There are today only a limited number of studies defining growth parameters and nutritional status for HIV children.
To study the nutritional status of infants infected with the human ...immunodeficiency virus.
Longitudinal study.
Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medical Sciences, UNICAMP, Campinas, Brazil.
One hundred and twenty-four children born to HIV infected mothers were evaluated from birth until the age of two years. They were subdivided into two groups: 71 infected children and 53 non-infected children.
Growth was evaluated in both groups by comparing Z-scores for weight/age (w/a), length/age (H/a) and weight/length (w/H) (using the NCHS curves as reference).
The Z-score analyses showed that there was a significant difference between the two groups for all the variables studied, except for the H/a value at 3 months of age and the W/H value at 21 months of age, which showed P > 0.05.
The growth of infected infants was observed to be severely affected in comparison with that of seroreversed infants in the same age groups. Although clinical manifestations may take time to appear, the onset of growth changes begin soon after birth.
Environmentally Responsive Systems for Drug Delivery Bruschi, Marcos L; Borghi-Pangoni, Fernanda B; Junqueira, Mariana V ...
Recent patents on drug delivery & formulation,
2017, Volume:
11, Issue:
2
Journal Article
In recent decades, the development of the environmentally responsive systems for drug delivery has been well regarded, with enormous potential in different applications. Methods: These ...environmentally sensitive, smart, intelligent formulations have the ability to alter their physical properties in response to small changes in physical or chemical conditions, such as temperature, glucose, pH, ultrasound, light, electric field and redox potential with a huge potential in drug delivery systems. The use of formulations containing smart materials enables to carry the drug to the target tissue, cells and release in a triggered way. Consequently, they have demonstrated several advantages like decreased dose frequency, ease of preparation and administration, prolonged release with reduced side effects, as well as, reduced costs when compared to conventional processes for industrial applications. In this sense, many patents have deposited, displaying different pharmaceutical devices using responsive systems. Results: There are more than twenty-five patents deposited about thermoresponsive systems. Furthermore, a few number of patents within glucose responsive, ultrasound responsive and light responsive deposited. There also are about eight patents that are pH-responsive, four as electric-field responsive. Most of them cover more than one type of stimuli. Conclusion: Therefore, in this review, since 1975 to 2016, we have categorized, reviewed and discussed the patents, applications, pharmaceutical dosage forms, the importance and perspectives of this environmentally responsive approach as potentially useful therapeutic modality.
Strains of Trypanosoma cruzi from different geographical areas have shown different levels of susceptibility to trypanosomicidal drugs. The susceptibility in vivo to benznidazole was investigated in ...eighteen strains of T. cruzi. Twelve were isolated from chronic chagasic patients from different Chagas' disease endemic areas. The other six strains were isolated from the northwestern region of Paraná state; two of them from patients, three from triatomines (Triatoma sordida) and one from wild reservoir (Didelphis sp.). To test drug the infected mice were divided into two groups of twenty. One group was treated with benznidazole for twenty consecutive days and the other group was used as untreated control. The treatment began after detection of the infection by direct blood examination or haemoculture. The control of cure was done through haemoculture and indirect immunofluorescence test. The drug eliminated the inflammatory lesions of the skeletal muscle of mice considered cured and from the heart of most of them. Moreover, the inflammatory lesions were reduced in treated but not cured animals. The T. cruzi strains studied showed a gradient of drug susceptibility that varied from 0% to 100%. Ten strains were considered sensitive to the treatment (61 to 100% of cure), one strain was partially sensitive (50% of cure) and seven strains were considered resistant to the treatment (0 to 40% of cure). This variation was observed both in strains of T. cruzi isolated from domestic and sylvatic cycles.
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