-
Vargas McCracken posted an update 3 months, 2 weeks ago
Ready availability of fluids and the recommendation to drink copiously at the rave scene to counteract hyperthermia, often precipitate water intoxication. Users should be advised about the importance of controlling fluid intake while using phenethylamines. At early signs of adverse effects, medical assistance should be promptly sought. Severe hyponatraemia ( less then 130 mmol sodium/L plasma) may be corrected with hypertonic saline or suppression of fluid intake. Also, clinicians should be made aware of the hyponatraemic potential of these drugs and encouraged to report future cases of toxicity to increase knowledge on this potentially lethal outcome.Children are harmed by exposure to domestic violence (DV) and in extreme cases can become homicide victims themselves. A critical role for police responding to domestic violence calls is to assess risk for future violence. Training and procedural guidelines for assessment and intervention are often focused on adult victims, and children tend to be overlooked. Objective The objective of the current study is to identify the challenges police officers perceive in dealing with children in the context of DV occurrences. Participants, setting & methods Interviews with police officers (n = 15) in Ontario, Canada were used to explore police officers’ experiences addressing the needs of families experiencing DV. A dual deductive/inductive approach to a thematic analysis at the semantic level was undertaken (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to explore themes. Results The major themes from the interviews centered on (a) challenges relating to knowledge, skills, and resources; (b) challenges from discrepancies in required procedures; and (c) challenges associated to police relations with families. These challenges all impact the police response to children in DV occurrences. Conclusions Police recognize the challenges they face in addressing children in DV occurrences. The implications for improved practice are discussed and include the need for increased collaboration, awareness, and training.Purpose To assess the usefulness of amide proton transfer (APT) imaging in differentiating parotid tumors. Material and methods We retrospectively analyzed 43 histopathologically proven parotid solid tumors with diameters ≥2 cm. Twenty-one tumors were benign and 12 tumors were malignant. Two-dimensional APT imaging was performed using a saturation pulse with a duration of 2 s and a saturation power level of 2 μT. For acquiring Z-spectra, the imaging was repeated at 25 saturation frequency offsets from ω = -6 to +6 ppm with a step of 0.5 ppm as well as one scan acquired far off-resonance (-1560 ppm) for signal normalization. For the APT imaging, the asymmetry analysis at 3.5 ppm downfield from the water signal was calculated. The mean APT signal intensity (SI) was compared between the benign and malignant tumors. Results The mean APT SI was 2.23 ± 0.80 % in the benign tumors and significantly higher at 2.99 ± 0.99 % in the malignant tumors (P = 0.01). click here A receiver operating curve analysis revealed that the optimal APT SI threshold was 2.40 for distinguishing malignant tumors from benign tumors with an area under the curve of 0.74. The sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were 83.3%, 61.3%, and 67.4%, respectively. Conclusion The mean APT SI of the malignant parotid tumors was significantly higher than that of the benign parotid tumors.Background The growing morbidity and mortality rate of chronic kidney disease (CKD) has forced researchers to find more efficient strategies for controlling this disease. Studies have proven the important role of alteration in iron, zinc and selenium metabolism in CKD pathological process. Nanotechnology, through synthetizing nano metal-organic framework (NMOF) structures, can be employed as a valuable strategy for using these trace elements as the key for modification and improvement of CKD-related pathological events. After proving the anti-diabetic property of DIBc NMOF (which contains selenium and zinc) in the previous study, the impact of this NMOF on some important biochemical and pathological parameters of CKD was evaluated in the current study. Methods Knowing that diabetic nephropathy (DN) is the leading cause of CKD, male wistar rats were selected and given a high fat diet for 2 weeks and then were injected with streptozotocin (35 mg/kg) to induce DN. Six weeks after streptozotocin injection, DIBc or metformin treatment started and continued for 8 weeks. Results Eight weeks of DIBc treatment decreased plasma fasting blood glucose, blood urea nitrogen, uric acid, malondialdehyde (MDA) and HOMA-IR index compared to DN control and metformin groups. This NMOF significantly reduced urinary albumin excretion rate, MDA and 8-isoprostane, while it increased creatinine clearance in comparison to the above-mentioned groups. Renal histo-pathological images indicated that DIBc ameliorated glomerular basement membrane thickening and wrinkling, mesangial matrix expansion and hypercellularity and presence of intra-cytoplasmic hyaline droplets in proximal cortical tubules of kidney samples. Conclusion The results showed the therapeutic effect of DIBc on important biochemical and histo-pathological parameters of CKD, so this NMOF could be regarded as a promising novel anti-CKD agent.Objectives Circulating tumor (ct)DNA analysis is rapidly gaining acceptance as a diagnostic tool to guide clinical management of advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Clinically-actionable EGFR mutations can be detected in ctDNA before or after first-line EGFR-Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor (TKI) treatment, but data are limited for patients with a complex treatment history. This study aimed to explore the feasibility of ctDNA testing in a clinical setting of NSCLC patients receiving osimertinib as a second or third line EGFR-TKI. Materials and methods Twenty EGFR T790M-positive NSCLC patients, who had received osimertinib as a second or third line EGFR-TKI and had donated blood samples while attending routine follow-up consultations between April and November 2016, were retrospectively selected to test plasma cfDNA for tumor-guided EGFR mutations. We used EGFR mutations previously identified in tumor-tissue to retrospectively test plasma ctDNA from 20 patients who had received osimertinib as a second or third line EGFR-TKI.