Left Ventricular Pseudoaneurysm: A Bursting Threat.

A 55-year-old man submitted to emergency surgery due to cardiac perforation by stabbing. One month later, he presented with chest pain, and a transthoracic echocardiogram revealed moderate-severe mitral regurgitation. After 6 months, a new transthoracic echocardiogram showed a left ventricular pseudoaneurysm, being later submitted to pseudoaneurysm exclusion and mitral valvuloplasty.

Pulmonary Artery Aneurysm Associated with Sarcoidosis in a 75-year-old with Heart Failure: The Challenges of Diagnosis and Management.

Introduction: Pulmonary artery aneurysm (PAA) is a rare abnormality of pulmonary vasculature. It can be idiopathic or secondary to various pathologies, frequently with multiple factors leading to its formation. We report the case of a man with concomitant sarcoidosis and PAA.

Rheumatoid Arthritis and Pericardial Effusion - A Unique Major Manifestation.

Introduction: Pericardial effusion is common in the setting of rheumatoid arthritis (RA); however, it is rarely its first manifestation.

Case Description: An 82-year-old male presented with abdominal pain, vomiting and fever. Blood analysis revealed elevated systemic inflammatory markers, and an abdominal computed tomography scan revealed non-specific alveolar condensation of the right pulmonary base and pericardial effusion subsequently quantified as medium size by transthoracic echocardiography.

Pituitary apoplexy and cerebral infarction.

Pituitary apoplexy (PA) is a possible complication of pituitary adenoma but is rarely followed by cerebral infarction. The mechanism by which this occurs is not totally understood but is believed to have multiple aetiologies such as arterial compression due to mass effect, vasospasm induced by the presence of blood or by vasoactive agents. In this report, we present a man in his 80s with known pituitary adenoma with a sudden onset of left central facial palsy, left hemiparesis, paresis of the VI left pair and previously unrecognised atrial fibrillation in the ECG.

Telemonitoring in Heart Failure - A Single Center Experience.

Background: The natural history of heart failure is a progressive decline and recurrent hospital admissions. New strategies to timely detect decompensations are needed. The use of telemonitoring in heart failure is inconsistent.

Pravastatin Transdermal Patches: Effect of The Formulation and Two Different Lengths of Microneedles on Percutaneous Absorption Studies.

Transdermal patches loaded with pravastatin was previously characterized in another published study by Serrano-Castañeda ; 2015. These transdermal patches (TP) were generated by the plate casting technique, the percutaneous absorption studies of TP were evaluated for three different formulations with different quantities of Pluronic F-127 (PF-127): i) without PF-127 (TP W), ii) 1% of PF-127 (TP 1%), and iii) 3% of PF-127 (TP 3%) using solid microneedles as a penetration enhancer with two different lengths: i) 0.25 mm and ii) 2.

A Rare Cause of Optic Neuropathy.

Lyme disease is a multisystem infection caused by Borrelia burgdorferi that mainly affects the joints, the heart, and the nervous system. Neurological complications usually manifest in untreated patients and present as meningitis, cranial neuropathies, and radiculoneuritis. The authors present the case of a 48-year-old male who developed loss of vision in the right eye over a period of two months.

Development of Poly (Methyl vinyl ether-alt-maleic acid) Microneedles for Transdermal Delivery of Atorvastatin Calcium.

Aims: Biodegradable polymeric microneedles containing atorvastatin calcium were developed in order to improve the percutaneous absorption of the drug, useful for the treatment of hypercholesterolemia.

Background: The use of physical enhancers like microneedles have shown good results to increase the delivery of drugs through the skin, the use of microneedles has very important advantages for transdermal drug delivery, for example, they are painless, easy to use and safe, they increase time interval of drug activity, dose, and reductions in adverse reactions, they also offer, the facility to remove the system instantly of the skin.

Objective: Develop polymer microneedles loaded with a calcium atorvastatin and evaluate them by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), bioadhesion, postwetting- bioadhesion, breaking strength, drug release test and in vitro percutaneous absorption studies to demonstrate the use of microneedles atorvastatin is able to cross the skin.

Anthropization in the coastal zone associated with Mexican mangroves (2005-2015).

The present work had the goal of assessing anthropization of mangroves in Mexico during the 2005-2015 period. We modified the Relative Integrated Anthropization Index (INRA in its Spanish acronym) method developed by Martínez-Dueñaz (Intrópica: 37-46, 2010) for its use in Mexico. The maps of the Mexican Mangrove Monitoring System of the National Commission for the Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (SMMM CONABIO in its Spanish acronym) for the years 2005, 2010, and 2015 were classified into 10 land use categories and 21 subcategories.

Tackling the challenges of matching biomedical ontologies.

Background: Biomedical ontologies pose several challenges to ontology matching due both to the complexity of the biomedical domain and to the characteristics of the ontologies themselves. The biomedical tracks in the Ontology Matching Evaluation Initiative (OAEI) have spurred the development of matching systems able to tackle these challenges, and benchmarked their general performance. In this study, we dissect the strategies employed by matching systems to tackle the challenges of matching biomedical ontologies and gauge the impact of the challenges themselves on matching performance, using the AgreementMakerLight (AML) system as the platform for this study.

Identification of novel genetic causes of Rett syndrome-like phenotypes.

Background: The aim of this work was to identify new genetic causes of Rett-like phenotypes using array comparative genomic hybridisation and a whole exome sequencing approach.

Methods And Results: We studied a cohort of 19 Portuguese patients (16 girls, 3 boys) with a clinical presentation significantly overlapping Rett syndrome (RTT). Genetic analysis included filtering of the single nucleotide variants and indels with preference for de novo, homozygous/compound heterozygous, or maternally inherited X linked variants.

OpenNCP: a novel framework to foster cross-border e-Health services.

The continuity of cross-border health care in the European Union depends on the ability to set up shared practices with respect to patient data exchange across Member States. This flow of data must comply with demanding security, legal and interoperability requirements, as defined by the epSOS project specifications. In this paper, we describe the OpenNCP framework that offers a comprehensive set of interoperability services to enable national and regional e-Health platforms to set up cross-border health information networks compliant with epSOS, with minimal adaptation of the existing infrastructure.

Automatic background knowledge selection for matching biomedical ontologies.

Ontology matching is a growing field of research that is of critical importance for the semantic web initiative. The use of background knowledge for ontology matching is often a key factor for success, particularly in complex and lexically rich domains such as the life sciences. However, in most ontology matching systems, the background knowledge sources are either predefined by the system or have to be provided by the user.

Disruption of protein synthesis as antifungal mode of action by chitosan.

The antimicrobial activity of chitosan has been acknowledged for more than 30 years and yet its mode-of-action remains ambiguous. We analyzed chemical-genetic interactions of low-molecular weight chitosan using a collection of ≈ 4600 S. cerevisiae deletion mutants and found that 31% of the 107 mutants most sensitive to chitosan had deletions of genes related primarily to functions involving protein synthesis.

Comparison of different methods of spatial normalization of FDG-PET brain images in the voxel-wise analysis of MCI patients and controls.

Objective: One of the most interesting clinical applications of 18F-FDG PET imaging in neurodegenerative pathologies is that of establishing the prognosis of patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), some of whom have a high risk of progressing to Alzheimer's disease (AD). One method of analyzing these images is to perform statistical parametric mapping (SPM) analysis. Spatial normalization is a critical step in such an analysis.

An effective environmental intervention for management of the 'mirror sign' in a case of probable Lewy body dementia.

The term 'mirror sign' refers to the inability to recognize the reflection of oneself in a mirror, while the ability to recognize others' faces often remains intact. In this article, we present a case of an 85-year-old woman, with probable Lewy body dementia, who stably exhibited a delusional 'mirror sign' for a period of 9 months. Following a straightforward, ecological, non-pharmacological intervention, her 'mirror sign' delusion was no longer present.

Mild cognitive impairment and dementia in primary care: the value of medical history.

Background: Primary care should be the place for the early detection of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia; however, a considerable proportion of these processes remain undetected at this setting. Family doctors may not have enough time or expertise for cognitive testing. The utility of clinical variables, other than cognitive tests, has hardly been investigated.

Nonpharmacological therapies in Alzheimer's disease: a systematic review of efficacy.

Introduction: Nonpharmacological therapies (NPTs) can improve the quality of life (QoL) of people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and their carers. The objective of this study was to evaluate the best evidence on the effects of NPTs in AD and related disorders (ADRD) by performing a systematic review and meta-analysis of the entire field.

Methods: Existing reviews and major electronic databases were searched for randomized controlled trials (RCTs).

Disruption of fungal cell wall by antifungal Echinacea extracts.

In addition to widespread use in reducing the symptoms of colds and flu, Echinacea is traditionally employed to treat fungal and bacterial infections. However, to date the mechanism of antimicrobial activity of Echinacea extracts remains unclear. We utilized a set of ∼4,600 viable gene deletion mutants of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to identify mutations that increase sensitivity to Echinacea.

Global burned-land estimation in Latin America using MODIS composite data.

This paper presents results of the AQL2004 project, which has been develope within the GOFC-GOLD Latin American network of remote sensing and forest fires (RedLatif). The project intended to obtain monthly burned-land maps of the entire region, from Mexico to Patagonia, using MODIS (moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer) reflectance data. The project has been organized in three different phases: acquisition and preprocessing of satellite data; discrimination of burned pixels; and validation of results.

Antifungal and antioxidant activities of the phytomedicine pipsissewa, Chimaphila umbellata.

Bioassay-guided fractionation of Chimaphila umbellata (L.) W. Bart (Pyrolaceae) ethanol extracts led to the identification of 2,7-dimethyl-1,4-naphthoquinone (chimaphilin) as the principal antifungal component.