Safety assessment and toxicological profiling of a novel combinational sunprotective dermal formulation containing melatonin and pumpkin seed oil

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposure has been known to cause irreparable damages to human skin. The daunting risk of UV radiation exposure faced by military personnel led to the development of a sunscreen formulation which has superior sun protection factor combined with the ability to counteract reactive oxygen species. The present work deals with the preclinical safety evaluation of the sunscreen formulation comprising of four US FDA approved UV filters; namely avobenzone, octinoxate, oxybenzone, titanium dioxide along with melatonin and pumpkin seed oil, via OECD protocols of assessing acute oral and dermal toxicity; skin sensitizing; skin irritating; ocular irritating and genotoxic potential. Both oral and dermal LD₅₀ values were found to be ˃2000 mg/kg body weight in adult Wistar albino rats using acute dermal and oral toxicity tests. The sunscreen formulation was found to be non-sensitizing to the skin of guinea pigs and non-irritating to both skin and eyes of rabbits. The sunscreen formulation was also found to be non-mutagenic which was affirmed by a battery of genotoxicity and muagenicity assays. The results obtained from this preclinical study indicated that the sunscreen formulation is non toxic and safe in animal models. This study along with additional preclinical evaluations may serve as a basis for considering the formulation as a potential candidate for further trials to establish its efficacy, tolerability and applicability.     

The Effect of Corneal Higher Order Aberrations on Postoperative Residual Astigmatism after Toric IOL Implantation

Background: To demonstrate the effect of preoperative higher order aberrations (HOAs) on postoperative residual astigmatism in toric intraocular lens (IOL) implantation.

Methods: A retrospective, controlled, comparative study that involved patients who underwent toric IOL implantation. Patients were divided into two groups according to the difference between the estimated residual astigmatism and actual postoperative astigmatism [difference ≤0.5 diopters (D), Group A; difference >0.5 D, Group B]. Corneal astigmatisms with axis, and various aberration values were compared between the two groups.

Results: Total RMS and HOA RMS values in Group B were significantly higher than those in Group A (p < .001, = 0.003). The vertical coma value, and its absolute value, in Group B were significantly higher than those in Group A (p < .001, = 0.002). The total RMS and absolute value of the vertical coma showed a positive linear correlation with the degree of residual postoperative astigmatism (R-square = 0.139, 0.131; p = .027, 0.036).

Conclusions: If the residual astigmatism after insertion of the toric IOL was greater than expected, corneal aberrations, shown by total RMS and HOA RMS values before surgery, especially of the vertical coma, tended to be high.     

Interlaboratory assessment of mitotic index by flow cytometry confirms superior reproducibility relative to microscopic scoring

A flow cytometric procedure for determining mitotic index (MI) as part of the metaphase chromosome aberrations assay, developed and utilized routinely at Pfizer as part of their standard assay design, has been adopted successfully by Covance laboratories. This method, using antibodies against phosphorylated histone tails (H3PS10) and nucleic acid stain, has been evaluated by the two independent test sites and compared to manual scoring. Primary human lymphocytes were treated with cyclophosphamide, mitomycin C, benzo(a)pyrene, and etoposide at concentrations inducing dose‐dependent cytotoxicity. Deming regression analysis indicates that the results generated via flow cytometry (FCM) were more consistent between sites than those generated via microscopy. Further analysis using the Bland–Altman modification of the Tukey mean difference method supports this finding, as the standard deviations (SDs) of differences in MI generated by FCM were less than half of those generated manually. Decreases in scoring variability owing to the objective nature of FCM, and the greater number of cells analyzed, make FCM a superior method for MI determination. In addition, the FCM method has proven to be transferable and easily integrated into standard genetic toxicology laboratory operations. Environ. Mol. Mutagen. 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Case of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia with Unusual Chromosome Aberrations

Chronic lymphocytic leukemia is one of the most common leukemias in the western world and consists of many chromosome aberrations. We report the case of a 74-year-old male patient with chronic lymphocytic leukemia with complex variant translocations t(8;22)(q24;q11) and der(8)t(6;8)(p21;p21) identified by chromosome banding analysis and confirmed by fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis of interphase cells. Because of the rarity of these changes, possible molecular mechanisms associated with this karyotype are discussed.     

双列球面滚子轴承力学分析及滚子受载计算方法

以球面滚子轴承为研究对象,运用切片法,综合考虑了滚子 滚道凸度以及轴承内圈倾斜角的影响,建立了滚子并排和滚子错排的球面滚子轴承滚子载荷的计算模型。数值计算了内圈倾斜角、径向游隙、滚子错排角、以及外载荷等参数对球面滚子轴承滚子载荷和轴承内圈径向位移量的影响。计算结果表明,在一定的外载荷作用下,轴承内圈倾斜角度与滚子最大载荷呈线性变化规律;错排滚子的球面滚子轴承最大滚子载荷比并排略小,内圈径向位移量也略小。     

近视眼手术人群角膜直径的分析

目的：测量近视眼手术人群的角膜直径,探讨不同性别、眼别角膜直径的差别及角膜直径与等效球镜度数之间的相关性。

方法：对2013-03/08来我院近视门诊行准分子激光手术的近视眼126例252眼,男48例96眼,女78例156眼, 年龄18～45(平均24.23±5.35)岁,应用IOL Master测量角膜直径\〖white-to-white(WTW)\〗距离。对252眼都采用NIDEK RT-2100综合验光仪进行主觉验光,并换算成等效球镜\〖Spherical equivalent(SE)\〗,按照等效球镜度数分成3组：轻度近视(-3.00D结果：全部病例角膜直径平均值为11.52±0.41mm,其中男性角膜直径11.60±0.35mm,女性11.43±0.36mm,性别间角膜直径有统计学意义( t=0.021,P=0.009); 右眼平均角膜直径(11.53±0.40mm)与左眼(11.51±0.42mm)比较无显著统计学差异(t=-0.115,P=0.912); 低度、中度和高度近视者的角膜直径的平均值分别为11.59±0.39、11.48±0.40、11.45±0.41mm,角膜直径与屈光度间呈负相关性(R²=-0.001,P=0.001),且三组近视患者角膜直径之间存在显著统计学差异(F=4.487, P=0.004)。

结论：近视眼手术人群中男性角膜直径大于女性; 近视程度越高,角膜直径越短。