Plos One
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To evaluate the usefulness of 2-[18F] fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT) in the early detection of breast cancer tumor recurrences and its role in post-therapy surveillance. ⋯ FDG-PET/CT was able to detect recurrence, and the results altered the intended patient management in the post-therapy surveillance of breast cancer. FDG-PET/CT should be used as a priority in patients with increased serum CA 15-3 levels, or with clinical/radiologic suspicion of recurrence, and might be useful for asymptomatic patients.
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Cognitive reserve (CR) is understood as capacity to cope with challenging conditions, e.g. after brain injury or in states of brain dysfunction, or age-related cognitive decline. CR in elderly subjects has attracted much research interest, but differences between healthy older and younger subjects have not been addressed in detail hitherto. Usually, one-time standard individual assessments are used to characterise CR. ⋯ Gender, personality traits and mood did not significantly influence gains in either group. Surprisingly about half of the older subjects performed at the level of the younger group, suggesting that interindividual differences in CR are possibly age-independent. We propose that these findings may also be understood as indication that one-time standard individual measurements do not allow assessment of CR, and that the use of DSST in a testing-the-limits paradigm is a valuable assessment method for CR in young and elderly subjects.
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Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) is rising in middle income countries. Population based strategies to reduce specific CHD risk factors have an important role to play in reducing overall CHD mortality. Reducing dietary salt consumption is a potentially cost-effective way to reduce CHD events. This paper presents an economic evaluation of population based salt reduction policies in Tunisia, Syria, Palestine and Turkey. ⋯ Decreasing dietary salt intake will reduce coronary heart disease deaths in the four countries. A comprehensive strategy of health education and food industry actions to label and reduce salt content would save both money and lives.
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An irreversible loss of subcutaneous adipose tissue in patients after tumor removal or deep dermal burns makes soft tissue engineering one of the most important challenges in biomedical research. The ideal scaffold for adipose tissue engineering has yet not been identified though biodegradable polymers gained an increasing interest during the last years. In the present study we synthesized two novel biodegradable polymers, poly(ε-caprolactone-co-urethane-co-urea) (PEUU) and poly[(L-lactide-co-ε-caprolactone)-co-(L-lysine ethyl ester diisocyanate)-block-oligo(ethylene glycol)-urethane] (PEU), containing different types of hydrolytically cleavable bondings. ⋯ ASCs differentiated into the adipogenic lineage. Gene analysis of differentiated ASCs showed typical expression of adipogenetic markers such as PPARgamma and FABP4. Based on these results, PEUU and PEU meshes show a promising potential as scaffold materials in adipose tissue engineering.
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The levels of nitric oxide (NO) and various cytokines are known to be increased during sepsis. These signaling molecules could potentially act as regulators and underlie the enhancement of mitochondrial function described in the later phase of sepsis. Therefore, we investigated the correlation between observed changes in platelet mitochondrial respiration and a set of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines as well as NO plasma levels in patients with sepsis. ⋯ Out of ten analyzed cytokines and nitric oxide, IL-8 correlated with the observed increase in mitochondrial respiration. This suggests that cytokines as well as NO do not play a prominent role in the regulation of platelet mitochondrial respiration in sepsis. Further, the respiratory increase was not accompanied by an increase in markers of mitochondrial content, suggesting a possible role for post-translational enhancement of mitochondrial respiration rather than augmented mitochondrial mass.