Biomedical journal
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Patients with polytrauma are expected to have a higher risk of mortality than the summation of expected mortality for their individual injuries. This study was designed to investigate the outcome of polytrauma patients, diagnosed by abbreviated injury scale (AIS) ≥ 3 for at least two body regions, at a level I trauma center. ⋯ Polytrauma defined by AIS ≥3 for at least two body regions failed to recognize a significant difference in short-term mortality among trauma patients.
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Making quick promises of major biomedical breakthroughs based on exciting discoveries at the bench is tempting. But the meandering path from fundamental science to life-saving clinical applications can be fraught with many hurdles. Epigenetics, the study of potentially heritable changes of gene function without modification of the underlying DNA sequence, has dominated the biological research field during the last decade and encountered a large public success. ⋯ This shift was accompanied by much hype and raised high hopes that epigenetics might hold both the key to deciphering the molecular underpinning of complex, non-Mendelian diseases and offer novel therapeutic approaches for a large panel of pathologies. However, while exciting reports of biological phenomena involving DNA methylation and histone modifications fill up the scientific literature, the realistic clinical applications of epigenetic medicines remain somewhat blurry. Here, we discuss the state of the art and speculate how epigenetics might contribute to prognostic and therapy approaches in the future.
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There is a paucity of information regarding pediatric dental emergencies in Taiwan. This study investigates the prevalence and characteristics of the pediatric dental emergency services provided at a medical center. ⋯ For children, trauma and toothache constituted the most common reasons for dental emergency visits at a hospital emergency center in Taiwan. While dental emergencies are sometimes unforeseeable or unavoidable, developing community awareness about proper at-home care as well as regular dental preventive measures can potentially reduce the number of emergency visits.
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Protozoa and helminths are the two main groups that cause parasitic diseases with a broad spectrum of clinical symptoms. Protozoa are unicellular organisms like the malaria parasite Plasmodium, which is responsible for the majority of deaths associated with parasitic infections. Helminths are alternative parasites that can produce debilitating diseases in hosts, some of which result in chronic infections. ⋯ It is very encouraging that the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Youyou Tu as well as William C. Campbell and Satoshi Õmura for their considerable contributions in discovering artemisinin and avermectin, respectively. Both drugs revolutionized therapies for filariasis and malaria, significantly reducing by large percentages their morbidity and mortality.
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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of combined treatment with the long-acting 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor-3 antagonist, palonosetron, the neurokinin-1 receptor antagonist, oral aprepitant, and dexamethasone as primary antiemetic prophylaxis for cancer patients receiving highly emetogenic cisplatin-based chemotherapy. ⋯ The combination of palonosetron, aprepitant, and dexamethasone as primary antiemetic prophylaxis for cancer patients with highly emetogenic cisplatin-based chemotherapy is effective.