Articles: human.
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The Journal of urology · Oct 2013
Comparative StudyUrinary NGAL levels correlate with differential renal function in patients with ureteropelvic junction obstruction undergoing pyeloplasty.
Recent investigations described the use of NGAL, a sensitive biomarker for kidney injury, in the setting of ureteropelvic junction obstruction. We prospectively evaluated urinary NGAL levels in the affected renal pelvis and bladder of children with ureteropelvic junction obstruction undergoing unilateral dismembered pyeloplasty. Our hypothesis was that higher NGAL in the kidney and bladder would correlate with decreased ipsilateral differential function. ⋯ Bladder NGAL is increased in children with ureteropelvic junction obstruction. Renal pelvic and bladder normalized urinary NGAL levels correlate inversely with the relative function of the affected kidney in cases of unilateral ureteropelvic junction obstruction.
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Sepsis is an acute inflammatory condition that can result in multiple organ failure and acute lung injury (ALI). Growth arrest-specific protein 6 (Gas6) is a broad regulator of the innate immune response involved with the NF-κB signaling pathway. We hypothesized that Gas6 could have a protective role in attenuating the severity of ALI and sepsis. ⋯ Moreover, rmGas6 reduced the in-vitro migration of differentiated human promyelocytic HL60 cells by 64%. Finally, the 10-day survival rate of mice subjected to CLP was increased from 31% in the vehicle group to 67% in the rmGas6 group (P<0.05). Thus, Gas6 has potential to be developed as a novel therapeutic agent to treat patients with sepsis and acute lung injury.
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Human brain mapping · Oct 2013
Cortical representation of pain in primary sensory-motor areas (S1/M1)--a study using intracortical recordings in humans.
Intracortical evoked potentials to nonnoxious Aβ (electrical) and noxious Aδ (laser) stimuli within the human primary somatosensory (S1) and motor (M1) areas were recorded from 71 electrode sites in 9 epileptic patients. All cortical sites responding to specific noxious inputs also responded to nonnoxious stimuli, while the reverse was not always true. Evoked responses in S1 area 3b were systematic for nonnoxious inputs, but seen in only half of cases after nociceptive stimulation. ⋯ Notably, area 3b, which responds massively to nonnoxious Aβ activation was less involved in the processing of noxious heat. S1 and M1 responses to noxious heat occurred at latencies comparable to those observed in the supra-sylvian opercular region of the same patients, suggesting a parallel, rather than hierarchical, processing of noxious inputs in S1, M1 and opercular cortex. This study provides the first direct evidence for a spinothalamic related input to the motor cortex in humans.
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J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. · Oct 2013
Randomized Controlled TrialPharmacodynamic modeling of cough responses to capsaicin inhalation calls into question the utility of the C5 end point.
Inhaled capsaicin elicits cough reproducibly in human subjects and is widely used in the study of cough and antitussive therapies. However, the traditional end points C2 and C5 (the concentrations of capsaicin inducing at least 2 or 5 coughs, respectively) display extensive overlap between health and disease and therefore might not best reflect clinically relevant mechanisms. ⋯ Nonlinear mixed-effects modeling demonstrates that maximal capsaicin cough responses better discriminate health from disease and predict spontaneous cough frequency and therefore provide important insights into the mechanisms underlying CC.