Economic access influences degenerative spine disease outcomes at rural Late Medieval Villamagna (Lazio, IT).

Objectives: Degenerative joint disease in the spine is heavily influenced by genetic, environmental, and epigenetic factors, as well as exacerbated by physical activity and injury. The objective of this study was to investigate the multivariate relationship between known predictors of degenerative joint disease in the spine, such as age and sex, with mortuary indicators of economic access such as grave inclusions, burial location, and burial type.

Materials And Methods: The presence and severity of vertebral osteophytosis (VO) and vertebral osteoarthritis (VOA) was recorded for the vertebral columns of N = 106 adult individuals from the Late Medieval period at the rural monastery of San Pietro at Villamagna in Lazio, Italy (1300-1450 AD).

Making sense of medieval mouths: Investigating sex differences of dental pathological lesions in a late medieval Italian community.

Objectives: Bioarchaeological investigations of sex-based differences in the prevalence of dental pathological lesions, particularly caries, have drawn considerable attention, and out of this work, two dominant models have emerged. Traditionally, the first model interprets sex-related patterns in caries as a product of gendered differences in diet. A more recent model interprets a generally higher propensity for caries prevalence in females in light of reproductive ecology.

Concurrent radiotherapy: fotemustine combination for newly diagnosed malignant glioma patients, a phase II study.

Purpose: Fotemustine is a nitrosourea compound used for the treatment of malignant gliomas, especially in France. Recently, an EORTC-NCIC study has shown that a concomitant combination of radiotherapy plus temozolomide (an oral cytotoxic drug) improved survival in glioblastoma patients. We set out to test a concurrent combination of radiotherapy and fotemustine for newly malignant gliomas.

Intracerebral C6 glioma model in female hairless rats: assessment by using MRI and follow-up of irradiation.

An experimental intracerebral C6 glioma model in immunosuppressed female hairless rats has been developed. The rate of tumor uptake was evaluated by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), using specific sequences without gadolinium enhancement. Twenty-four hours before intracerebral transplantation, a control cranial MRI was carried out and rats underwent a total body irradiation (TBI).

Human malignant glioma cell lines are sensitive to low radiation doses.

Malignant gliomas display aggressive local behavior and are not cured by existing therapy. Some cell lines that are considered radioresistant respond to low radiation doses (<1 Gy) with increased cell killing (low-dose hypersensitivity). In our study, 4 of 5 human glioma cell lines exhibited significant X-ray sensitivity at doses below 1 Gy.