What is the most cost-effective treatment for patients with low back pain? A systematic review

Economic evaluations of the various interventions available for low back pain will help clinicians and policymakers to identify the most beneficial treatment. This chapter aims to evaluate the most cost-effective treatments for patients with non-specific low back pain. Pubmed, Embase and the Cochrane library were used to search for articles published from 1966 to July 2004 using a variety of keywords. References were checked to identify additional studies. The consensus health economic criteria (CHEC) list was used to assess the methodological quality of the studies. We found 17 studies; six of these concluded that the intervention of interest was superior to the control intervention. However, definite conclusions about the most cost-effective intervention could not be drawn because of the heterogeneity of interventions, controls and study populations. More high-quality economic evaluations are needed before such a conclusion can be made.     

An optimal therapeutic expression level is crucial for suicide gene therapy for hepatic metastatic cancer in mice

The most serious problem in current gene therapy is discrepancies between experimental data and actual clinical outcomes, which may be due to insufficient analyses and/or inappropriate animal models. We have explored suicide gene therapy by using various clinically relevant animal models and doubt the clinical use of maximal suicide gene expression, which has been generally recommended. To explore this subject further, we studied what expression level of suicide gene and what promoter led to the maximal clinical benefit in the case of hepatic metastatic cancer in mice. Therapeutic and adverse side effects of 4 adenoviral vectors that express herpes simplex virus thymidine kinase (HSV-tk) under different promoters were scrupulously investigated in 2 mouse models of hepatic metastasis of gastric cancer that possess clinical characteristics. Surprisingly, increases in HSV-tk expression beyond a certain point, achieved by the Rous sarcoma virus long terminal repeat promoter, not only enhanced the adverse side effects of lethal hepatotoxicity and ganciclovir-independent cytotoxicity but also failed to further increase therapeutic potential. Moreover, the carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) tumor-specific promoter, the therapeutic potential of which had been underestimated, was much more useful-even in the case of low CEA-producing cancer-than had been previously reported. In conclusion, the optimal therapeutic expression level of a suicide gene is a novel concept and a crucial factor for successful cancer gene therapy. The present results, which contradict those of previous studies, alert researchers about possible problems with ongoing and future clinical trials that lack this concept.     

Comparison of Disfluent and Ungrammatical Speech of Preadolescents with and without ASD

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders - This paper analyses disfluencies and ungrammatical expressions in the speech of 11–13-year-old Finnish-speaking boys with ASD...     

Prevalence of Capillaria hepatica in non-commensal rodents from a forest area near Dijon, France

Capillaria hepatica is a zoonotic parasite (nematode) found in the liver of many mammals, especially rodents, worldwide. In this study, 94 non-commensal rodents were trapped in a forest area near Dijon, France, including 65 Apodemus spp. and 29 Myodes glareolus. Pathology was studied on the liver of each rodent. Histological lesions consisting of chronic multifocal granulomatous hepatitis due to both eggs and adult forms of the parasite were observed in the liver of eight M. glareolus and one Apodemus spp. The global prevalence of 9.6 % was significantly higher in M. glareolus (27.6 %) compared to Apodemus spp. (1.5 %) living in the same ecosystem. No significant difference in the infection rate was found between males and females of M. glareolus. Gross pathological lesions compatible with capillariasis were observed in four of nine rodents. These results raise the role of wild rodents in the maintenance of capillariasis in nature, and their possible role in the transmission to humans.     

Verification of antibacterial activity to enamel surfaces of new type of surface coating

ObjectivePrevention is difficult to decrease dental caries only via the partial application of fluoride. The GC Co. has developed a coating material adhesive containing fluoride and zinc. It is thought that this zinc has an effect which prevents dental caries. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of the Caredyne Shield® (CS) on biofilm generation by S. mutans, as compared to an acidulated phosphate fluoride (APF) gel.Materials and methodsWe performed the comparative study of the biofilm inhibitory effect which used the enamel of bovine teeth. Specimens were separated into a control group, an APF gel group, and a CS group. Biofilms were generated by adherent S. mutans. We observed the antibacterial weigh by the creation state of Biofilms.ResultsSignificant difference was observed in the number of bacterial colonies formed after 24 h, the number of bacterial colonies formed from detached S. mutans from the CS-treated experimental group were fewer in number than in the other group (p < 0.01). The biofilm formed by S. mutans 72 h after dissemination on the enamel surface was visible by fluorescence microscopy (Live/Dead staining method) and under the scanning electron microscope, in the CS-treated group, no plastic structures were observed, as the models were free of the biofilm and only scattered S. mutans cells were observed.ConclusionWe showed in this study the efficacy of CS in controlling the formation of biofilm. From such a result, we conclude that CS is a novel anticaries agent.