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Πέμπτη 16 Φεβρουαρίου 2023

Efficacy of adjunctive measures in peri‐implant mucositis. A systematic review and meta‐analysis

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Abstract

Aim

To answer the following PICO question: In systemically healthy humans with peri-implant mucositis (PiM), what is the efficacy of patient-performed or administered (by prescription) measures used adjunctively to submarginal instrumentation, as compared to submarginal instrumentation alone or combined with a negative control, in terms of reducing bleeding on probing (BOP), in randomized controlled clinical trials (RCTs) with at least 3-month follow-up?

Material and methods

Three databases were searched until April 2022. Weighted mean differences (WMD) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) and predictive intervals were calculated.

Results

16 parallel RCTs corresponding to 14 studies with low/moderate risk of bias were included. Test groups showed greater reductions in BOP (%) than control groups (nstudies=16; npatients=650; WMD=14.25%; 95% CI [9.06; 19.45]; p<0.001; I2=98.7%). The greatest WMD in BOP reductions (%) were obtained by antiseptics (ns=5; np=229; WMD=22.72%; 95% CI [19.40; 26.04]; p<0.001; I2=94.8%), followed by probiotics (ns=6; np=260; WMD=12.11%; 95% CI [3.20; 21.03]; p=0.008; I2=93.3%), and systemic antibiotics (ns=3; np=101; WMD=5.97%; 95% CI [1.34; 10.59]; p=0.012; I2=58.1%). Disease resolution was scarcely reported (n=6).

Conclusions

Significant clinical improvements can be obtained when professional submarginal instrumentation is combined with patient-performed or administered (by prescription) adjunctive measures, although a complete disease resolution may not be achieved.

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Autophagy and its role in osteosarcoma

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Autophagy and its role in osteosarcoma

In this review, we summarized the role of autophagy in OS proliferation, metastasis, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy. And we think that autophagy-related genes and pathways could serve as potential targets for OS therapy.


Abstract

Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common bone malignancy and preferably occurs in children and adolescents. Despite significant advances in surgery and chemotherapy for OS over the past few years, overall survival rates of OS have reached a bottleneck. Thus, extensive researches aimed at developing new therapeutic targets for OS are urgently needed. Autophagy, a conserved process which allows cells to recycle altered or unused organelles and cellular components, has been proven to play a critical role in multiple biological processes in OS. In this article, we summarized the association between autophagy and proliferation, metastasis, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and immunotherapy of OS, revealing that autophagy-related genes and pathways could serve as potential targets for OS therapy.

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Onychomycosis associated with diabetic foot syndrome: a systematic review

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Abstract

Background

A systematic review was conducted to investigate the prevalence of onychomycosis in patients with diabetes. The association of onychomycosis with risk factors in patients with diabetic foot syndrome was also examined.

Methods

The recommendations in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) checklist were applied, and the included studies were assessed using the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) method. Searches were conducted in October 2022 using PubMed (Medline) and Scopus for clinical studies, clinical trials, comparative studies, observational studies, and randomised clinical trials or controlled clinical trials addressing the prevalence and consequences of onychomycosis in patients with diabetes, diagnoses, or treatments. Two authors performed the study selection and data extraction, and any discrepancies between the two reviewers were resolved through discussion with a third reviewer.

Results

The systematic review included nine studies that met the inclusion criteria, and these studies enrolled 5426 patients with diabetes. Among these patients, 28.55% had onychomycosis that was mainly caused by Trichophyton rubrum. A significant association was found between the occurrence of onychomycosis and the presence of diabetic neuropathy (p=0.012) and elevated glycosylated haemoglobin values (p=0.039). There was no significant association between onychomycosis and ulceration (p=0.185). Eight studies had a grade 4 level of evidence and a grade C recommendation, and one study had a grade 1b level of evidence and a grade A recommendation.

Conclusion

The information described in the literature is insufficient and heterogeneous regarding the association of risk factors and ulceration in patients with diabetic foot compared with developing onychomycosis. There is also a need to implement onychomycosis diagnostic testing instead of relying only on a clinical diagnosis. Additional prospective, randomised, comparative studies are needed to increase the quality of studies in the literature.

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Risky business: Understanding the association between objective COVID‐19 occupational risk features and worker subjective risk perceptions

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Abstract

Many workers are at risk of contracting COVID-19 through work, and subjective perceptions of COVID-19 risk are important predictors of worker attitudes and behaviours. However, little to no research provides comprehensive examination of objective COVID-19 occupational risk factors and how, or under what conditions, these factors relate to subjective risk perceptions. Using two wave survey data matched with archival data from the Occupational Information Network (O*Net) and county-level COVID-19 case data (N = 295), we examine how objective COVID-19 occupational risk relates to workers' subjective risk of contracting COVID-19 at work. We also examine the moderating roles of financial frailty, adherence to governmental workplace safety recommendations, and local COVID-19 threat. Results indicate that objective COVID-19 occupational risk significantly predicts subjective risk of contracting COVID-19 at work. Moreover, factors representing in-person work conducted in close proximity to others accounted for a large proportion of explained variance in subjective risk. There was no support for moderation; however, financial frailty and workplace safety had independent main effects on subjective risk perceptions. Our results have theoretical implications for the Economic Stress and COVID-19 Occupational Risk model (Sinclair et al., Appl. Psychol., 70, 2021, 85), individual models of subjective risk perceptions, and practical implications for mitigating occupational risk at work.

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PPAR-γ activation promotes xenogenic bioroot regeneration by attenuating the xenograft induced-oxidative stress

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International Journal of Oral Science, Published online: 16 February 2023; doi:10.1038/s41368-023-00217-4

PPAR-γ activation promotes xenogenic bioroot regeneration by attenuating the xenograft induced-oxidative stress
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In vivo PIWI slicing in mouse testes deviates from rules established in vitro [LETTER TO THE EDITOR]

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Argonautes are small RNA-binding proteins, with some having small RNA-guided endonuclease (slicer) activity that cleaves target nucleic acids. One cardinal rule that is structurally defined is the inability of slicers to cleave target RNAs when nucleotide mismatches exist between the paired small RNA and the target at the cleavage site. Animal-specific PIWI clade Argonautes associate with PIWI-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) to silence transposable elements in the gonads, and this is essential for fertility. We previously demonstrated that purified endogenous mouse MIWI fails to cleave mismatched targets in vitro. Surprisingly, here we find using knock-in mouse models that target sites with cleavage-site mismatches at the 10th and 11th piRNA nucleotides are precisely sliced in vivo. This is identical to the slicing outcome in knock-in mice where targets are base-paired perfectly with the piRNA. Additionally, we find that pachytene piRNA-guided slicing in both these situations failed to initiate phased piRNA production from the specific target mRNA we studied. Instead, the two slicer cleavage fragments were retained in PIWI proteins as pre-piRNA and 17–19 nt by-product fragments. Our results indicate that PIWI slicing rules established in vitro are not respected in vivo, and that all targets of PIWI slicing are not substrates for piRNA biogenesis.

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Designing a Prolonged Method of Therapeutic Delivery to Support Rehabilitation From Ototoxic Damage in a Schwann Cell Model

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imageHypothesis The ototoxicity of gentamicin and cisplatin can be evaluated with a Schwann cell model to screen for otoprotective agents that can be encapsulated into poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) microparticles for drug delivery to the inner ear. Background Aminoglycosides and cisplatin are widely prescribed but known to cause ototoxicity. There is strong evidence that compromise to Schwann cells ensheathing inner ear afferent neurons results in inner ear dysfunction mimicking drug-induced ototoxicity. There is a need for a model for ototoxic demyelination to screen medications for protective potential and to subsequently target and tune the delivery of any promising agents. Methods RT4-D6P2T rat schwannoma cells were used as a Schwann cell model to assess gentamicin and cisplatin toxicity and to screen for protective agents. Cell viability was evaluated with the MTT cell proliferation assay. N-acetylcysteine (NAC) was encapsulated into a PLGA microparticle, and its elution profile was determined. Results The estimated 50% lethal concentration dose for gentamicin was 805.6 μM, which was 46-fold higher than that for cisplatin (17.5 μM). In several trials, cells dosed with NAC and cisplatin demonstrated a 22.6% (p
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Looking for Synergies in Healthy Upper Limb Motion: A Focus on the Wrist

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Recent studies on human upper limb motion highlighted the benefit of dimensionality reduction techniques to extrapolate informative joint patterns. These techniques can simplify the description of upper limb kinematics in physiological conditions, serving as a baseline for the objective assessment of movement alterations, or to be imple mented in a robotic joint. However, the successful description of kinematic data requires a proper alignment of the acquisitions to correctly estimate kinematic patterns and their motion variability. Here, we propose a structured methodology to process and analyze upper limb kinematic data, considering time warping and task segmentation to register task execution on a common normalized completion time axis. Functional principal component analysis (fPCA) was used to extract patterns of motion of the wrist joint from the data collected by healthy participants performing activities of daily living. Our results suggest that wrist trajectories can be described as a linear combination of few functional principal components (fPCs). In fact, three fPCs explained more than 85% of the variance of any task. Wrist trajectories in the reaching phase of movement were highly correlated among participants and significantly more than trajectories in the manipulation phase ( $text{p}< 0.01$ ). The se findings may be useful in simplifying the control and design of robotic wrists, and could aid the development of therapies for the early detection of pathological conditions.
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Surface Electromyography-Based Analysis of the Lower Limb Muscle Network and Muscle Synergies at Various Gait Speeds

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Gait movement is an important activity in daily human life. The coordination of gait movement is directly affected by the cooperation and functional connectivity between muscles. However, the mechanisms of muscle operation at different gait speeds remain unclear. Therefore, this study addressed the gait speed effect on the changes in co operative modules and functional connectivity between muscles. To this end, surface electromyography (sEMG) signals were collected from eight key lower extremity muscles of twelve healthy subjects walking on a treadmill at high, middle, and low motion speeds. Nonnegative matrix factorization (NNMF) was applied to the sEMG envelope and intermuscular coherence matrix, yielding five muscle synergies. Muscle functional networks were constructed by decomposing the intermuscular coherence matrix, revealing different layers of functional muscle networks across frequencies. In addition, the coupling strength between cooperative muscles grew with gait speed. Different coordination patterns among muscles with changes in gait speed related to the neuromuscular system regulation were identified.
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Fasting Plasma Glucose Increase and Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio as Risk Predictors of Clinical Outcome of COVID-19 Pneumonia in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

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Exp Clin Endocrinol Diabetes
DOI: 10.1055/a-2009-6937

Aim of the study To evaluate fasting plasma glucose (FPG) increase and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) as risk predictors of severe clinical outcome of COVID-19 pneumonia in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) hospitalised patients. Patients and methods Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients hospitalised between March 2020 and February 2021 were studied retrospectively. The NLR ratio at admission and FPG increase (day 7, day with maximal FPG) were evaluated in association with the clinical progression of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Results Three hundred patients (165 men, 135 women) were included in the study. The mean age was 67.17±8.65 years. Severe COVID-19 pneumonia was diagnosed in 170 patients (56.7%). Fifty-four patients (18%) were intubated and 49 (16.3%) died. Greater increase in FPG (79.5 vs. 44.5 mg/dL for day 1–7, p<0.001; and 113.5 vs. 75 mg/dL for day 1-day with maximum glucose value, p<0.001) and higher NLR at admission (10.65 vs. 6.85) were seen in patients with need of high-flow oxygen compared to those without need, and they were associated with a higher probability of intubation and death. Conclusion FPG increase and NLR could be significant risk predictors of severe COVID-19 pneumonia in T2DM hospitalised patients.
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