There is some recent evidence that cardiac ischemia/reperfusion (I/R) injury induces intestinal damage within days, which contributes to adverse cardiovascular outcomes after myocardial infarction. However, it is not clear whether remote gut injury has any detectable early signs, and whether different interventions aiming to reduce cardiac damage are also effective at protecting the intestine. Previously, we found that chronic treatment with rofecoxib, a selective inhibitor of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), limited myocardial infarct size to a comparable extent as cardiac ischemic preconditioning (IPC) in rats subjected to 30-min coronary artery occlusion and 120-min reperfusion.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntestinal dysbiosis is linked to numerous gastrointestinal disorders, including inflammatory bowel diseases. It is a question of debate if coxibs, selective inhibitors of cyclooxygenase (COX)-2, cause dysbiosis. Therefore, in the present study, we aimed to determine the effect of long-term (four weeks) selective inhibition of COX-2 on the small intestinal microbiota in the rat.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCigarette smoke-triggered inflammatory cascades and consequent tissue damage are the main causes of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). There is no effective therapy and the key mediators of COPD are not identified due to the lack of translational animal models with complex characterization. This integrative chronic study investigated cardiopulmonary pathophysiological alterations and mechanisms with functional, morphological and biochemical techniques in a 6-month-long cigarette smoke exposure mouse model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the last decades new therapeutic drugs have been developed for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients. Tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) significantly increase the progression free survival (PFS) of patients with NSCLC carrying epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations. This type of lung cancer occurs mainly among non-smoking women and Asian origin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLung cancer is a heterogeneous group of disease and mutational profiling of lung adenocarcinomas is a routine practice in thoracic oncology. Kirsten-RAS (KRAS) and EGFR mutations play an important role in the carcinogenesis of a subset of lung adenocarcinomas. Our aim was to investigate the correlation between bone metastases and EGFR and KRAS mutation status in lung adenocarcinoma patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe majority of lung cancers (LC) belong to the non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) type. The two main NSCLC sub-types, namely adenocarcinoma (AC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), respond differently to therapy. Whereas the link between cigarette smoke and lung cancer risk is well established, the relevance of non-canonical Wnt pathway up-regulation detected in SCC remains poorly understood.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCase Report: A middle-aged man presented with the diagnosis of typical spontaneous pneumothorax in the left chest. His management was initiated as usual with a chest drain and he had an uneventful recovery with good expansion of the affected lung up until the third postoperative day. But due to a fatal accident, the patient connected the oxygene supply tube into his thoracic drain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSomatostatin released from capsaicin-sensitive sensory nerves of the lung during endotoxin-induced murine pneumonitis inhibits inflammation and hyperresponsiveness, presumably via somatostatin receptor subtype 4 (sst(4)). The goal of the present study was to identify sst(4) receptors in mouse and human lungs and to reveal its inflammation-induced alterations with real-time quantitative PCR, Western blot, and immunohistochemistry. In non-inflamed mouse and human lungs, mRNA expression and immunolocalization of sst(4) are very similar.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Along with their classic afferent function (nociception), capsaicin-sensitive transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) receptor-expressing sensory nerve terminals exert local and systemic efferent activities. Activation of TRPV1 causes sensory neuropeptide release, which modulates the inflammation process. The aim of the present study was to examine the role of this modulatory role of TRPV1 receptor and that of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) in bleomycin-induced scleroderma, using transgenic mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEur J Cardiothorac Surg
October 2005
Objective: Applicability of harmonic scalpel in lung biopsy was investigated in a randomised single institute study.
Methods: Safety of the method, morbidity, drainage duration and in-hospital stays were compared in two randomised groups of patients in which either ultrasonic harmonic scalpel (n:20) or endostapler (n:20) were used for pulmonary biopsies during VATS.
Results: An advantage of 16min in average operation time was found in favour of the harmonic scalpel (30.
Eur J Cardiothorac Surg
December 2004
Objective: Applicability of harmonic scalpel in lung surgery was investigated using an animal model.
Methods: Air tightness, control of bleeding and features of tissue regeneration were compared in a 4-week time frame of investigation in animals in which either surgical stapler or harmonic scalpel were used for pulmonary resection.
Results: No significant differences between the two methods were found on a clinical and histopathological basis.
Mediastinal (thymic) large B-cell lymphoma (MBL) has been defined as a subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBL) arising in the mediastinum with characteristic clinicopathological features. It has been postulated that MBL arise from non-circulating thymic B-cells and represent a distinct lymphoma entity, however, the histogenesis of the disease is not yet fully understood. In order to clarify the histogenetic derivation of MBL and to determine the relationship of MBL to thymic B-cells we have analyzed the nucleic acid sequences of immunoglobulin (Ig) heavy chain variable region (VH) and 5' noncoding region of BCL-6 genes in normal thymic B-cells and six cases of MBL.
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