resources, which releases various environmental pollutants such as toxic metal ions and pesticides. World Health Organisation (WHO) has set a maximum permissible limit for these toxic pollutants in water, above which, it is unsuitable for drinking purpose. There are various techniques available for the determination of such pollutants like ICP-MS, HPLC, FAAS etc. that are costly, cumbersome, and time consuming. Whereas, electrochemical sensors are portable, fast and can perform multi-analyte sensing. Electrochemical sensor can be made selective by fabricating with nanocomposites having different functional groups. Nowadays, trend of utilizing greener materials in research field is being highly appreciated in accordance with the principles of green chemistry for the application and development of electrochemical sensors. Ionic liquids having non-volatility, low toxicity, wide potential window, high electrochemical stability and conductivity have shown sustainable electrochemical sensing applications. Nanocomposite of these ionic liquids as a sensing platform have been extensively used in electrochemical detection of various pollutants. This work provides a literature survey of different ionic liquid nanocomposite based sensing platform for electrochemical detection of toxic pesticides and heavy metals. They have demonstrated good sensitivity with detection limit below WHO guidelines

E3 ubiquitin ligase Fbw7 negatively regulates granulocytic differentiation by targeting G-CSFR for degradation

AbstractTight control between activation and attenuation of granulocyte colony stimulating factor receptor (G-CSFR) signaling is essential to regulate survival, proliferation and differentiation of myeloid progenitor cells. Previous studies demonstrated negative regulation of G-CSFR through endosomal–lysosomal routing and ubiquitin–proteasome mediated degradation. However, very few E3 ubiquitin ligases are known to target G-CSFR for ubiquitin–proteasome pathway. Here we identified F-box and WD repeat domain-containing 7 (Fbw7), a substrate recognizing component of Skp–Cullin–F box (SCF) E3 ubiquitin Ligase physically associates with G-CSFR and promotes its ubiquitin-mediated proteasomal degradation. Our data shows that Fbw7 also interacts with and degrades G-CSFR-T718 (a truncated mutant of G-CSFR found in severe congenital neutropenia/acute myeloid leukemia (SCN/AML patients)) though at a quite slower rate compared to G-CSFR. We further show that glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK3β), like Fbw7 also targets G-CSFR and G-CSFR-T718 for degradation; however, Fbw7 and GSK3β are interdependent in targeting G-CSFR/G-CSFR-T718 for degradation because they are unable to degrade G-CSFR individually when either of them is knocked down. We further show that Fbw7 mediated downregulation of G-CSFR inhibits signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) phosphorylation which is required for G-CSF dependent granulocytic differentiation. In addition, our data also shows that inhibition of Fbw7 restores G-CSFR signaling leading to enhanced STAT3 activity resulting in massive granulocytic differentiation. These data indicate that Fbw7 together with GSK3β negatively regulates G-CSFR expression and its downstream signaling

Luminescence Properties of CaF 2

Nanostructures of calcium fluoride (CaF2) doped with Eu, Tb, Dy, Cu, and Ag were synthesized by the coprecipitation method and studied for their thermoluminescence (TL) and photoluminescence (PL) properties. The PL emission spectrum of pure CaF2 nanostructure has a broad band in the 370–550 nm range. Similar spectra were observed in case of doped samples, beside extra bands related to these impurities. The maximum PL intensity was observed in Eu doped sample. The TL results of Eu, Cu, Ag, and Tb doped samples show weak glow peaks below 125°C, whereas Dy doped one is found to be highly sensitive with a prominent peak at 165°C. This sample was further exposed to a wide range of gamma rays exposures from 137Cs source. The response curve is linear in the 100 Gy-10 kGy range. It is also observed that the particle size of CaF2 nanostructure was significantly reduced by increasing Dy concentration. These results showed that Dy is a proper activator in the host of CaF2 nanostructure, providing a highly sensitive dosimeter in a wide range of exposures and also plays a role as a controlling agent for particle size growth

Disposable Patterned Electroceutical Dressing (PED-10) Is Safe for Treatment of Open Clinical Chronic Wounds

Objective: To evaluate if patterned electroceutical dressing (PED) is safe for human chronic wounds treatment as reported by wound care providers. Approach: This work reports a pilot feasibility study with the primary objective to determine physically observable effects of PED application on host tissue response from a safety evaluation point of view. For this pilot study, patients receiving a lower extremity amputation with at least one open wound on the part to be amputated were enrolled. Patients were identified through the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center (OSUWMC) based on inclusion and exclusion criteria through prescreening through the Comprehensive Wound Center's (CWC) Limb Preservation Program and wound physicians and/or providers at OSUWMC. Wounds were treated with the PED before amputation surgery. Results: The intent of the study was to identify if PED was safe for clinical application based on visual observations of adverse or lack of adverse events on skin and wound tissue. The pilot testing performed on a small cohort (N = 8) of patients showed that with engineered voltage regulation of current flow to the open wound, the PED can be used with little to no visually observable adverse effects on chronic human skin wounds. Innovation: The PED was developed as a second-generation tunable electroceutical wound care dressing, which could potentially be used to treat wounds with deeper infections compared with current state of the art that treats wounds with treatment zone limited to the surface near topical application. Conclusion: Technology advances in design and fabrication of electroceutical dressings were leveraged to develop a tunable laboratory prototype that could be used as a disposable low-cost electroceutical wound care dressing on chronic wounds. Design revisions of PED-1 (1 kΩ ballast resistor) circumvented previously observed adverse effects on the skin in the vicinity of an open wound. PED-10 (including a 10 kΩ ballast resistor) was well tolerated in the small cohort of patients (N = 8) on whom it was tested, and the observations reported here warrant a larger study to determine the clinical impact on human wound healing and infection control