Cervical necrotizing soft tissue infection — A case report

A small but nevertheless important part of a surgeons experience comprises necrotizing soft tissue infections of the head and neck. These infections are characterized by their fulminating, devastating, and rapid-progressing course resulting in extensive necrosis of fascia, subcutaneous tissues, skin and muscle. Although necrotizing facilities is a more frequently used terminology, the authors prefer to use the term necrotizing soft tissue infection to describe this potentially fatal condition. A case of cervical necrotizing soft tissue infection of dental origin is reported here. The purpose of this report is to heighten awareness of necrotizing soft tissue infections in any patient with an infection of the neck. The article also outlines an appropriate management strategy for use in such patients with emphasis on prompt diagnosis and early radical surgical debridement.     

Studies on LH modulated 8kDa peptide involved regulation of testosterone production in rat Leydig cells

Aim: To demonstrate the role of the 8 kDa peptide in regulation of testosterone production by mt Leydig cells. Meth-ods: A peptide similar to 8 kDa peptide purified from immature rat Leydig cells was isolated and purified from rat lungcytosol. Immunological and structural similarity between the peptides purified from lung and Leydig cells was estab-lished by Western blot and tryptic map comparison respectively. Results: Addition of the 8 kDa peptide 10, 50, 100;and 150 ug decreased the production of testosterone in Leydig cells dose-dependently. But the addition of the peptide150 ug along with hCG had no effect on hCG-stimulated increase in testosterone production. Conclusion: In vitro ad-dition of the peptide purified from lung cytosol to adult rat Leydig cells resulted in a concentration-dependent decrease inbasal testosterone production although it had no effect on hCG-stimulated testosterone production. (Asian J Androl1999 Dec; 1: 191-194)     

Attenuation of Aluminum Chloride-Induced Neuroinflammation and Caspase Activation Through the AKT/GSK-3β Pathway by Hesperidin in Wistar Rats

Hesperidin, a flavanoglycone abundantly present in citrus fruits, is reported to have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective properties. Previous reports from our laboratory indicated the neuroprotective effect of hesperidin against aluminum chloride (AlCl₃)-induced memory loss, acetylcholine esterase hyperactivity, oxidative stress, and enhanced expression of amyloid β protein biosynthesis-related markers. However, their role on AlCl₃-induced inflammation, caspase activation, Tau pathology, altered Akt/GSK 3β signaling pathway, and Aβ clearance marker has not yet been fully elucidated. Intraperitonial injection of AlCl₃ (100 mg/kg body weight) for 60 days significantly elevated the expressions of insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE), cyclin-dependent kinase 5 (CDK 5), and phosphoTau (pTau); inflammatory markers such as glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), ionized calcium-binding adapter molecule 1 (Iba-1), NF-kB, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-4, IL-6, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS); and apoptotic markers including cytosolic cytochrome c (cyto c), caspase-3, caspase-8, and caspase-9, and lowered expressions of mitochondrial cyto c, phospho-Akt (pAkt) and phospho-glycogen synthase kinase-3β (pGSK-3β) in the hippocampus and cortex. Co-administration of hesperidin to AlCl₃ rats for 60 days significantly ameliorated the aluminum-induced pathological changes. The behavioral studies also supported the above findings. Our results imply that treatment with hesperidin might be a potent option for treating the symptoms of cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s disease by targeting its most prominent hallmarks.     

Biomedical informatics: development of a comprehensive data warehouse for clinical and genomic breast cancer research

The Windber Research Institute is an integrated high-throughput research center employing clinical, genomic and proteomic platforms to produce terabyte levels of data. We use biomedical informatics technologies to integrate all of these operations. This report includes information on a multi-year, multi-phase hybrid data warehouse project currently under development in the Institute. The purpose of the warehouse is to host the terabyte-level of internal experimentally generated data as well as data from public sources. We have previously reported on the phase I development, which integrated limited internal data sources and selected public databases. Currently, we are completing phase II development, which integrates our internal automated data sources and develops visualization tools to query across these data types. This paper summarizes our clinical and experimental operations, the data warehouse development, and the challenges we have faced. In phase III we plan to federate additional manual internal and public data sources and then to develop and adapt more data analysis and mining tools. We expect that the final implementation of the data warehouse will greatly facilitate biomedical informatics research.     

A pathophysiological study of tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy with F-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography.

An interesting observational study by Yoshida et al.¹ usingF-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography identifiedthat the extent of metabolic defect involving apical akinetic     

Stress cardiomyopathy: aetiology and management

Stress cardiomyopathy is a condition caused by intense emotional or physical stress leading to rapid and severe reversible cardiac dysfunction. It mimics myocardial infarction with changes in the electrocardiogram and echocardiogram, but without any obstructive coronary artery disease. Due to the awareness created by the media and internet, every patient is aware that they should seek help immediately for chest pain. Therefore physicians should be aware of this new condition and how to diagnose and treat it, even though the causal mechanisms are not yet fully understood.