ABSTRACT
Dementias are the third cause of the disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) worldwide with Alzheimer's (AD) having the highest prevalence. Despite ample research in the field, therapeutic options are limited. However, with the increase in lifespan, a larger number of AD patients will receive other medication for the evermore-increased number of comorbidities that such patients face. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the neurological and cardiac effects of verapamil, on C57BL/6J-TgN (Thy1-APPKM670/671NL; Thy1-PS1L166P (APP) mice. The daily administration of 3.5mg/kg of verapamil for 28 days revealed different effects on young and aged APP mice. While young animals showed less anxiety and improved short-term memory with minimal cardiac effects (an increase in the duration of ventricular depolarization), aged ones did not present behavioral improvements, but with a decrease in the duration of ventricular depolarizing. Repolarization effects of verapamil were similar in young and aged animals, except for the duration of the ST segment that was longer in aged animals. Considering our results, the use of calcium blockers in AD patients should take into consideration the stage of the disease, as different effects could be seen at different stages of AD, in our model.
ABSTRACT
Presented at the end of the end of the XVIII(th) century by the German doctor Samuel Hahnemann as a form of complementary therapy, homeopathy has increasingly produced multiple controversies regarding the plausibility, effectiveness and safety of homeopathic remedies. Regardless, there are clients who require pharmacist's advice about their usage indications and effectiveness. As specialists in the field of medication, pharmacists must have basic notions about the principles on which homeopathic remedies have been based, given that it is the opposite of modern pharmacological theories. These describe in great detail the underlying mechanisms of action of the drug. Under these conditions, the ethical role of the pharmacist is to give accurate, impartial information regarding the homeopathic therapy, the current scientific proof on their therapeutic effects, including the placebo effect. This, doubled by a comprehensive, objective presentation of the options of medication-based treatment, guarantee pharmacists a clean reputation as competent authorities in the pharmaceutical field.
ABSTRACT
The physician's attitude towards death, a phenomenon which he frequently encounters in his work practice, is most of the times ambiguous, uncertain, lacking a philosophical significance coherent enough. During the period corresponding to the transition from life to death, when the human being who is about to relinquish life for good lives, suffers, understands and needs assistance, most of the physicians adopt a particular detachment conduct. The physician's participation in assisting the patient, constant until then, natural, sharply decreases the moment the diagnosis has become, "there is nothing else to be done". This phrase "there is nothing else to be done" should be only the conclusion of one phase of the assistance given by a physician, the curative, healing assistance and the beginning of another one, the phase of "assisting the dying person", a phase that has to be an integral part of the physician's mission which represents a more difficult medicine, much more demanding for the physician. At this point, assistance, treatments depend on the ability of the person providing assistance to endure the fear of death in which he is included himself. The necessity of meeting the needs of the dying people has led to the drafting of "a charter of the rights of the dying". Such charter was drafted during the symposium, "Terminally ill patient and helping person" organized by Wayne State University, Detroit, USA. Taking into account the idea that the dying person "has the right to live until the end" within the best possible conditions the palliative care have been developed. According to the French Society of Palliative Care, 1996, the palliative care aim is to ensuring the patient's quality of life (and not extending it by any means) and that of his family. In these conditions the pain control, the psychological, social and spiritual development are essential.
ABSTRACT
Although in the last decades the incidence of gastric cancer declined, at present it is ranked worldwide on the fourth place between all human cancer pathology. Also, it has an aggressive behavior, the majority of patients being diagnosed in advanced stages. One of the key factors to control survival improvement of those patients is to clarify the molecular mechanisms involved in initiation, progression, invasion, and metastasis of gastric cancer. We thus investigated the immunoreactivity for TGF-ß, TGFBR1, and Ki67 of 25 specimens of intestinal gastric adenocarcinomas, and compared this with the correspondent reactivity for three specimens of diffuse gastric carcinomas; in the end, we tried to establish a statistical correlation with major clinicomorphological parameters. As a result, we noticed that the highest reactivity was present in the diffuse type compared with the intestinal variant, in which the TGF-ß reactivity progressively increased along the normal epithelium-intestinal metaplasia-dysplasia-carcinoma sequence. Also, we found for intestinal variant that TGF-ß immunoreactivity correlated significantly with tumor degree of differentiation and proliferative activity measured based on Ki67 immunoreactivity. In conclusion, TGF-ß is implicated in the progression of intestinal type of gastric adenocarcinomas and its immunoreactivity assessment for these targets has a prognostic value.
