Relationship between spine osteoarthritis,bone mineral density and bone turn over markers in post menopausal women

Background  

Several studies have observed an inverse relationship between osteoporosis and spinal osteoarthritis, the latter being considered as possibly delaying the development of osteoporosis. The aim of this study was to determine the association between individual radiographic features of spine degeneration, bone mineral density (BMD) and bone-turn over markers.     

Vitamin D and cognitive performance in adults: a systematic review

Chronic low serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) concentrations are common in adults and are associated with numerous non-skeletal diseases. Vitamin D receptors (VDR) are located in the human cortex and hippocampus, which are key areas for cognition. The objective of this study was to systematically review all published data from the past 30 years which examined the association between serum 25OHD concentrations and cognitive performance in adults. An English and French Medline, PsycINFO^® and Cochrane Library search ranging from 1979 to 2008 indexed under the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) terms 'Vitamin D' or 'Hydroxycholecalciferols' combined with the terms 'Dementia' or 'Cognition' or 'Cognition Disorders' or 'Delirium' or 'Memory' or 'Memory Disorders' or 'Orientation' or 'Executive Functions' or 'Attention' or 'Brain' or 'Neuropsychological Tests' was performed. Of the 99 selected studies, five observational studies met the selection criteria and were included in the final analysis. No prospective cohort study was found. The number of participants ranged from 32 to 9556 community-dwelling older adults (45–65% women). Three studies showed four significant positive associations between serum 25OHD concentrations and global cognitive functions, whereas three other studies exploring specific aspects of cognition showed 11 non-significant associations. This systematic review shows that the association between serum 25OHD concentrations and cognitive performance is not yet clearly established. The inconclusive results of the reviewed studies could be due to methodology, types of the cognitive tasks used and/or the cellular mechanisms of vitamin D.     

Behçet's disease in Moroccan children: a report of 12 cases

We report 12 cases of Beh?et's disease (BD) in children. The mean age of symptom onset was 12.4 years. Four patients (33.3%) had a past familial history of BD. Clinical manifestations were: oral aphtosis (n = 12), genital aphtosis (n = 9), ocular involvement (n = 9), neuro-Beh?et (n = 6), venous thrombosis (n = 4), articular involvement (n = 3), and entero-Beh?et (n = 1). All patients but one were initially treated with steroids; three cases with ocular involvement were treated with chlorambucil; and three other cases of neuro-Beh?et were treated with cyclophosphamide. After a mean follow-up of 4 years, four patients with neurological involvement developed steroid-dependence with recurrence of symptoms. Four patients had optic atrophy with blindness.     

Permanent Pacemaker Implantation Following Valve-in-Valve Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement: VIVID Registry

BackgroundPermanent pacemaker implantation (PPI) remains one of the main drawbacks of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), but scarce data exist on PPI after valve-in-valve (ViV) TAVR, particularly with the use of newer-generation transcatheter heart valves (THVs).ObjectivesThe goal of this study was to determine the incidence, factors associated with, and clinical impact of PPI in a large series of ViV-TAVR procedures.MethodsData were obtained from the multicenter VIVID Registry and included the main baseline and procedural characteristics, in-hospital and late (median follow-up: 13 months [interquartile range: 3 to 41 months]) outcomes analyzed according to the need of periprocedural PPI. All THVs except CoreValve, Cribier-Edwards, Sapien, and Sapien XT were considered to be new-generation THVs.ResultsA total of 1,987 patients without prior PPI undergoing ViV-TAVR from 2007 to 2020 were included. Of these, 128 patients (6.4%) had PPI after TAVR, with a significant decrease in the incidence of PPI with the use of new-generation THVs (4.7% vs. 7.4%; p = 0.017), mainly related to a reduced PPI rate with the Evolut R/Pro versus CoreValve (3.7% vs. 9.0%; p = 0.002). There were no significant differences in PPI rates between newer-generation balloon- and self-expanding THVs (6.1% vs. 3.9%; p = 0.18). In the multivariable analysis, older age (odds ratio [OR]: 1.05 for each increase of 1 year; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.02 to 1.07; p = 0.001), larger THV size (OR: 1.10; 95% CI: 1.01 to 1.20; p = 0.02), and previous right bundle branch block (OR: 2.04; 95% CI: 1.00 to 4.17; p = 0.05) were associated with an increased risk of PPI. There were no differences in 30-day mortality between the PPI (4.7%) and no-PPI (2.7%) groups (p = 0.19), but PPI patients exhibited a trend toward higher mortality risk at follow-up (hazard ratio: 1.39; 95% CI: 1.02 to 1.91; p = 0.04; p = 0.08 after adjusting for age differences between groups).ConclusionsIn a contemporary large series of ViV-TAVR patients, the rate of periprocedural PPI was relatively low, and its incidence decreased with the use of new-generation THV systems. PPI following ViV-TAVR was associated with a trend toward increased mortality at follow-up.     

Gut microbiome compositional and functional differences between tumor and non-tumor adjacent tissues from cohorts from the US and Spain

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer in the world and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the US and Spain. The molecular mechanisms involved in the etiology of CRC are not yet elucidated due in part to the complexity of the human gut microbiota. In this study, we compared the microbiome composition of 90 tumor and matching adjacent tissue (adjacent) from cohorts from the US and Spain by 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing in order to determine the impact of the geographic origin on the CRC microbiome. Data showed a significantly (P < 0.05) higher Phylogenetic Diversity (PD) for the US (PD Adjacent = 26.3 ± 5.3, PD Tumor = 23.3 ± 6.2) compared to the Spanish cohort (PD Adjacent = 18.9 ± 5.9, PD Tumor = 18.7 ± 6.6) while no significant differences in bacterial diversity were observed between tumor and adjacent tissues for individuals from the same country. Adjacent tissues from the Spanish cohort were enriched in Firmicutes (SP = 43.9% and US = 22.2%, P = 0.0001) and Actinobacteria (SP = 1.6% and US = 0.5%, P = 0.0018) compared to US adjacent tissues, while adjacent tissues from the US had significantly higher abundances of Fusobacteria (US = 8.1% and SP = 1.5%, P = 0.0023) and Sinergistetes (US = 0.3% and SP = 0.1%, P = 0.0097). Comparisons between tumor and adjacent tissues in each cohort identified the genus Eikenella significantly over represented in US tumors (T = 0.024% and A = 0%, P = 0.03), and the genera Fusobacterium (T = 10.4% and A = 1.5%, P = <0.0001), Bulleida (T = 0.36% and A = 0.09%, P = 0.02), Gemella (T = 1.46% and A = 0.19%, P = 0.03), Parvimonas (T = 3.14% and A = 0.86%, P = 0.03), Campylobacter (T = 0.15% and A = 0.008%, P = 0.047), and Streptococcus (T = 2.84% and A = 2.19%, P = 0.05) significantly over represented in Spanish tumors. Predicted metagenome functional content from 16S rRNA surveys showed that bacterial motility proteins and proteins involved in flagellar assembly were over represented in adjacent tissues of both cohorts, while pathways involved in fatty acid biosynthesis, the MAPK signaling pathway, and bacterial toxins were over represented in tumors. Our study suggests that microbiome compositional and functional dissimilarities by geographic location should be taken in consideration when approaching CRC therapeutic options.     

Efficient numerical modelling of time-domain light propagation in curved 3D absorbing and scattering media with finite differences

An efficient approach is introduced for modelling light propagation in the time domain in 3D heterogeneous absorbing and scattering media (e.g. biological tissues) with curved boundaries. It relies on the finite difference method (FDM) in conjuction with the Crank-Nicolson method for accurately solving the optical diffusion equation (DE). The strength of the FDM lies in its simplicity and efficiency, since the equations are easy to set up, and accessing neighboring grid points only requires simple memory operations, leading to efficient code execution. Owing to its use of Cartesian grids, the FDM is generally thought cumbersome compared to the finite element method (FEM) for dealing with media with curved boundaries. However, to apply the FDM to such media, the blocking-off method can be resorted to. To account for the change of the refractive index at the boundary, Robin-type boundary conditions are considered. This requires the computation of surface normals. We resort here for the first time to the Sobel operator borrowed from image processing to perform this task. The Sobel operator is easy to implement, fast, and allows obtaining a smooth field of normal vectors along the boundary. The main contribution of this work is to arrive at a complete numerical FDM-based model of light propagation in the time domain in 3D absorbing and scattering media with curved geometries, taking into account realistic refractive index mismatch boundary conditions. The fluence rate obtained with this numerical model is shown to reproduce well that obtained with independent gold-standard Monte Carlo simulations.     

Grip Strength is a Predictor of Bone Mineral Density Among Adolescent Combat Sport Athletes

The aim of this study was firstly to investigate the correlation between bone parameters and grip strength (GS) in hands, explosive legs power (ELP), and hormonal parameters; second, to identify the most determinant variables of bone mineral density (BMD) among adolescent combat sport athletes. Fifty combat sport athletes aged 17.1 ± 0.2 yr were compared with 30 sedentary subjects matched for age, height, and pubertal stage. For all subjects, the BMD in deferent sites associated with anthropometric parameters were measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. The growth hormone (GH) and testosterone (TESTO) concentrations were tested. The GS in dominant (GSDA) and nondominant arms (GSNDA) and ELP were evaluated. All BMD measured were greater in athletes than in sedentary group (p < 0.01). The GS and ELP showed higher values in athletes than in sedentary group (p < 0.01). The BMD in all sites were correlated with weight, but without correlation with height. The GSNDA and ELP were significantly correlated with BMD of both spine and legs. The GH was correlated with the BMD of whole body and spine (p < 0.05). The TESTO was only correlated with BMD of the arms (p < 0.01). The best predictor of BMD measurements is GSNDA. This study has proved the osteogenic effect of combat sports practice, especially judo and karate kyokushinkai. Therefore, children and adolescent should be encouraged to participate in combat sport. Moreover, it suggested that the best model predicting BMD in different sites among adolescent combat sports athletes was the GSNDA.     

Microglial activation in perinatal rabbit brain induced by intrauterine inflammation: detection with 11C-(R)-PK11195 and small-animal PET.

Intrauterine infection can lead to a fetal inflammatory response syndrome that has been implicated as one of the causes of perinatal brain injury leading to periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) and cerebral palsy. The presence of activated microglial cells has been noted in autopsy specimens of patients with PVL and in models of neonatal hypoxia and ischemia. Activated microglial cells can cause oligodendrocyte damage and white matter injury by release of inflammatory cytokines and production of excitotoxic metabolites. We hypothesized that exposure to endotoxin in utero leads to microglial activation in the fetal brain that can be monitored in vivo by (11)C-(R)-PK11195 (1-[2-chlorophenyl]-N-methyl-N-[1-methylpropyl]-3-isoquinoline carboxamide)--a positron-emitting ligand that binds peripheral benzodiazepine receptor sites in activated microglia--using small-animal PET. METHODS: Pregnant New Zealand White rabbits underwent laparotomy and were injected with 20 and 30 microg/kg of Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide along the length of the uterus on day 28 of gestation. The pups were born spontaneously at term (31 d) and were scanned using small-animal PET after intravenous administration of (11)C-(R)-PK11195 and by MRI on postnatal day 1. The standard uptake values (SUVs) of the tracer were calculated for the whole brain at 10-min intervals for 60 min after tracer injection. The pups were euthanized after the scan, and brains were fixed, sectioned, and stained for microglial cells using biotinylated tomato lectin. RESULTS: There was increased brain retention of (11)C-(R)-PK11195--as determined by a significant difference in the slope of the SUV over time--in the endotoxin-treated pups when compared with that of age-matched controls. Immunohistochemical staining showed dose-dependent changes in activated microglia (increased number and morphologic changes) in the periventricular region and hippocampus of the brain of newborn rabbit pups exposed to endotoxin in utero. CONCLUSION: Intrauterine inflammation leads to activation of microglial cells that may be responsible for the development of brain injury and white matter damage in the perinatal period. PET with the tracer (11)C-(R)-PK11195 can be used as a noninvasive, sensitive tool for determining the presence and progress of neuroinflammation due to perinatal insults in newborns.