Int J Med Sci
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Neuropathic pain is characterized by hyperalgesia, allodynia and spontaneous pain. It often occurs as a result of injury to peripheral nerves, dorsal root ganglions (DRG), spinal cord, or brain. Recent studies have suggested that Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) might play a role in neuropathic pain. ⋯ These findings suggest that suppression of TLR4 mediated by intrathecally administered siRNA may be a new strategy for the treatment of neuropathic pain.
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Retrospective, observational, open label. ⋯ Our results demonstrate a comparable efficacy of endoscopic facet debridement compared to radiofrequency ablation of the dorsal nerve branch, with durable results. Large scale, randomized trials are warranted to further evaluate the relative efficacy of this surgical treatment in patients with facet joint disease.
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Age-associated thymic involution is characterized by decreased thymopoiesis, adipocyte deposition and changes in the expression of various thymic microenvironmental factors. In this work, we characterized the distribution of fat-storing cells within the aging thymus. We found an increase of unilocular adipocytes, ERTR7(+) and CCR5(+ )fat-storing multilocular cells in the thymic septa and parenchymal regions, thus suggesting that mesenchymal cells could be immigrating and differentiating in the aging thymus. ⋯ Moreover, 3T3-L1 cells demonstrated an ability to migrate in vitro in response to CCR5 ligands. We believe that the increased presence of fat-storing cells expressing CCR5 within the aging thymus strongly suggests that these cells may be an active component of the thymic stromal cell compartment in the physiology of thymic aging. Moreover, we found that adipocyte differentiation appear to be influenced by the proinflammatory chemokines, CCL3, CCL4 and CCL5.
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Among children earlier having been identified with a hospital or primary care diagnosis of asthma at least once between 0-7 years of age, almost 40 % of their parents reported in the ISAAC-questionnaire as never having had asthma (NA). These are further analysed and compared with the persisting asthma cases (A) in this study. All these children's medical records were scrutinized concerning their asthma diagnose retrospectively. ⋯ A multiple logistic analysis revealed four significant and independent factors associated to the improvement/non-report of asthma at the age of ten. These factors were; not having any past experiences of allergic symptoms (p<0.0001), only having one or two visits at the hospital for asthma diagnosis in the 0-7 interval (p=0.001), not living in a flat but a villa at the age of ten (p=0.029) and no previous perception of mist or mould damage in the house (p=0.052). In the early postnatal stage, obstructive and bronchospastic symptoms typical of asthma may be unspecific, and those cases not continuing to persisting disease tend to have identifiable salutogenetic factors of constitutional rather than environmental nature, namely, an overall reduced allergic predisposition.
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Comparative Study
Comparative study of control selection in a national population-based case-control study: Estimating risk of smoking on cancer deaths in Chinese men.
To assess the validation of a novel control selection design by comparing the consistency between the new design and a routine design in a large case-control study that was incorporated into a nationwide mortality survey in China. ⋯ Sex-matched living spouse control design as an alternative control selection for a case-control study is valid and feasible, and the basic principles of the equivalence study are also supported by epidemiological survey data.