Effects of diode low-level laser therapy on healing of tooth extraction sockets: a histopathological study in diabetic rats

Lasers in Medical Science - Diabetes mellitus is mostly interrelated to deficiency in wound healing. Low-level laser therapy has been shown to exert reliable effects on the acceleration of wound...     

Fluoridated toothpaste: usage and ingestion of fluoride by 4‐ to 6‐yr‐old children in England

Fluoridated toothpaste is effective for dental caries control, yet may be a risk factor for dental fluorosis. This study aimed to quantify fluoride ingestion from toothpaste by children and to investigate the effects of age, gender, and social class on the amount of fluoride ingested per toothbrushing session. Sixty‐one children, 4–6 yr of age, were recruited: 38 were from low socio‐economic (LSE) areas of Newcastle, UK, and 23 were from high socio‐economic (HSE) areas of Newcastle, UK. All expectorated saliva, rinse water (if used), and residual toothpaste were collected after brushing at home and were analysed for fluoride. Of the children, 74% and 69% from HSE and LSE areas, respectively, claimed that they brushed twice per day. The mean (SD) weight of toothpaste dispensed was 0.67 (0.36) g. The mean (SD) amount of fluoride ingested per toothbrushing session and per day was 17.0 (14.7) and 29.3 (32.8) μg kg^?1 of body weight, respectively. Daily fluoride intake per kilogram of body weight did not differ significantly between children from LSE and HSE areas. Fluoride intake per toothbrushing session was significantly influenced by weight of toothpaste, its fluoride concentration, and the child's age. Whilst the average amount of toothpaste used per toothbrushing session was more than twice the recommended amount (of 0.25 g), only one child had a daily fluoride intake that exceeded the tolerable upper intake level of 0.1 mg kg^?1 of body weight for this age group.     

National nosocomial infection surveillance system-based study in Iran: additional hospital stay attributable to nosocomial infections

BACKGROUND: Nosocomial infection is a serious health and financial problem. The purpose of this study was to determine the extra hospital stay attributable to nosocomial infections for patients undergoing surgery. METHOD: All patients undergoing surgery admitted from March 1, 1999, to February 28, 2000, to the 38-bed general surgery ward within a university hospital in Shiraz, Iran, were included in this study. The study was planned as a pairwise-matched case-control study nested in cohort design. A case was defined as any patient with 1 of 4 of the following nosocomial infections: urinary tract infection; surgical site infection; bloodstream infection; or pneumonia, whereby definitions for the nosocomial infections were on the basis of National Nosocomial Infection Surveillance system definitions. For each patient, an appropriate match was selected, which resulted in 69 pairs of study patients. RESULTS: The total incidence of nosocomial infection during the study period was 17.59%. The mean extra length of hospitalization as a result of all major kinds of nosocomial infections was 6.62 days total, which was obtained using 4.4, 5.33, 8.73, and 9.2 extra days for urinary tract infection, pneumonia, surgical site infection, and bloodstream infection, respectively. CONCLUSION: Nosocomial infections add considerable costs to the health care system in Iran. Therefore, the development of strategies and concepts to reduce the incidence of nosocomial infections is cost-effective and warranted, and an appropriate surveillance system on the basis of international criteria is the cornerstone for this task.     

Phenotypic and functional maturation of murine dendritic cells induced by 18 alpha- and beta-glycyrrhetinic acid

Various studies have described glycyrrhizin (GL), an active triterpenoic saponin extract of licorice roots, as an anti-inflammatory, antiviral, antimicrobial, anti-tumor and immunomodulating agent. The activity of GL has been mainly attributed to its metabolites, 18-alpha (GA) and 18-beta-glycyrrhetinic acid (GB), which their mechanism of action on the immune system cells is not clearly known. In this study, we have investigated the effects of GA and GB on the immune system by targeting dendritic cells and analyzing phenotypic and functional maturity of murine dendritic cells (DCs) after treatment with these components. Stimulation of DCs with GA and GB resulted in up-regulation of CD40, CD86 and MHC-II molecules indicating their effects on the maturation of DCs. These components induced the allogenic immunostimulatory capacity of DCs by stimulating the proliferation of T cells and production of the T helper (h)1-promoting cytokine, IL-12. They also increased the production of IFN-γ by T cells in mixed-lymphocyte reaction. In conclusion, these results indicate that GA and GB may insert their immunomodulatory effects by enhancing DC maturation and modulating Th1/Th2 response through an increase in Th1 responses, implying their beneficial in host defense against infectious diseases.     

The Challenges of Female Adolescents’ Health Needs

Due to adolescents’ future crucial roles, their health needs should be included in the national health system policy. In this cross-sectional study 2010 female adolescents were recruited from randomly selected schools in Iran. To obtain their health needs, the participants completed a self-administrated questionnaire. It was revealed that emotional needs were the most important health needs of adolescents. Furthermore, there was a meaningful relationship between health needs’ score with the adolescents’ age and their mothers’ education level. Finally, the mean score of health needs was significantly higher in urban adolescents. Therefore, it is suggested that adolescents’ emotional health needs to be paid attention; otherwise irrecoverable serious problems may occur in the next generation’s health.     

Classification of ADHD and BMD patients using visual evoked potential

Objectives

Children with Bipolar Mood Disorder (BMD) and those with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) share many clinical signs and symptoms; therefore, achieving an accurate diagnosis is still a challenge, especially in the first interview session. The main focus of this paper is to quantitatively classify the ADHD and BMD patients using their Visual Evoke Potential (VEP) features elicited from their Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals.

Methods and materials

In this study, 36 subjects were participated including 12 healthy ones, 12 patients with ADHD and 12 ones with BMD. The age of ADHD patients was 16.92 ± 6.29 and for the BMD ones was 17.85 ± 3.68. Their scalp EEG signals in the presence of visual stimulus were recorded using 22 silver electrodes located according to the 10–20 international recording protocol. To extract their VEP, first a preprocessing step was executed to remove the power line and movement artifacts. Afterward, the wavelet denoising and synchronous averaging were applied to the preprocessed trials in order to elicit the P100 component. To obtain interpretable features from the evoked patterns, amplitude and latency were extracted and applied to the 1-Nearest Neighbor (1NN) classifier due to the locally scattered distribution of the VEP features.

Results

The evaluation was performed according to leave-one(subject)-out method and the experimental results were led to 92.85% classification accuracy which is a fairly promising achievement to distinguish the BMD, ADHD, and healthy subjects from each other.

Conclusion

From the physiological point of view, this result point out to the existence of significant difference in the neural activities of their visual system in the ADHD, BMD, and healthy subjects in response to a periodic optical stimulus.     

Cirrhosis induced by bile duct ligation alleviates acetic acid intestinal damages in rats: Involvements of nitrergic and opioidergic systems

Background

Colitis, a colonic inflammatory condition, showed a linkage with hepatobiliary disorders such as cirrhosis. It has been reported that both endogenous opioids and nitric oxide (NO) play critical roles in colitis pathogenesis. Moreover, opioid and NO levels showed elevation in patients with cirrhosis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of cirrhosis on the experimental model of colitis and the possible involvement of opioidergic/nitrergic systems in rats.

Prevalence of pregnancy experiences and contraceptive knowledge among single adults in a low socio-economic suburban community in Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia

Background

This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of pregnancy experience and its association with contraceptive knowledge among single adults in a low socio-economic suburban community in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Methods

A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 2012 among the Kerinchi suburban community. Of the total 3,716 individuals surveyed, young single adults between 18 and 35 years old were questioned with regard to their experience with unplanned pregnancy before marriage. Contraceptive knowledge was assessed by a series of questions on identification of method types and the affectivity of condoms for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.

Results

A total of 226 female and 257 male participants completed the survey. In total, eight female (3.5%) participants reported experience with an unplanned pregnancy before marriage, and five male (1.9 %) participants had the experience of impregnating their partners. The participants had a mean total score of 3.15 (SD = 1.55) for contraceptive knowledge out of a possible maximum score of five. Female participants who had experienced an unplanned pregnancy had a significantly lower contraceptive knowledge score (2.10 ± 1.48) than who had never experienced pregnancy (3.30 ± 1.35), p<0.05. Likewise, male participants who had experienced impregnating their partners had a significantly lower contraceptive knowledge score (1.60 ± 1.50) than those who did not have such experience (3.02 ± 1.59), p<0.05.

Conclusion

The results showed evidence of premarital unplanned pregnancy among this suburban community. The low level of contraceptive knowledge found in this study indicates the need for educational strategies designed to improve contraceptive knowledge.