Cost-effectiveness analysis of intralesional and perilesional recombinant human epidermal growth factor vs hydrocolloid therapy in venous ulcer treatment in the Colombian context.

Objective: To perform a comparative analysis of health care expenses and outcomes in response to the question: What is the cost-effectiveness of intralesional and perilesional recombinant human epidermal growth factor (rhEGF) compared with hydrocolloid therapy in patients diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency without infection in Colombia?

Methods: A Markov model was used to determine cost effectiveness over a 5-year period, considering the perspective of the health system in Colombia. The study included patients aged >18 years diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency and used clinical studies to calculate the probabilities of epithelialization, infection, recurrence, and mortality.

Results: RhEGF is more expensive per unit than hydrocolloids, but it is proven to be effective at healing ulcers in 8 to 12 weeks, even in complex cases.

Inhaled, nebulized sodium nitrite protects in murine and porcine experimental models of hemorrhagic shock and resuscitation by limiting mitochondrial injury.

Objective: The cellular injury that occurs in the setting of hemorrhagic shock and resuscitation (HS/R) affects all tissue types and can drive altered inflammatory responses. Resuscitative adjuncts hold the promise of decreasing such injury. Here we test the hypothesis that sodium nitrite (NaNO2), delivered as a nebulized solution via an inhalational route, protects against injury and inflammation from HS/R.

Inhaled Carbon Monoxide Protects against the Development of Shock and Mitochondrial Injury following Hemorrhage and Resuscitation.

Aims: Currently, there is no effective resuscitative adjunct to fluid and blood products to limit tissue injury for traumatic hemorrhagic shock. The objective of this study was to investigate the role of inhaled carbon monoxide (CO) to limit inflammation and tissue injury, and specifically mitochondrial damage, in experimental models of hemorrhage and resuscitation.

Results: Inhaled CO (250 ppm for 30 minutes) protected against mortality in severe murine hemorrhagic shock and resuscitation (HS/R) (20% vs.

Non-operative management versus operative management in high-grade blunt hepatic injury.

Background: Surgery used to be the treatment of choice in cases of blunt hepatic injury, but this approach gradually changed over the last two decades as increasing non-operative management (NOM) of splenic injury led to its use for hepatic injury. The improvement in critical care monitoring and computed tomographic scanning, as well as the more frequent use of interventional radiology techniques, has helped to bring about this change to non-operative management. Liver trauma ranges from a small capsular tear, without parenchymal laceration, to massive parenchymal injury with major hepatic vein/retrohepatic vena cava lesions.

Nitrate/Nitrite as Critical Mediators to Limit Oxidative Injury and Inflammation.

Significance: Nitric oxide (NO) is a critical signaling molecule marked by complex chemistry and varied biological responses depending on the context of the redox environment. In the setting of inflammation, NO can not only contribute to tissue injury and be causative of oxidative damage but can also signal as an adaptive molecule to limit inflammatory signaling in multiple cell types and tissues.

Recent Advances: An advance in our understanding of NO biology was the recognition of the nitrate-nitrite-NO axis, whereby nitrate (predominantly from dietary sources) could be converted to nitrite and nitrite could be reduced to NO.

Mucocutaneous Leishmania tropica infection in a dog from a human cutaneous leishmaniasis focus.

Background: Leishmania tropica is a causative agent of cutaneous leishmanaisis in the Middle East, North Africa and parts of southeastern Europe. Although transmission of L. tropica has been reported as anthroponotic, in Israel it was found to have a zoonotic pattern.