Month: July 2020

The increase in biofilm formation on these surfaces may be due to the release of calcium ions from MTA and Dycal upon reaction with phosphate ions in the BHI broth to produce calcium phosphate deposits on the material surfaces, which increases the surface roughness and thus promotes bacterial adhesion. Moreover, although CFU counts and metabolic activity results showed no significant differences between the experimental and positive control material surfaces regarding S. mutans biofilm formation, the results of Live/Dead staining and SEM observation showed that more bacteria adhered to the experimental material surfaces than to the positive control surfaces. This may be because experimental material could also release calcium ions to produce calcium phosphate deposits on its surface in BHI broth, like MTA and Dycal can, and increased numbers of adherent bacteria were still killed by the NVP-BEZ235 antibacterial activity of the material. The developed composite resin is cured by light irradiation for 60 s, and therefore, the curing time for the new composite material containing the light-curable resin is reduced to approximately 1 minute compared to 202 minutes for MTA, which improves the handling characteristics of the material. The curing time for the developed material is also somewhat shorter than that of Dycal. Although the pulp-capping effects of QAS antibacterial resin and PC have been confirmed by previous studies, that of the novel material combining both materials still remains to be verified in a further in vivo study. Furthermore, the present study only evaluated the antibacterial activity in an in vitro study, and additional important parameters for pulp capping materials such as the physical properties, chemical properties, bioactivity and biological properties, need to be evaluated in further experiments. Therefore, continued assessments of the physicochemical and biological properties of the material developed in this study are in progress. High blood pressure and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease are two emerging clinical problems in children closely related to the epidemic of childhood obesity. NAFLD is now the most common cause of chronic liver disease in children in the United States with an estimated prevalence of 9.6%. High blood pressure in childhood is likely to persist into adulthood, and is a risk factor in adulthood for atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease. NAFLD itself has been linked to cardiovascular disease in both children and adults. In adults with NAFLD, cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death., In children with NAFLD, studies have reported high blood pressure as part of the metabolic syndrome; however, blood pressure has not been evaluated as the focal point of any of these studies. Thus, many questions remain about the prevalence of high blood pressure and its associated risk factors in children with NAFLD. Moreover, there have been no longitudinal studies of blood pressure among children with NAFLD.

They did not know they were taking part in a trial and that the focus of the study was on their alcohol consumption. The trial has low risk of bias from randomisation sequence generation, allocation to experimental groups and blinding of intervention facilitator and outcome assessor, as outlined in the Methods. The protocol was published to guard against reporting bias and the high rates of follow-up minimise the likelihood of response bias. This trial was designed to minimise the impact of assessment on alcohol consumption, with the 3-item AUDIT-C questionnaire the only alcohol-related measure used at baseline. Collection of AUDIT-C data was necessary to establish eligibility for the trial, therefore reactivity of assessment was minimised rather than eliminated and may have been responsible for the slight reduction in score within both groups at follow-up. Although this trial did not quite meet its pre-defined sample size, the 95% confidence intervals around the XAV939 primary outcome were narrow and excluded the 20% reduction in alcohol intake used to power the sample size calculation. Therefore, the study was sufficiently powered and we can conclude with some certainty that there was no evidence of a difference between groups. The study team worked closely with the organisation’s communications team to advertise the health check on the company’s web-portal, in-line with their standard procedure; the trial could not have been conducted without the support and guidance of the occupational health lead. Only 3% of the total workforce took part in the health check. Comparing the health behaviours of the participants in this study with the general adult population in England suggests that fewer of the participants were smokers, but median number of portions of fruit and vegetables was lower than average, as was median number of minutes of physical activity. In contrast, the proportion of employees exceeding the threshold for alcohol misuse was higher than the national average. Whilst there was a large proportion of employees who exceeded the drinking threshold, the average score on the AUDIT-C was low. It is therefore unsurprising that there was no difference in alcoholrelated harm when this population was unlikely to be experiencing problems at baseline. We do not know whether the health behaviours of the participants in this study are representative of this individual organisation. Long-term evaluation of between group differences was not possible in this trial due to the wait-list design and the imminent launch of the company’s alcohol campaign, which would include a designated website with online tools for reducing drinking, opportunities for screening and feedback and possibly a road show. This campaign would have contaminated the study, therefore follow-up data was collected before the end of 2012 so that the company could launch their alcohol campaign in early January 2013. Epidemiological studies continue to report a high prevalence of obesity amongst the leisure population of horses and ponies in the UK. The well-documented negative impacts of obesity on health and performance have led to obesity being considered one of the major welfare issues in horses and ponies facing industrialised nations today.

Hence the core intervention was screening and personalised feedback, with the option of a more extended intervention for those who wanted. This study found that among high-risk participants, there were significantly greater reductions in weekend LY2109761 drinking and drinking to intoxication in participants receiving the intervention compared with those receiving the control, whereas no difference in drinking outcomes was found between experimental groups in low-risk participants. The inclusion of non-drinkers or light drinkers was thought to dilute the intervention effect and offer a possible explanation for the neutral finding in a trial of online screening and personalised feedback on multiple risk behaviours, based in a student health centre. Participants in this study were aged 17–24, half were female and all were university students. At six week follow-up, there was no difference between groups intervention, 2) assessment-only and 3) minimal contact) in the proportion of students drinking within recommended limits for binge drinking. The inclusion of low-risk drinkers does not explain the neutral finding in our trial as all participants were drinking above recommended limits. There is no internationally agreed cutoff score for the AUDIT-C, with advocated thresholds for detecting hazardous drinking ranging from 2 to 5 in women and 3 to 6 in men. The AUDIT-C cut-off score of 5 or more used in this trial reflects clinical guidance in England and was most accurate in detecting drinking above UK weekly limits in a trial of people seeking help with their drinking online. The neutral findings of this trial do not appear to be explained by a floor effect as our post-hoc analysis of participants with a baseline AUDIT-C score of eight or more found no benefits for the intervention. A challenge that faces the interpretation of many trials of online interventions is that they evaluate access to the intervention, rather than engagement or use of it. We do not know whether people read the feedback, particularly when it was presented alongside feedback on other health behaviours. Alternatively, the feedback may not have been perceived as relevant or valid, for example if the recommended limits are not seen as reliable. It may also be that the type of feedback was not effective at reducing alcohol intake, where effective online SBI in student populations often includes normative feedback. It is possible that the control condition may have been contaminated as the trial was conducted in one organisation although this would have required employees to share information about their responses to the questionnaire and the feedback obtained. It is also questionable whether personalised feedback delivered to someone else would impact on another person’s drinking behaviour. This trial was supported by a small budget and conducted within a tight timeframe which militated against a qualitative exploration of the experience of people taking part in this study which may have illuminated the neutral findings. Future studies in this field would benefit from exploring the feasibility of delivering an online health check in the workplace, by considering the issues that affect participation and engagement with the intervention, along with the challenges of conducting a trial in this setting.

In this study we hypothesized that methylation of key genes is a molecular mechanism leading to cisplatin resistance. We decided to investigate DNA methylation as a resistance mechanism because it is reversible by available drugs. We used SCC-25 and its cisplatin-resistant counterpart, SCC-25/CP, and determined that pre-treatment with the demethylating drug decitabine enhanced the anti-proliferative and apoptotic effect of cisplatin on these cell lines. In our HNSCC mouse model, combination treatment with decitabine and cisplatin produced a more robust anti-tumor effect than either drug alone. Decitabine pre-treatment in vitro reversed cisplatin-resistance in SCC-25/CP cells, and lowered the dose of cisplatin required to produce antiproliferative or apoptotic effects. Interestingly, decitabine pretreatment also lowered the dose of cisplatin required for cisplatinsensitive SCC-25 cells. The clinical significance of our results is that decitabine could salvage patients with cisplatin-resistant tumors; moreover, allowing for reduced toxicity. Previous studies have explored the effectiveness of epigenetic therapy in rescuing cisplatin resistance in other cancers. Adding hydralazine and valproate to cisplatin therapy significantly increased progression-free survival in advanced stage cervical cancer patients. A phase I trial for patients with solid tumors showed that combination treatment of decitabine followed by carboplatin is safe. A phase II study adding valproate and hydralazine to the same schedule of chemotherapy on which patients with solid cancers were progressing showed clinical benefit in 12 of 15 patients. At the same time there have been studies adding demethylating agents to platinum-based chemotherapy with negative results. A phase II trial randomized ovarian cancer patients progressing 6–12 months after previous platinum therapy to one of two groups: one group would receive decitabine with carboplatin, and the second group would receive carboplatin alone. However the study closed after an interim BMS-907351 analysis showed that the combination group had lack of efficacy and poor treatment deliverability. Our dose scheduling of decitabine and cisplatin is based on previous work in ovarian and colon carcinoma showing that multiple doses of decitabine are required prior to cisplatin administration to maximally sensitize xenografts to cisplatin. In addition to reduced survival, head and neck cancer patients have significant function-limiting pain, which is either cancerinduced or treatment-induced. While survival and pain seem like unrelated issues, a recent randomized clinical trial shows that aggressive pain management in advanced-stage cancer patients significantly improves quality of life and increases survival. Peripheral neuropathy is a major toxic side effect of cisplatin and contributes to pain. The behavioral assay that we used on our preclinical model detects both cancer-induced pain and neuropathic pain. We showed that combination therapy of decitabine and cisplatin resulted in significantly reduced mechanical pain. While nociception in our preclinical model was likely cancer-induced, decitabine treatment potentially reduces the required cisplatin dose, thus minimizing peripheral neuropathy.

Breath-hold imaging and respiratory triggering have been suggested as techniques to overcome these problems. DTI is a development from diffusion-weighted MRI, which allows the quantification of diffusion in different directions. Diffusion anisotropy is related to structural organization and therefore could be compromised in a pathological process. Molecular diffusion, however, is a three-dimensional process which can occur with different probabilities in each direction, i.e. in an anisotropic manner. This is the case in the kidney, which has a well-defined structure with tubules, collecting ducts and vessels radially oriented towards the pelvis and in which molecules move in a preferential direction. The measurement of global diffusion and the direction of the diffusion is necessary to investigate molecular diffusion in the kidney. DTI can provide three indices related to the magnitude of diffusivity from the mathematical description of the system. These indices are the mean, axial and radial diffusivity. MD is the average of the average diffusion coefficient in all three directions and is a reflection of the magnitude of the tensor that describes the system. AD is the first eigenvalue, and occurs in the longitudinal direction of the tensor. RD is the average of the second and third eigenvalues. It is related to diffusion along the radial direction. The three indices are related to diffusional anisotropy and fractional anisotropy. The measurement of MD, AD, RD and FA in a healthy kidney has not yet been reported in the literature. The aim of our study was to evaluate the diffusivity characteristics of the renal cortex and medulla and provide baseline data for future studies. In this pilot study, we identified significantly higher mean cortical MD, l2, l3, and RD. The primary eigenvalue l1 was the largest and least restricted diffusivity and, in a medullary tubule, reflected motion along the length of the tubule. This included intratubular flow, whose direction was specified by the primary diffusion eigenvector, The secondary and tertiary eigenvalues reflected lower restricted diffusion orthogonal to l1. In the medulla this corresponded to cross-tubule or transtubular motion. These differences in DTI indices reflected the renal Vismodegib 879085-55-9 anatomic and physiological structure. The chief function of the kidney is filtration of plasma and formation of urine. The renal blood flow, in particular blood flow to the renal cortex, is much greater than that needed for the metabolic requirements of the kidney. Most blood is directed towards the renal cortex to optimize glomerular filtration and reabsorption of solute. The renal cortex requires rich perfusion to function properly, while the renal medulla requires limited blood flow. The maintenance of a relatively low medullary blood flow appears to be critical for maintaining the cortical-medullary solute gradient and, therefore, urinary concentrating mechanisms. Blood is supplied to the renal medulla from the vasa recta capillaries. The vasa recta capillaries arise from the efferent arterioles of the juxtamedullary glomeruli, which comprise about 10% of all glomeruli in the kidney. While all blood flow to the kidney enters the renal cortex, only about 10% reaches the renal medulla.