The present research investigates the study of a set of 27 (con)azoles and their reproductive toxicity. (Con)azoles are used as fungicides and herbicides in agriculture for treatment of fruits, ...vegetables, cereals, and seeds, or as human antimycotic therapeutics. According to EEC Directive 91/414, active substances used in plant protection products must undergo reproductive toxicity testing. Reproductive toxicity is a complex biological endpoint, which includes many different biological processes and, therefore, it can only to a limited extent be assessed by a single quantitative structure-activity relationship (QSAR) model. The proposed SAR models are built using unsupervised methods, such as hierarchical clustering, principal component analysis and self-organizing maps, with the aim of studying the similarity relationships between structures. The molecular structures are represented with a set of topological and structural descriptors. The models showing clusters, closest neighbours or outliers may support the categorization and the classification of (con)azoles as potential reproductive toxicants.
Sclerosing encapsulating peritonitis is a rare condition with a typical macroscopic appearance, with fibrocollagenous membrane enclosing loops of the small intestine, causing intestinal obstruction. ...Unexplained recurrent abdominal pain, obstruction, and a large array of other possible clinical signs and symptoms make sclerosing encapsulating peritonitis a diagnostic challenge.
A 48-year-old man of Persian ethnicity was admitted multiple times to the emergency surgery department due to recurrent sudden abdominal pain and chronic obstruction without significant findings in medical history or clinical evaluation. Computed tomography was positive for proximal jejunal dilatation and duodenojejunal flexure stenosis due to internal mesenteric hernia. Exploratory laparoscopy, followed by laparotomy, confirmed thick membrane-like fibrous tissue with complete small intestinal loop envelopment. Extensive membrane excision and adhesiolysis was performed, but no mesenteric herniation was found. Early postoperative paralytic ileus with introduction of low-dose steroid therapy, based on histopathological and immunological results, confirming type III sclerosing encapsulating peritonitis, was completely resolved.
Sclerosing encapsulating peritonitis is a rare and difficult-to-diagnose condition, further divided into primary and secondary sclerosing encapsulating peritonitis, on the basis of underlying etiology, dictating treatment modality and prognosis. Intraoperative diagnosis and surgical treatment are mandatory, besides a wide variety of abdominal computed tomography scans, inconclusive results, and clinical presentations. There are so far no known specific markers for the diagnosis of sclerosing encapsulating peritonitis.
Purpose: To investigate the extent to which medical students demonstrate politeness. With respect to patient-physician interactions, politeness appears to be a factor in therapeutic success, perhaps ...because it might induce greater patient compliance.
Method: We assessed 354 third-semester medical students on one type of politeness, that is the percentage of students who greeted the teacher upon entering the lecture room.
Results: Overall, 47% of the students initiated a greeting and this percentage did not change when the lecturers wore white coats. Females were less likely to initiate a greeting (35%) than males (55%).
Conclusion: The results lead us to question whether university lecturers should strictly stick to their content of the curriculum or should they also teach their students about etiquette related to good clinician-patient relationships?
Summary A 35-year-old white male with symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia was treated by psychiatrists for 13 years. During the final year, he developed severe dysphagia, reduced strength of the upper ...extremity muscles, and cognitive dysfunction. The patient died in his sleep. The only pathology found in coronal brain sections was ill-defined periventricular foci with prominent, firm vessels. Microscopy revealed abundant, hematoxylin and eosin–eosinophilic, periodic acid–Schiff–positive, thioflavin T–positive, and Congo red–negative deposits in the vessel walls, with hypoxic encephalopathy in the affected regions. Immunohistochemistry showed λ light chains as the main component of the deposits. Ultrastructural analysis showed amorphous electron dense material in the vessel walls. Perivascular B-cell proliferation was present in the vicinity of affected areas. Polymerase chain reaction was applied for the assessment of B-cell clonality, revealing monoclonal rearrangement of the heavy chain Ig gene. Neither in the kidney nor in any other organ were deposits detected. This is the first case report of light chain deposition disease restricted to the brain.
