Methamphetamine Injection Independently Predicts Hepatitis C Infection Among Street-Involved Youth in a Canadian Setting

Street-involved youth are an important population with respect to hepatitis C. We therefore undertook this study to determine factors associated with HCV-antibody-positive status among street-involved youth. Vulnerabilities included injection drug use and at least once-daily heroin and crystal methamphetamine injection. Implementing injection drug use prevention, evidence-based opioid substitution and crystal methamphetamine treatment programs for street-involved youth is critical.     

Myofibrillar Myopathies: A Clinical and Myopathological Guide

Myofibrillar myopathies (MFMs) are histopathologically characterized by desmin-positive protein aggregates and myofibrillar degeneration. Because of the marked phenotypic and pathomorphological variability, establishing the diagnosis of MFM can be a challenging task. While MFMs are partly caused by mutations in genes encoding for extramyofibrillar proteins (desmin, αB-crystallin, plectin) or myofibrillar proteins (myotilin, Z-band alternatively spliced PDZ-containing protein, filamin C, Bcl-2-associated athanogene-3, four-and-a-half LIM domain 1), a large number of these diseases are caused by still unresolved gene defects. Although recent years have brought new insight into the pathogenesis of MFMs, the precise molecular pathways and sequential steps that lead from an individual gene defect to progressive muscle damage are still unclear. This review focuses on the clinical and myopathological aspects of genetically defined MFMs, and shall provide a diagnostic guide for this numerically significant group of protein aggregate myopathies.     

Timing of growth hormone treatment affects trabecular bone microarchitecture and mineralization in growth hormone deficient mice

Growth hormone (GH) is essential in the development of bone mass, and a growth hormone deficiency (GHD) in childhood is frequently treated with daily injections of GH. It is not clear what effect GHD and its treatment has on bone. It was hypothesized that GHD would result in impaired microarchitecture, and an early onset of treatment would result in a better recovery than late onset.Growth hormone deficient homozygous (lit/lit) mice of both sexes were divided into two treatment groups receiving daily injections of GH, starting at an early (21 days of age) or a late time point (35 days of age, corresponding to the end of puberty). A group of heterozygous mice with normal levels of growth hormone served as controls. In vivo micro-computed tomography scans of the fourth lumbar vertebra were obtained at five time points between 21 and 60 days of age, and trabecular morphology and volumetric BMD were analyzed to determine the effects of GH on bone microarchitecture.Early GH treatment led to significant improvements in bone volume ratio (p = 0.006), tissue mineral density (p = 0.005), and structure model index (p = 0.004) by the study endpoint (day 60), with no detected change in trabecular thickness. Trabecular number increased and trabecular separation decreased in GHD mice regardless of treatment compared to heterozygous mice. This suggests fundamental differences in the structure of trabecular bone in GHD and GH treated mice, reflected by an increased number of thinner trabeculae in these mice compared to heterozygous controls. There were no significant differences between the late treatment group and GHD mice except for connectivity density. Taken together, these results indicate that bone responds to GH treatment initiated before puberty but not to treatment commencing post-puberty, and that GH treatment does not rescue the structure of trabecular bone to that of heterozygous controls.     

Mathematical relationships between bone density and mechanical properties: a literature review

BACKGROUND: In many published studies, elastic properties of bone are correlated to the bone density, in order to derive an empirical elasticity-density relationship. The most common use of these relationships is the prediction of the bone local properties from medical imaging data in subject-specific numerical simulation studies. The proposed relationships are substantially different one from the other. It is unclear whether such differences in elasticity-density relationships can be entirely explained in terms of methodological discrepancies among studies. METHODS: All relevant literature was reviewed. Only elasticity-density relationships derived from similarly controlled experiments were included and properly normalized. The resulting relationships were grouped according to the most important methodological differences: type of end support during testing, specimen geometry, and anatomical sampling location. FINDINGS: Even after normalization with respect to strain rate and densitometric measurement unit, substantial inter-study differences do exist, and they can only be partially explained by the methodological differences between studies. INTERPRETATION: Some recommendations are made for the application of elasticity-density relationships to subject-specific finite element studies. The importance of defining a standardized mechanical testing methodology for bone specimens is stressed, and some guidelines that emerged from the literature are proposed. To identify density-elasticity relationships suitable for use in subject-specific FE studies, the development of a benchmark study is also proposed, where the elasticity-density relationship is taken as the variable under study, and a numerical model of known numerical accuracy predicts experimental strain measurements.