Rejected

Little is known about the long term (greater than 10 years) quality of life in patients with vestibular schwannoma. This study aimed to evaluate long-term outcomes in patients with vestibular schwannoma.

Mesalazine is a standard therapeutic agent for the treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases. A rare case of mesalazine-induced airway obstruction documented by pulmonary function testing is reported herein. The patient had Crohn's disease and was treated with mesalazine; she subsequently developed a high fever, cough, and chest pain with centrilobular nodular shadows on chest computed tomography (CT). After cessation of mesalazine, the abnormal CT findings as well as the decreased forced expiratory volume in 1 second improved. Based on these findings, pulmonary function testing appears to be a useful tool, even in the acute phase, along with chest CT in drug-induced lung diseases.

Dexmedetomidine have both sedative and analgesic properties without respiratory-depressant effect. This study aims to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of sedation and analgesia using dexmedetomidine for the endovenous treatment of varicose veins.

Low physical capacity is hypothesized to be associated with the presence of musculoskeletal symptoms. Therefore, our aim was to investigate whether physical capacity is associated with the presence of musculoskeletal symptoms in the neck, shoulders, and thoracic and lumbar spine among office workers.

Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is a chronic autoimmune rheumatic disease with symptoms including dryness, fatigue, and pain. The previous work by our group has suggested that certain proinflammatory cytokines are inversely related to patient-reported levels of fatigue. To date, these findings have not been validated. This study aims to validate this observation. Blood levels of seven cytokines were measured in 120 patients with pSS from the United Kingdom Primary Sjögren's Syndrome Registry and 30 age-matched healthy non-fatigued controls. Patient-reported scores for fatigue were classified according to severity and compared to cytokine levels using analysis of variance. The differences between cytokines in cases and controls were evaluated using Wilcoxon test. A logistic regression model was used to determine the most important identifiers of fatigue. Five cytokines, interferon-γ-induced protein-10 (IP-10), tumour necrosis factor-α (TNFα), interferon-α (IFNα), interferon-γ (IFN-γ), and lymphotoxin-α (LT-α) were significantly higher in patients with pSS (n = 120) compared to non-fatigued controls (n = 30). Levels of two proinflammatory cytokines, TNF-α (p = 0.021) and LT-α (p = 0.043), were inversely related to patient-reported levels of fatigue. Cytokine levels, disease-specific and clinical parameters as well as pain, anxiety, and depression were used as predictors in our validation model. The model correctly identifies fatigue levels with 85% accuracy. Consistent with the original study, pain, depression, and proinflammatory cytokines appear to be the most powerful predictors of fatigue in pSS. TNF-α and LT-α have an inverse relationship with fatigue severity in pSS challenging the notion that proinflammatory cytokines directly mediate fatigue in chronic immunological conditions.

The field of locoregional anesthesia is showing good and promising results for intraoperative and postoperative analgesia, reducing opioid requirements and improving early postoperative recovery. Peripheral nerve blocks are being reinvigorated as a viable option to decrease the administration of opioids and some of the consequences of their use and yet provide high-quality analgesia. In this article, techniques to block the pelvic limb are discussed.

Interleukin 6 (IL-6) is a pleiotropic cytokine that plays a role in the neuroendocrine system, insulin resistance, lipid metabolism, vascular disease, mitochondrial activities, neuropsychological behaviour, and also mediates communications between the immune and central nervous system (CNS). Treatment with anti-IL-6 or anti-IL-6R agents seems to alleviate allodynia and hyperalgesia, so it may be a valid option when treating the many conditions involving pathological pain as rheumatoid arthritis.

Dementia is the most common neurological disease in older adults; headaches, including migraines, are the most common neurological disorder across all ages. The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between migraines and dementia, including Alzheimer's disease (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD).

The physicochemical properties, stability, in vivo antihyperalgesic activity, and skin irritation potential of the carbomer hydrogels with the new chemical entity escin β-sitosterol (ES) phytosome were characterized and compared with those containing escin. Physicochemical characterization of the hydrogels (performed 48 hr after preparation) included organoleptic examination, pH measurement, light microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry analysis and rheological tests. The obtained results showed that increasing concentration of the active substances within 1-5% affected the appearance (color and transparency) of the hydrogels, their pH, consistency, and rheological behavior. Unlike acidic escin, which was dissolved in the liquid phase of the pseudoplastic hydrogels E1-E5 and reduced their maximal apparent viscosity (η ), minimal apparent viscosity (η ), and hysteresis area (H) in comparison to the plain carbomer hydrogel, amphiphilic ES-enhanced η , η , and thixotropy of the hydrogels ES1-ES5, which is favorable for prolonged retention at skin surface. Evaluation of in-use stability of the hydrogels showed that organoleptic characteristics, flow behavior, and pH values could be preserved for 3 months under ambient conditions. The rat ear test results suggested that the hydrogels are safe to be used on human skin. Both escin and ES-loaded hydrogels exerted significant, concentration-dependent antihyperalgesic effect in inflammatory pain model in rats. ES-loaded hydrogels were significantly more effective than those loaded with escin. This is a first report on the antihyperalgesic effect of topically applied escin as well as ES in a model of inflammatory pain.