Carrageenan has been widely used as food additive for decades and therefore, an extended oral data set is available in the public domain. Less data are available for other routes of administration, especially intranasal administration. The current publication describes the non-clinical safety and toxicity of native (non-degraded) iota-carrageenan when applied intranasally or via inhalation.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Clinical trials applying iota-carrageenan nasal spray have previously shown to reduce duration of virus-confirmed common cold. The present study pooled data of two similar clinical trials to provide further evidence for the antiviral effectiveness of carrageenan.
Methods: Individual patient data were analyzed from two randomized double blind placebo controlled trials assessing the therapeutic effectiveness of carrageenan nasal spray in acute common cold.
Background: The common cold is the most widespread viral infection in humans. Iota-carrageenan has previously shown antiviral effectiveness against cold viruses in clinical trials. This study investigated the efficacy of a carrageenan-containing nasal spray on the duration of the common cold and nasal fluid viral load in adult patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough conventional white light endoscopy (WLE) is currently the gold standard for diagnosing bladder tumors, rates of false negative results and residual tumors after transurethral resection are relatively high. The goal of the present clinical study is to investigate whether using new water soluble hypericin (PVP-hypericin) as a fluorescent dye improves bladder cancer detection and diagnosis. Following instillation of PVP-hypericin (total amount of 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe primary tumor of brain metastases (BM) is unknown in up to one-half of BM at the time of neurosurgery. Fifty-four consecutive unselected BM were investigated immunohistochemically using antibodies against different intermediate filaments and tumor markers. By correlating the immunohistochemical results with the location of the primary tumor, a staining pattern characteristic of the most frequent BM could be established.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe poor prognosis of glioma patients is partly based on the minor success obtained from chemotherapeutic treatments. Resistance mechanisms at the tumor cell level may be, in addition to the blood-brain barrier, involved in the intrinsic chemo-insensitivity of brain tumors. We investigated the expression of the drug-transporter proteins P-glycoprotein (P-gp) and multidrug-resistance protein 1 (MRP1) in cell lines (N = 24) and primary cell cultures (N = 36) from neuroectodermal tumors, as well as in brain tumor extracts (N = 18) and normal human astrocytes (N = 1).
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