Effects of melatonin supplementation on disease activity,oxidative stress,inflammatory, and metabolic parameters in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial

Clinical Rheumatology - Considering the pathologic significance of inflammation and oxidative stress in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) as well as the antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and hypolipidemic...     

Efficacy of tight control strategy in the treatment of adult-onset Still disease

Clinical Rheumatology - Adult-onset Still’s disease (AOSD) characterized by a high spiking fever, skin rash, arthritis, and leukocytosis. The aim of the present study was considering the...     

Fumaric acids as a novel antagonist of TLR-4 pathway mitigates arsenic-exposed inflammation in human monocyte-derived dendritic cells

Abstract

Exposure to environmentally relevant doses of arsenic has several harmful effects on the human immune system. In traditional Eastern medicines, nettle has been used as an anti-inflammatory agent to treat rheumatism and osteoarthritis. Fumaric acid (FA) as a major effective compound in nettle was chosen based on very accurate virtual screening to find antagonist for TLR4/MD structure. In this study, the in vitro therapeutic effects of FA on arsenic-exposed monocytes-derived dendritic cells (MDDCs) were evaluated. All the canonical functions of dendritic cells in bridging innate and adaptive immune system including phagocytosis and antigen-presenting capacity, and also cytokines secretion, were evaluated after exposure to arsenic/FA. FA profoundly over-expressed antigen-presenting capacity of MDDCs after exposure to arsenic through the upregulation of MHCιι. However, phagocytosis capacity of arsenic-exposed MDDCs is not compensated for, by treatment with FA. Arsenic up-regulates pro-inflammatory cytokines independents of TLR4 pathway. FA surprisingly mitigates the up-regulation of IL-1β and TNF-α but not TLR4 and NF-kB. Moreover, FA increases the viability of MDDCs even at a high dose of arsenic. Totally, FA reduced inflammatory factors induced by arsenic. This finding confirmed that nettle and other medicinal plants containing similar structures with FA could be further analyzed as valuable candidates for the reduction of drastic effects of arsenic in human immune systems.     

Peripheral neuroimmune interactions: selected review and some clinical implications

Clinical Autonomic Research - To provide a brief and focused review on peripheral neuroimmune interactions and their implications for some clinical disorders. Narrative review of the literature...     

Radiological landmarks for the safe extra-capsular placement of supra-acetabular half pins for external fixation

Purpose

Low anterior external fixators are constructed by placing half pins in the dense bone tunnel of the supra-acetabular region in an anterior to posterior direction. Although the placement of these pins is extra-articular, they may still breach the hip capsule on the anterior inferior iliac spine and thus be intra-capsular. We aim to provide radiological markers for the most superior fibres of the capsule to allow safe extra-capsular pin placement within the supra-acetabular bone tunnel.

Methods

Thirteen cadaveric pelves were used for this study. The supra-acetabular bone tunnel was visualised with an image intensifier. The proximal most fibres of the hip joint capsule were marked with a K-wire so that their relation to the bone tunnel could be clearly seen on the images. Once all images were acquired they were calibrated and analysed to estimate the dimensions of the supra-acetabular bone tunnel and the reflection of the hip capsule.

Results

The median height of the bone tunnel was 23.6 mm (18.9–33.2) and maximum width was 11.4 mm (7.6–16.3). The inferior margin of the bone tunnel was 6.7 mm (1.1–14.5) superior to the acetabular dome, and the most proximal fibres of the capsule were 9.3 mm (4.7–6.1) superior to the acetabular dome. The inferior portion of the tunnel was 3.7 mm (0.3–8.9) within the joint.

Conclusion

Half pins for the construction of a pelvic external fixator should be placed in the upper half of the supra-acetabular bone corridor to minimise the risk of intra-capsular placement.     

A novel non-linear recursive filter design for extracting high rate pulse features in nuclear medicine imaging and spectroscopy

Applications in imaging and spectroscopy rely on pulse processing methods for appropriate data generation. Often, the particular method utilized does not highly impact data quality, whereas in some scenarios, such as in the presence of high count rates or high frequency pulses, this issue merits extra consideration. In the present study, a new approach for pulse processing in nuclear medicine imaging and spectroscopy is introduced and evaluated. The new non-linear recursive filter (NLRF) performs nonlinear processing of the input signal and extracts the main pulse characteristics, having the powerful ability to recover pulses that would ordinarily result in pulse pile-up. The filter design defines sampling frequencies lower than the Nyquist frequency.In the literature, for systems involving NaI(Tl) detectors and photomultiplier tubes (PMTs), with a signal bandwidth considered as 15 MHz, the sampling frequency should be at least 30 MHz (the Nyquist rate), whereas in the present work, a sampling rate of 3.3 MHz was shown to yield very promising results. This was obtained by exploiting the known shape feature instead of utilizing a general sampling algorithm. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed filter enhances count rates in spectroscopy. With this filter, the system behaves almost identically as a general pulse detection system with a dead time considerably reduced to the new sampling time (300 ns). Furthermore, because of its unique feature for determining exact event times, the method could prove very useful in time-of-flight PET imaging.     

Obesity and tooth wear among American adults: the role of sugar-sweetened acidic drinks

Clinical Oral Investigations - To explore the association between obesity and tooth wear among American adults and the role of sugar-sweetened acidic drinks consumption in explaining that...