Articles

Radiation of different wavelengths can kill living organisms, although, the mechanism of interactions differs depending on their energies. Understanding the interaction of radiation with living cells is important to assess their harmful effects and also to identify their therapeutic potential. Temporally, this interaction can be broadly divided in three stages – physical, chemical and biological. While radiation can affect all the important macromolecules of the cells, particularly important is the damage to its genetic material, the DNA. The consequences of irradiation include- DNA damage, mutation, cross-linkages with other molecules, chromosomal aberrations and DNA repair leading to altered gene expression and/or cell death. Mutations in DNA can lead to heritable changes and is important for the induction of cancer. While some of these effects are through direct interaction of radiation with the target, radiation can interact with the surrounding environment to result in its indirect actions. The effects of radiation depend not only on the total dose but also on the dose rate, LET etc. and also on the cell types. However, action of radiation on organisms is not restricted to interactions with irradiated cells, i.e. target cells alone; it also exerts non-targeted effects on neighboring unexposed cells to produce productive responses; this is known as bystander effect. The bystander effects of ionizing radiations are well documented and contribute largely to the relapse of cancer and secondary tumors after radiotherapy. Irradiation of cells with non-ionizing Ultra-Violet light also exhibits bystander responses, but such responses are very distinct from that produced by ionizing radiations.

Background and Purpose: Transverse myelitis (TM) is a rare neurological diagnosis found in 1-4 per million people. Rehabilitation is recommended secondary to steroid treatment. There is limited clinical research on physical therapy (PT) for TM. The purpose of this case report is to present PT examination and management strategies for a patient with TM. Case Description: A 25-year-old female patient diagnosed with TM was referred to PT. She presented foot drop causing ataxic gait, decreased sensation in bilateral lower extremities, significant fatigue, and low back pain. The patient required significant rest time between all tests and measures due to severely increased fatigue. PT plan of care was focused on therapeutic exercises per patient tolerance, passive range of motion (ROM) administered by the therapist, and gait training when activity tolerance was increased. Outcomes: The patient was able to tolerate bouts of exercise as prescribed through home exercise program. She responded very well to passive ROM treatment during breaks between exercises to maintain ROM and decrease rigidity. Active ROM exercise was used to build activity tolerance while being mindful of limited ability due to fatigue. Upon increased activity tolerance, the patient was able to tolerate gait training with multiple breaks and maintain corrected gait when addressed during treatment. Discussion: PT intervention was helpful for this patient with TM. Breaking down functional activities based on patient tolerance is important when treating people with TM. More experimental research is needed to support the benefits of PT for TM.

Spleen is one of the most important organ of the reticuloendothelial system and coordinates the immune response. Splenectomy is performed for hypersplenism, and staging of hematological malignancy. In conservatively followed patients, radiation therapy can be used to reduce hypersplenism symptoms. Splenectomy or palliative radiotherapy to spleen may probably cause an immune suppressive condition. This may probably local and systemic complications.

The novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV has become a bane to mankind and spread worldwide and infected many people. Thus, there is an urgent need of a cure for the severe pneumonia disease caused by this virus. In this study, In silico comparative analysis has been done for HIV protease inhibitors on coronavirus 3CLpro protein which has shown the major interactions and common amino acid residues involved in interactions. The amino acid interaction analysis has revealed two amino acids ARG4, LYS5 to be the major amino acids targets among selected ligands. The binding energy analysis has also revealed Cobicistat as one of these best suited ligand for 3CLpro.

In the classification of cancer data sets, we note that they contain a number of additional features that influence the classification accuracy. There are many evolutionary algorithms that are used to define the feature and reduce dimensional patterns such as the gray wolf algorithm (GWO) after converting it from a continuous space to a discrete space. In this paper, a method of feature selection was proposed through two consecutive stages in the first stage, the fuzzy mutual information (FMI) technique is used to determine the most important feature selection of diseases dataset through a fuzzy model that was built based on the data size. In the second stage, the binary gray wolf optimization (BGWO) algorithm is used to determine a specific number of features affecting the process of classification, which came from the first stage. The proposed algorithm, FMI_BGWO, describes efficiency and effectiveness by obtaining a higher classification accuracy and a small number of selected genes compared to other competitor algorithms.

The sequence-independent, single-primer amplification (SISPA) enables the random amplification of nucleic acids, allowing the detection and genome sequencing of different viral agents. This feature of SISPA method provides evidence for application of it in monitoring the presence of adventitious RNA viruses in cell cultures. We evaluated SISPA method for the detection of a challenge RNA virus representing adventitious agent in cell cultures. Besides, by optimizing the SISPA method in our laboratory, we found false-positive results on negative control lanes in electrophoresis gels. To investigate the sources of contamination, false-positive results of SISPA were cloned into Escherichia coli cells, sequenced, and phylogenetically analyzed. This data revealed that the SISPA method can be used as an adjunct method to confirm the absence of unexpected adventitious RNA viruses in cell cultures. The phylogenetic analysis of SISPA contaminant sequences showed that the false-positive results were caused by nucleic acid amplification of commercial cDNA synthesis kit reagents, probably tracing back to expression plasmids and host ribosomal sequences, used for the production of enzymes. Therefore, laboratories using random amplification methods must be constantly aware of the potentials of such contaminations, yielding false-positive results and background noise in the final NGS reads.

Genetic datasets have a large number of features that may significantly affect the disease classification process, especially datasets related to cancer diseases. Evolutionary algorithms (EA) are used to find the fastest and best way to perform these calculations, such as the bat algorithm (BA) by reducing the dimensions of the search area after changing it from continuous to discrete. In this paper, a method of gene selection was proposed two sequent stages: in the first stage, the fuzzy mutual information (FMI) method is used to choose the most important genes selected through a fuzzy model that was built based on the dataset size. In the second stage, the BBA is used to reduce and determine a fixed number of genes affecting the process of classification, which came from the first stage. The proposed algorithm, FMI_BBA, describes efficiency, by obtaining a higher classification accuracy and a few numbers of selected genes compared to other algorithms.

Today, there is a considerable increase in localizing adrenal bulks with the bringing radiologic diagnosis methods having high technology into use and improvement in diagnostic tests. Adrenal glands are vital tissues for the organism due to the hormones they secrete. Death is a natural result in the absence of adrenal cortex. Adrenal bulks can be seen with different clinical, laboratory and radiological data. These bulks are often benign and rarely malign. They can be functional or non-functional. Major treatment methods used fort he treatment of adrenal gland primary tumors or metastases are surgery, arterial embolisation, chemical ablation, radiofrequency ablation and radiotherapy [1-4]. Adrenal glands are one of the metastatic fields. In wide autopsy series, adrenal metastasis has been determined between the rates of 13-17% [5]. While unilateral metastasis is common, bilateral metastasis’ rate of incidence is between 4-20%. It has been stated that lung (35%), gastric (14%), esophageal (12%) and hepatobiliary (10%) primary carcinomas adrenal metastasis are prevalent most frequently [2]. Curative treatments are tested on patients having cancer with oligo metastasis limited with adrenal gland and primary source is under control because of the expectation of long-term survival, and the surgery is the first choice. These bulks can be treated with open and laparoscopic surrenalectomy in a curative way. It was reported in studies that overall survival was longer in resection of clinically isolated adrenal metastases when compared with nonsurgical therapy (including RFA, external beam radiotherapy, arterial embolization, radioembolization, chemical ablation, and cryoablation) [1,2,5,7]. Lo et al., found one-year survival as 73% and two-year survival as 40% in their study conducted on 52 patients having curative resection for solitary adrenal metastasis [3]. Tanvetyanon et al., demonstrated 5-year survival rates of 25% following resection of isolated synchronous adrenal metastases and reported 26% after resection of metachronous adrenal metastases in their study conducted on NSCLC patients developing solitary adrenal metastasis [4]. Conducted studies revealed that the rate of complication was 9-20% in patients having adrenalectomy for solitary adrenal metastasis [2-4,7]. In recent years, the use of radiotherapy, which is a treatment modality as effective as surgical resection, has become prevalent for the management of oligometastases. Today, three different modalities have been tested in the radiotherapy treatment of adrenal gland metastases. In the first one, total 50 Gy treatment dose with 3D-CRT as daily 2 Gy fraction dose is given [8]. The second one is IMRT implementations for adrenal gland metastases but it isn’t thought as suitable according to Practice Guidelines for Neuroendocrine Tumors published by NCCN in 2010. The third radiotherapy modality is stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT). SBRT implementations have started to be preferred today since they are completed in a few fractions in addition to that they show close results to surgery for primary tumors and metastases. Holy et al., implemented SBRT to patients having 13 solitary adrenal metastases with NSCLC at 5 fractions and between 20 and 40 Gy total doses. They found disease-free survival as median 12 months, overall survival as median 23 months and local control rate as 77% [9]. In SBRT implementations for different cancer types determined 30 adrenal metastases, Chawla et al., reported the rates of one-year survival, local control and distant metastasis as 44%, 55% and 13% respectively [10]. In Casamassima et al.,’s study on this issue, the rate of two-year local control was found as 90% [11]. Second degree toxicity was seen in none of the above mentioned studies according to the RTOG toxicity classification. Wardak et al., reported that the patient having lung cancer that they implemented SBRT for bilateral adrenal metastases developed adrenal insufficiency depending on SBRT [6]. Ippolito et al., Reported that adrenal insuffiency may be due to both the tumor and the local treatment [12]. Incidence of symptomatic adrenal insufficiency were reported 4% [2,13]. Casamassima et al and Onishi et al studies, two grade 2 adrenal insuffiencies were reported [11,14]. Consequently, when all these data were evaluated, it is seen that SBRT use has gradually become prevalent for patients not suitable for surgery because of comorbid disease, for patients having oligometastatic cancer that are not suitable for surgery since it has vital risk to resect or that refuse surgery. However, it hasn’t been clear yet that local control will be provided with how many total doses and which fraction schema. There is no agreement on the examination of the adrenal hormone axes because of the short length of life. Besides, it should be kept in mind that adrenal insufficiency can develop in patients implemented SBRT because of bilateral adrenal metastasis developing as synchronous or metachronous. The hormone levels of these patients need to be followed. More researches should be done to lighten this matter.  

Aim and objective: Dentistry for children is not difficult but is different from what is practiced for adults. The children reacts to differently to people and places around them. Anxiety is an emotional state that helps normal individual defend themselves against a variety of threats and Dental anxiety refers to patients specific response towards dental suitation-associated stress. so the aim is to evaluate the anxiety related management of the children using intellectual mind game of the individual Study design: The background of the study is to evaluate and study the effectiveness of anxiety control of children using colour distraction between 5 and 12 yrs of age group as one part and the intellectual distraction of children between the same age group using buchanan facial imaging scale and intellectual coloured game chart Results and conclusion: lowering of anxiety was noticed in the children obtained the favorite colours in the dental environment and easy distraction can be achieved using intellectual gamings.

Background: Klebsiella pneumoniae is a bacterial species that often causes infections in humans. Infections occur most frequently in hospitalised or immunocompromised patients and are treated with antimicrobials. In recent decades, K. pneumoniae has developed significant resistance to many antimicrobials. Objective: The main goal of this study was to determine the frequency of resistance of isolated K. pneumoniae strains from urine samples of hospital patients and outpatients, and to find evidence of ESBL strains and their resistance to certain antibiotics. Methods: During the study period, Klebsiella pneumonia was isolated from the urine samples of 430 patients. The procedure for processing of urine samples, identification, susceptibility toward antimicrobials and evidence of ESBL strains were carried out according to the recommended standards. Results: Of the total K. pneumoniae isolates, 153 (35.6%) were isolated from hospital patients and 277 (64.4%) from outpatients. Strains isolated from hospital patients were resistant to each tested antibiotic. ESBL strains were detected in 169 (39.30%) samples, 92 (60.13%) from hospital patients and 77 (27.8%) from outpatients. Conclusion: Strains of K. pneumoniae isolated from the urine of hospital patients and outpatients have developed significant resistance against all tested antibiotic substances. A higher occurrence of ESBL strains was observed in hospital patients than in outpatients. ESBL strains were resistant to all penicillins and almost all cephalosporins. Highly effective antimicrobials were amikacin, colistine, carbapenem and fosfomycin. The best therapeutic results were achieved when patients were treated with fosfomycin and imipenem.