Prosthodontic rehabilitation of a patient with total avulsion of the maxilla: a clinical report

Patients with complete avulsion of the palate may require extensive surgical and prosthodontic rehabilitation. The prosthesis should replace not only missing teeth but also lost soft tissues and bone, including the hard palate, residual alveolar ridges, and in some situations, the soft palate. This clinical report describes the prosthetic rehabilitation, after appropriate surgical options had been exhausted, of a patient with bilateral traumatic avulsion of the maxilla.     

Translational Regulation as a Novel Mechanism for the Development of Cellular Drug Resistance

Cellular drug resistance is one of the principal obstacles to the clinical efficacy of cancer chemotherapy. In this review, we describe the potential role for translational regulation as a novel mechanism for modulating chemosensitivity. The evidence for the translational control of thymidylate synthase, dihydrofolate reductase, and p53 will be presented, as will experimental data showing how disruptions in this important regulatory process can lead to the rapid emergence of cellular drug resistance.     

A Comparison of Medical Symptoms Reported by Cocaine-, Opiate-, and Alcohol-Dependent Patients

Substance abuse is frequently associated with adverse medical consequences. The differences in medical symptoms reported by 101 alcohol-, 113 cocaine-, and 107 opiate-dependent individuals receiving outpatient treatment were studied using a 134-item questionnaire (MILCOM). Data analysis revealed interesting and unexpected findings, with cocaine patients reporting the fewest total symptoms among the three groups. Moreover, cocaine patients reported significantly fewer CNS and musculoskeletal symptoms compared to both alcohol and opiate patients and significantly fewer GI and urinary symptoms than the alcohol but not the opiate patients. In addition, there were sex- and race-related differences in the pattern of symptoms reported. Women reported significantly more CVS, mood, nose/throat, CNS, skin, and GI symptoms than men. Similarly, Caucasians reported significantly more mood, CNS, nose/throat, head/neck, musculoskeletal, and GI symptoms than African-Americans. The study highlights the influence of drug of choice, gender, and race on medical needs of substance-abusing persons.     

Epistasis between a set of variations located in the TAAR6 and HSP-70 genes toward schizophrenia and response to antipsychotic treatment

Suggestive associations have been reported between trace amines and heat shock proteins, and a disrupted pathophysiology that enhances the risk of psychosis and that modifies responses to antipsychotic treatments. Our group previously reported genetic studies on TAAR6 and HSP-70 separately in patients with schizophrenia. In the current study, we investigated possible epistasis between the same set of variations in a sample of 281 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 288 healthy controls. We applied the generalized multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) method and controlled covariates significantly associated with both diagnosis and treatment efficacy. To the best of our knowledge, epistasis between the present set of variations in schizophrenia has not been tested before. We found significant associations with both the risk of disease and response to treatment. However, the insufficiently balanced accuracy of the applied tests suggests that, despite significantly different genetic variations between cases and controls, these factors have a poor predictive value. Explanations for these findings and possible future directions are also discussed.     

The relationship of complement-mediated microvasculopathy to the histologic features and clinical duration of disease in dermatomyositis

Accumulating evidence indicates that a complement-mediated microvasculopathy may play a pathogenic role in dermatomyositis. In a previous study, we demonstrated neoantigens of the C5b-9 complement membrane attack complex in the muscle microvasculature of childhood and adult cases of dermatomyositis. To further characterize the relationship between the vascular complement deposits and histologic changes, quantitative histopathologic analyses were performed on 39 dermatomyositis biopsy specimens (26 adult, 13 children). There was a significant correlation between the percentage of fascicles with fibers having focal myofibrillar loss, a change seen early in the evolution of ischemic muscle fiber damage, and the percentage of fascicles having capillary deposits of membrane attack complex. Conversely, in biopsy specimens with a higher percentage of fascicles with perifascicular atrophy, membrane attack complex deposits were significantly less common. A fascicle-by-fascicle analysis supported these observations. Patients whose biopsy specimens were negative for microvascular membrane attack complex had clinical weakness for a significantly longer time than those patients with vascular complement deposits. These data support the hypothesis that the complement-mediated vasculopathy is a primary immunopathogenic event in the evolution of muscle lesions in dermatomyositis.