Hepatoprotective activity of the n-heptane extract of
Cassia fistula leaves was investigated by inducing hepatotoxicity with paracetamol in rats. The extract at a dose of 400 mg/kg body wt. exhibited ...orally, significant protective effect by lowering the serum levels of transaminases (SGOT and SGPT), bilirubin and alkaline phosphatase (ALP). The effects produced were comparable to that of a standard hepatoprotective agent.
Abstract
The prevalence of hypertension around the world has increased significantly with projections for an increasing major global burden of hypertension. Medication-resistant hypertension can be ...perplexing and frustrating. The existence of these difficult patients results in the need for additional approaches to treatment including surgery, percutaneous interventions, and device management. The sophistication of these techniques has progressed markedly and initial procedures such as classical sympathectomy and renal artery bypass are almost never performed. Newer techniques of angioplasty with stenting, renal artery denervation, and baroreflex activation therapy via electrical stimulation of the carotid baroreceptors are now in use with increasing evidence for significant benefit.
BACKGROUND
Whether in utero exposure to tobacco smoke increases a woman's risk of fetal loss later in life is unknown, though data on childhood exposure suggest an association may exist. This study ...evaluated the association between in utero exposure to tobacco smoke and fetal loss in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), which enrolled ∼40% of the pregnant women in Norway from 1999 to 2008.
METHODS
Information on exposure to tobacco smoke in utero, the woman's own smoking behavior during pregnancy and other factors was obtained by a questionnaire completed at ∼17 weeks of gestation. Subsequent late miscarriage (fetal death <20 weeks) and stillbirth (fetal death ≥20 weeks) were ascertained from the Norwegian Medical Birth Registry. This analysis included 76 357 pregnancies (MoBa data set version 4.301) delivered by the end of 2008; 59 late miscarriages and 270 stillbirths occurred. Cox proportional hazards models were fit for each outcome and for all fetal deaths combined.
RESULTS
The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of late miscarriage was 1.23 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.72–2.12 in women with exposure to maternal tobacco smoke in utero when compared with non-exposed women. The corresponding adjusted HR for stillbirths was 1.11 (95% CI, 0.85–1.44) and for all fetal deaths combined, it was 1.12 (95% CI, 0.89–1.43).
CONCLUSIONS
The relatively wide CI around the HR for miscarriage reflected the limited power to detect an association, due to enrollment around 17 weeks of gestation. However, for in utero exposure to tobacco smoke and risk of stillbirth later in life, where the study power was adequate, our data provided little support for an association.
Abrasive jet system is one of the effective tools and found several present and future applications in many manufacturing industries and R&D sectors. In the form of abrasive jet it is used for ...machining like cutting, drilling, and engraving of brittle materials. Surface fast cleaning and preparation are done by using abrasive jet for welding and plasma spray coatings. The erosion tests of turbine blades, propellers are done by using abrasive jet application. Some special type of particles are used for shot peening for surface hardening. An abrasive jet system is in-house designed and manufactured and its performance is observed in various applications like machining, cleaning, and erosion tests. In this present research work, a critical review has been done on various applications of abrasive jet systems. Based on the present status of work, the application possibilities of the present abrasive jet system is experimentally evaluated. It is evident that the abrasive jet system using natural sand can be used for cutting, drilling and engraving of brittle material like glass, marble, etc. Rust cleaning from the metal surface and erosion tests of metal matrix composite laser coatings are also performed by using the same abrasive jet system.
This paper applies a three-dimensional (3D) electric field analysis program to calculate the field distribution at the live end of 110 kV non-ceramic insulators used in the Queensland transmission ...system. A number of 110 kV insulator configurations have been modelled, including a post, a longrod and a horizontal vee assembly, to determine the electric field on the sheath at the live end. It has been observed that birds will only chew the dead end of insulators. Based on modelling and the proximity of bird chewing damage to the live end, the maximum electric field that birds will tolerate has been estimated. Of particular interest to this research was the effect of corona ring geometry on the electric field at the live end of high voltage non-ceramic insulators. At 110 kV, manufacturers do not recommend the fitting of corona rings to reduce the electric field. However, for 330 kV non-ceramic insulators, manufacturers recommend fitting corona rings at the live end to reduce the electric field so that sheath damage due to corona discharge is minimised. The 110 kV non-ceramic insulator electric field values from modelling are compared with those of 330 kV longrods from earlier work. This paper comments on whether corona rings should be applied to 110 kV non-ceramic insulators based on the maximum levels of corona on the sheath at the live end of longrods. A number of different corona ring geometries were compared. The effect of changing ring cross-sectional shape, diameter and placement along the insulator are investigated.
Though copper is a necessary trace element but it can be toxic in higher concentration. Locally available fly ash was found to be low-cost adsorbent to remove copper from aqueous solution. Calcium ...oxide-treated fly ash was investigated in the study of scale up of copper removal. Response surface methodology (RSM) was used for the statistical optimization of the copper reduction process. A two-level-three-factor (2 super(3)) full factorial central composite design with the help of Design Expert Version 7.0.0 (Stat Ease, USA) was used for the optimization of the copper adsorption process variables like: initial solution pH (3.5-5.5), initial copper concentration (15-50 mg/L), and contact time (45-90 min) and to evaluate the effects and interactions of process variables. The optimum reduction of copper was 99.16% at pH 3.98, 77.88 mg/L copper concentration, and 58.82 min of contact time. The percentage deviation between experimental and RSM model equation was 0.03%.
Abstract
Background
Up to 40% of breast cancers have moderate to strong expression of GR, and activation of GR is associated with poor prognosis in ER-negative breast cancer. GR activation in breast ...cancer cells initiates anti-apoptotic signaling, contributing to chemotherapy resistance. We hypothesize that GR highly expressing TNBCs will have a suboptimal response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
Methods
We identified patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy at the University of Chicago between 2002 and 2014 under IRB approved protocols. Those patients for whom pre-treatment and post-treatment tissue was available were included in this study. Unstained sections of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded primary tumor were obtained. Percentage tumor cell GR expression was determined via immunohistochemical (IHC) examination using two different antibodies: the anti-GR rabbit monoclonal XP antibody (Cell Signaling, D8H2, 1:500 dilution) and the polyclonal rabbit anti-GR antibody (1:80). Staining was performed according to methods previously published by Belova et al. TNBCs were considered GR positive if greater than 10% of cancer cells stained moderately to strongly positive for GR.
Results
Fifty paired tissue samples were identified and pre- and post-treatment tissue was stained for GR using two anti-GR antibodies as above. Of these 50 cases, 80% had moderate to strong expression of GR using the XP antibody; results with the polyclonal ab will be compared. Percentage GR expression did not change in the setting of treatment. Work to correlate GR expression using the monoclonal versus the polyclonal antibody and clinicopathological features is ongoing.
Conclusions
To our knowledge, this is the first study attempting to evaluate percentage GR expression as a biomarker of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in TNBC. If higher GR expression correlates with a lower pCR rate in TNBC as hypothesized, then GR blockade in conjunction with chemotherapy may overcome chemotherapy resistance and lead to improved response to treatment in patients with GR expressing TNBCs.
Citation Format: Saha P, Turk A, Lurain K, Baker G, Conzen S, Nanda R. The role of glucocorticoid receptor (GR) expression in predicting pathological complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). abstract. In: Proceedings of the Thirty-Eighth Annual CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium: 2015 Dec 8-12; San Antonio, TX. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2016;76(4 Suppl):Abstract nr P3-07-24.
Introduction: Estrogen depletion after menopause is accompanied by bone loss and architectural deterioration of trabecular bone. The hypothesis underlying this work is that the μMRI‐based virtual ...bone biopsy can capture the temporal changes of scale and topology of the trabecular network and that estrogen supplementation preserves the integrity of the trabecular network.
Materials and Methods: Subjects studied were early postmenopausal women, 45–55 yr of age (N = 65), of whom 32 were on estrogen (estradiol group), and the remainder were not (control group). Early menopause was defined by amenorrhea for 6–24 mo and elevated serum follicle‐stimulating hormone (FSH) concentration. The subjects were evaluated with three imaging modalities at baseline and 12 and 24 mo to determine the temporal changes in trabecular and cortical architecture and density. μMRI of the distal radius and tibia was performed at 137 × 137 × 410‐μm3 voxel size. The resulting bone volume fraction maps were Fourier interpolated to a final voxel size of 45.7 × 45.7 × 136.7 μm3, binarized, skeletonized, and subjected to 3D digital topological analysis (DTA). Skeletonization converts trabecular rods to curves and plates to surfaces. Parameters quantifying scale included BV/TV, whereas DTA parameters included the volume densities of curves (C) and surface (S)‐type voxels, as well as composite parameters: the surface/curve ratio (S/C), and erosion index (EI, ratio of the sum of parameters expected to increase with osteoclastic resorption divided by the sum of those expected to decrease). For comparison, pQCT of the same peripheral locations was conducted, and trabecular density and cortical structural parameters were measured. Areal BMD of the lumbar vertebrae and hip was also measured.
Results: Substantial changes in trabecular architecture of the distal tibia, in particular as they relate to topology of the network, were detected after 12 mo in the control group. S/C decreased 5.6% (p < 0.0005), and EI increased 7.1% (p < 0.0005). Most curve‐ and profile‐type voxels (representative of trabecular struts), increased significantly (p < 0.001). Curve and profile edges resulting from disconnection of rod‐like trabeculae increased by 9.8% and 5.1% (p = 0.0001 and <0.001, respectively). Similarly, DXA BMD in the spine and hip decreased 2.6% and 1.3% (p < 0.0001 and <0.005, respectively), and pQCT cortical area decreased 3.6% (p = 0.0001). However, neither trabecular density nor BV/TV changed. Furthermore, none of the parameters measured in the estradiol group were significantly different after 12 mo. Substantial differences in the mean changes from baseline between the estradiol treatment and control groups, in particular after 24 mo, were observed, with relative group differences as large as 13% (S/C, p = 0.005), and the relative changes in the two groups had the opposite sign for most parameters. The observed temporal alterations in architecture are consistent with remodeling changes that involve gradual conversion of plate‐like to rod‐like trabecular bone along with disconnection of trabecular elements, even in the absence of a net loss of trabecular bone. The high‐resolution 3D rendered images provide direct evidence of the above remodeling changes in individual subjects. The radius structural data indicated similar trends but offered no definitive conclusions.
Conclusions: The short‐term temporal changes in trabecular architecture after menopause, and the protective effects of estradiol ensuring maintenance of a more plate‐like TB architecture, reported here, have not previously been observed in vivo. This work suggests that MRI‐based in vivo micromorphometry of trabecular bone has promise as a tool for monitoring osteoporosis treatment.
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