Posts

The occurrence of three or more of the following signs and symptoms, such as headache, dizziness, exhaustion, irritability, sleeplessness, difficulties in concentrating, or memory problems, following a head injury is referred to as post-concussion syndrome (PCS). Even though post-concussion syndrome has not been studied in Ethiopia, the productive age group is frequently affected by health issues related to head trauma, which either directly or indirectly affect the growth of the nation.

Chronic, abdominal pain remains a problem in a subset of patients after cholecystectomy. The cause is often obscure but central sensitization may be an important component and could theoretically be mediated by spinal PGE2, which is regulated by several cytokines. The aim of the study was to examine cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of participants with post cholecystectomy syndrome and healthy volunteers for signs of PGE2 and cytokine mediated central sensitization.

Considerable evidence suggests that there are significant ethnic/racial differences in the experience of pain among individuals suffering from chronic musculoskeletal conditions. Additionally, low levels of vitamin D have been associated with pain severity. Further, vitamin D deficiency is more prevalent in Non-Hispanic Black (NHB) individuals compared to Non-Hispanic Whites (NHW).

Cannabidiol (CBD) products are available nearly nationwide in the US and can coexist with medical or recreational programs. North Carolina (NC) is an example of a state with a program dedicated to integrating hemp cultivation and medicinal CBD exclusively, containing a multitude of retailers selling it as a primary product. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandates that non-FDA approved CBD products cannot be marketed using medical or health-related claims and has sent warning letters to retailers violating these terms. We aim to characterize the online content of the NC CBD market by analyzing retailers' websites to determine whether hemp/CBD shops comply with FDA regulations in terms of medical claims and analyze the claimed CBD content and price of products offered online.

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) were applied to speculate the altered structural and functional abnormalities within the hippocampus in classical trigeminal neuralgia (CTN) patients by detecting the alteration of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), fractional anisotropy (FA), and regional homogeneity (ReHo). . Multimodal MRI dataset (DTI and fMRI) and clinical indices (pain and neuropsychological scores) were collected in 27 CTN patients and 27 age- and gender-matched healthy controls (HC). Two independent-sample -tests were performed to compare the ADC, FA, and ReHo values in hippocampus areas between CTN patients and HC. Correlation analyses were applied between all the DTI and fMRI parameters within the hippocampus and the VAS (visual analog scale), MoCA (Montreal cognitive assessment), and CDR (clinical dementia rating) scores.

Chronic postsurgery pain (CPSP) refers to persistent or repeated pain around the incision after surgery. Different from acute postoperative pain, the persistence of CPSP seriously affects the quality of life of patients. CPSP has a considerable global impact due to large surgical volumes. Although the development of video-assisted thoracoscopy (VATS) has reduced the risk of CPSP, it still seriously affects patients' quality of life. Clinical recognition of CPSP at an early stage is limited; therefore, we aimed to develop and validate a nomogram to identify the significant predictive factors associated with CPSP after VATS in patients with lung adenocarcinoma. We screened 137 patients with invasive adenocarcinoma of the lung from among 312 patients undergoing VATS. In this prospective study, patients were divided into the CPSP ( = 52) and non-CPSP ( = 85) groups according to the occurrence of CPSP. Relevant information was collected 1 day before surgery and 1-3 days after surgery, and the occurrence of CPSP was followed up by telephone at 3 months after surgery. Data on clinical characteristics and peripheral blood leukocyte miRNAs were used to establish a nomogram for predicting CPSP using least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression methods. The area under curve (AUC) was used to determine the recognition ability of the nomograms. The model was subjected to correction and decision curve analyses. Four variables-body mass index (BMI), history of chronic pain, miR 550a-3p, and visual analog scale (VAS) score on postoperative day 2 (VAS2d)-were selected according to LASSO regression to build the nomogram. The nomogram demonstrated adequate calibration and discrimination in the prediction model, with an AUC of 0.767 (95% confidence interval: 0.679-0.856). The calibration plot showed the best fit between model predictions and practical observations, suggesting that the use of the proposed nomogram to predict CPSP is beneficial. A nomogram consisting of BMI, history of chronic pain, miR 550a-3p, and VAS2d predicted the risk of CPSP after VATS in patients with lung adenocarcinoma.

Evaluation of the clinical efficacy of the drug holisal» according to the results of domestic and foreign studies on modern methods for treatment of inflammatory diseases of the oral mucosa mouth and periodontium.

Despite the prevalence of opioid misuse, opioids remain the frontline treatment regimen for severe pain. However, opioid safety is hampered by side-effects such as analgesic tolerance, reduced analgesia to neuropathic pain, physical dependence, or reward. These side effects promote development of opioid use disorders and ultimately cause overdose deaths due to opioid-induced respiratory depression. The intertwined nature of signaling via μ-opioid receptors (MOR), the primary target of prescription opioids, with signaling pathways responsible for opioid side-effects presents important challenges. Therefore, a critical objective is to uncouple cellular and molecular mechanisms that selectively modulate analgesia from those that mediate side-effects. One such mechanism could be the transactivation of receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) via MOR. Notably, MOR-mediated side-effects can be uncoupled from analgesia signaling via targeting RTK family receptors, highlighting physiological relevance of MOR-RTKs crosstalk. This review focuses on the current state of knowledge surrounding the basic pharmacology of RTKs and bidirectional regulation of MOR signaling, as well as how MOR-RTK signaling may modulate undesirable effects of chronic opioid use, including opioid analgesic tolerance, reduced analgesia to neuropathic pain, physical dependence, and reward. Further research is needed to better understand RTK-MOR transactivation signaling pathways, and to determine if RTKs are a plausible therapeutic target for mitigating opioid side effects.

Arterial dissections, which involve an abrupt tear in the wall of a major artery resulting in the intramural accumulation of blood, are a family of catastrophic disorders causing major, potentially fatal sequelae. Involving diverse vascular beds, including the aorta or coronary, cervical, pulmonary, and visceral arteries, each type of dissection is devastating in its own way. Traditionally they have been studied in isolation, rather than collectively, owing largely to the distinct clinical consequences of dissections in different anatomical locations – such as stroke, myocardial infarction, and renal failure. Here, we review the shared and unique features of these arteriopathies to provide a better understanding of this family of disorders. Arterial dissections occur commonly in the young to middle-aged, and often in conjunction with hypertension and/or migraine; the latter suggesting they are part of a generalized vasculopathy. Genetic studies as well as cellular and molecular investigations of arterial dissections reveal striking similarities between dissection types, particularly their pathophysiology, which includes the presence or absence of an intimal tear and vasa vasorum dysfunction as a cause of intramural hemorrhage. Pathway perturbations common to all types of dissections include disruption of TGF-β signaling, the extracellular matrix, the cytoskeleton or metabolism, as evidenced by the finding of mutations in critical genes regulating these processes, including , collagen genes, fibrillin and TGF-β receptors, or their coupled pathways. Perturbances in these connected signaling pathways contribute to phenotype switching in endothelial and vascular smooth muscle cells of the affected artery, in which their physiological quiescent state is lost and replaced by a proliferative activated phenotype. Of interest, dissections in various anatomical locations are associated with distinct sex and age predilections, suggesting involvement of gene and environment interactions in disease pathogenesis. Importantly, these cellular mechanisms are potentially therapeutically targetable. Consideration of arterial dissections as a collective pathology allows insight from the better characterized dissection types, such as that involving the thoracic aorta, to be leveraged to inform the less common forms of dissections, including the potential to apply known therapeutic interventions already clinically available for the former.

Post-acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) syndrome, also known as long COVID, is a prolonged illness after the acute phase of COVID-19. Hospitalized patients were known to have persisting symptoms of fatigue, headache, dyspnea, and anosmia. There is a need to describe the characteristics of individuals with post-COVID-19 symptoms in comparison to the baseline characteristics.