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Topic Review
Stinger
In medicine, a stinger, also called a burner or nerve pinch injury, is a neurological injury suffered by athletes, mostly in high-contact sports such as ice hockey, rugby, American football, and wrestling. The spine injury is characterized by a shooting or stinging pain that travels down one arm, followed by numbness and weakness in the parts of the arms, including the biceps, deltoid, and spinati muscles. Many athletes in contact sports have suffered stingers, but they are often unreported to medical professionals. Anyone who experiences significant trauma to his or her head or neck needs immediate medical evaluation for the possibility of a spinal injury. In fact, it's safest to assume that trauma victims have a spinal injury until proven otherwise because: (1) The time between injury and treatment can be critical in determining the extent of complications and the amount of recovery. (2) A serious spinal injury is not always immediately obvious. If it is not recognized, more severe injury may occur. (3) Numbness or paralysis may develop immediately or come on gradually as bleeding or swelling occurs in or around the spinal cord.
  • 1.1K
  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Hepatic Arterial Infusion Chemotherapy
HAIC involves two procedures as follows: as scheduled, chemotherapeutic regimens are administered through a reservoir port connected to a catheter, which is implanted under the skin, and a catheter is inserted each time without implantation of the reservoir port. As HAIC is expected to accumulate drug concentrations in the local liver and reduce systemic toxicity of anti-cancer drugs, it is considered to have a more favorable antitumor effect and less influence on other organs than systemic chemotherapy.  The clinical benefits of HAIC are as follows: (1) even a patient with Child–Pugh B HCC (7 or 8 points) is a candidate for HAIC (2) Child–Pugh scores barely decline with the use of HAIC compared with sorafenib (3) HAIC is highly effective in patients with vascular invasion compared with sorafenib; and (4) survival in patients receiving HAIC may not be associated with skeletal muscle volume. In contrast, the disadvantages are problems related with the reservoir system. HAIC has clinical benefits in a subpopulation of patients without extrahepatic metastasis with Child–Pugh A HCC and vascular invasion (especially primary branch invasion or main portal vein invasion) or with Child–Pugh B HCC.
  • 1.1K
  • 12 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Cover Test
A cover test or cover-uncover test is an objective determination of the presence and amount of ocular deviation. It is typically performed by orthoptists, ophthalmologists and optometrists during eye examinations. The two primary types of cover tests are: The test involves having the patient focusing on both a distance as well as near object at different times during the examination. A cover is placed over an eye for a short moment then removed while observing both eyes for movement. The misaligned eye will deviate inwards or outwards. The process is repeated on both eyes and then with the child focusing on a distant object. The cover test is used to determine both the type of ocular deviation and measure the amount of deviation. The two primary types of ocular deviations are the tropia and the phoria. A tropia is a misalignment of the two eyes when a patient is looking with both eyes uncovered. A phoria (or latent deviation) only appears when binocular viewing is broken and the two eyes are no longer looking at the same object. The unilateral cover test is performed by having the patient focus on an object then covering the fixating eye and observing the movement of the other eye. If the eye was exotropic, covering the fixating eye will cause an inwards movement; and esotropic if covering the fixating eye will cause an outwards movement. The alternating cover test, or cross cover test is used to detect total deviation (tropia + phoria).
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  • 16 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Carbamazepine to Treat Bipolar Disorder
Carbamazepine and its derivatives all appear to have stronger efficacy in treating acute mania than depression, which also translates to better protection against manic than depressive relapses for carbamazepine. Still, there is a paucity of controlled acute studies on bipolar depression for all and, with the exception of carbamazepine, a lack of long-term monotherapy maintenance data. For eslicarbazepine, the efficacy in bipolar disorder remains largely unknown. Especially with carbamazepine, tolerability issues and drug–drug interactions need to be kept in mind.
  • 1.1K
  • 08 May 2021
Topic Review
Immune Checkpoint Agents
Immune checkpoint inhibitors represent a promising treatment choice in many kind of tumours, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In this review, we provide an overview of the role of these new agents in the management of HCC according to the Barcelona staging system, alongside with a critical evaluation of the current status and future directions. Several clinical trials are focusing on the use of immunotherapy in HCC, alone or in combinations with antiangiogenetic agents as well as local treatment. However, the majority of those trials are still ongoing and, until now, only a few combinations were approved in the clinical practice from the regulatory authorities. Additionally, decisions about the choice of the right sequence of treatments in HCC patients in the light of the “continuum of care” principles, is still hard. In fact, it requires careful consideration in a multidisciplinary context in order to ensure a tailored treatment for each patient. 
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  • 09 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Chinese Cordyceps in the Antitumor Mechanisms
Chinese Cordyceps is a valuable source of natural products with various therapeutic effects. It is rich in various active components, of which adenosine, cordycepin and polysaccharides have been confirmed with significant immunomodulatory and antitumor functions.
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  • 30 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Adhesion
Adhesions are fibrous bands that form between tissues and organs, often as a result of injury during surgery. They may be thought of as internal scar tissue that connects tissues not normally connected.
  • 1.1K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
HIV Test
HIV tests are used to detect the presence of the human immunodeficiency virus in serum, plasma, saliva, or urine. Such tests may detect HIV antibodies, antigens, or RNA. In the United States, a number of HIV test kits have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for diagnosis, prognostic determination, patient monitoring, and screening of blood and tissue donors. The specific tests used may vary from country to country. As of 2006, the standard HIV tests used in the U.S. are extremely accurate.
  • 1.1K
  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Antisense Oligonucleotide for Chronic Kidney Disease
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a global public health issue that places an increasing burden on the healthcare systems of both the developed and developing countries. CKD is a progressive and irreversible condition, affecting approximately 10% of the population worldwide. Patients that have progressed to end-stage renal disease (ESRD) require expensive renal replacement therapy, i.e., dialysis or kidney transplantation. Current CKD therapy largely relies on the use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEis) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs). However, these treatments by no means halt the progression of CKD to ESRD. Therefore, the development of new therapies is urgently needed. Antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) has recently attracted considerable interest as a drug development platform. Thus far, eight ASO-based drugs have been granted approval by the US Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of various diseases.
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  • 17 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale
The Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) Symptom Checklist is a self-reported questionnaire used to assist in the diagnosis of adult ADHD. ADHD is a neurological disorder that can present itself in adolescence and adulthood. Some individuals can outgrow ADHD but around 30% will continue to have ADHD throughout their adulthood. Adults with ADHD may experience difficulties in relation to cognitive, academic, occupational, social and economic situations. The PhenX Toolkit uses ASRS as its adult protocol for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Symptoms.
  • 1.1K
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Neuromodulation
Neuromodulation is "the alteration of nerve activity through targeted delivery of a stimulus, such as electrical stimulation or chemical agents, to specific neurological sites in the body". It is carried out to normalize – or modulate – nervous tissue function. Neuromodulation is an evolving therapy that can involve a range of electromagnetic stimuli such as a magnetic field (rTMS), an electric current, or a drug instilled directly in the subdural space (intrathecal drug delivery). Emerging applications involve targeted introduction of genes or gene regulators and light (optogenetics), and by 2014, these had been at minimum demonstrated in mammalian models, or first-in-human data had been acquired. The most clinical experience has been with electrical stimulation. Neuromodulation, whether electrical or magnetic, employs the body's natural biological response by stimulating nerve cell activity that can influence populations of nerves by releasing transmitters, such as dopamine, or other chemical messengers such as the peptide Substance P, that can modulate the excitability and firing patterns of neural circuits. There may also be more direct electrophysiological effects on neural membranes as the mechanism of action of electrical interaction with neural elements. The end effect is a "normalization" of a neural network function from its perturbed state. Presumed mechanisms of action for neurostimulation include depolarizing blockade, stochastic normalization of neural firing, axonal blockade, reduction of neural firing keratosis, and suppression of neural network oscillations. Although the exact mechanisms of neurostimulation are not known, the empirical effectiveness has led to considerable application clinically. Existing and emerging neuromodulation treatments also include application in medication-resistant epilepsy, chronic head pain conditions, and functional therapy ranging from bladder and bowel or respiratory control to improvement of sensory deficits, such as hearing (cochlear implants and auditory brainstem implants) and vision (retinal implants). Technical improvements include a trend toward minimally invasive (or noninvasive) systems; as well as smaller, more sophisticated devices that may have automated feedback control, and conditional compatibility with magnetic resonance imaging. Neuromodulation therapy has been investigated for other chronic conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease, depression, chronic pain, and as an adjunctive treatment in recovery from stroke.
  • 1.1K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Biography
Keith Holyoak
Keith James Holyoak (born January 16, 1950) is a Canadian-American researcher in cognitive psychology and cognitive science, working on human thinking and reasoning. Holyoak's work focuses on the role of analogy in thinking.[1] His work showed how analogy can be used to enhance learning of new abstract concepts by both children and adults,[2] as well as how reasoning breaks down in cases of brai
  • 1.1K
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Journal Efficiency
Journal efficiency is determined by measuring the timelag in the acceptance and publication of scientific findings by a journal on behalf of the authors upon submission.
  • 1.1K
  • 29 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Knee and Hip Osteoarthritis
Degenerative joint disease or osteoarthrosis (OA) is a progressive joint disease characterized by the focal loss of cartilage, little evidence of the typical form of inflammation, and by the hypertrophy of adjacent bone and soft tissue.
  • 1.1K
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Osteoblast Dysfunction
Osteoblasts (Ob) originate from mesenchymal cells, secrete matrix proteins and promote mineralization during the bone modelling and restructuring process. Ob are unable to function as a single cell, in fact they function in a group of cells and the functional unit made up of Ob and the bone produced is called bone multicellular units (BMU). The mineralized skeleton is the support for human body and is a fundamental store of calcium, phosphate, participating also to the basic-acid homeostasis.
  • 1.1K
  • 10 Sep 2021
Topic Review
Sesquiterpene Lactones in Medicine
Sesquiterpene lactones (SL), characterized by their high prevalence in the Asteraceae family, are one of the major groups of secondary metabolites found in plants. Researchers from distinct research fields, including pharmacology, medicine, and agriculture, are interested in their biological potential. With new SL discovered in the last years, new biological activities have been tested, different action mechanisms (synergistic and/or antagonistic effects), as well as molecular structure–activity relationships described.
  • 1.1K
  • 18 Feb 2022
Topic Review
Biosimilars
Biosimilars are recombinant DNA products that join DNA from different species and subsequently insert the hybrid DNA into a host cell, often a bacterium or mammalian cell, to express the target protein; this molecular chimera was first created by researchers from UC San Francisco and Stanford in 1972. Stanley Cohen of Stanford and Herbert Boyer of UCSF received the US patent in 1980. Boyer co-founded Genentech, Inc. in 1976. The Cohen-Boyer patents will eventually have more than 500 licensees to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and earn Stanford and UCSF more than USD 250 million in royalties. These patents have now expired. Biosimilars include monoclonal antibodies, cytokines, growth factors, enzymes, immunomodulators, and thrombolytics, proteins extracted from animals or microorganisms, including recombinant versions of these products (except clotting factors), and other non-vaccine therapeutic immunotherapies. Billions of patients receiving biosimilars have shown therapeutic equivalence. None of these products have shown adverse events more than the reference product, including immunogenicity responses. It is estimated that the cumulative exposure to EU-approved biosimilars was more than two billion patient treatment days in 2020, with no adverse event reporting or withdrawal from the market due to safety reasons and no biosimilar-specific adverse effects have been added to the product information.
  • 1.1K
  • 02 Aug 2022
Topic Review
Myelodysplastic Syndromes
The molecular pathogenesis of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) is complex due to high rate of genomic heterogeneity. Significant advances have been made in the last decade in elucidating the landscape of molecular alterations (cytogenetic abnormalities, gene mutations) in MDS. Seminal experimental studies have clarified the role of diverse gene mutations in the context of disease phenotypes, but the lack of faithful murine models and/ or cell lines spontaneously carrying certain gene mutations have hampered the knowledge on how and why specific pathways are associated with MDS pathogenesis.
  • 1.1K
  • 09 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Shoulder Periprosthetic Infections Management
Periprosthetic joint infections of the shoulder are the major cause for revision within the first two post-operative years: bacteria diagnosis and management of humeral bone loss after implant removal may be fronted by new instruments in shoulder surgery.
  • 1.1K
  • 30 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Minimally Invasive Procedures
Minimally invasive procedures (also known as minimally invasive surgeries) encompass surgical techniques that limit the size of incisions needed and so lessen wound healing time, associated pain and risk of infection. Surgery by definition is invasive and many operations requiring incisions of some size are referred to as open surgery, in which incisions made can sometimes leave large wounds that are painful and take a long time to heal. Minimally invasive procedures have been enabled by the advance of various medical technologies. An endovascular aneurysm repair as an example of minimally invasive surgery is much less invasive in that it involves much smaller incisions than the corresponding open surgery procedure of open aortic surgery. This minimally invasive surgery became the most common method of repairing abdominal aortic aneurysms in 2003 in the United States. The front-runners of minimally invasive procedures were interventional radiologists. By the use of imaging techniques, interventional instruments could be directed throughout the body by the radiologists by way of catheters instead of large incisions needed in traditional surgery, so that many conditions once requiring surgery can now be treated non-surgically. Diagnostic techniques that do not involve the puncturing of the skin or incision, or the introduction into the body of foreign objects or materials, are known as non-invasive procedures. There are also several treatment procedures that are classed as non-invasive. A major example of a non-invasive alternative treatment to surgery is radiation therapy, also called radiotherapy.
  • 1.1K
  • 11 Nov 2022
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